A Taste of Magic

Chapter 23: 23rd Course - New Traditions

"Someone looks happy," Lavender observed while looking equally happy. After some thought, she frowned. "I'm not going to like the reason, am I?"

Harry kept stirring the sauce on the hob. "You don't like that I'm happy? I'm wounded." He snickered when she poked him in the side.

"Don't tell me that you're really happy because you're making a Christmas dinner and that you get to eat it with the people you made it for, for once," she said shortly.

"Would you rather I lie?" he asked quietly.

"Harry…"

"I know, it's not right," he said quieter still.

She huffed and hugged him around the middle hard. "At least we can make it right. Everything smells amazing!"

He flushed from pleasure. "Thanks! I worked extra hard on the food this time."

"You work hard on the food all the time," Lavender smiled.

"True, but I wanted to make it super good this time," he said.

It was the day before people left for holiday and there was a hint of tension in the air. There had been a series of strange occurrences around the castle. There were rooms where things were broken and smashed, as if by something big and heavy. A few older Slytherin students had claimed they were attacked by something and the door to the room they hid in did look damaged. Despite investigations from the faculty, they had not found who, or what, was doing all of this. A sense of dread and chill had fallen about the castle that had nothing to do with the winter and more than a few were eager to leave the school.

Having obtained permission, Harry was making a traditional Christmas dinner for the club and they were going to eat it together. Harry was the only person staying at the castle over the holiday, something that Lavender and the Patils and Pansy were not too happy about. He had told them that he would be safe with Remus and Flitwick and Dumbledore at the castle as well as the other major professors. Not to forget about Pomfrey and Hagrid and of course the House Elves.

In fact he was already going to have Christmas tea with Dumbledore and spend a great amount of time with Remus, both things he was looking forward to. And he knew he would be spending a lot of time in the kitchen with the elves and with Hagrid as well. He, logically, made the point that he would be reasonably safe in their company.

Harry had been especially excited because, like the aforementioned unfortunate reasoning was, for the first time he would be able to eat the Christmas dinner with the people he was cooking it for. At the same time no less, instead of the leftovers and well after. Also some of them have never had an English Christmas dinner before, so he wanted to do a good job of it.

The others had decorated their clubroom and it was very cozy. Fairy lights glittered and twinkled as they moved about the periphery of the room. A fire crackled merrily in the hearth, keeping the room very warm and comfortable. A cauldron bubbled in the corner filling the room with aromas of pine and winter mint and citrus and cinnamon that emphasized the savory smells of the dinner instead of combatting them.

"I think Luna's finally succeeded in thoroughly confusing Hermione," Padma said as she wandered over. "She can't tell if Luna's telling the truth on holiday traditions or not."

"I don't think Luna's lying," Harry said.

"I don't either but I think Luna is taking personal family tradition and making it sound like general magical tradition," Padma giggled. "And what she and her family does apparently does share a lot of what other magical homes do because Neville and Millicent and Pansy have agreed with some of what she said."