Haven .|. H. J. POTTER✔

Chapter twenty-three

Within a couple of weeks, it was already December and the temperature outside cooled down even further than it already had in November. Most of the students of Hogwarts now wore their scarves to the classes as well as throughout the corridors since the castle wasn't quite warm. Everyone was already making plans for meeting up during the Christmas holidays in which they were allowed to go home.

Throughout the couple of weeks, Theo had become closer to Harry and Haven, much to every other eighth-year's surprise. The Slytherin sat with them when making homework, when hanging out late at night or when Harry took him and Haven along to the library for some more books on anatomy.

Harry studied the subject well, though it did raise some odd questions to everyone else who saw him reading the books in the common room. At first, Harry felt a little awkward to read it in the common room so he spelled a dustcover around the book whenever he read it but after a while, he didn't really care anymore. Harry asked Haven a lot of questions when he didn't understand something about the generally female parts, and to his great surprise, Haven never jokingly offered to show him instead of telling him. Haven was very gentle and thorough when explaining something to him so Harry understood everything well. 

After a while, he started to feel more confident and he wished he could tell Haven. If there was anyone he would want to finally do it with, it would obviously be Haven. He trusted her and she knew him, and above all; he always longed for her. What he wasn't sure about was if he really wanted to shag, or if he just felt ready enough to take it a step further. He could easily say he wanted to finally do it when he was just reading a book, but if it actually got to that point; would he go through with it? Or would he need more time?

The make-out sessions got a whole other meaning to Harry. It was now equally an escapism for his desire to shag her as it was a way to burst his bubble of anger. Those were the times when it was just them and their fury. Just them and their loss. Haven would have her hands under Harry's shirt, her fingertips unknowingly caressing his scar, and Harry would have his lips on her throat, littering her brown skin with dark marks.

It was a perfect withdrawal from the world outside of the Room of Requirement and Harry had no idea how he was going to go without it for two weeks when he found out that Haven was staying at Hogwarts over the Christmas break. 

"You're actually staying here for Christmas?" Harry asked when he found her in line to write her name on the parchment Professor McGonagall had hung up there earlier that day.

"Where did you think I was going to go, Harry?" Haven glanced at him with her eyebrows raised for a moment before going back to impatiently eying the two second-year Hufflepuffs in front of her.

Harry didn't really think about it at all. He always knew he was going to be at The Burrow for Christmas, but not once did it cross his mind that Haven wasn't going to be there.

He now realised that she really had nowhere else to go but Hogwarts. 

"So you're going to spend Christmas all by yourself?" Harry asked. He didn't like the thought of that.

"As long as you'll send me a present I'll be OK," Haven smiled, pretending it didn't matter.

But it did. This would be the first Christmas Haven would spend without her mother. Even when they were on the run, Haven and her mother found a way to celebrate Christmas. They both went to a nearby Muggle village to buy something for the other and with a little bit of magic, they gift-wrapped it for the next morning.

Haven had gotten Ella Goldspear a pair of golden hoop earrings because she forgot her favourite pair at home. They didn't know it was completely burnt to the ground, their precious home.