Harry fought his eye roll and instead smiled. "Great, why don't you go look up animal books for me? That would really help," Harry lied, relieved when the redhead ran off with an air of triumph.
After that day, Ron became easier to distract; all Harry had to do was mention their so-called adventure and the redhead would run off and look up books on animals.
Eventually Christmas morning came and Harry woke up to find he had a larger pile of presents than he had been expecting. He had sent Hedwig off earlier in the week to deliver Neville, Hannah, and Susan's presents and he had decided to send everyone in his study group a box of candy from Honeydukes.
For Neville, he had ordered a book on rare and exotic plants and gotten him the clipping from one of the more obscure ones; for Hannah, Harry had got some silver hair pins with butterflies on it; and for, Susan, he bought gold hairpins with flowers.
Looking at his pile, Harry was surprised to see the familiar sight of a Weasley present. Picking it up, Harry felt a compulsion charm attempt to take hold before it was nullified by his rings. With a snarl, Harry barely kept himself from destroying the package. After taking a few moments to collect his feelings and strengthen his Occlumency shields, Harry finally opened the package.
Inside, there was an obviously handmade green jumper and a box of homemade fudge. Flicking his wand, Harry ran through his repertoire of detection spells and saw that the fudge set them all off. With a scowl, he nullified them before banishing the box. There was also a note resting innocently on the jumper. Picking it up, Harry just about contained his snort.
Harry,
Ron mentioned that you were spending Christmas at Hogwarts, so I thought I would send you something to help keep your spirits up.
I can't tell you how happy it makes me that Ron's finally found himself such a wonderful friend.
Happy Christmas dear,
Mrs. Weasley
Harry was impressed with the note; had he not known their motives, he would have felt truly guilty. Instead, he was offended by the not-so subtle manipulations.
Discarding the present, Harry looked with interest at the rest. There were no presents from Hagrid or Dumbledore this year, or even a card with 50p from the Dursley's. Picking up a package wrapped in silver, Harry opened it and found that inside was a pair of soft black leather gloves with HJP embroidered in the corner of the wrist.
The gloves were very nice and Harry picked up the card inside to see who they were from. Reading the note, Harry was surprised to see they were from Terry, making him feel slightly bad about his lacklustre present to the boy. Moving on, Harry opened his present from Neville and saw the boy had given Harry a kit to start his own small herb garden, and had written his own instructions on what to do to get successful results.
Next, Harry opened a present from Susan and saw she had gotten him a book on mind magic, he had not heard of; flicking through it briefly, he saw that it was an old publishing and Harry concluded it was probably no longer in print. Opening his gift from Hannah, Harry saw that she had bought him a beautifully illustrated copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard .Opening it, Harry saw she had placed a note inside.
Happy Yule, Harry!
I know it's a children's book, but I thought you would enjoy reading some of the stories, especially as you didn't grow up in our world!
See you after the holidays!
X, Hannah
After putting away his gifts, Harry picked his clothing for the day, trying to decide if he wanted to endure the itchy jumper from Mrs. Weasley. Eventually, Harry chose to go without as he really didn't care.
Walking downstairs for breakfast, Harry was quick to take a seat close to the teachers and hoped that somebody would sit next to him before Ron appeared. To Harry's surprise, Snape took the seat, sitting down and ignoring everybody's presence as he poured himself coffee.
"Happy Yule, sir," Harry said, pouring his own coffee. He hadn't really drunk the beverage since returning to his preteen body, but Harry had plans for a long night and thought it would probably help.
Severus inclined his head as he drank. "Indeed, Mr. Potter, happy Yule."
....
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