Christmas Time

The last term before the Christmas Holiday's ended and the Castle became silent as the majority of Students boarded the Hogwarts Express and drove off in direction of London. Instead of Gloomy, the Castle felt rather peacefully now without all the rumors about the Heir. The Snow on the grounds added to the feeling of Christmas and Winter and turned the area into a beautiful White Color.

Hermione and Matthew were the only two Ravenclaws left in the Tower, Luna told Matthew excited that she would visit Denmark with her father to look for Crumple-Horned Snorkack before she left. As for Cho, she would celebrate Christmas with her parents.

Since there were only Harry and the Weasleys in the Gryffindor Tower they invited Hermione and Matthew often to stay with them during the evenings. They played Exploding Snap and Wizarding Chess for hours until Matthew created a magical animated set of Monopoly with figures moving on voice command, animated buildings, cards, and board. Even with small fake Galleons, Sickles and Knuts.

Percy who until then often left the Tower because he disapproved of what he termed their childish behavior. He had already told them pompously that he was only staying over Christmas because it was his duty as a prefect to support the teachers during this troubled time. Joined them to play Monopoly as he seemed to enjoy the Game and its business-like rules very much.

During the mornings Matthew spent a lot of time studying the Time-turner inside his Trunk. His Magitek Drones meanwhile were almost finished sorting through the Room of hidden things. But unfortunately, they didn't find a lot of exciting stuff since the Time-turner. The most useful things were the notes of Students and Professors with exotic snippets of knowledge and treasures like jewelry, Currency, and so on dispersed all over the room.

Christmas morning dawned, cold and white. Matthew who was deeply asleep since they played until late in the Gryffindor Common Room got woken up very early by Hermione, who burst in, fully dressed and carrying

presents for him.

"Wake up," she said loudly, pulling back the curtains at the window.

"Morning Hermione." He replied sleepy, "And Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas to you too." She said as she threw his presents to him with a smile.

"How come you are waking me up today, especially this early?" he asked still sleepy.

"Well, it is Christmas! By the way, thank you for your present. I loved your introduction on the Subjects next year, I will make sure to read all your notes. But I will probably not attend to Divination and Muggle Studies, I will also try to make sure that Harry and Ron don't, since the Subjects are this bad. And the Potion is ready. Could you take a look at it before we use them? Just to be sure." She replied happily, he gifted her a nice collection of notes to all the Subjects in Hogwarts and an introduction to them. They were in an enchanted Notebook with a Search function he created himself and self-updating, connected to his notebooks to the subjects where he wrote the pieces of information down that he wanted to share.

"Oh so you want to do it tonight?" he asked now awake.

"Yes, it's the best opportunity after the Christmas Dinner nobody would expect anything." She explained.

"Mhh… but make sure you check whether you gathered Human Hairs. The only female Slytherin in the Castle is Millicent Bulstrode and she has a cat. Although I would enjoy seeing a Cat-girl Hermione I don't believe you would look that way." He teased jokingly.

At that comment she began to blush, "Yes I didn't forget your warning. The first hair I picked from her Cloak was indeed a Cat hair but now I got one of hers. You should get ready for Breakfast." She quickly explained before she left his room with a red flushed head.

After she left Matthew decided to open his Christmas Presents, as he hoped the others would like his Presents. For his father, he prepared a collection of magical Liquor and for his mom the best cosmetics in Diagon Alley. He gifted Harry enchanted Quidditch glasses for bad weather conditions and some sweets, for Ron also a collection of Sweet's. He pranked the Twins with his self-created color-changing gums, which turned the person who ate them into the Color of the Gum and some chili chocolate who made someone literally spew fire, it was also meant as his sales pitch to become a co-owner of their Joke Shop in the future. Ginny got some self-correcting feathers and sweets, for Percy his own set of enchanted Monopoly. He hadn't much connection to the both of them but it didn't hurt to be in the good graces of the Weasleys.

For Luna, he got a book about the platypus, since he was sure this was an animal she would love to discover and he was sure one of the Lovegood's next Holiday targets would be Australia. Cho was a completely different matter, what does someone gift to a person he went on some dates with. In the end, he decided to create something himself. He froze some crystal clean water of the Black Lake and transfigured it into a small ice eagle that looked like the Symbol of Ravenclaw and enchanted it to never melt. He put it onto a gold necklace he created with alchemy from some gold he found in the Room and enchanted it with some useful protective Charms. This would be probably a nice gift, maybe somewhat over the top.

He himself got mainly books for Christmas, from Hermione a Homework planner, and some Chocolate. From Luna he actually got a book about magical animals that he didn't know yet, he supposed it was from the Lovegood Library, they were after all also a pretty old family and must have some interesting books. From Cho, he got a framed photo that they took on their first Hogsmeade date together, some self-made Sweets. He also got a famous Weasley Sweater from Mrs. Weasley in Blue with a bronze-colored M on it.

Once he finished unpacking he joined the others on Breakfast, he decided to take the day off today and enjoyed Christmas with the others. Christmas Dinner at Hogwarts was as always enjoyable. There was no one who wouldn't like it. The Great hall was decorated with nice Christmas trees as always and the mood was generally good like every year.

After the Christmas dinner, he saw the golden trio off to their mission after confirming that their Potion was working. They succeeded in infiltrating the Slytherin Common Room with Polyjuice Potion. There were no mishaps this time of someone turning into a cat. In the end, they gained new valuable information for their investigation, although to especially Harry's and Ron's disappointment Malfoy wasn't the Heir of Slytherin and they had no idea who it was. But they found out that the Chamber of Secrets was already opened once in the past, but they had no idea by whom yet.

For Matthew, this was nothing new, but just a confirmation that everything went in his control. It wouldn't take long before he could begin to act to get the Horcrux and the Basilisk corpse. But for now, something else gained his attention. A day after Christmas and Operation Polyjuice he received a letter addressed to him from:

Tonks Solicitor Office in Diagon Alley

-----------------------------------------

For 10+ advanced Chapters check out my patre.on:

https://www.pat.reon.com/Arrowinmyknee