My Mute Life (Fred x OC) Book 1

Chapter 12

Once the holidays had started, Ron and Harry and I were having too good a time to think much about Flamel. I had the dormitory to myself and the common room was far emptier than usual, so we were able to get the good armchairs by the fire. We sat by the hour eating anything we could spear on a toasting fork -- bread, English muffins, marshmallows -- and plotting ways of getting Draco (Ron and Harry) and Pansy (me) expelled, which were fun to talk about even if they wouldn't work.

Ron also started teaching Harry and I wizard chess. This was exactly like Muggle chess except that the figures were alive, which made it a lot like directing troops in battle. Ron's set was very old and battered. Like everything else he owned, it had once belonged to someone else in his family -- in this case, his grandfather. However, old chessmen weren't a drawback at all. Ron knew them so well he never had trouble getting them to do what he wanted.

Harry played with chessmen Seamus Finnigan had lent him, and they didn't trust him at all. He wasn't a very good player yet and they kept shouting different bits of advice at him, which was confusing. 

"Don't send me there, can't you see his knight? Send him, we can afford to lose him."

On Christmas Eve, I went to bed looking forward to the next day for the food and the fun, but not expecting any presents at all. When I woke early in the morning, I headed downstairs to the Common Room, and the first thing I saw was a large tree with piles of presents underneath.

"Merry Christmas," said Ron sleepily as he and Harry stepped into the common room.

"You, too," said Harry. "Will you look at this? I've got some presents!"

I nodded eagerly.

I found a pile of presents with my name on it, and I directed Harry to his own.

"What did you expect, turnips?" said Ron, turning to his own pile, which was a lot bigger than Harry's and mine.

I picked up the top parcel. It was wrapped in thick brown paper and scrawled across it was To Seraphine, from Hagrid. Inside was a roughly cut wooden cat. Hagrid had obviously whittled it himself.

"That's friendly," said Harry. I looked over, and saw that his parents gad given him a fifty-pence piece. I barely held in the giggles.

Ron was fascinated by the fifty pence.

"Weird!" he said, "What a shape! This is money ?"

"You can keep it," said Harry.

I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing at how pleased Ron was.

"Hagrid and my aunt and uncle -- so who sent these?"

"I think I know who those are from," said Ron, turning a bit pink and pointing to two very lumpy parcels on Harry's and my piles. "My mom. I told her you didn't expect any presents and -- oh, no," he groaned, "she's made you a Weasley sweater."

I had torn open my parcel to find a thick, hand-knitted sweater in pale lavender, and a large box of homemade fudge.

Harry had gotten the same thing as me, although his sweater was a beautiful emerald green, to match his eyes, I supposed.

"Every year she makes us a sweater," said Ron, unwrapping his own, "and mine's always maroon."

"That's really nice of her," said Harry, as I tried the fudge, which was very tasty.

My next present also contained candy -- a large box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans from Ron.I opened another, and it held a box of popular muggle books from Hermione.