It's Christmas Time Again: A Time-Traveling TMS Holiday Extravaganza

Christmas Holiday 2011 (Part Two)

Let me tell you the one most important thing I remember about every one of my Christmas memories growing up:

Harry loves to sing Christmas carols. And not normal ones, ones he makes up, ones that are loud and obnoxious and fill up a whole house because he's bellowing the words at the top of his voice. He walks about singing them, his eyes all lit up with mischief, and waving his arms about.

And not just at home, either, no-no-no.

Harry likes to sing these Christmas carols literally anywhere he is at for the whole Christmas season. He doesn't care if he's in the market and James-Sirius had turned the same shade of red as St. Nicholas's Christmas undies - that only spurs him on all the more. He doesn't care if Albus pretends he doesn't know his own father or if I've walked off to another part of the shop to disassociate myself from him. He finds our embarrassment entertaining and just goes on singing.

Usually, in the moment, it was annoying... looking back, I'd not trade that memory for anything in the world.

And honestly, in 2011, I was so homesick that he could've been standing on a stage in the middle of the Quidditch World Cup singing "God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs" and I would've been just fine with it.

Which is good because even though he wasn't singing it on the stage in the middle of the Quidditch World Cup he WAS singing it in the middle of London just two days before Christmas - which honestly probably has just as many people as the World Cup does.

We were coming up Charring Cross toward the side road the Leaky Cauldron let out to. Muggles were rushing about, ducking into shops and shouting to one another as they made their way through the city. Harry got a lot of looks - most of them were for his singing. But there were one or two who did double takes as he walked past.

He was, after all, utterly famous.

I thought of the stolen copy of The Goblet of Fire that was stuffed in the bottom of my trunk back at school, which I'd finished within a week of being at Hogwarts. The library at school didn't have any of the other books the Skeeter woman had written, but even the one volume had left me utterly obsessed with the brilliance of my godfather's story. I totally understood the Muggles that loved it.

I'd been a little disappointed however to find that my father wasn't mentioned except in passing toward the end, and my Mum wasn't at all.

Harry smiled and waved to a little boy that was staring at him with awestruck eyes from in front of a Primark. The boy tugged on his Mum's shirt sleeve without looking away from Harry at all, whispering, "Mummy ain't that Harry Potter there?"

"Harry Potter isn't real, darling," she drawled without looking.

Harry winked at the boy, whose eyes went even wider as we passed, and he said, "But Mummy..."

Harry tugged me 'round a corner. We passed an art supply shop, crossed the road, and ducked into the Leaky Cauldron. He was stopped by a few people that wished him a happy Christmas, but we didn't linger, despite how everyone seemed keen to offer him a drink. "I'd love to, mate, but I'm busy here with my godson," he said each time, slipping an arm over my shoulder, "Just back from Hogwarts for holiday."

"Hullo," I said awkwardly each time, and the various faces would ask me how I was enjoying Hogwarts and what year I was.

Of course they all seemed surprised I was in first (I mean, of course, being that I was thirteen and tall since I'd let myself return to my natural height when I was hanging about with Hagrid that morning), but Harry simply squeezed my shoulder and said, "My Tedders is going to take on the world and win the duel, mates," or something equally reassuring.