Chapter Seven: Christmas at Hogwarts
Christmas was coming. The castle windows sparkled with frost and snow lay thick on the grounds. The lake froze over and the twins were caught bewitching snowballs to flick themselves at Quirrell's turban. Along with that came arranging where they were to stay over the holidays. The twins were staying at Hogwarts because their parents were going to Romania to visit Charlie. Harish was also staying at Hogwarts for Voldemort planned to hold a Death Eater meeting at that time (though he didn't tell the boy this), and he wanted Harish out of the way. Draco, however, was going home for the holidays. He had offered to let Harish come as well, but he decided to stay to keep the twins company. Both of them knew that there would be no chance of ever convincing Lucius to let Weasleys stay in his house even for a day.
Ron had to stay as well, but Neville wanted to return home for the holiday. Seamus opted to stay so that the two of them could continue searching the library for Nicholas Flamel. Ever since that Quidditch match they had been going through book after book, but they hadn't found so much as his name mention in any of the books. Though when the holidays did arrive, the two boys were having too much fun to go searching through the library, as they had their dormitory to themselves.
IT'S-BEGINNING-TO-LOOK-A-LOT-LIKE-CHRISTMAS
The day before Christmas, Voldemort held a Death Eater meeting as planned. Then afterwards he tried to figure out a way to get a Death Eater inside the castle to take the stone. Though it wasn't all that important as he didn't really need eternal life or gold at this moment, but it would be a nice thing to have. Chances were that the stone would stay at Hogwarts for a good little while, so the pale man was thinking of sending a Death Eater to apply for a teaching position the next year. It would be very useful.
But as he thought of this, something nagged in the back of his mind, It's too good to be true. He scowled at the annoying voice. Of course it wasn't too good to be true. But it may be a trap. The little voice said. Dumbledore would know that you might want eternal life. He couldn't argue with that. The old man had certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on him most of his time at Hogwarts, and even afterwards. If it was true that this was a trap set up by Dumbledore, then that meant that he had noticed the Death Eater activity. That meant that he suspected that Voldemort was still alive.
The Dark Lord became alarmed at this. If the old man knew he was still alive, that meant that he would not be far from figuring out that Harish was Voldemort's son. Or even worse, he could find out who the boy really was. Voldemort was absolutely certain that if the old man found out, he would find some way to tempt his son into the light. The pale man put his hands up to his face as these thoughts overcame him. Then his scowl left and a look of determination filled his eyes as he lowered his hands again. He could not let that happen.
"Are you all right?" a voice came from behind him suddenly.
The Dark Lord quickly steeled himself, forcing himself not to jump of fright. Then he arranged his face to remove any surprise. Then he turned to see Bella standing in the doorway.
"My Lord?" she asked tentatively.
"I am fine," he snapped.
"Are you worrying about Harish?" she asked boldly. He didn't respond. "I worry about him much. It would be dreadful if anything happened to him."
"It would," Voldemort replied quietly.
"He will be fine," she said finally. "He always is. The boy is your son after all."
But Voldemort could not help but think about how the boy wasn't truly his son, something that still bothered him to that day.
HE'S-AN-ANGRY-ELF
The most fun Harish had in ages was when he and the twins went outside for a snowball fight. They bewitched the snowballs to do odd things like turn into bunnies and hopping towards someone before transforming into a snake and launching itself at that person. Then, when Fred shot a snowball straight up Harish's nose, the snowball fight turned into a wrestling match in the snow.
Then Harish cast a drying and heating charm on them to dry up and they went up to the castle for the Christmas feast. The feast really was an experience. Harish and his father never got crackers, so they were entirely new for him when he popped several with the twins. When popped, they let out a blast like a cannon and several white mice would shoot out along with some sort of prize. The prizes including various hats and joke products. All in all, it was a great holiday.
HOGWARTS-IS-AWESOME—BEST-CHRISTMAS-EVER!
Neville was visiting his parents at St. Mungo's. The hospital was also decked out for Christmas. There were floating red baubles in the lobby and fairy lights in the hallways. The boy always told his parents about his life. When his Gran stepped out to talk with the nurse, he found himself telling them all about Hogwarts. Neville's father was staring at the ceiling as he spoke, but his mother smiled at him dottily for a few seconds before her eyes would glaze over and she would stare out the window. Neville thought that this was sort of an improvement, for both of them rarely acknowledged that he was there.
"Yeah, there are these Slytherins that are kind of mean. Blake and his gang. Malfoy is in our year. The other day, Blake and Malfoy challenged Ron to a duel. I had to go with them because I had broken my wrist that day and couldn't get into the common room. When we showed up, neither Malfoy or Blake were there. It was just a trap. We ran so far that we accidently ended up in a forbidden corridor on the third floor. You'll never believe what's in there. There was a giant, three headed dog standing on a trapdoor. Seamus figures that it's guarding something, but Hagrid won't tell what it is. The only thing is that he let slip about Nicholas Flamel being a part of it…" and he moved on to tell them more about Hagrid.
After a little while his grandmother came in and visited with his parents before herding him back out of St. Mungo's. Neville sighed sadly wondering why he couldn't have a regular family like Ron. Then he went up to his room to reread his book on outdoor gardening.
GARDENING—NEVILLE'S-WAY-OF-LETTING-OFF-STEAM
Draco dreaded speaking about a particular subject with his father, but he dreaded even more talking about it with his mother. After a little while he forgot about how peculiar girls acted around him, though it always remained in the back of his mind.
Finally an something happened that made him remember about his troubles. As he didn't have Harish to hang out with that year, no one to play Quidditch with, and no homework of any sorts left, he went perusing through their library trying to find something to do.
He sat in the middle of the floor and picked up a book. He flipped through it, read the first two words, and threw it behind him. Then the next book he pulled off of the shelf looked old, but in a good condition. Even though it had been sitting on a shelf full of dusty books, it gleamed from cover to cover.
Draco opened the book and the pages merged into one page and grew, the parchment curling as it grew in length. There was a large tree growing on it and the boy realized he was holding his family tree. He happily looked at the Malfoys from France and watched as more and more ancestors he knew grew out of branches. Finally he saw his mother's family join his and then there were the names. Lucius and Narcissa beside each other and then he appeared, ending the tree.
He looked down at her family and almost started laughing when he saw that he was descended from a veela. No wonder girls acted odd around him. It was far back, which explained why it wasn't as bad as he knew full blooded veelas had on the opposite gender. Then he closed the book and put it back on the shelf. He knew that he must never let Harish know this, or he would be teased for the rest of his life.
OH-HOHO-LITTLE-DRACO—QUITE-THE-SNAKE-CHARMER
Harish always found that a good way to fall asleep was to get up and walk off his extra steam for a few minutes. It wasn't often that Harish couldn't fall asleep, but when he couldn't he liked to use the extra time he had while he was awake. One night after Christmas day, Harish laid in bed wide awake for several hours, staring at the ceiling. Every time he tried to relax, he would either feel like he needed to shift positions, or his mind would flit to some random topic. After he thought over the events of that year and thought of the Philosopher's stone for quite a while, he sighed and slid out of bed. Quietly, he felt his way to his trunk and pulled out his invisibility cloak and the Marauder's Map.
"Lumos," he said once he exited the dormitory.
Then he pulled the cloak around him and followed the light of his wand, which seemed to be floating in mid-air. He held the map in his other hand and with his nose pressed to the parchment, he made his way to his window seat behind the old tapestry. Maybe it was because it was hard to concentrate on where you were going when you were watching Mrs. Norris grow closer and closer, but he took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up standing in an old disused corridor.
The first door handle he tried was locked but the second one was not. He opened the door carefully, making sure it wouldn't creak, and stuck his head inside. Inside was a classroom that was old and dusty with cobwebs growing in the corner and dust inches thick across the single window. Desks were shoved up to the sides of the classroom and standing in the centre of it, looking completely out of place, was a large shiny mirror. Carved around the frame were the words Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on woshi. Harish stepped into the room, wishing he could figure out what the words said. Then he realized, he was looking at a mirror! Mirrors turn words backwards! He crept even closer and read in a whisper, "I show not your face but your heart's desire."
His mouth curved down slightly in the faintest of frowns. He had never really thought about what he truly desired. Harish came to a stop directly in front of the mirror and let out a gasp in spite of himself. Instead of showing an empty room (as it should have since he was still invisible), it not only showed him but two other people beside him. Before he inspected the two people, he whipped around to see that no one was there.
Turning back, Harish saw that the people were his father and Bellatrix. Voldemort was standing in the centre with one arm hugging him, and he was looking down at Harish with pride. On the Dark Lord's left was Bellatrix, and he had one arm across her shoulders. She was looking at Voldemort with love and the Dark Lord looked over at her with the same expression, her hands were clasped in front of her and the one on top held a gleaming band of gold on her ring finger. All three of them smiled happily and Harish found himself smiling as well.
Harish suddenly knew what he was looking at. It was his family whole and normal. His family had always been disjointed. The closest thing he had to a mother was a snake or an aunt that wasn't really his aunt. His father never showed affection towards him and he had a whole manor to himself. He had always felt that need to prove himself, but now it burned stronger than ever. The boy knew that he could make this scene possible, and now he knew exactly what he was going to do.
He was going to steal the Philosopher's Stone.