Swansong

Part One

"Hello- November's almost finished!" cried a half-surprised Ron to his Gryffindor mates at breakfast. "Second year sure went by jolly fast!"

"Christmas month is up, mates! Holidays! Presents! No more potions!"

"What I like best about Christmas," Ron muffled with his mouth full, "is the food."

"Ai, Ron, you've going to give Neville a run for his money if you continue to eat the way you do," Seamus said, grinning.

"Me mum's written me this week and said they've got something special waiting for me at home," Dean Thomas interjected. "I've been dropping hints for a broom for ages- I hope they brought a Sweepstake."

"If Mum knits another sweater for me again this Christmas I'm going to cry," Ron said.

Harry finished pushing his breakfast off his plate. Nobody noticed Harry sitting very quietly with his breakfast eggs dripping all over the table, although he had been sitting right in the middle of the chattering group. He didn't look excited about the impending prospects of Christmas at all.

"You boys are incorrigible!" Hermione said loudly, banging her books on the table. "Christmas is about time with family and friends, not getting presents!"

"Trust 'Mione to use the big words so we don't know what she's really saying about us," Fred chuckled, and everyone laughed, except one lonely black-haired boy, who quietly slipped away unnoticed.

"I hate Christmas," Harry grumbled to himself as he made his way through the crowded hallways to get back to the Gryffindor common room. All around him, excited faces chattered away, cheeks pink and eyes glowing like coals.

He noticed that the Christmas cheer had narrowed even the usually competitive chasm between Gryffindor and Slytherin- there was snub-nosed Pansy Parkinson at breakfast, generously sharing the huge tin of cookies that had been sent by her parents with everyone in the hall, and he had even seen Neville take a large pink one out with a shy smile.

Around the corner, he brushed past his housemate Seamus Finagan, who was laughing and gesturing to Morag MacDougal.

"Huh, you should see a real Irish Christmas!" Harry heard Seamus say to Morag, who was Slytherin.

"Phoo, me dad's the laird at the Scottish highlands where we live," boasted Morag. 'At Christmas we hang the whole castle with pine wreaths and holy, and cook makes haggis and bannocks-"

Harry listened to their voices fade away.

He would have to spend Christmas all alone in Hogwarts this year, as nobody in Gryffindor would be staying, and he had no home to go back to where he would be welcomed as much as the other kids at Christmas would. Aunt Petunia would probably make him scrub all the pans that she had used to bake Dudley's Christmas puddings and pies in, and he could just see Uncle Vernon giving him an empty matchbox for Christmas- "Go magik it into something useful then, if you're a real wizard," he'd taunt- knowing well that Harry was not allowed to do any magic when he was away from Hogwarts. He was a terribly clumsy boy, and he was even clumsier when he was sad, so the chances of him screwing things up, magically or otherwise was always highest during the end of year, and nobody knew that better than his adopted family.

The Dursleys were a nasty bunch indeed. Poor Harry! He really felt dreadfully sorry for himself! Lost in his misery, he didn't see another student crossing in front of him until it was too late- crash! They both went down like skittles.

"Watch where you're going, Gryffindork!" Draco yelled crossly. He didn't enjoy being sprawled on the floor with Harry's elbows digging into his ribs, and was in a Very Bad Mood indeed.

Harry sat up amongst his scattered belongings and tried to adjust his spectacles, which were broken again. When he finally got his wand pointed the right way round, he hastily spelled the Reparo charm that Hermione taught him-

And looked right into a pair of very stormy eyes, and scowling face.

"You are the clumsiest Gryffindor I've ever met!" yelled the other boy in a loud voice that made poor Harry stumble back.

It was just his luck- the boy who had taken the tumble with Harry had turned out to be the savagely spoilt Slytherin, Draco Malfoy. He was a rich, fair-haired boy who was in the same year as Harry, and was the rudest, nastiest bully for miles around.

"Sorry, Malfoy," Harry mumbled.

"Sorry? I'll show you sorry, you tree-hugging, Christmas-loving GRYFFINDOR!!!"

"I do NOT like Christmas!" Harry howled, beginning to get hot under the collar himself at the reference to the dreaded holiday.

Just then Ron and Hermione came running up from behind. "Oi Harry! Harry, are you hurt?"

"I'm the one who's been hurt by your two thumbs friend! Always bumping into things and breaking the beakers in Potions! Keep a leash on him!" Draco snapped, beating the imaginary dust off his Slytherin robes.

"Malfoy, you're just the rudest, most incorrigible boy- even during the one time a year when the rest of your House is nice for a change."

"That's right!" Ron added loudly. "You don't know how to celebrate anything at all!"

The awful Slytherin's eyes narrowed into slits. "Don't mention celebrations to me. Weasel, you're too poor to afford a real Christmas. And Granger, don't use big words- you're not even a proper witch at all- since you can't even use magic in front of your parents!"

And with that, the Slytherin marched off with his nose in the air! How dreadful! The children stared after his rigid, retreating back in annoyance.

"Malfoy's always ultra-nasty during Christmas," Harry said angrily, swinging his backpack up from the floor- but he had forgotten to fasten the flap, which opened- and out came the contents again- crash!- scattering all over the floor! Poor Harry! He sighed, and squatted down to pick them up again.

"Harry, surely you don't expect Malfoy to have any Christmas spirit?!" Ron scoffed.

"He's the meanest Slytherin around," Hermione said sadly as she helped Harry gather his things. "The other kids wouldn't be half as bad if it wasn't for Draco pushing them about."

Harry knew that Hermione enjoyed talking to Pansy. The two girls share a mutual love for unicorns, and Pansy had a lovely black baby unicorn that Hermione would give anything to have a bit of a pet with- but Draco wouldn't let anyone in his house associate with Gryffindors.

"Still, I wonder why he hates Christmas so much," Ron said. "He probably gets more presents than anybody,"

And Harry, following his two chattering friends back to the common room, wondered why as well.

~

The first two weeks of December shuffled past, and a miserable and lonely Gryffindor boy sat all alone in his tower; his face turned towards the star-speckled sky. He was remembering Ron's words to him just before the Hogwarts Express left with a loud hoot- "Goodbye, old chap, and don't feel too bad! There's still Hagrid to go to for tea- and Dumbledore if you want to play chess!"

"Well, Hagrid's been gone for ten days now, to visit his Giant relatives, and I haven't seen Dumbledore around much. All he did the last time I bumped into him was give me a lemon drop!" Harry complained to his owl, Hedwig.

"Whoo?" hooted Hedwig softly.

"Never mind," sighed the little boy, and stroked her lovely white feathers.

Hedwig hooted again and hopped to the window ledge. Then she spread her huge wings and flew off, for it was night and she longed for the freedom of unfettered skies. She liked her master- but he was so clumsy that he was likely to pull all her feathers off he continued! So off she went, to seek out a nice mouse for supper. Harry watched her disappear into a dot in the moonlit sky.

"Alone again," he grumbled to himself. "Might as well go see if Hagrid has come home yet. I'm bored to tears!"

The wind was very cold, so he hunted for his warmest jumper, and put on a new pair of gloves. Then he wrapped his father's old invisibility cloak around himself. There was nobody around since it was the holidays, but Filch still patrolled the castle, and he didn't want to take any chances.

All ready for his moonlight trip, he made his way carefully down the winding staircases, all the way out of the castle, and down the stony steps on the steep hillock. The wind was blowing furrows into what little dried bits of grass there were left, and the moonlight painted them different shades of grays and blues, like an Impressionist's ocean. Harry gingerly made his way past Hagrid's pumpkin patch, which like most other plants were having a nice winter sleep under the thick blankets of snow. He was feeling so moody that he gave the vegetables a good glare as he walked past. Lucky pumpkins! How he wished he could sleep past Christmas as well!

Bam bam bam! Harry's fist made a terrible racket on the wooden door. "Hi, Hagrid, it's me, Harry! Are you home?"

An empty silence answered him.

He called again loudly, and rapped sharply with his knuckles, rat-a-tat-tat!

But the only thing he could hear was the slight creaking of the window grates and his own teeth chattering.

"He's still gone and I'm still really alone," Harry sighed. "Happy holidays to me."

He turned around to begin the long trek back to the castle, and his mind wondered moodily from one thing to another. Soon however, the sour edge of his self-pity gave away to genuine enjoyment of the sights and sounds of the night just beginning to unfurl around him. The mist was like a silent, soft wing very low on the ground, and he watched a wandering wind shred the silvery clouds that were hanging overhead to rags. The moon had a really round, shimmery sort of face tonight, and there was a family of Sneezing Fairies moving house from the elm to the apple, though why anybody would move in the middle of the night in winter, especially since they sneezed so much, was quite lost on Harry.

He thought he heard Hedwig's soft hooting and craned his neck round to see if he could catch sight of her. It was not Hedwig, but there was something ghostly moving on the lake, and the shape of the castle being illuminated faintly by the night mist...

He did a double take, and almost tripped. The lake... there was Something Ghostly on the lake!

Harry was so excited by this sight that his feet fumbled and he almost tripped down the steep hill he had been climbing to get back to the castle. It took some time to steady himself, and he took off his fogged-up spectacles and rubbed his eyes, thinking he must be dreaming- but the specter still remained.

Forgetting all about the cold in his excitement, he sneaked carefully up to the clearing where he could get a good look at the gliding shadow. At first he thought it was a bird that was flying round the lake- the silvery shadow was moving so fast. It took him some time to really see it clearly, when a provident cloud moved obligingly away from the round-faced harvest moon. The wind, which was very strong in the evening, had fallen into a lull. Harry, peered, and saw the most magnificent sight.

What did he see?

A wild Swan, gliding on the lake! It must've been a girl, all dressed in shades of silver and the palest blue, skating up and down the ice. A glittering swan's mask, with real white feathers, obscured her features from his questioning eyes.

How beautiful she was! How Harry stared! And as he watched, his heart filled with a sense of beauty and melancholy, for though the sight was very charming to behold, it also made him want to weep bitterly at his own loneliness.

For long moments he stayed in his hiding place under the bushes, forgetting about the snow and cold. Poor Harry! In all his longing and loneliness, the beautiful, unreachable creature dancing on the lake was like a sign from Heaven, a consolation for his long suffered loss. He was deeply moved by it, and if he hadn't been a brave boy, he would most certainly have cried, for in his heart and dreams, his mother had always appeared to him as a fair ballerina in a silvery white gown, with thick hair pilled high on her head and soft pink fingers and lips. But in his dreams Harry could never see her face, although he was sure that it was shinning and beautiful- the loveliest mother in the world.

Happy feelings flooded Harry as his child's imagination supplied fanciful, sfumato-soft portraits of the mother he'd never known- except that now they would no longer be far away and vague- now they could be glittering and beautiful, and she would smile at him underneath a white swan's mask.

But all wonderful things must come to an end, and when the little boy saw the Swan stop dancing, he crept away as quietly as he could, before he was discovered, and hurried back to his warm bed in the Gryffindor tower. What a state of quivering and unimaginable excitement he was in then! How his eyes shone as he declared to a bemused Hedwig, who was cleaning her feathers, that he would never sleep again until he saw that beautiful swan dance on the frozen lake, but of course he soon fell fast asleep with a small smile on his face, and as we leave to go back to our beds, we can't help but as happy and excited as he.

~