December has arrived, and with it came a lot of snow. It's a classic to get a lot of snow during winter in Britain.
It's just a week before the winter break and the announcement on which people sign if they want to stay at Hogwarts during the break has been placed. Of course, Harry signed it quite immediately, knowing that the only other option are the Dursleys, and he wants to stay away from them as much as possible.
Harry quickly realized that Ron and his siblings are staying too.
"My parents decided to visit Charlie," Ron explained.
"Oh, right," Harry said, as if remembering something.
"What is it, Harry?"
"Oh, nothing much, I just remembered that you did this the last time too."
Unlike the Weasleys, Hermione isn't staying; she's going back to her parents.
Whenever Harry and Ron were alone during the break, Ron constantly asked him about the future, luckily for Harry, it's mostly just innocent stuff.
Stuff like:
"Do we pass the tests well?"
"Will Gryffindor win the Quidditch Cup?"
"Will we win the House Cup?"
But some stuff weren't as okay to Harry:
"Sooo," Ron sat back on a chair and frank some of his hot chocolate, "what's up with Fluffy?"
"Fluffy?" Harry was caught off guard by the sudden change of subject.
"Yea, you sounded quite annoyed when talking about it."
"Ohh, right..." Harry started thinking about how to explain all of this. "Have you ever heard of the Philosopher's Stone?"
"No...? I don't-"
Suddenly, the twins burst into the very loud laughter.
"Ughh!" Percy let out an annoyed sigh. "It's the winter break! Could you two stop with the pranks?!" Percy sounds furious.
Both boys turned around to see what happened.
Ron also began laughing at Percy, and Harry couldn't help but grin, he's quite close to laughter too.
Percy is covered in glitter and his hair seems to be temporarily dyed purple. How the twins did that was unknown to both of the boys, but Harry guessed that the twins simply just used Percy as an unknowing testing subject for their products.
"If my hair is going to be permanently purple I'll kill you both!" Percy then stormed out, obviously headed for a bath.
Just as Percy left, the twins alongside Harry and Ron began to laugh.
They seemed to laugh for a good few minutes.
"How did you do that?" Harry asked, still smiling, genuinely curious what joke product has done such an effect.
"Oh, nothing much," Fred began.
"Just a glitter bomb and a few drops in his hot chocolate that makes the drinker's hair purple for two hours." George explained.
"We want it to last longer, for atleast a week, but we haven't been successful yet." Fred finished.
***************
Just because Ron didn't get a full answer about Fluffy doesn't mean he just abandoned the curiosity.
"Sooo, what does that Philosopher's Stone have to do with Hagrid's three-headed dog?" Ron questioned.
Harry sighed, he was semi-hoping that Ron would forget about it. But he didn't, and he pretty much has to answer Ron's question. And plus, he isn't fully awake yet, seeing as he just woke up.
"He's guarding the trap door, y'know a door on the floor," Harry yawned and continued explaining while stretching, "he's one part of the protections around the Stone."
"One part?" Ron questioned.
"Yea, and seeing as I've already gotten the evidence that Voldemort," Ron gasped at him saying the Dark Lord's name, but Harry completely ignored that, "is on the back of Quirrell's head I know he'll try to steal the Stone this time too." Harry explained.
"D-don't say his name!" Ron gasped out.
"Oh, come on, there's no taboo on it yet!"
"Taboo?"
"Yea," Harry just realized what he said.
"What taboo?"
"Yea, y'know, if someone said his name there would be some kind of magical alert or something that would immediately alert the Snatchers where exactly it was said. We were almost caught by them when I was frustrated and said it, because I thought you were joking about the bad feeling around saying his name." Harry yawned again, but now, he was fully awake, and began changing into normal clothes, simply because Ron is doing that too.
"Bloody hell, Harry, just what did you go through?"
On another day, the Weasley twins decided to enchant snow balls and throw them at Quirrell. As soon as Harry and Ron noticed that, they grinned and started throwing snow balls too. Harry was trying to hit the turban as much as possible.
When it was the Christmas morning Harry just woke up, not realizing what day it is yet.
With a yawn he sat up.
"Oh, you're up, I was about to go and wake you up." Ron said, smiling and holding a present, that confused Harry for a little while but as soon as he saw the presents next to his bed.
"Merry Christmas, Harry."
"Merry Christmas to you too, Ron."
"Thanks."
And Harry began to unpack the presents. The first present he grabbed was soft and squishy, and then he immediately opened it and the familiarity made him smile and some fondanes (sweets) fell out of it.
"Oh, that's from my mom, I told her that you probably won't get any presents... she makes them for us too." Ron blushed out of embarrassed.
"That's very nice of her," Harry says, glad of this present, he put the pullover on.
"You didn't have to do that."
"I guess I've gotten used to receiving such a Christmas gifts from your mom,"
"Wait, she gave you pullovers the first time too?"
"Yea," Harry smiled kindly and began to open the other presents.
The second one said 'From Hagrid to Harry'. Harry unwrapped it and in it was a wooden flute, he let out a singular laugh.
"What is it?" Ron is constantly confused by some ways of how Harry reacts.
"Oh, nothing, just glad that Hagrid unintentionally gave me a way how to get past Fluffy when we'll need to save the Stone again."
"Was there a note or something?" Ron is completely lost now.
"Nah, but Fluffy immediately falls asleep when he hears music." Harry explained simply and grabbed a very very small package.
"Oh," Ron sounds like he understood what Harry meant.
Then Harry opened the tiny package and, of course, it was from the Dursleys:
'We got a note, and we're giving you a Christmas present.
Uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia.'
And with it came a fifty cent coin.
"Wow, they really are not good at pretending to care do they?" Harry unintentionally mumbled.
Ron's face turned serious at that but it lightened up immediately when he saw the coin.
"It's so weird! What a strange shape it has! Is it money?"
"You can have it," Harry tossed the note away.
"Don't you want to keep it?"
"Keep something from the Dursleys? I'd rather get rid of them forever, but it's not I can just snap my fingers and get rid of them."
"You really hate them that much?"
"'Hate' is a strong word..." Harry said with slight doubt.
"Mate-"
"Look," Harry interrupted Ron, "let's not talk about the Dursleys at Christmas, okay?"
"..." Ron looked like he wanted to say more but was very unsure of that.
"Thanks," Harry replied and went back to unwrapping his presents.
His next present was from Hermione it contained a bag of Beans Of All Flavours (Ron also got one).
And then there was just one present left, first he read the note written in a beautiful font, from Dumbledore.
'Your father left it with me before his death. It's about time to give it back it back to You. Use wisely.
I wish You Merry Christmas.'
"What is it?" Ron asked.
Harry gave him the note and replied, "oh, nothing much, I just got my Cloak back." Harry said calmly.
"Cloak? Wh-" and then Ron gasped as soon as he saw the Cloak. "I've heard about those! Isn't that an Invisibility Cloak?"
"It indeed is," Harry said.
"And- and it's yours??" Ron cannot be in more awe.
"Of course it is,"
"I always wished to wear something like it! Can I try it on?"
"Sure," Harry shrugged and gave it to him.
"Really?" Ron said in surprised awe as he took the Cloak and put it over his shoulders, "woah! My body is gone! Who is it from?"
"Dumbledore," Harry answered crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.
"Really? And why would he give it to you just now?"
"Dunno,"
"Why are you saying it like that?"
"Like what?" Harry questioned, raising an eyebrow, not knowing what Ron is talking about.
"You don't sound like you like Dumbledore..."
"It's complicated..."
"Complicated?"
"Yea, look-"
"Has he done something to you?" Ron suddenly interrupted.
"Huh? What do you mean..." then Harry immediately connected everything, "well, I guess he did? Technically? But, just as I said it's complicated..."
"Does it have anything with you traveling back?"
"How did you know that?" Harry unintentionally blurted out.
"It was quite obvious, mate..." Ron rubbed his shoulder.
"..." Harry looked away, rather look at everything but his best friend right now.
Harry noticed Scabbers and he just shot it a look and it immediately cowarded.
Scabbers running away surprised Ron, but he decided against it, rather focusing on asking Harry about his past.
"What happened that made you travel back?"
"I don't know..."
"Mate, can you please tell me the truth?"
"..." Harry quickly looked at Ron but then immediately looked away.
"Was it bad?"
"You can say that..." Harry mumbled.
"..."
"Look, I don't want to talk about it, okay?"
"I'm just curious..."
"Well, asking me about my death isn't the best thing to-!" Then Harry immediately shut up, covering his mouth, knowing he said too much.
"What?" Ron was immediately caught off guard and shocked by that reply, "you died?!" He almost yelled that out.
Harry tensed up even more at this, he immediately went to check if nobody heard Ron's surprised yell, luckily, no one's in sight.
Harry then sat back down on his bed, trying his best to calm down.
"Okay... um... could we, please, change the subject?" Harry nervously asked, still trying to calm down and trying his best to show as minimal emotion, trying his best to keep the green light off his mind.
"..."
The rest of the Christmas break was still good, despite Ron finding out Harry died. Thankfully for Harry, Ron decided to avoid asking Harry further about his own death.