Year Three, Chapter Twelve: December

December approached, casting the evenings into darkness and the days into cold. Frost fell across Hogwarts, leaving a thin white blanket across the picturesque grounds. The students from Beauxbatons huddled around lit braziers for shelter from the cold. This prompted many jokes about surrendering to the weather, with the Weasley twins going so far as to charm the flag of their carriage white. That had, of course, sparked a pranking war between the twins and some of the more creative amongst the French contingent. Quite how they’d managed to turn Fred’s hands into croissants and George’s into baguettes, no one quite knew.

Those from Durmstrang were made of sterner stuff, and barely seemed to notice the chill. Rumour had it that Viktor Krum went swimming in the lake every morning, despite the subzero temperature. His celebrity status meant that he was always top of the rumour mill; groups of Hogwarts girls - including Celeste and Rochelle - would giggle as he by them passed in the corridors. Even some of the boys were admirers of the quidditch star. Every now and then, a group of boys would approach him for signatures and to talk quidditch, but Krum wasn’t interested, dismissing them with short, curt replies.

The mystery of Ravenclaw’s secret room still eluded me. I went up there on every Friday, but the great metal eagle steadfastly refused to allow me access. I found a book in the library entitled ‘House of the Eagle: The Greatest Ravenclaw Alumni’ and started reading it in my spare time, hoping to discover what it took to be worthy, by learning about those who were. I used a tricky charm to disguise the cover as something more innocent; I would doubtless get weird looks if people knew what I was really reading.

On Friday afternoons, and the occasional Sunday, I met up with Rohit and Heather, my new friends in Hufflepuff. Jake often joined me - he had been tutored with the two before going to Hogwarts, but had fallen out of touch since. Heather would bombard me with questions about the muggle world, and be mindblown by the answers; Rohit would watch with a wry grin, dealing out cards for exploding rummy. The two were such great fun to be around that I wished I’d befriended them two years ago.

Apart from that, I spent a lot of time in the library. The peaceful quiet in the room made it the perfect environment to read or do homework - as much as I loved the Gryffindor common room, it was usually too loud in there to really focus on anything. There was another reason I liked the library so much. Tucked away in a secluded corner, between two shelves of books on goblin rebellions, was the perfect place to talk to Olivia. At least once a week, we’d meet up there to chat and help each other with homework. Olivia knew everything about astronomy, so I’d copy her artfully drawn star charts; meanwhile, she’d be looking through my History of Magic notes, as I was one of the few people who could actually pay attention to Binns. I found myself there with her one evening in early December.

Olivia looked up at me, grinning mirthfully.

“What?” I asked.

“Minister Polhorn,” she read from my notes. “Known for always eating, even during speeches - basically medieval Toby.”

“Got to make the subject interesting somehow,” I said, shrugging. “I didn’t’ know Toby’s reputation as a food lover spread to Slytherin.”

“Do you not remember that time he tried to eat in Potions?” Olivia asked.

A memory popped into my head. “First year, right?”

Olivia nodded, giggling. “Thirty points from Gryffindor,” she said in a poor imitation of Snape’s signature drawl.

“Toby didn’t mind,” I said, laughing. “He thought the muffin was ‘well worth it’.”

“It must have been a very impressive muffin,” Olivia said.

“Everything the house elves cook is impressive,” I pointed out.

“You’ve never had the pleasure of a real feast,” Olivia said. “The Hogwarts food is good, yes, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the food you get at society’s finest events.”

“For some reason, I never seem to get invited,” I said, rubbing my chin in false curiosity. “I think it might be my fashion sense.”

Olivia frowned, but then saw the joking gleam in my eyes and smiled. “Your shoes are an abomination.”

I looked down at my trainers, which were perfectly fine. “A comfy abomination.”

“Boys,” Olivia said, shaking her head.

We fell back into silence, other than the scratching of our quills. After a few minutes, Olivia set her quill down on the table.

“I’m going to take a book out,” she said, standing up. “Would you watch my things?”

“Why, are they gonna do a trick?” I said.

Olivia rolled her eyes and walked off into the maze of bookshelves. Without realising I was doing it, I watched her go.

The Slytherin girl had been a source of increasing confusion for me. When she smiled at me, I felt butterflies in my stomach; when she laughed, I couldn’t help but laugh too; and on those rare times when she kissed me on the cheek, my face was transfigured into a glowing red tomato. I could never resist sneaking looks at her, at her cute button nose, bright green eyes, and long shiny hair. I didn’t know a lot about girls or puberty or romance, but I couldn’t deny the obvious anymore. I had a crush on her. The question was, did she have a crush on me?

I was snapped out of my thoughts by Olivia’s return. She dropped a large tome onto the table and sat back down.

“That book is so heavy,” she complained.

“Of course,” I said. “It’s bigger than you are.”

She giggled, and butterflies took flight in my stomach.

Yeah, I definitely had a crush.

<^>

After months of dominance, the Triwizard Tournament had been unseated at the top of the Hogwarts rumour mill - kind of. The professors had announced the Yule Ball, a traditional formal dance held on Christmas Day to accompany the Triwizard Tournament, and it had rapidly become the talk of the school. Rumours abounded about who would be asking who, and who would be rejecting who.

I had briefly considering asking Olivia - very briefly - before realising that doing so would be a terrible idea. For starters, she might not even like me as more than a friend. Even if she was interested in me, there was no way we’d be able to go on a public date, what with the house rivalry and my ‘promise’ to Jake that I wouldn’t meet with her anymore. And then it had been announced that the Ball was for fourth years and above only, although younger students could go if they were invited by an older student. To put it bluntly, there was absolutely no way asking Olivia could have ever worked.

When Professor McGonagall circulated the sign-up sheet to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas, name after name was written down on it, far more than I’d ever seen before. Most students wanted to stay at Hogwarts to attend the Ball. I couldn’t attend anyway, and I wasn’t even sure I’d have wanted to, so I shook my head when offered the sheet. I was going home for Christmas and seeing my parents again. I was getting used to being away from them for months on end, and I wasn’t nearly as homesick as I had been in my first year - but I still missed them like hell. What boy wouldn’t?

The days ticked on by, and the snow piled up high. Poor Dennis Creevey was submerged up to his waist whenever he went outside, and had to half-walk, half-swim through the snow. Colin was almost as short as his little brother, and he struggled to. That aside, however, the snowfall was proving to be great fun. I’d always loved snowball fights in the Muggle world, but magical snowball fights were on a whole other level. Every day after lessons, students would flood out onto the grounds to take part in all-out winter warfare. The older students initially scoffed at us kids, but eventually some of them - mostly Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs - caved and joined us. With waves of their wands and utterances of magic words, they created huge snow-castles, and sent blizzards snowballs crashing down on each others’ fortifications.

On the last day before the holidays began, an international incident sparked the reignition of the Hundred Years’ War. The pranking war between the Weasley twins and a handful of the Beauxbatons students had turned into a snowball fight between them, and Hogwarts students had rushed to aid the Gryffindor pranksters. Soon, the Beauxbatons team had become outnumbered, and sent an envoy to the Durmstrang ship to request their aid. Most of them remained on their ship, but a few flew out of brooms to join the fun. Us younger students could only watch in awe as advanced magic met kids chucking around snow.

After an enjoyable afternoon of snowball fighting, Jake, Rohit, Heather and I headed back into the castle, shivering and grinning in equal measure.

“I could really do with a warm cup of tea right now,” Rohit said, pulling his cloak closer around himself.

“Oooh, me as well!” Heather said.

“Let’s go to the kitchens,” I suggested. “The house elves’ll be happy to help us, they always are.”

“You can go into the kitchens!?” Heather cried, her face lighting up. “That is so so so cool!”

“You didn’t know? Oh, you’re in for a treat!” I said. “This way.”

“This isn’t a great idea,” Rohit said drily. “Once Heather’s in there, we’ll never get her out again.”

Jake and I laughed.

“Just tell her there’s a fluffy animal outside,” I suggested.

“A niffler,” Jake added. “She kept asking me to get her a pet niffler for Christmas, back when we were five.”

“I still want one,” Heather said. “Hint hint.”

“No way,” Rohit said. “One hyper, hairy creature rampaging around the common room is enough.”

Heather’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll get your for that, Mr. Das.”

“The brave Gryffindors will protect me. Right, lads?” Rohit looked at Jake and I.

I took one look at the murderous expression on Heather’s face and shook my head. “I don’t think we can, actually…”

“Gryffindor rules, you see,” Jake said. “You’re on your own, mate.”

I put a hand on Rohit’s shoulder in false sympathy. “We’ll leave some flowers at your grave.”

“I won’t leave anything to bury,” Heather declared.

“Remind me not to get on Heather’s bad side,” I said in a stage whisper.

“Did you see her face when you mentioned the kitchens? She owes you a life-debt now,” Jake said.

“Only if the kitchens are as good as I hope!” Heather pointed out, her faux-anger at Rohit forgotten in an instant.

“Trust me, they will be.”

We arrived at the kitchens shortly afterwards. Heather looked as though she might explode from happiness, and Rohit’s jaw dropped. I grinned, memories of my first time in the Hogwarts kitchens rising to my mind. I had been just as impressed.

Before long, we were sitting around a hearth in the middle of the room, sipping tea and eating cake. The house elves had really outdone themselves this time; my tea was exactly how I liked it, and the carrot cake was excellent. Jake suggested that we defect to Hufflepuff or Slytherin, just to be closer to the kitchens, and Rohit informed us that there was spare beds in the third year Hufflepuff boys’ dorm.

Jake glanced at the clock, and then stood up. “We need to go and pack.”

I looked at the clock. “Bloody hell!”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “See you after the hols, Rohit, Heather.”

We parted ways with the Hufflepuffs. I shook hands with Rohit; Heather waved at me from the other side of the room, where she was slipping cakes into her bag.

“Don’t forget the Trump Top thingies!” she shouted.

“Top Trumps,” I corrected.

“Whatever. Bye!”

“Bye!”

Jake and I hurried up through the castle, back to the Gryffindor common room. We weren’t the only ones who had lost track of time and left our packing late; Jamie and Colin were hurrying about the room, dumping their stuff into their suitcases. Toby was sitting with his feet up on his closed suitcase, looking very smug. I got to work packing, finishing just in time for the feast.

“We had too much cake,” Jake said to me, as we struggled to finish our meals.

Toby’s head snapped up. “You had cake? When?”

I laughed. “We should really introduce you to Heather.”

<^>

Author's Notes: Late again, I know! I'm sorry about that. Once you lose momentum, it's hard to pick it up again. Hopefully we'll be back to normal with the next chapter. Anyway... More Malivia/Oatt/whatever you kids are calling it these days! More Hufflepuffs!

The analytics will be back with the next chapter.

Please upvote to show your support, and to make me smile. Thanks for reading!

Edit: Forgot to ask last night - would you lot like me to write a chapter for the Christmas holiday, or just skip straight to January, with a brief overview of the holiday (two/three paragraphs)?