Harry Potter and the Secrets from the Past

Chapter 21. FINALLY CHRISTMAS

...

If you'd really like

To live a more

Shining and fragrant life,

Cancel that entreaty

From your eyes...

...

"The Hill of Cherry Trees" by Lucio Battisti

That night, Ron ran immediately to his parents and woke them up; they rushed into Harry's bedroom to check on him and listen to his story.

Mrs. Weasley was really worried about it, but Harry just wanted them to leave him alone so that he could think it over.

Finally, when Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had made sure that Harry was fine and that everything at Hogwarts was quiet, they went to bed. However, Harry couldn't manage to fall asleep again, or more likely, he didn't want to. He was deeply terrified by the premonition and his greatest fear was that the vision would continue as soon as he had fallen asleep.

Harry remained all the night staring at the dark ceiling with his back leaning against the wall in a purposefully uncomfortable position. He thought for a long time about the vision: for sure, something terrible was going to happen at Hogwarts, even if he didn't know when.

Voldemort was surrounded by his Darkness Army and Harry didn't have the strength to react; he was completely helpless in front of his enemy.

How could he even hope to defeat the Dark Lord?

The following morning, Harry clearly heard Ron getting ready to meet the others downstairs, but he decided to stay in bed longer, alone. When he got up, he reached the sink, washed his face with cold water and stared at his reflection in the mirror; he was still very pale and had deep black circles under his eyes. He quickly put his Muggle clothes on and went down to have breakfast.

When he entered the kitchen, everybody turned to stare at him. Ginny, Ron and Hermione were sitting close to each other, finishing their food, while Mrs. Weasley was busy cleaning the dishes.

Harry tried to behave as normally as possible and took a seat at Ron's side.

"Good morning, Harry dear, how are you feeling today?"

"Fine, thanks," he lied, so as to not worrying her, although he was still feeling really bad.

"Come on, have something to eat! I've prepared you toast with jam and some tea."

Hermione thoughtfully handed him a small dish and poured the tea into a cup; Harry looked at her thankfully as he took his first bite of the toast.

After breakfast he was feeling slightly better, but Hermione was still staring at him worriedly.

"We're going upstairs mum!" said Ron, standing up, as the others did the same; they exited the kitchen and headed to the boys' room. Hermione stayed close to Harry during the trip.

As soon as they entered the room, she turned to him anxiously.

"How are you? I mean, really? Your face is so pale."

"Don't worry, I'm fine."

"On the contrary, I'm worrying about you! You look like you need some sleep!"

"And I'm telling you that I'm fine! Please believe me," Harry huffed, annoyed, and laid down on his bed, thinking that going to bed was the last thing he wanted to do at that moment.

"Is it true what Ron's saying? Have you had a premonition?" Ginny asked, while sitting next to Ron and Hermione in a nearby bed. Harry didn't want to recall what he had seen and he didn't reply immediately; he brought his hands behind his head and looked up at the ceiling.

"Yes..."

"Did you see You-Know-Who attacking Hogwarts?" Ginny asked again, her voice trembling, while Ron frowned at her.

"Yes..."

Harry realized that he was only giving one word answers. He turned to his friends and tried his best to explain what he was feeling.

"I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk about that. It wasn't a nice experience."

"No, Harry, you're right. We didn't mean to..." Ron answered and pinched Ginny in the side.

"Ouch! But what did I say?" she asked resentfully, massaging the painful part.

"Why don't we talk about something more joyful? Have you forgotten that tomorrow is Christmas? Maybe we should decorate the house, what do you think about that?"

Harry appreciated Hermione's effort to let it be like any other Christmas, but it was difficult to have fun with all the things that had been happening.

"Come on! Let's show a bit of enthusiasm!"

Hermione exhorted them, since the others were still looking at her as if she was crazy; then Ginny's face lit up.

"Yes, Hermione's right! I'll ask mum if she would organize a nice lunch for tomorrow."

"I'll go looking for last year's decorations; they surely are hidden somewhere."

Ron had joined emphatically in the girls' projects, but Harry had no wish to celebrate; with the war raging, the premonition he had had and, above all, Sirius missing, how would he be able to enjoy Christmas?

"Come on, Harry, don't make that face! Why don't we try all together to push aside our sad thoughts, at least for a couple of days?"

Hermione got closer and grabbed Harry's hands, but he was still staring at her seriously. Harry noticed his friend's sweet smile and couldn't disappoint her; after all, fighting the dark side meant also trying to be happy at Christmas, despite all the problems.

He stood up without opposition and followed his friends out of the room.

***O***

They spent Christmas Eve decorating the house; they found festoons and garlands, coloured lights and Santa Claus hats and the entire place became less gloomy than ever before.

Harry had tried to help them, forcing himself to push aside his bad mood and worries, but he was feeling really tired and didn't talk for most of the time.

That night was particularly difficult for him to fall asleep, but when he managed to do it, he slept soundly through the night with no visions or nightmares.

The following morning, he got up to the noise of paper being rolled up and when he opened his eyes, he vaguely saw Ron busy unwrapping his Christmas presents.

"Marry Christmas, Harry! Look how many presents we've got this year!"

"Marry Christmas, Ron."

Harry got up and when he put on his glasses, he was surprised to see that on his bed also there was a little mountain of presents.

He looked for Hermione's gift first and he found it beneath all the others; it was a rectangular box, narrow and long, wrapped with a funny coloured paper; he imagined that it was the usual book, but when he unwrapped it, he was relieved to find a small crystal wizard chessboard.

From Mr. And Mrs. Weasley he received a new woolen jumper as usual and a large quantity of homemade small iced cakes; Hagrid had sent him a wallet made of real ferret fur; a box of Every Flavour Beans from Ron, together with a collection of the most famous Chocolate Frog cards in the world.

At the end, there was just one present left, a small one, wrapped simply; with great surprise, Harry noticed that it came from Remus Lupin. He unwrapped the box and when he saw the present, he stared at it unbelievingly.

It was a little mirror, in a simple wooden square frame, but the most curious thing was that it looked exactly like the mirror which Sirius had given him the previous Christmas.

Harry felt a knot in his throat while stared at his reflection and with trembling hands opened the card. "Dear Harry, this belonged to Sirius. It's a two way mirror. I'm sure that he would have been happy to know that now it's yours. Marry Christmas, Remus."

Harry asked himself if he'd have ever had the opportunity to use both the mirrors to communicate with someone else.

"Hey, Harry! Thank you for the Broomstick Handling Set, I've always wanted to have one of those."

Ron's words made Harry come back to reality. He sighed deeply, put the mirror in its box, and turned to his friend.

"You're welcome! The cards you gave me are really cool!"

After having unwrapped all the presents, they got ready quickly and went down to have breakfast. Along the way, they met Hermione, who was coming upstairs.

"Marry Christmas Harry! Thank you so much for the bangle, it's really cute." The girl smiled at him happily, raising her hand to show the present: it was made with coloured stones, closed with a golden pendant with heart shape.

"Thank you for the new chessboard!"

Harry felt his cheeks flaming, but he could swear that Hermione was blushing even more than him.

"Hem, hem... I'm sorry to bother you."

Ron was looking at them impatiently. Hermione swayed her attention from Harry and turned happily to her other friend.

"Marry Christmas to you, Ron!"

"Thank you for the Keeper Handbook you gave me."

"And thank you for the magical bookmark!"

"You're welcome. It's better if we go now, before Fred and George eat all our breakfast too!"

They quickly reached the kitchen, where the twins, Ginny, Lupin, Tonks, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasly were waiting for them.

They had breakfast all together, and Harry felt that everyone was trying their best to forget their worries.

Later on, Bill, Charlie, "Mad-eye" Moody and Mundungus Fletcher also came for lunch; Mrs. Weasley had prepared a delicious feast and everybody enjoyed it.

After lunch, Harry and Ron decided to go up to their room and break in Harry's new wizard chessboard, while Ginny and Hermione were quietly sitting on the nearby bed, chatting.

Suddenly, they heard a strange noise coming from the lit fireplace.

"BANG"

"Did you hear that?" Ginny asked worriedly.

Ron stood up abruptly and got closer to the fireplace; it seemed all right, but in that moment, from the dancing flames, a sort of big meteor rushed inside the room at a great speed, hitting Ron right in the head.

"What the hell..."

Ron protected the "big bullet" with his arms, which truly was a small packet in the shape of an egg, tied with a showy red ribbon. Harry's eyes widened, while Ron tried his best to hide the packet behind his back with one hand and with the other massage his aching forehead.

"I wonder who could have sent that present to you!" Hermione asked curiously and Ron blushed.

"Nobody! In fact it isn't a present... it's a..."

He seemed really embarrassed by the situation, especially because he was desperately searching for a good excuse.

"It's something I've ordered some time ago at the Daily Prophet. Now, I thing I'm going downstairs to open the pres.... hem, the packet..."

Ron rushed to the door and exited so quickly that nobody had time to question him again.

***O***

The rest of the holidays passed by quietly. Harry didn't get any other premonition or nightmare and this permitted him to enjoy a deserved rest.

Beyond this, they didn't get any other news about Voldemort and his Darkness Army and all of them tried not to mention the subject again.

Harry had noticed Ron's odd behaviour; his friend often stayed alone in his room, apparently writing long parchments which he then hurriedly hid as soon as someone entered the room; a few times, Harry had caught Ron, sitting alone, gazing dreamily into space.

The day before their return to Hogwarts, Mrs. Weasley had asked them to pack their trunks on time. Harry was in his room, busy gathering all his things, which were spread all over, when he noticed that Ron was reading something with deep interest, while kneeling on the floor by his trunk.

Harry got closer and leaned over Ron's head to find out which was the object of such an interest; with his great surprise, he saw that Ron was squeezing the famous egg-shaped packet in one hand, while in the other, there was a little card, written in pink ink. Harry cocked his head to the side, trying to read the signature, and when he understood who the sender was, his eyes widened in surprise.

In that moment, Ron realized that Harry was standing by his side and hid the packet and card inside the trunk, turning to his friend abruptly.

"Did you read anything?" Ron asked really worried.

"Well, yes, but how come Luna Lovegood has sent you a Christmas present?"

Ron closed his trunk resignedly and stood up, sighing deeply.

"Listen, Harry. Maybe you'll think that I'm an idiot, but the reason why I've never told you anything before, is because I was ashamed, that's all!"

"Ashamed about what?"

Harry couldn't understand why Ron had hidden such a thing from him.

"Because, if you had known that Luna and I are going out, then you'd have surely made fun of me!"

"What? You and Luna are going out?" Harry was shocked by this revelation.

"You see? That's why I didn't want to tell you anything, I knew that you couldn't understand," Ron said, desolated.

"Well, it's just that I wasn't expecting it, that's all! I didn't know that you and her had anything in common. In short, Luna is really... really..."

Harry wasn't able to find a good adjective to describe Luna without making Ron mad. Luckily, his friend ended the sentence for him.

"Yes, I know. She's a girl out of the ordinary, but knowing her better, she isn't that bad. She's funny and adores my jokes."

Ron's face lit with a large smile and Harry thought that he was really happy for him.

Both friends sat on the bed and talked more about the subject.

"When did you start going out?" Harry asked, but Ron looked a bit reluctant to answer.

"Well, honestly, we've never gone out yet; she was always coming to watch my Quidditch practices, and one evening she stopped me and we came back to the castle together. We've talked a lot and discovered we have many things in common. And also, our homes are close by, you know? The Borrow is just a few miles from where she lives."

"Then she sent that Christmas present to you, right?"

"Yes, isn't she sweet?"

Harry rolled his eyes, thinking that Ron was really on the moon.

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