The Christmas holidays were essentially the winter break, and most students chose to go home. Not many stayed at school.
Of Skyl's three roommates, only Percy had stayed. None of the Weasley boys had gone back either—staying at Hogwarts was far more relaxing than staying at home. No parents nagging, no need to worry about homework; what student would ever complain about days like that?
"Morning. Merry Christmas," Percy said to Skyl.
"Merry Christmas. You just woke up? Weather's good today—perfect for a morning run."
Skyl, as usual, had not come back to the dorm the previous night. It was rare for him to actually show his face in the room this morning. Sometimes his roommates suspected Skyl was really a vampire who secretly slept in a coffin every night.
"Want to open your presents?" Percy asked.
Skyl had received so many presents that the dorm was practically impossible to move around in. It looked like the stockroom of a gift shop: parcels wrapped in all sorts of paper, ribbons of every colour. Most of them came from admirers who'd read his Transfiguration paper.
When Percy asked whether he was going to open them, what he really wanted was to see how Mr. Heartthrob was going to handle this mountain of parcels.
"Looks like I never should've listened to Professor McGonagall. Publishing that Transfiguration paper has brought me nothing but flashy, useless fame—and a pile of trouble to go with it."
Percy couldn't help muttering, "Fame is about the best thing there is."
"For someone ready to trade fame for three meals a day and all the wine they can drink, fame really is wonderful. For someone who isn't ready, though, it just drags their life into a whirlpool."
"So you're not ready?"
"You could put it that way. But if one day I decide to form a wizarding band, I could put this on the poster: 'de Lin—discoverer of the two great laws of Transfiguration, the hottest rock wizard of our time—live at eight o'clock tonight! Passionate performance, I'll be waiting for you at the Hog's Head!'"
Percy burst out laughing. "You don't look like someone who plays music."
Skyl sat by the door and started opening the gifts one by one, checking each present as he chatted. "Who doesn't have a music dream? I like rock. My favourite Muggle singer is a rocker—his name's Viktor Tsoi, from the Soviet Union. Sadly, he died in a car accident last year. If he'd lived to see this year… Oh, another boring witch. I swear their wardrobes must be too full, so they just stuff this kind of thing into a box, jot down some random address, and say, 'Right, that's the rubbish cleared out.' My poor Kaia—this sort of junk isn't worth making her fly all this way."
"I'll bet there's more than one piece of underwear in that pile," Percy said.
"Then it can all disappear."
Skyl flicked his hand, and every parcel containing some less-than-decent personal item vanished, as if they'd been sucked away by an invisible whirlpool in the air.
"Wow, suddenly loads of space," Percy joked. In truth, the parcels still formed a small mountain.
"Don't just stand there making snide remarks. Come help."
Students drifted from dorm to dorm, and everyone who passed by was stunned by the spectacle in Skyl's room.
More and more people joined in, sitting on the floor to tear open packages together.
"To be honest, I don't mind opening presents," George said to break the boredom.
"But not a single one of these is for me. That's tragic," Fred added.
It took the entire morning to finally open everything. There was nothing particularly valuable. Mostly, it was sweets—candies from all over the world.
Skyl dug out a box of dragon's-beard candy and was delighted, sharing it with the others on the spot. Then he found a bag of handmade cane sugar from the Indian subcontinent and hurled it straight into the bin in fright.
Skyl thought: After watching those "World Food official" videos, who would dare touch these so-called "clean and hygienic" things?
The other odds and ends were all full of local flavour: a Persian wool wall hanging from the Middle East, ancient silver coins from Spain, shells picked up on the shores of the Aegean, a teru-teru bozu charm from Hokkaido, a bearskin mat from Scandinavia, amethyst ore from Southeast Asia, an ammonite fossil from an Antarctic glacier, and so on.
The teachers and students at Hogwarts had mostly sent sweets as well.
"Harry, Ron, Neville, Professor Dumbledore, Professor Quirrell… looks like every single one who sent you sweets is male," George observed.
"Sweets are easy," someone said.
They all started chatting casually.
Skyl thought back and realised that all the presents he'd sent out were sweets too. Since his nickname was the Candy Man, this wasn't laziness—it was maintaining his persona.
By contrast, the witches had put more thought into their gifts. Professor McGonagall had sent a calendar with the timetables for first through fifth year printed on it—probably a subtle way of nagging him to attend class. Hermione and many of the other girls had given knitted scarves. Mrs Weasley had sent a white jumper to thank him for looking after her children; on the front were the letters D.L., his initials.
The most interesting one was from Professor Snape. He hadn't fobbed it off with sweets like the other men; instead he'd sent a bottle of aromatic tincture. Skyl suspected the old bat was making fun of the way female students constantly hovered around him.
Skyl smacked his lips, amused. Next Christmas, he was planning to give Snape a bottle of Amortentia. Or, if the old bat kept being such fun, maybe he'd resurrect Lily Potter for him.
That day's Christmas feast at noon was boisterous. There weren't many people, but everyone seemed to have been wound up like a clockwork toy. Golden roast poussins were piled into pyramids on the great silver platters, nearly touching the plastic streamers floating overhead. The smell of cream-of-mushroom soup was so thick it felt like a punch to the nose. Greasy sausages ringed the edges of the tables, like some kind of edible decorative border. Beside each plate sat a porcelain Christmas gnome and a magic firework. The little gnome by Skyl's plate kept pestering him to set off his firework.
The students of all four Houses sat at a single long table, with Gryffindors and Slytherins carefully kept far apart. The professors had come down from the high table and taken another table off to the side. Beside Dumbledore, a beautiful Russian wolfhound sat on its haunches. It didn't seem very happy; it ignored the whole roast pork hock in its bowl and only ate when Dumbledore fed it by hand. Professor Quirrell raised his glass to Skyl. He and Snape seemed to be getting on quite well, huddled together chatting about who knew what. Many students realised for the first time that the old bat actually could smile.
Half-giant Hagrid kept pouring drinks down his throat. He must have got quite muddled, because he somehow mistook his magic firework for a German white sausage and popped it into his mouth. When he bit down—bang!—orange-scented smoke shot out of his nostrils and ears, which made Professor McGonagall beside him laugh until she nearly cackled.
After the noisy feast, many students headed out to the grounds for a snowball fight. Under the prefects' leadership, the boys from the four Houses split into two teams: lions with badgers, and eagles with snakes. They built proper snow forts and divided up the work—one student making snowballs, the rest providing covering fire at the other side.
Most of the witches were playing chess, gobstones, or building snowmen. A few had gathered around Afu, thrilled to see him again, giving him a festive Christmas "skin" of decorations.
Ever since he'd received The Wizard's Field Guide, Harry hadn't been able to put it down. Ron had been battered off the field from concentrated snowball fire and called for his brother to join him in glorious battle, but Harry remained unmoved. He had found a quiet corner to study the Field Guide. Inside, it contained every spell he'd learned, along with key points from each of his subjects.
He also discovered entries on many topics he'd never studied—higher-year electives, as well as special abilities like "Parseltongue", "Dark Arts Foundations", "Ancient Alchemy", "Dark Magic Rituals", and so on. Those subject trees were almost completely blank, with only a few scattered phrases—for example, in the "Dark Arts Foundations" sub-entry, there was a note on how to practise the Killing Curse.
Harry knew that all this unfamiliar knowledge came from Voldemort's soul.
The preface page of The Wizard's Field Guide would change according to the reader's thoughts, offering study suggestions.
Quietly, Harry said, "I want to know how to bring someone back to life."
On the blank page, words rose up:
Naive little wizard, you're nowhere near qualified yet. Flip through your empty pages—just like your barren little brain. When you've filled up the entries on Dark Arts and Alchemy, then come ask that idiotic question again. At that time, I won't begrudge you an answer to your tiny doubts.
Harry stared down at The Wizard's Field Guide, clenching and unclenching his fists to steel his resolve.
Suddenly he felt as though someone were watching him. He looked up and saw the white dog called Afu sitting by a shrub not far away. Several witches were still searching the grounds for him. Afu was covered in multicoloured Christmas decorations—mistletoe, jingle bells, striped ribbons, bows. He looked utterly bedraggled, but his eyes were cool and distant.
Boy and dog gazed at one another as snow fluttered down onto the pointed rooftops of Hogwarts's towers. The mountains on the horizon were already a solid sweep of white.
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