Harry McGonagall - Raised By Minerva

Chapter 5 - Christmas Break

Harry woke up early on the day they were leaving Hogwarts for Christmas break. He'd owl-ordered assorted candies from Honeydukes for most of his friends, to be delivered at Christmas. However, he had something different for his best friend, and he thought he'd prefer to give it to her now.

After he had dressed, he went down to the Common Room holding a small wrapped package and found Hermione relaxing on a couch with her head buried in a book. Without her noticing, he plopped down on the couch beside her, causing her to drop her book in surprise.

"Good morning!" said Harry as he chuckled at her.

She lightly slapped Harry on the arm. "Harry! You scared me!"

"Sorry," he chuckled.

"You are not," she accused as she picked up her book.

"Maybe not, but I do have a gift for you."

She smiled at her best friend. "Really? Shouldn't we wait until Christmas?"

"I want you to have it now." Harry handed her the small wrapped package.

"All right," she said as she carefully unwrapped the gift. When she removed the wrapping paper, she found two mirrors like Harry's.

"I thought you'd like a way to talk to your parents while you're at Hogwarts. One answers to your name; the other to your mom's. You can also call mine, Brianna's, my parents' or Aunt Minnie's with it. They work like phones in that you can call anyone who has one. Mine answers to 'Harry McGonagall,' in case you were wondering."

She wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"You're welcome, Hermione!"

"This really does mean a lot to me." She then pointed her wand toward the girls' staircase and said, "Accio Harry's gift!" About a minute later, a neatly wrapped package came floating toward them. She lowered her eyes as she said, "It's not nearly as wonderful as what you gave me, but I hope you like it."

He grinned as he took the present from her. "I'm sure I'll love it." After tearing the wrapping paper off of it, he found that she'd given him a set of the 'Lord of the Rings' books which also included 'The Hobbit.' The illustrations on the covers were moving.

"Imagine my surprise when I found out Tolkien was a wizard, and his books were about events that actually happened a long time ago. When I found that out, naturally I tried to find out what kind of spell could have been placed on the ring to keep Sauron from dying, as though his soul were somehow connected to it, but I couldn't find anything in Hogwarts' library about that. It must be a very dark spell. Anyway, I guess I'm rambling on and on. You don't already have them do you?"

Harry smiled at his friend. "No, I don't. I have heard of them, but never actually read the books. Thanks a lot."

"You're welcome. I hope you enjoy them."

"I'm sure I will. I hope you're still planning on picking up our books for next year during the break."

"Of course, Harry. I got the list of second-year books from Cho last night. You're so lucky that you can practice magic during the holidays."

Harry chuckled. "I just don't understand why the Ministry of Magic is against kids doing magic. I mean the parents of Muggle-born students have to wait seven years before they can see what their kids learned in school! They may even wonder if their kids are actually learning anything. It's like the Ministry is hoping that your parents will decide to withdraw you from Hogwarts because they don't think you're learning anything useful."

"I know. It's hard to explain what I'm learning in a letter. Maybe I can convince my parents to make our next vacation in America so we can see you. Then we could put on a bit of a magic show for them to demonstrate what we've learned."