Christmas was coming. One morning in mid-December, Hogwarts woke to find itself covered in several feet of snow. The lake froze solid and the Weasley twins were punished for bewitching several snowballs so that they followed Quirrell around, bouncing off the back of his turban. Hari had been with them at the time, and the fact that she hadn't been punished only made the fact she couldn't do magic even more obvious. She'd helped them with several pranks, mostly just helping with the theory, as she couldn't due the execution. The best thing that they'd planned so far was that the moment the students stepped into the great hall for breakfast on the day they left, everything they wore for 24 hours would turn bright pink, even if they changed their outfit. This had been Hari's idea, and she was very proud of it.
"I do feel so sorry," said Draco Malfoy, the last potions class before they left, "for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they're not wanted at home." He looked pointedly at Hari. Malfoy had been even more unpleasant than usual since the Quidditch match. Disgusted that the Slytherins had lost, he had tried to get everyone laughing at how a wide-mouthed tree frog would be replacing Hari as Seeker next. Then he'd realized that nobody found this funny, because they were all so impressed at the way Hari had managed to stay on her bucking broomstick. So Malfoy, jealous and angry, had gone back to taunting Hari about having no proper family. At least he had said nothing about being deaf, dumb, and unable to do magic, she thanked him mentally for that.
It was true that Hari wasn't going back to Privet Drive for Christmas. Professor McGonagall had come around the week before, making a list of students who would be staying for the holidays, and Hari had signed up at once. She didn't feel sorry for herself at all; this would probably be the best Christmas she'd ever had. Ron, the twins, and Percy were staying, too, because Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were going to Romania to visit Charlie. At least she wouldn't be alone.... again.
The hall looked spectacular on the last day. Everyone would be leaving tomorrow. Festoons of holly and mistletoe hung all around the walls, and no less than twelve towering Christmas trees stood around the room, some sparkling with tiny icicles, some glittering with hundreds of candles. They had dinner, then read through some books that they'd gotten from the library, in the common room.
They had been searching books for Flamel's name ever since Hagrid had let it slip, because how else were they going to find out what Snape was trying to steal? The trouble was, it was very hard to know where to begin, not knowing what Flamel might have done to get himself into a book. He wasn't in Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century, or Notable Magical Names of Our Time ; he was missing, too, from Important Modern Magical Discoveries, and A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry. And then, of course, there was the sheer size of the library; tens of thousands of books; thousands of shelves; hundreds of narrow rows.
The next morning Fred, George and Hari woke early in order to be the first ones into the hall. They were, and Hari shivered as she felt the magic that was waiting just inside the door. At the beginning of the year she noticed that she was able to sense magic, and since then it had only grown stronger.
They stepped through the door and their robes turned bright pink. The twins dragged her over to the table, and they watched as everyone filed in, turning pink as they came. The looks on their faces were hilarious. Snape looked ridiculous, if looks could kill, the twins would be dead by now with the way he was glaring at them. However he had no proof it had been them, as they were also pink, so could do nothing.
Even funnier was the hopeful look and people's faces as the first few left the great hall, and how it disappeared when they realized they were still pink.
Once the holidays had started, the common room was far emptier than usual, so Hari, Ron and the twins 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... ect. Fred even tried to toast an enchanted cake that he'd gotten from somewhere, but was greatly disappointed when it exploded, covering him and Hari, who had been leaning in to see, with frosting.
Ron also started teaching Hari 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. 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.
Hari played with chessmen Seamus had lent her, and they didn't trust her at all. She wasn't a very good player yet and they kept trying to shout different bits of advice at her, which wasn't remotely helpful as she couldn't hear them.
On Christmas Eve, Hari went to bed looking forward to the next day for the food and the fun, but not expecting any presents at all. She was woken early in the morning by Ron.
"Merry Christmas," said Ron as he pulled Hari out of her bed, and down towards the common room. Hari nodded sleepily as she was dragged along.
Hari watched as Ron opened several presents before picking up the top parcel in her pile. She actually had presents! It was wrapped in thick brown paper and scrawled across it was To Hari, from Hagrid. Inside was a roughly cut wooden flute. Hagrid had obviously whittled it himself. Hari blew it uselessly -- according to Ron, it sounded a bit like an owl.
A second, very small parcel contained a note.
Enjoy freak school. Inside the package was a dirty sock.
"I think I know who that one's from," said Ron getting Hari's attention attention away from this, 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."
Hari had torn open the parcel to find a thick, hand-knitted sweater in emerald green with an H on the front, and a large box of homemade fudge.
"Every year she makes us a sweater," said Ron, unwrapping his own, "and mine's always maroon."
Hari tried the fudge, it was very tasty.
Her next present also contained candy -- a large box of Chocolate Frogs and muggle candy from Hermione.
This only left one parcel. Hari picked it up and felt it. It was very light. She unwrapped it.
Something fluid and silvery gray went slithering to the floor where it lay in gleaming folds. Ron almost fell over in shock
"I've heard of those," he said, dropping the box of Every Flavor Beans he'd gotten from Hermione. "If that's what I think it is -- they're really rare, and really valuable."
Hari picked the shining, silvery cloth off the floor. It was strange to the touch, like water woven into material.
"It's an invisibility cloak," said Ron, a look of awe on his face. "I'm sure it is -- try it on."
Hari threw the cloak around her shoulders.
"It is! Look down!"
Hari looked down at her feet, but they were gone. She dashed to the mirror. Sure enough, her reflection looked back at her, just her head suspended in midair, her body completely invisible. She pulled the cloak over her head and her reflection vanished completely.
Ron held a note out in front of Hari, "This fell out of it."
Hari pulled off the cloak and seized the letter. Written in narrow, loopy writing she had never seen before were the following words:
Your father left this in my possession before he died.
It is time it was returned to you.
Use it well.
A Very Merry Christmas to you.
There was no signature. Hari stared at the note. Ron was admiring the cloak.
"I'd give anything for one of these," he said. "Anything. What's the matter?"
Hari shook her head. She felt very strange. Who had sent the cloak? Had it really once belonged to her father?
Before she could say or think anything else, the twins bounded down the stairs.
"Merry Christmas!"
"Hey, look -- Harilee's got a Weasley sweater, too!"
Fred and George were wearing blue sweaters, one with a large yellow F on it, the other a G.
"Hariennes's is better than ours, though, less itchy" said Fred, holding up Harry's sweater. "She obviously makes more of an effort if you're not family."
"Why aren't you wearing yours, Ron?" George demanded. "Come on, get it on, they're lovely and warm."
"I hate maroon," Ron moaned halfheartedly then pulled it over his head.
"You haven't got a letter on yours," George observed to Ron. "I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid -- we know we're called Gred and Forge."
Fred looked at Hari's hand, "Is that an invisibility cloak?"
"It is!" George said.
Percy Weasley came down the stairs looking disapproving. Hari quickly stuffed the cloak out of sight. Percy, too, carried a lumpy sweater over his arm, which Fred seized.
"P for prefect!"
"Or Percy!"
"Or prat!"
"Get it on, Percy, come on, we're all wearing ours, even Haridenera got one."
The twins forced the sweater over his head, knocking his glasses askew.
Percy left, and Ron had to go to the bathroom, so Hari was left alone with the twins.
"Here," said Fred, handing her a package. "We had an idea, it.... can.... maybe..... well just unwrap it."
Hari unwrapped it to find a bag of dung bombs, some weird candy, and underneath it all, a textbook. Non-Verbal spells, a sixthyear's guide by Migria Dendem.
"Your amazing at theory, Haribelle so we thought maybe with this, you could learn to do magic."
She pulled them both into a hug, crying she was so happy, before signing, 'Thank you, it's perfect.'
She ran over to the tree and grabbed their present. Inside was a book on muggle practical jokes, and a package of muggle fireworks. She'd gotten Hermione to buy them, and mail them, then payed her back. The twins loved them.
At dinner the tables were covered with stacks of wizard crackers that were nothing like the feeble Muggle ones the Dursleys usually bought, with their little plastic toys and their flimsy paper hats inside. Hari pulled a wizard cracker with Fred which engulfed them all in a cloud of blue smoke, while from the inside exploded a rear admiral's hat and several live, white mice. When Hari finally left the table, she was laden down with a stack of things out of the crackers, including a pack of nonexplodable, luminous balloons, a Grow-Your-Own-Warts kit, and her own new wizard chess set. The white mice had disappeared and Hari had a nasty feeling they were going to end up as Mrs. Norris's Christmas dinner.
Hari and the Weasleys spent a happy next day having a furious snowball fight on the grounds. Then, cold, and wet, they returned to the fire in the Gryffindor common room, where Hari broke in her new chess set by losing spectacularly to Ron. She suspected she wouldn't have lost so badly if Percy hadn't tried to help her so much. Percy was rubbish at chess.
That night, Hari told herself, that night she would try out the cloak.