Christmas was coming. Christmas was coming. One morning in mid-December, Hogwarts woke to find itself covered in several feet of snow. Though Harry wanted to go home to see his parents, it was decided among Harry, Evangeline, and his parents that in order not to arouse suspicion, they better not. Thus, when Professor McGonagall had come around, making a list of students who would be staying for the holidays, Harry and Evangeline had signed up at once. Harry didn't feel sorry for himself at all; this would probably be the best Christmas he'd ever had. Ron and his brothers were staying, too, because Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were going to Romania to visit Charlie.
Once the holidays had started, Ron, Evangeline and Harry were having too good a time to think much about Flamel. They had the dormitories to themselves and the common room was far emptier than usual, so they were able to get the good armchairs by the fire. They sat by the hour eating anything they could spear on a toasting fork -- bread, English muffins, marshmallows - and plotting ways of getting Malfoy expelled, which were fun to talk about even if they wouldn't work.
Ron also started teaching Harry and Evangeline 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, Harry went to bed looking forward to the next day for the food and the fun.
When he woke early in the morning, the first thing he saw was a small pile of packages at the foot of his bed.
"Merry Christmas," said Ron sleepily as Harry scrambled out of bed and pulled on his bathrobe.
"You, too," said Harry. "Will you look at this? I've got some presents!"
"What did you expect, turnips?" said Ron, turning to his own pile, which was a lot bigger than Harry's.
Harry picked up the top parcel. It was wrapped in thick brown paper and scrawled across it was To Harry, from Hagrid. Inside was a roughly cut wooden flute. Hagrid had obviously whittled it himself. Harry blew it - it sounded a bit like an owl.
A second, very small parcel contained a note.
We received your message and enclosed your Christmas present. From Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. Taped to the note was a fifty-pence piece.
"That's friendly," said Harry.
Ron was fascinated by the fifty pence.
"Weird!" he said, 'What a shape! This is money?"
"You can keep it," said Harry, laughing at how pleased Ron was. "Hagrid and my aunt and uncle -- so who sent these?"
"I think I know who that one's from," said Ron, turning a bit pink and pointing to a very lumpy parcel. "My mom. I told her you didn't expect any presents and - oh, no," he groaned, "she's made you a Weasley sweater."
Harry had torn open the parcel to find a thick, hand-knitted sweater in emerald green and a large box of homemade fudge.
"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, trying the fudge, which was very tasty.
His next present also contained candy -- a large box of Chocolate Frogs from Hermione.
