This chapter is dedicated to @RaymondLee137 for voting on EVERYTHING and to @sodacurtisisminie for commenting! Thanks for responding, I really love getting the little notifications and reading the comments from you guys. Anyways, on with the story!
~~
Harry woke up that morning like it was any other day. Except this morning, the dorm was much quieter than usual. Everyone, besides Harry and Ron, had gone home for holiday break. Harry because he definitely didn't want to face the Dursleys again, and Ron because he didn't want Harry to be alone.
"Psst! Harry! Wake up!" Ron had just woken up himself, having left open his curtains the night before. It was Christmas morning- why sleep in?
"Hmm?" Harry responded, turning over. He hadn't really celebrated Christmas before Hogwarts, and didn't agree with Ron's philosophy of not sleeping in.
"Come on, mate, we've got gifts!" Ron urged him, sitting up in bed and pulling out all the gifts he'd gotten this year.
"Okay," Harry relented, running a hand through his disastrous bedhead and sitting up in his own bed, which was only ten feet away from Ron's.
Soon both boys were tearing open their gifts eagerly, throwing the wrapping paper to the ground to be cleaned up later. Ron was the first to open his, and sighed disappointedly.
"I've got maroon jumper AND socks from mum! I swear she makes it maroon just to bug me.." He trailed off, holding up the offensively-coloured garments. Harry just laughed at his outrage, to which Ron ignored, "What'd you get?"
"Your mum sent me all sorts of stuff- I've got tons of food and a new sweater." Harry started, handing over half his mince pies to Ron. Ron accepted instantly, feeling slightly cheated out of the food.
The two boys munched on their pies in happy silence before deciding it best to get dressed and head to actual breakfast.
They met Hermione in the common room, and the trio chattered cheerily on their way to breakfast. Hermione had stayed behind this year mostly to stay with her friends, but also because her parents weren't doing anything this year to celebrate.
"How many people do you think are still here?" Harry asked right before they got into the dining hall.
"Not many," Ron commented as they walked in, seeing each table barely filled. They still had the house tables up, though it was barely any use with the minuscule crowd. The trio settled in at the Gryffindor table as always and started to eat even more.
The owls came in shortly after they sat down, some toting late packages and some just coming in from their journeys. Harry's eyes were drawn straight to Hedwig, who had enlisted the help of a regular carrier owl to carry a long package presumably for Harry.
"What's Hedwig carrying?" Hermione asked, pointing towards the snowy owl. Harry shrugged and grabbed the package from the two owls. It was roughly 5 feet long, and was wrapped in plain brown paper. Harry was instantly curious- what could it be? Who was it even from?
Unable to find a sender's name on the package, Harry decided to start tearing the paper and revealing his present.
"Who's it from?" Hermione asked as he started tearing it open.
Harry shrugged, "It doesn't say but look at this!" Harry almost squealed as he peaked at the high-quality broom he'd seen in a shop window what felt like a year ago.
"Is that a Firebolt?" Ron gasped from his seat next to Harry.
"Who got you a broom?" Hermione asked, still curious as to the sender.
Ron, however, had not a care towards the sender, "Malfoy! Wait till he sees you on this! This is an international standard broom, this is!"
"Slytherin won't know what hit them," Harry grinned, getting caught up in the moment as he admired the beautiful broom. He and Ron ran their hands over the new broom like excited fangirls, blatantly ignoring Hermione's questions.
This ignoring would lead to quite a lot of frustration and tension later on, but as most kids will do, they subconsciously decided to have to deal with all the stress later on.
~~
Okay I know this chapter is short, and that I haven't updated in a while, but there are valid reasons for that I swear.
This chapter is short really just because I suck at writing Hogwarts scenes. I'm not not Rowling-level with capturing all of that wonder and excitement so I usually try to avoid writing it.
I haven't updated mostly because I don't like writing these scenes, but also because I'm not 100% sure what I want to do with Sirius/ Olivia. IF ANYONE HAS ANY IDEAS PLS COMMENT
Anyway, please leave feedback, and I hope you enjoyed!