Snakes And The Moon

Chapter 13

Christmas morning eventually arrived and Harry was both relieved that the full moon was coming tonight and upset about it.

Upset because that meant he had to spend his holidays in bed and feeling sick, but relieved because he could use this as the perfect excuse for being lazy as it's Christmas and wanting to snuggle up in his warm bed.

He'd been loading himself up on Wolfsbane Potion for the past couple of days and when Ron and Hermione noticed him looking drained, he told them he was probably coming down with another cold. They instantly chose to believe him considering it wasn't suspicious at all.

"Boys! Wake up, come on!" Hermione yelled, barging into the boy's dormitory. Ron's eyes went wide and he covered himself up insecurely with his blanket.

"You- You can't be in here!" he stuttered out.

"Oh, hush up Ronald!" she snapped.

Harry was just watching them both squabble with a grin. "Tell her to get out, Harry!" Ron yelled towards him.

Harry sighed and sat up, rubbing his tired and heavy eyes. "Why are you here, Hermione? You're not a boy," he raised an eyebrow.

She huffed and crossed her arms. "I was adding the last ingredients left to our Polyjuice Potion this morning, it's just about ready. Want to come and see?"

Harry nodded and quickly jumped out of bed, ignoring the vertigo. He washed up in the bathroom for a minute and got changed into some new clothes, Ron slowly following behind and grumbling the entire time.

When they were both ready, Hermione was standing at the dormitory doorway waiting for them.

"Now, you be a good boy Scabbers and stay right here," Ron was telling his rat who was squeaking and demanding to be fed.

Harry cringed. "Honestly, Ron. Get rid of that thing, it's disgusting."

Ron glared at him. "I will not! Scabbers is family, he's staying with me," he said.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Fine, whatever. Please just give him another bath, he reeks!"

"Stop it, it's Christmas. Positive thoughts," Hermione encouraged with a smile. "Plus, we have some presents downstairs we need to open, too."

"Speaking of positive thoughts, if the Polyjuice really is ready, that means we should do it as soon as possible so we can get that confession out of Malfoy. Then he can get expelled!" Ron grinned.

"I've already thought about that, we should do it tonight," she said. Ron agreed enthusiastically whilst Harry just sighed and nodded. He'd feel exhausted, for sure, but he can't make any excuses without them getting paranoid thoughts about him. He'll just have to suck it up.

Just as they were about to head out the door, Hedwig swept in the room and landed on Harry's bed. She was carrying a package and Harry took it from her carefully, wondering what it was. It turned out to be nothing of interest, just a stupid letter from the Dursleys, asking him to stay at school during the summer holidays as well as the Christmas holidays. He let out a bitter laugh and set the letter on fire.

Ron and Hermione just gave him sympathetic looks and he shrugged it off, walking out the dorm and into the common room with them trailing behind him. When they all reached the common room, they noticed that there were presents under the tree near the fireplace waiting for them.

They all looked to each other before grinning, running to the tree and grabbing anything that had their names on it. They each got a decent sized pile.