Harry Potter and the Sacrifice of the Traitor

Chapter 10

Mr Weasley had managed to borrow a couple of Ministry cars again, now that he was Head of Muggle Affairs. With the way these cars managed to leap to the head of all the queues, it wasn't long before they were pulling up in front of the Burrow, which was garishly decorated with large glowing lights on the walls, and animated Christmas trees dancing around in the yard. Harry narrowly avoided a dancing tree, and heaved his trunk into the house. Mrs Weasley placed Levitation Charms on each of the trunks, and they pulled them upstairs to their rooms. Harry was sharing with Ron again, and Hermione would be sharing with Ginny when she arrived. After they had dumped their trunks, they all trooped back downstairs and had a large and festive supper, then played several games of Exploding Snap before going up to bed.

The next few days passed quickly with chores such as degnoming the garden and helping Mrs Weasley with the cooking, which Harry found he quite enjoyed when he was allowed to eat the food he was cooking. The only thing was that sharing a room with only Ron, instead of there being 5 boys in the room, made it a bit more obvious if Harry had nightmares. He didn't remember having any, not like the dreams of Sirius he had had during the summer, but a few times he saw Ron looking at him oddly, and wondered whether he had cried out in his sleep at all. He still missed Sirius and felt very guilty about having caused him to rush off to the Ministry, but the initial unbearable misery was now easing. Mrs Weasley had clearly realised that he didn't want to talk about that sort of thing, but kept finding excuses to sweep him into a tight hug for no particular reason. Mr Weasley spent a lot of time at the office, but whenever he was home, he monopolised Harry quite extensively, dragging him out to the shed to explain electric toothbrushes or folding chairs.

The day before Christmas Eve, Hermione arrived by Portkey with Remus, who joined them all for supper. Harry was pleased to see him again. 'Hi Remus,' he said cheerfully. Remus looked a bit tired, and Harry remembered it had been a full moon a couple of days before. However, Remus smiled back at Harry, and agreed with Mrs Weasley that he would join them all for Christmas lunch as well. He left after supper, and Harry and the others settled themselves in the Weasleys' untidy but welcoming lounge. Ron and Harry played wizarding chess, while Hermione and Ginny appeared to be knitting something on the sofa. Harry hoped Ginny hadn't been roped into the SPEW effort. Crookshanks was peacefully curled up by the fire, after having exhausted himself running around the garden searching for gnomes. He clearly remembered his last visit.

After yet another spectacular loss from Harry, Ginny excused herself, yawning widely. Harry seized the opportunity.

'Hermione, can I ask you something?' he asked her. She had stopped knitting and was by then lounging on the sofa with Ron, holding hands again, Harry noted. She hastily pulled herself more upright.

'Of course, what is it?' she said.

'Well, Ginny's been acting a bit oddly lately, and I wondered whether it was anything to do with the Ball,' Harry said.

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'I suppose it's a sign of improvement that you at least considered that might be the reason. Of course she's upset about the Ball, Harry. You'd arranged to go with her, and then you turned round and decided to go with Luna!'

'But we only decided to go together if we didn't get proper dates,' Harry objected. 'And now she's going with Neville, anyway.'

'Yeah, I thought you said last year she was over Harry,' Ron added.

'Whether or not she's over Harry, it's still rather unfair to make an agreement and then make a date with another girl while she's just sitting there at the table,' said Hermione in exasperation.

Harry considered this, and reluctantly came to the conclusion that - once again - Hermione was right.

'Oh dear,' he said. 'I'd better talk to her or something, hadn't I?'

'Yes, Harry. And perhaps you should offer to dance with her as well,' sighed Hermione.

Harry left the room and climbed the stairs, deep in thought. He looked up and realised his feet had taken him to Ginny's room rather than up to the top floor where his and Ron's room was. He decided he might as well get it over with, and knocked gently on the door. Ginny opened it, dressed in a long pale green nightdress. Harry blushed, and apologised, trying not to notice how nice she looked in it.

'Sorry Ginny, I hadn't thought that you might have gone to bed already. Shall I talk to you in the morning?'

Ginny went red too, but said, 'No, that's alright. What did you want to talk to me about?'

Harry mumbled, 'I just want to say I was sorry about accepting Luna's invitation in front of you. I hadn't thought that it was a bit, well....'

'Thoughtless?' suggested Ginny, archly.

'Erm, yes, I suppose so,' Harry floundered. 'Anyway, I wanted to ask you if, well, if you would dance with me anyway,' he finished in a rush. 'That is, if Neville and Luna don't mind.'

Ginny went even redder, but smiled broadly at him. 'That would be lovely Harry, thank you for asking.'

Hermione came upstairs at that moment, and the two girls went into their room and shut the door. Harry was sure he could hear giggling coming from behind the door, but felt it was best not to enquire further. He was a bit surprised at how he had noticed how nice Ginny had looked in the rather revealing nightdress - he though he had decided to stay away from girls after the mess he had made of things with Cho. However, he had now got himself into dancing with two pretty girls, which, he thought glumly, was bound to make things complicated again. He sighed heavily and climbed the next flight of stairs, thinking that he would just have do his best to manage.

The next day was Christmas Eve, and was spent in a frantic rush. Mrs Weasley was determined that Harry's first Christmas in a proper home (that he remembered anyway) was going to be a spectacular affair. This meant that they were all kept extremely busy putting up extra decorations, helping with the cooking - until they were chased out when Ron started stealing the home made sausage rolls, wrapping their presents, and generally tidying and cleaning until the house looked at its best. Harry decided he liked wrapping presents best - wizarding wrapping paper had moving snowflakes and tiny exploding crackers on, and made this chore quite exciting.

Much to Harry's surprise, the whole Weasley family walked into the village in the evening to go to the service at the local church. He hadn't realised that they made much contact with the Muggles in the village, but it appeared to be a tradition to go to this Christmas service, as several people turned around and waved cheerfully at the group of redheads when they arrived. He himself could not remember having ever been to a service before - the Dursleys were not religious. However, he found he knew several of the carols from having heard carol singers in Little Whinging, although they didn't knock on the Dursleys' door as Uncle Vernon didn't approve of begging, as he called it. Harry sang along, and enjoyed the spectacle of the twinkly candles, the crib scene, and the beautifully decorated Christmas tree which was placed at the back of the church. As they walked back up the hill towards the Burrow, a light scattering of snowflakes started to fall.

'Isn't it lovely,' sighed Mrs Weasley.

Hermione was about to agree, but having been remarkably good during the service, Fred and George decided to let off some steam by bewitching a snowball to hit Ron smack on the nose, and the rest of the walk back was a riot of flying snowballs, magical ones from the twins and ordinary ones from the others. They arrived back exhausted and soaking wet, but very cheerful. Once Mrs Weasley had stopped berating the twins for their behaviour, she made hot chocolate for everyone, and then sent them to bed.

Harry and Ron hung their stockings on the end of their beds, and Ron wished Harry goodnight before turning over in his bed and instantly falling asleep.

Harry spent some time looking out at the stars and stroking Hedwig, before climbing into bed and falling asleep.

The next morning he was woken early by Ron's shouts of excitement - Hermione had not got him a book as he'd feared, but a Deluxe Broom Servicing Kit, even better than the one she had once bought for Harry, and a book on the best broomsticks available. Ron rushed downstairs and brought his broom into the room, and was now busily polishing every twig on it. Harry smiled - perhaps Hermione had finally realised it was no good buying Ron books, or perhaps now that they were going out, she had decided to get him something he actually wanted. He was just about to turn his attention to his own pile of presents, when Hermione burst into the room, trailing her new scarf behind her.

'Oh Ron, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!' she squealed, before throwing herself into his arms and hugging him tightly. Ron dropped the broom and hugged her back, seemingly not noticing that he had bent several twigs. They stayed like that for some time, then Harry cleared his throat loudly, and they sprang apart.

'Sorry Harry,' said Hermione quickly. 'Happy Christmas, and thank you for your book!' Harry had for once given some careful thought to his presents, and had bought Hermione a book on Quidditch for Beginners. He thought that if Hermione understood Quidditch a bit better, she might get the terms right and not annoy him and Ron by talking about Wonky Feints and so on. He quickly grabbed her present, and tore the paper off to reveal - a book. However, it was much better than last year's Homework Diary, this was a book called 'Famous Aurors and What Happened To Them'.

'Thanks, Hermione,' he said, looking at the cover, which showed a tall wizard casting powerful spells at something just out of view.

'I thought you ought to be well informed on what sort of things Aurors generally do, so that you can be sure it's what you want to do as a career,' she informed him.

Ron and Harry's presents to each other were rather more down to earth; they had both bought large selections of Honeydukes chocolate. Ginny had bought him a model dog, like the model Horntail from his fourth year, which at first Harry thought was a bit silly, but then he realised it was a black dog that looked much like Sirius. He smiled at it a bit sadly, and it wriggled and licked his face. There was a large bag of toffee from Hagrid again, which Harry looked at rather suspiciously, and a note saying his main present was at Hogwarts, as it was rather too large to transport. There was the usual hand knitted jumper from Mrs Weasley, with some home made biscuits. Lupin had sent him some joke socks, which claimed to pinch your toes if someone untrustworthy was nearby, and Tonks had also sent some chocolate.

They finally forced Hermione out of the room long enough to get dressed, and went downstairs for breakfast. Ginny thanked Harry for his gift of chocolates shaped and coloured like a bunch of flowers. He wasn't sure why they had seemed the right thing to get, but had bought them anyway. They spent the morning with Ron lovingly straightening the twigs on his broom again, while Harry read his book on Aurors. Lupin arrived for lunch as promised, and Mrs Weasley had produced the most enormous meal Harry had ever seen apart from the Hogwarts feasts. They were full to bursting by the time every scrap of pudding had been eaten, and dragged themselves groaning from the kitchen, to lounge around sleepily in armchairs and on the sofas. Mrs Weasley stayed in the kitchen, clearing up the mess from the crackers. Fred and George had substituted the normal type of wizarding crackers with ones of their own invention, which not only exploded with a great bang like a gun going off, but showered the table with golden confetti, snowflakes, or multi-coloured ribbons.

Harry wedged himself into a large overstuffed armchair, and soon found his eyelids drooping. He fought off sleep for a while, listening to Hermione and Remus discussing elf and werewolf rights, but soon lost the battle. He found himself at the Ball, dancing with Luna. Dobby danced past with Professor McGonagall, doing a complicated sort of polka. Harry should have thought this rather odd, but it seemed perfectly natural to him. Ginny appeared next to Luna, and for a moment all three of them were dancing around together. Then Ginny told Luna that as she had asked him first, he ought to dance with her instead, and started tugging Harry's arm. Luna pulled back, and shouted 'No you don't, Ginny Weasley!' Suddenly, Harry heard triumphant laughter, high and cold, and woke up with a great start, his scar prickling painfully. He yelped and clapped his hand to his forehead.

'What is it, dear?' asked Mrs Weasley, bustling in.

'Nothing,' muttered Harry. 'Bad dream, that's all'. But he wasn't so sure. He hadn't had any detailed visions since his Occlumency lessons had started to take effect, but he still thought he was picking up on Voldemort's emotions occasionally. The burst of triumph that he had felt seemed to be connected with his thinking about Ginny and Luna, and he had a feeling that this could not be a good thing.

In the evening was Percy and Penelope's engagement party. Penelope had brought her parents and her older brother, and there were large number of redheaded Weasley relatives. Mr Weasley had to magically enlarge all the rooms in order to fit people in for the enormous meal Mrs Weasley had provided. Harry rather suspected that Mrs Weasley had threatened the twins with some really dire consequences if they misbehaved, as not a single trick was played all evening, and the twins almost seemed to be bursting with the desire to make fun of Percy. Percy himself was more subdued than Harry had ever seen him when he arrived. He had been reconciled with his family over the summer of course, but he clearly felt terrible about the letter he had written to Ron, warning him to keep away from Harry. As soon as he spotted Harry he marched up to him and apologised profusely. He continued to apologise every time he caught sight of Harry all that evening, until Harry started to almost long for a Canary Cream or something to divert Percy's attention from him.

The next couple of days seemed to pass in a flash. All too soon it was December 30th, and they were packing up their trunks once more, and dragging them down the stairs. Mr Weasley had once again borrowed Ministry cars, and Professor McGonagall had owled them to say she would be meeting them at Hogsmeade and escorting them back to the castle with the other students who were returning for the New Years Ball. Hermione seemed very pleased about this, saying that she would have to talk to Professor McGonagall and show her how much progress she had made. Ron and Harry had almost given up asking her what the special project was, as she just smiled mysteriously, and said that she had promised not to tell anyone until it was complete.

'We'll just have to wait until she sees fit to explain herself, mate,' said Ron gloomily. 'I wish that just once she could take the trouble to talk these things through, instead of rushing off to the library, or to McGonagall. We might even be able to help!'

Harry nodded, but privately thought that if Hermione was doing something so complicated it was taking at least half a year to complete, that it would be rather too difficult for them to help much.

'Come on, you two!' called Mrs Weasley. They clattered down the steps, and she gave first Ron, then Harry, a huge stifling hug.

'Take care, Harry dear, see you in the summer,' she said.

'Thanks for having me, Mrs Weasley, it was a wonderful Christmas,' he said, freeing himself reluctantly from her embrace. She smiled and let him go, and they all squeezed into the cars, which set off for London.

The journey back to Hogwarts was uneventful; the four of them bagged an empty carriage, and when Luna and Neville arrived, they cast an Impervious Charm to prevent Malfoy bursting in and starting any trouble. Some of the Slytherins had actually waved and greeted Harry, much to his amazement. Theodore Nott had even come up and asked how his holiday had gone. Ron had almost said something unfortunate, but Hermione had stomped on his toe, and while he was hopping around in agony, Harry managed to make a polite reply before they got on the train.

Neville spent much of the journey proudly showing off his new wand. He had spent the autumn term trying to use his mother's old wand, after his father's wand had been snapped in the fight at the Ministry.

'But that was even worse than Dad's wand,' he said cheerfully. 'So after Christmas Gran admitted defeat and took me to Ollivanders. Isn't it lovely? It's willow and unicorn hair, 9 inches, flexible.'

Luna seemed to have spent part of her holidays with Neville, as she already knew about the new wand. She spent most of the journey in her usual way, reading the latest copy of the Quibbler upside down. However, Harry noticed her smiling oddly at Neville a few times. Last year Neville had been quite wary of Luna, but they seemed to get on pretty well now, and even got into a discussion on whether Nargle infestations would be better dealt with by curses or potions. Hermione seemed to be trying to restrain herself from making a sarcastic comment, but Ron for once managed to distract her by offering her some of his Christmas chocolates. After that, she spent the rest of the journey talking very quietly with Ginny. Harry caught a few tantalising phrases like, 'Yes, but the long haired ones aren't practical, imagine the tangles,' or, 'Black is a bit of a cliché, surely?' and 'Wouldn't that be confusing though?' that he couldn't understand at all.

At last they drew up at Hogsmeade station in a cloud of steam. Both Hagrid and Professor McGonagall were on the platform to meet the returning students. Harry saw Professor McGonagall's eyes narrowing as she noted his presence and felt her watching him as they got into the carriages for the drive to Hogwarts. When they got out of the carriages, Hermione immediately trotted over to Professor McGonagall and engaged her in conversation, which only ended when they all reached the Great Hall and went to the different House tables. As the feast appeared magically upon the table and they all dug in, Harry looked around at his friends. He had always enjoyed Christmas at Hogwarts, but having it at he Weasleys' had been something really special, that he would always remember.