Acquaintance - Oliver Wood/OC

Chapter 16: Decoration Day

I looked out with a childlike glee onto the falling snow outside our dorm room. "The best day of the year." I whispered to myself.

Discounting Halloween, probably. Or actually, Halloween and Decoration Day might be equally thrilling if I were to compare the two.

For those unfamiliar with the term, Decoration Day, or Deco Day, if you will, was a day that brought utter delight to my life. It was the day when all of Hogwarts was transformed from being a grey castle made of stone –not that I normally had a problem with that look– into a wintery holiday-fest! It was the day when the staff (mostly Hagrid,) decorated the castle.

This day was better than Christmas. Not only was it a lovely day in itself, it also contained all the anticipation of the lead up to the actual Christmas Day. It was a perfect start to a wonderful month.

Such a shame I had to be the one to wake everyone up though. I had risen early and was in a state of tremendous excitement. I knew that we had agreed I would wake them. I also knew that on a lot of days, I was the one who would wake them. It was a pretty standard procedure is what I mean to say. Never does it get easier though. It makes me feel like a bad person, like the bearer of bad news. No one is ever happy to have to stand up after having been unconscious for approximately eight hours, without food or drink. But I guess if there were to be a day when one would be happy to get out of bed in that particular state then today would be that day.

I began knocking on the columns of their four posters. "Students of Hogwarts, I implore you all to get up as quickly and as smoothly as you can." I knew it didn't really matter what I said, in the shape they were in nothing could be comprehended until after about five minutes following waking. I had come to learn this after, on several occasions, having woken them excitedly to tell them about plays I had thought of in my sleep. Only to have them forget what I was talking about within the next minute.

"You all know what day it is, and we have a packed schedule for the day, one which we need to get on top of right away."

We had learned after years of practise where everything would be being put up and at around what time. We had come to learn that if we were on the ground floor by the Grand Staircase around noon, we would have time to be in the library around the time when Madam Pince decorated the library, as she would never get going until around midday. Which left us time to catch Hagrid making the Viaduct Courtyard pretty in the afternoon and then get back for dinner where we would be able to view what Mr. Filch has turned the Great Hall into, all in one piece.

My friends began drawing the drapes of their four-posters, one by one. The day had officially begun.

10 a.m.

I found that being the most excited about something could be poignant. Wright, PJ, Bianca and I were sat on the Grand Staircase watching Hagrid try desperately not to fall off the feeble ladder he was standing on. He was decorating the giant, soon to be, Christmas tree. At the moment it wasn't looking so much like a Christmas tree. However, I knew from experience that no matter how hopeless Hagrid's attempts at the decorations would look, they would always somehow turn out looking absolutely magical in the end. I wasn't as on edge to help him with his pursuits, personally being able to use magic and all, as I had been in my earlier days. I would blame desensitization but I reckon I'd just realised that Hagrid loved doing this. I believed it made him feel needed, and he was needed. He also loved helping Dumbledore make the school as welcoming as he could.

Yet it was poignant. I could tell my friends wanted to be there, but mostly for my sake. Clues were for example questions like, "How long do you guys think this will take?" or just the fact that they were currently talking about something seemingly irrelevant we had just seen in the Tapestry Corridor.