Stay - Mattheo Riddle

Christmas

"Come on, cheer up, it's nearly Christmas," said Hagrid. "Tell yeh what, come with me and see the Great Hall, looks a treat." So the three of them followed Hagrid and his tree off to the Great Hall, where Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick were busy with the Christmas decorations.

"Ah, Hagrid, the last tree — put it in the far corner, would you?" The hall looked spectacular. Festoons of holly and mistletoe hung all around the walls, and no less than twelve towering Christmas trees stood around the room, some sparkling with tiny icicles, some glittering with hundreds of candles. 

"How many days you got left until yer holidays?" Hagrid asked.

"Just one," said Kirra as she smiled up at the man. "And that reminds me — Harry, Ron, we've got half an hour before lunch, we should be in the library."

"Oh yeah, you're right," said Ron, tearing his eyes away from Professor Flitwick, who had golden bubbles blossoming out of his wand and was trailing them over the branches of the new tree.

"The library?" said Hagrid, following them out of the hall. "Just before the holidays? Bit keen, aren't yeh?"

"Oh, we're not working," Harry and Kirra told him brightly.

"Ever since you mentioned Nicolas Flamel we've been trying to find out who he is." Harry continued

"You what?" Hagrid looked shocked. "Listen here — I've told yeh — drop it. It's nothin' to you what that dog's guardin'."

"We just want to know who Nicolas Flamel is, that's all," said Kirra but she began to trail off as her eyes made contact with a familiar set of chocolate brown eyes, he was sitting down at the Slytherin table with his friends and just like usual, he didn't look away when she had caught him staring.

"Unless you'd like to tell us and save us the trouble?" Harry added and cut his sister out of her thought, she turned back to look at Hagrid. "We must've been through hundreds of books already and we can't find him anywhere — just give us a hint — I know I've read his name somewhere."

"I'm sayin' nothin', said Hagrid flatly.

"Just have to find out for ourselves, then," said Ron, and they began to leave, Kirra sent the Slytherin boy one last look before the three of them left Hagrid looking disgruntled and hurried off to the library.

They had indeed been searching books for Flamel's name ever since Hagrid had let it slip, because how else were they going to find out what Snape was trying to steal? The trouble was, it was very hard to know where to begin, not knowing what Flamel might have done to get himself into a book. 

He wasn't in Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century, or Notable Magical Names of Our Time; he was missing, too, from Important Modern Magical Discoveries, and A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry.

And then, of course, there was the sheer size of the library; tens of thousands of books; thousands of shelves; hundreds of narrow rows. Hermione took out a list of subjects and titles she had decided to search while Ron strode off down a row of books and started pulling them off the shelves at random. 

Harry wandered over to the Restricted Section while JJ, Maxine and Kirra read a few books slowly, all three of them getting very bored, very quickly, the three had even begun to play footsies under the table.

"has Riddle been leaving you alone yet?" JJ suddenly asked her and she stopped just before kicking him in the leg again. She gave the boy a confused look, why would Mattheo be leaving her alone, he found it a hobby to make her feel miserable