10 CHAPTER TEN - Christmas Funny Business

Months passed, and neither of them got anywhere. Soon, it was Christmas, and both Nicolas Flamel and "T.M.R." remained a mystery.

Hogwarts was covered in a thick blanket of snow. Attuoria's eagle, Eylense, who was not used to cold habitats, found home at Hagrid's hut.

Attuoria marvelled at the sight of snow, which she had never seen before. Her friends were confused, since Romania often snowed in the winter. They were even more confused when they found out that Attuoria didn't own any winter clothes. She didn't own mittens, sweaters or anything warm.

When her friends confronted her about it, she ended up making up a random story that because she didn't have parents, a lot of her items were borrowed from the orphanage, and she had spent her winters "hibernating" in there. She told them that this was the first time she was actually enjoying winter rather than hiding from it, which was true in some ways.

Hermione and the girls in the Gryffindor dorm let her borrow some of their clothes, which Attuoria was very thankful for. After all, winter at Hogwarts was very cold.

But even so, every time she went out, Attuoria would take off her mittens just to scoop up a handful of snow. She formed them into balls as she had seen other students do, but usually threw them back onto the ground unless someone else threw snowballs at her first. Then there would be a snowball fight.

The Weasley twins noticed Attuoria's strange behaviour around snow. They didn't question it, and instead told her about their plan to bewitch some snowballs to follow Quirrell around and rapidly hit the back of his head.

Attuoria, who found Quirrell to be very suspicious and unsettling, agreed immediately. If she could make eye contact with Quirrell and read his mind while he is getting hit by these snowballs, perhaps she could overhear a reaction involving that foreign voice in his mind. She couldn't shake off the uneasy feeling she got everytime she thought of the unrecognisable voice inside Quirrell's head. How could someone have two different minds in the same body?

So one lovely morning late December, Attuoria met up with the Weasley twins in the common room and they set off to the courtyard. It was a weekday, meaning they still had class, so they woke up very early. When Attuoria asked them why Thursday, they said that it would be funnier if the snowballs chased Quirrell during class.

They made two snowballs each, George put a charm on them so that they wouldn't melt, and then brought them back into the castle.

"Alright, now we've got to look unsuspicious." said Fred. The three of them were sitting at the Great Hall together, the snowballs hidden underneath their robes. They were discussing the plan of attack. This was the first morning where Attuoria had not sat with Harry, Ron or Hermione.

But sitting there with Fred and George, she felt excited for the first time. Another human emotion. She didn't expect to experience excitement from playing a prank on Professor Quirrell, but she liked it.

"Attuoria, you've got Defense Against the Dark Arts first period. At exactly half past nine, ask to use the bathroom. We'll be waiting outside. Then we take out the snowballs, cast the charm, and you go back to class and enjoy the show." Fred said in a hushed voice.

"Actually, to make it less suspicious, you get back into class first, and then we cast the charm. That way you can watch the snowballs fly in, and Quirrell won't think you did it." George added, clearly thinking through the plan.

"That sounds perfect," said Attuoria. The plan would allow her time to secure eye contact with Quirrell before he got hit with the snowballs, and then she could read his thoughts.

"And here," said George, taking off his wristwatch. "Use this to check the time."

"Hey! I wanted to give her mine!" Fred complained, trying to snatch George's wristwatch out of Attuoria's hand.

Attuoria, not taking the hint, said, "Why? Aren't they the same?"

The twins laughed, but not in a mean way.

"Fred just wants-"

"Shut up, George!" Fred laughed, reaching across the table and shoving a piece of bread into his twin's mouth, which stopped him from speaking.

Attuoria smiled slightly at their brotherly relationship as they continued to joke around, with George now trying to shove a spoonful of scrambled eggs down Fred's sweater.

Attuoria sat in Professor Quirrell's class, listening to his stutters echo around the classroom. She could tell people around her were falling asleep, as they usually were during Defense Against the Dark Arts. If she had a sense of sleepiness, she was pretty sure she'd have fallen asleep, too.

But today was different. She constantly checked the time on George's wristwatch, which was wrapped around her right wrist. It was nine twenty-seven. Three minutes until she had to ask to go to the bathroom.

She ran through her mind how she was going to make sure to get eye contact with Quirrell when she re-enters the classroom. She noticed that Dean had his leg stuck out the side of his desk. Her plan was to come back inside, walk by Dean's table, pretend to trip and hit Seamus' table. And since Seamus was half-asleep, the table will probably jerk forwards and hit the back of Neville's seat, which is sure to create a bit of a racket. By then, Quirrell should've turned around to check out what was happening, and then Attuoria can apologise and force him to make eye contact.

Attuoria flicked her gaze back onto the wristwatch. Nine twenty-nine. She raised her hand and waited for Quirrell to call on her.

"M-Miss Knight?" Professor Quirrell said, standing stiffly behind his desk.

"May I go to the bathroom?"

"Y-Yes, of c-course," Quirrel answered with a nod, and Attuoria left the classroom.

Just as they promised, Fred and George were standing outside.

"How's class?" Fred asked.

"Everyone is basically asleep," said Attuoria with a shrug. The twins laughed, then took out the snowballs from their pockets. Attuoria took hers out as well, and they placed them on the ground near the door to the classroom.

"Okay, final runthrough," said Fred. "You head back to class, and I'll take a quick peek at Quirrell so that I can set him as the target. We'll give you around five to ten seconds before the snowballs come flying in. Sounds good?"

Attuoria nodded. She was about to head back in when she remembered she still had George's watch. She returned it to him, which took a minute or two as she had secured it on her wrist incorrectly and somehow jammed the clasp. When it finally came off, she went back into the classroom.

As she expected, Quirrell didn't turn to look at her. So she headed towards Dean's table, purposely walked straight into his leg, fell forwards, pushed Seamus' table out, which hit Neville and caused his books to fall onto the ground. The loud clamour immediately caught Quirrell's attention and he turned around, just in time to look straight at Attuoria, who had straightened back up after the "fall".

"Sorry Professor," Attuoria apologised before quickly returning to her seat. Quirrell didn't say anything and returned to his teachings. But now, Attuoria could hear his thoughts.

"Clumsy girl," she heard him think. "Now I've forgotten what I was saying."

Just then, a whizzing sound came from the classroom door and everyone turned around to see six snowballs zoom into the classroom straight towards Quirrell's head. As he was facing the blackboard, the snowballs barrelled into the back of his turban. Rather than exploding on impact like most snowballs, these snowballs stayed intact and simply rebounded off his head, just to hit him again.

The entire class burst into laughter, and even Attuoria couldn't help but giggle slightly. Professor Quirrell's expression was priceless. But the funniness of the situation was gone the moment she heard the foreign voice appear in his thoughts.

"Quirrell! What is that? Stop that immediately!" the voice hissed, sounding very angry.

"Sorry my lord, someone must've bewitched snowballs to hit us!" Quirrell's voice replied to that foreign voice.

"Get it to stop, now! Don't forget, that is my face getting hit!"

The last sentence from the foreign voice sent chills down Attuoria's spine. Face? There was a face underneath that turban? Was Quirrell hiding a person underneath it?

"I-I don't have the counter-"

"I DON'T CARE! MAKE. IT. STOP." The foreign voice roared. Immediately after she heard that thought from Quirrell's mind, the professor ran out of the classroom, the snowballs chasing him all the way.

Everyone was choking and coughing from laughter by now, but Attuoria sat in her seat with a frown. Quirrell was being ordered around by someone in his head, or perhaps, on the back of his head. He called the voice "my lord". Was this just a religious practise, or was there something else going on? The Professor's facade fooled everyone else, but not Attuoria. Whatever it was, something was definitely off, and Attuoria knew she was the only one who could tell.

Unfortunately, the Weasley twins got caught when Quirrell found them laughing in the corridor right outside the classroom. After a good chase, the twins were forced to take off the charm, and Professor McGonagall gave them a week's worth of detention. They didn't tattle on Attuoria, which she was thankful for, although she wouldn't have minded spending more time with the twins even if it was detention.

As Christmas neared, the topic of going home for the holidays became quite popular. Professor McGonagall went around making a list of students who would be staying for the holidays, and both Harry and Attuoria signed up at once. What surprised them was that the Weasleys also signed up. Apparently their parents were heading to Romania to visit Charlie. They offered to bring Attuoria with them, but she declined, knowing very well that she'd rather be at Hogwarts.

On the last day before Christmas, Attuoria, Harry, Ron and Hermione spent their time at the library again. Madam Pince, the librarian, was starting to get annoyed at the kids for coming in and seemingly doing nothing except wandering between the shelves. After Harry approached a bit too close to the Restricted Section of the library, Madam Pince shooed all four of them out, and their search for that day ended.

They all made a mutual agreement to continue the search over the holidays, and then Hermione left. But with the main brains of the group gone, Harry and Ron completely forgot about Nicolas Flamel while Attuoria put all her attention on finding T.M.R. (even though she knew she wasn't getting anywhere).

Ron tried teaching Harry and Attuoria to play wizard chess. But after Attuoria kept cheating by reading Ron's mind and "predicting" his next move, he refused to play with Attuoria anymore, and only let Harry play because Harry was absolutely terrible at it. Attuoria called Ron a sore loser but didn't really mind not playing chess, because she preferred to be reading books.

On Christmas Eve, Attuoria woke up alone in the dorm. It was lonely and quiet, but Attuoria enjoyed it. She finally had some peace with her thoughts.

Last night she stayed up very late just thinking about her journey so far in the mortal realm. What started as a quest to meet "T.M.R." and find out more about humans was slowly turning into a life that she enjoyed.

For the first time in her century-long existence, she was having fun. As far as she knew, she might be the only Nightmare demon to ever have had fun. Attuoria wasn't sure if she was happy, but she knew that she was definitely happier down in the mortal realm than in the spiritual dimension. After all, the spiritual dimension is completely void of emotions.

She debated on whether or not to head downstairs. Christmas was the season of gift giving, and she didn't exactly have anyone to give her gifts. Neither did she give anyone else a gift.

But knowing Harry and Ron would be down at the Christmas tree in the common room, she made her way downstairs.

"Attuoria! Happy Christmas!" Harry and Ron chortled once they saw Attuoria appear from the staircase.

"Happy Christmas to you, too!" Attuoria said with a smile on her face.

"Have you seen your presents yet?"

"Oh no, I don't have presents."

"Yes you do," said Harry, picking up a few packages from under the Christmas tree. "Your name's on it."

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

Attuoria rushed down the last few steps and ran to the Christmas tree. Harry handed her the packages, and she immediately sat down on the carpet to open them up.

The first one was a brown parcel with writing on it that said To Atoria (sorry), from Hagrid. Inside was a thin, leather beaded necklace with a long white-brown feather at the end. It was a feather from Eylense's wing. Attuoria put it on, admiring how it looked.

The second one was a large, lumpy parcel.

"My mom made you a jumper." Ron blurted out, looking a little pink. He held up a maroon sweater with the letter "W" on it, while Harry held up an emerald green one.

"Tell her I said thank you," Attuoria said, carefully unfolding the package. It was a light greyish-blue knitted sweater with a navy blue letter A sewn on the front. She pulled it over her head, marvelling at how soft and comfy it was. Underneath the sweater was a box of homemade Moldovan cookies, a traditional Romanian dessert.

The next one was a book from Hermione, The Tales of Beedle the Bard by Beedle the Bard. Ron was surprised when he saw the book.

"That's a book of children's stories," said Ron, looking confused. "Mum used to make me read them to Ginny. I did enjoy scaring her."

Attuoria glanced at the book and shrugged. If it was a book, she was going to read it, child story or not.

"Hey Harry, show her your cloak." Ron said, pointing over at a silvery-grey material lying on the couch.

"Oh, yeah!" Harry picked up the cloak and wrapped it around his. His body disappeared. However Attuoria noticed an emerald green glow around where his body was previously.

"He's invisible!" Ron said happily, pointing at Harry.

Attuoria frowned. "You're glowing."

"I am?" Harry looked down at himself. "No I'm not."

"Yes, you're glowing green." Attuoria repeated.

"No." Both Harry and Ron said.

Attuoria shook her head. "Put your hand up in some weird position that I won't be able to guess. I won't read your mind. I'll high-five you."

Harry frowned but obeyed. Attuoria watched as the green glow in the shape of his hand moved up over his head, then it angled slightly down. His palms were facing down over his head.

Attuoria stood up and walked towards Harry. She was slightly taller than him, and had no problem reaching his hand and high-fiving it from underneath.

Harry gasped, immediately retracting his hand. "You can actually see?"

Attuoria nodded.

"Can you?" he asked Ron. Ron shook his head.

"Maybe it's just me. Just like how I can read people's minds." said Attuoria with a shrug.

"You're bloody weird."

"Thanks Ron."

Suddenly, the door to the common room flung open and Fred and George bounded in from their dorms. Harry quickly threw the cloak behind one of the arm chairs, hiding it from sight.

"Merry Christmas!" The twins called happily, flinging themselves onto the armchairs next to them. "Hey look - Harry and Attuoria both got Weasley jumpers, too!"

"Would you look at that, Attuoria's one is blue-ish, like ours!" Fred exclaimed, pointing at the jumper in front of Attuoria while nudging George. The twins were wearing blue jumpers with a large yellow letter on it, F for Fred and G for George.

"Theirs are better than ours, though, she obviously makes more of an effort if you're not family." said Fred, reaching over to grab Harry's green jumper.

"Why aren't you wearing yours, Ron?" George demanded. "Come on, get it on, they're lovely and warm."

"I hate maroon," Ron moaned, unwillingly pulling it over his head.

"You haven't got a letter on yours," George observed. "I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid - we know we're called Gred and Forge."

Attuoria giggled at George's sentence. The twins' humor was one thing she actually found funny.

"Ron, your sweater is inside out." she pointed out.

***

What Attuoria had envisioned for a Christmas dinner was nothing like the actual Christmas dinner that night in the Great Hall.

First of all, Attuoria was extremely confused as to why Christmas dinner was at two in the afternoon. It's more of a lunch than dinner. Why don't humans just call it "Christmas lunch"?

Apart from that, the amount of food shocked her. The tables were absolutely loaded with all kinds of food, including roast turkeys, boiled potatoes, peas, gravy, and a lot of things that Attuoria couldn't even recognise. Wizard crackers were littered all along the table, spicing up the decorations with bits of silver and blue.

Before Attuoria could even figure out what she wanted to eat first, the twins had already piled up a bunch of foods on her plate that they said she just had to try. They heard other people say that Attuoria had to live off of the orphanage back in Romania, and were suddenly very wary of making sure she ate as much as she could.

Attuoria didn't complain. Some part of this semi-human heart of hers felt warm at the thought that there were two older-brother figures that cared about her the same way she cared about her friends. It was almost like she had a family.

The Professors were clearly having fun at their table as well, drinking and eating and acting nothing like their usual serious selves. Even Professor McGonagall was giggling and smiling. Probably the wine's doing.

After everyone at Attuoria's table was full from the meal, they started pulling at the wizard crackers. Blue smoke filled the air, accompanied by the sounds of a cannon blasting. Attuoria couldn't even remember how many they pulled altogether, but soon the blue cloud of smoke was so dense that she couldn't even see Harry from across the table.

By the time they left the table, everyone was wearing a new hat, with their arms full of items that came out of the crackers. Attuoria had a long curvy top hat forcefully pressed on her head by the Weasley twins. Fred was wearing an upside-down stuffed frog hat, while George had on a bright pink, extremely wide brimmed floral church hat. They laughed at each other as they headed back to the common room.

After the food in their system had gone down a bit, the Weasley twins proposed they have a snowball fight. Attuoria, Harry, Ron, Fred, and George ran out onto the snowy grounds and battled furiously.

Attuoria had surprisingly good aim, and managed to hit everyone in the face at least twice. The four boys, having each eaten mouthfuls of snow, teamed up against Attuoria and started battering her with snowballs. Attuoria screamed for the first time in her life, but it was a good scream. A scream of joy. She was happy and having fun.

They spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in the common room, looking through their gifts from the Christmas crackers, eating afternoon tea, and joking around.

While Harry and Ron played chess (with Percy nagging Harry and giving him bad advice), Attuoria sat next to the fire with Fred and George.

They experimented with a temporary-live-tattoo kit from the wizard cracker, and managed to get a magpie tattoo onto Fred's arm. But because it was a "live tattoo", the magpie somehow flew off of Fred's arm and onto George's arm, which then appeared on the back of Attuoria's hand.

Even after Ron and Harry went to sleep, Attuoria sat in the common room with the Weasley twins. They were teaching her some harmless little charms when the subject of conversation changed.

"George and I have always wondered if we could make a living off of making joke products." said Fred suddenly. "You know, like Zonko's joke shop, but better."

"Zonko's is a place at Hogsmeade, a nearby village from here. You'll get to go in your third year." George added quickly, answering Attuoria's question

Attuoria just nodded. When she didn't say anything, Fred continued.

"We've been trying to make stuff for a while. Mainly for pranks, though. We thought about making some more powerful things, maybe like a temporary mind-reader so you can listen to someone's thoughts for a while, but it seems like a bit of a stretch." Fred said casually, eying Attuoria.

Attuoria had no idea what to say to that. It didn't relate to her in any way. Well, apart from the mind-reading part.

The twins stared at her silently. When she didn't respond at all, George finally blurted out, "Ron said you're a Legilimens. And you're born with it."

Attuoria immediately denied it.

"Oh come on, we won't judge you. We think it's cool!" Fred chimed, while George nodded eagerly. "Show us that you can do it!"

Attuoria glanced at Fred, who looked genuinely curious and interested. She really did like the twins, and enjoyed being around them. They have been nothing but nice to her ever since she met them. She figured she could trust them.

"Okay," she agreed. "But you have to promise not to tell anybody else, not even other people in your family."

"We promise."

"So how do you want me to prove it?"

"Read my thoughts right now." said Fred.

The two of them stared at each other, and Attuoria entered his mind.

"Oh shoot, I didn't think this through. If she can actually read my mind, then she can see everything, right? Damn it, I can't let her know how I really feel about her, I mean, she's so cute not knowing what's going on. It's like she has absolutely no experience with being a kid at all - I'm going off track again, she might be reading this right now. Think bananas. Bananas. Bananas bananas. I should've made George do this. Actually, if she was reading George's mind, George would probably be thinking about my secrets and I don't think that would be good either, so-"

Attuoria broke off contact with his mind, feeling that she was invading his privacy a little too much.

"So?" said Fred nervously when she broke eye contact with him.

Attuoria gave him an awkward grin, knowing she'd just overheard something she shouldn't have.

"So, uh, how do you really feel about me?" she said, watching Fred's face glow bright red. George immediately burst into laughter, rolling backwards and slapping the ground.

"You're - so - dumb!" George yelled at his twin through laughter. "What were you thinking?" He cackled, clutching his stomach.

"No really, I don't get it. Why can't I know how you feel about me? Is it bad?" Attuoria asked, genuinely hoping for an answer. Did Fred dislike her? She thought they were friends.

Fred stared at her in shock, and George had also straightened up at this sentence.

"You're kidding," said George. Attuoria shook her head. "You really still have no idea?"

She shook her head again. "No idea about what?"

"Wow," Fred breathed, his face less red but still slightly pink. "You are really clueless."

"Is that… bad?"

"No, it's-"

"Cute?" Attuoria finished his sentence, thinking of how he thought she was cute not knowing what was going on.

Fred groaned and covered his face with his hands while George laughed and slapped him on the back. "How does she still have no idea?" She heard Fred mumbled to himself.

But honestly, she had no idea what Fred and George were talking about.

"Hey, maybe it's because of the way you grew up, you know?" George said, glancing at Attuoria sympathetically. "I'm guessing your childhood was quite different from ours."

Attuoria glanced down, trying to think of a story as quick as possible. With this no parents, orphanage story going around, everything had to add up.

"If by different you mean not having parents and spending most of my life wandering alone, I guess so." she said, knowing this would be a good explanation for why her human-emotions function was wonky.

"Well thank goodness you're different." Fred finally said, recovering from that temporary mental breakdown. "I think you're great, it's nothing bad about you, so don't worry."

"Thanks," Attuoria said with a smile.

They spent another hour or so just messing around with Attuoria's Legilimency until the Weasley twins were about to fall asleep. They insisted on staying and hanging out with Attuoria, but she insisted on them going to sleep as she knew she was literally never going to get sleepy. A Nightmare demon didn't need sleep.

Once she finally made the twins head back to their dorms, she returned to her own empty one and lay down on her bed. Today was probably the best day so far in the mortal realm. She didn't think much about anything, and spent the entire day just having fun and cracking jokes with her friends.

When she landed in the mortal realm, she thought she was on a mission. A mission to find "T.M.R.", and to discuss the future of humankind. But now, it wasn't just a mission.

She wanted to become human.