Christmas

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A week later everyone left for the Christmas break and I woke up to an empty dorm, and even worse, an empty Gryffindor Tower. I took a scalding shower to rid myself of the memories of the terrible dreams I had been having, they were getting more and more vivid, more and more deranged and Sirius was now a near permanent fixture.


After a week of doing nothing but catching up on homework, I was going stir crazy. It was Christmas morning and I went down to the fireplace on my own to see a stack of presents. Christmas used to be a time of joy in my home before Voldemort, before all the pure blood mania. I glanced at the presents and I saw my name on one of the boxes. Surprised, I went through them. There were 7 in total. I ripped open the first one, from Lily, a simple but demure purple cardigan, Mary gave me a bottle of perfume, Alice some make up. I tore open a small box and found a note stuffed tightly into the box.


This was always yours. xxx


It was the necklace from Sirius. I fastened it around my neck happily. Despite the drama it has caused, it was a really sweet gift. The next box was bigger. I ripped the wrappings off and stuck my hand inside but, before I knew what was happening, a black smoke rose from the box and formed a snake hovering centimeters from my face, in a voice of screams it said, "I am coming. Say yes."


The smoke began swirling around my hand and up my arm when the pain struck. My hand felt as though it had been dipped in acid, the burn bubbling my blood, shooting up my arm. I fell to the ground, the had fastened itself around my arm, coiling further and further up, it's mouth wide, moving toward my face. I started screaming.


I heard a loud crack and a squeaky voice call my name, followed by two more cracks. Dumbledore was at my side in a moment whispering something, waving his wand over my wreathing body. The pain was spreading rapidly, the snake strangling the life out of me. I lost consciousness.


I woke up with a start and sat bolt upright in my bed. I recognized this place at once even in the moonlight, I had been here a few times before.


"Hey! You should lay down." Said a gravel voice from beside me and I jumped. 

Sirius.

"What are you doing here?" I asked in a rather loud whisper the moment my beating heart stilled. In the moonlight I could just make out his face but it was enough to see that something terrible had happened to him.


His eye had swollen shut, there were bruises running the length of his jaw, cuts peppered his skin, he lay propped up, and winced with every breath.


"Came in by floo this evening. And then I saw you were here again so I just had to join in." He said smiling but my heart, instead of beating in overdrive like it had moments before, felt like it had stopped completely.


I threw my legs over the side of the bed immediately and walked over to where he lay. I had to see if he was ok.


"Yves, go back to bed. Madam Pomfrey would kill you if she saw you out of bed..."


"Shut up for once." I said bending to check his face. In the moonlight the cuts on his face looked black and the skin puckered around them angrily.


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