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

Christmas Holiday, 2011 (Part Three)

Dobby curled in a ball of grey fur, pressed to my chest. I rubbed the soft white fur of his belly as he purred and held onto my wrist with his paws.

I lay in my bed, staring up at my poster of Oliver Kent. watching the wind in the magical photograph blowing through his hair, the bright orange jumper clinging to his shoulders and chest as he held onto a fluttering golden snitch.

"See him on that poster?" I asked Dobby. "D'you see him? That's Oliver Kent. He's the most brilliant seeker in the history of quidditch." Dobby purred and rubbed his chin against my finger, paws opening and closing, making biscuits against my chest. "He was so brilliant he trained other really prominent people - like Viktor Krum before he played for Bulgaria at the World Cup, and Harry said he trained Cedric Dig---" I stopped mid-name.

Oliver Kent trained Cedric Diggory.

Harry said so.

Plus it was fairly common knowledge he'd done.

He'd died the day after the Triwizard Tournament - presumably by his own hand - and it had been Diggory's death in the Tournament that drove him to that horrific end...

But his name had not appeared even once in The Goblet of Fire. Not even in passing. Even my werewolf father has been mentioned in passing - Oliver Kent's name never once showed on the page.

Why hadn't this woman everyone hated so much left Oliver Kent's name entirely out of the book? Why hadn't she so much as thrown in a passing mention when Harry said that he was such a key person in the Triwizard Tournament? When everyone in the wizarding world knew he was there?

"That is so weird," I murmured. I looked at Dobby. "Isn't that weird?"

Dobby used his paws to pull my hand to his head - I'd become distracted and stopped petting him.

"Weird," I murmured again, rubbing Dobby's ears.

I fell asleep wondering why - and what else had been left out of the books about Harry?

Christmas morning dawned with bright light streaming over my face from the window and I opened my eyes to find Dobby's bright ones staring directly into my soul from where he sat perched on my chest.

We stared at each other for several very long seconds while my brain caught up to being awake.

"Mornin'," I murmured to him.

Meeeerow! I petted his back and he stretched his back and slunk to the foot of the bed, jumping down to the carpet. Meeeouuw, he called again, circling 'round to where I'd put his food dish the night before.

"Demanding," I muttered.

My eyes landed on Oliver Kent again, refreshing the mystery in my mind, and I got up and went over to feed the cat.

I was halfway down the steps when I heard Harry's voice coming from the kitchen.

"He needs more freedoms, Andromeda, he does. I know you're afraid but he's going to resent you in the end if you keep on like this..."

"I'm only doing what is best for him," Gran replied.

"He's so self conscious of being in first year, he hasn't got any friends because he's so much older and he doesn't fit in."

"I know. I know. I made a mistake keeping him home. If i had a time turner, I'd change what I've done, what choice I made. But Harry - he said that he didn't want to go, that he wasn't ready! I was trying to help him! He needs someone to keep an eye on him. He needs someone who understands his anxiety -"