The New Trio and the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter 12: Three Christmases: Family, Formal, and Full of Hope

For the remaining few days of term, the group was unable to break away from their classmates to talk to Moaning Myrtle as they would have liked to. This was, in part, due to the remaining end of term exams, but also due to the stringent rules which were enforced in order to protect the students from whatever was attacking the students.

So, they all decided to leave their mystery of the year until after the Winter Holidays, and instead took it upon themselves to study for the tests as much as possible. Unfortunately, the Room of Requirement was almost entirely impossible to get to very often, as the only two adults they'd shown the Room to were Remus and Severus. Remus was only there for their bi-weekly Defence lessons, and he left straight afterwards, so he couldn't escort them there very often, but Severus was often available straight after breakfast, and he made sure to escort them to wherever they needed to go when they were done.

Finally, the holidays were upon them, and Harry was happy to see his godfather again. Draco also felt himself at peace when he was in Grimmauld Place, so he enjoyed spending time inside with Harry, Pads, and Moony as the small garden became completely covered in a white blanket of snow. It had been organised that both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day would be spent at the Burrow, and so the two days beforehand were spent by the residents of Grimmauld Place in a relative frenzy, shopping for all of the necessary presents in both the Muggle and the Wizarding worlds.

In response to Mr Weasley's love of Muggle things, Harry got him some batteries and a packet of assorted rubber ducks, Remus and Sirius got him a hair-dryer, and Draco settled on a cheap toaster after becoming fascinated with it. Mrs Weasley got some packets of cooking herbs and several Muggle sauces which they were sure she'd never heard of, but would nevertheless hopefully enjoy. Ron would receive some moving figures of the Chudley Cannons from Harry and Draco, and a brand-new Wizarding Chess set from Sirius and Remus. The twins got some Muggle joke shop items, since they'd mentioned they wanted to experiment with them and see if they could make magical versions. Percy was going to be given books on etiquette in both the Muggle and Magical worlds, for he had revealed that he wanted to know about the differences there. Oliver Wood, who'd happily agreed to be Percy's boyfriend two weeks prior, was going to receive overall Quidditch strategy and history books. For Ginny and Luna, the four bought chaser strategy books and magical creature books respectively, and Neville had been promised a Grow-Your-Own-Gillyweed kit. Colin wasn't able to make it to their get-together this year, but an assortment of Wizarding candy and proper photography paper was being owled to him. Blaise, on the other hand, had convinced his mother to let him come on Christmas Day, although she had decided to attend as well, just to make sure Blaise was happy there, so some Muggle make-up was purchased for her so that she could decide whether to include some in her line of beauty products. Narcissa, the Tonks family, and Severus were attending as well, so Narcissa was also going to be given some Muggle make-up, the Tonkses would be given some Wizarding candy, since they weren't really known all that well in their social circle yet, and Severus would be receiving rare Potions ingredients from around the world (This was one of those times when Apparating was so useful). Finally, Madam Longbottom would receive some Muggle high society hats, and Phil Lovegood was due to receive some tickets to London Zoo.

Christmas Eve was relatively relaxed, with the Recruits happily sitting around the fire and roasting marshmallows while whispering about ideas for pranks they could pull off. Their favourite, so far, was to leave some paint-filled balloons out in the open for Peeves to find, along with a note that said it was necessary they be used on Ravenclaw students. They'd chosen Ravenclaw, because Luna had mentioned being teased by those in her house when none of the others were with her. However, their first prank of the term was planned for the first night, at dinner. In order to find out if there were any potential 'Heir of Slytherin' helpers when they infiltrated the Slytherin common room, they needed to know what everyone was feeling, so they'd decided to have a potion find its way into dinner, via Dobby working in the kitchens, which would make everyone's hair act as a mood ring. Fred and George had made a start on the potion as soon as they'd got home, and it would be finished by the middle of next week.