Harry Potter and Claire Smith's Adventures: Book Four

The Nightmare on Christmas

Chapter 19: The Nightmare on Christmas

Students were assigned heavy workloads over the holidays; though that didn't mean they actually did any of it. Most students found themselves choosing to spend their break having fun rather than doing work. Hermione, being amongst the few who actually wanted to work, spent the first days of break finishing her assignments.

Due to the announcement of the Yule Ball, there was a lot more students staying at Hogwarts over the break compared to the previous years. Fred and George took advantage of these potential customers by promoting their Canary Creams and Firework Messages; Claire assisted them when needed. Both the Canary Creams and Firework Messages were instant successes. Within the first hour of selling, they sold one hundred Canary Creams and two hundred Firework Messages. The Firework Messages seemed to create even more hype for the upcoming holiday dance.

The holiday atmosphere became more visible with thickly fallen snow on the castle and its grounds. Hagrid's hut resembled an iced gingerbread house and the pale blue Beauxbaton's carriage looked like a frosted pumpkin next to Hagrid's home. The Durmstrang ship's portholes were glazed over with a thin layer of ice and the riggings were white with frost. The interior of the castle was decorated extravagantly with holiday decorations. Everlasting icicles were attached to the banisters of the marble staircases and the Great Hall's usual decor of twelve Christmas tress were adorned with everything from luminous holly berries to real, hooting, golden owls. The suits of armor were charmed to sing Christmas carols; most of the time they only knew half the lyrics and Peeves would fill in the gaps with some of his own, all of which weren't very appropriate. The decorations weren't the only things outdoing themselves though. The house-elves down in the kitchen served a series of rich, warming stews and savory puddings, and only Fleur Delacour seemed to be able to find anything to complain about.

"It is too 'eavy, all zis 'Ogwarts food," they heard her saying grumpily as they left the Great Hall behind her one evening (Ron took to skulking behind Harry, keen not to be spotted by Fleur; Claire was told by Ginny that he'd tried to ask Fleur to the ball and it didn't end well). "I will not fit into my dress robes!"

"Oooh how disappointing," Hermione snapped as Fleur went out into the entrance hall. "She really thinks a lot of herself, that one, doesn't she?"

"Hermione—who are you going to the ball with?" Ron said.

Claire rolled her eyes at Ron; he'd kept springing this question on Hermione for the past week, hoping to startle her into a response by asking when she least expected it. However, Hermione would merely frown and say, "I'm not telling you."

"Would you leave her alone, Ron?" Claire snapped. "You've asked Hermione who's she's taking to the ball everyday for the past week!"

"No, I haven't," Ron muttered.

"You're joking, Weasley!" Malfoy said, behind them. "You're not telling me someone's asked that to the ball? Not the long-molared Mudblood?"

Claire, Harry, and Ron whipped around, but Hermione said loudly, waving to somebody over Malfoy's shoulder, "Hello, Professor Moody!"

Malfoy went pale and jumped backward, looking wildly around for Moody, but he was still up at the staff table, finishing his stew.

"Twitchy little ferret, aren't you, Malfoy?" Claire smirked, and the four friends went up the marble staircase laughing heartily.

"Hermione," Ron said, looking sideways at her, suddenly frowning, "your teeth..."

"What about them?" she said.

"Well, they're different...I've just noticed..."

Claire rolled her eyes at his obliviousness. "Little late, aren't you?"