Christmas and the Marauder's Map (A Big Chapter, 4.8K)

Christmas wasn't anything special to Ezio, but this year's Christmas at Hogwarts seemed to be different.

It was the first time he'd ever received so many Christmas presents. When the students had left the school and the Christmas holidays began, Ezio opened his eyes that morning to find a huge pile of gifts that the House-elves had delivered silently during the night.

He was instantly on high alert.

"If those House-elves brought me a time bomb instead of presents, wouldn't I already be done for?"

Ezio was highly conscious of danger, and in that moment he thought of ten thousand ways to kill someone. Magic was convenient, but it also kept forcing him to revise what he knew.

After embracing magic, ordinary assassin's methods really did seem a little inadequate.

Anti-Apparition Jinxes and anti-Summoning Charms immediately went onto Ezio's list of must-learn subjects. He'd originally planned to deal with this kind of magic later, but now it looked like he'd have to move things up.

"So many presents!"

Harry's astonished cry came from beside him. He'd gone to bed early the night before and woken up earlier than he had in a while. Seeing the huge pile of presents by Ezio's bed, he couldn't help exclaiming.

"Looks like I've got a few, too." Harry leaned over to peek at the foot of his bed, where there was a small pile of presents.

"This is the first time I've ever gotten so many things for Christmas!" Although his pile couldn't compare to Ezio's little mountain, Harry was perfectly happy. "Draco and Blaise sent the biggest packages. And there are presents from my friends in the Duelling Club, Hermione and Hagrid, and even Professor Snape!"

Harry grinned to himself for a long while. He truly felt happy. At the Dursleys', he'd never received a decent Christmas present.

"They actually..." Harry looked at the present from his aunt and uncle. "Well, a fifty-pence coin." He hadn't been surprised by the result. "But what's this thing you sent me, Ezio... a Flying Broomstick?"

"That way, you won't have to buy one next year."

Ezio shrugged. Nimbus 2001 had just come out, so he'd picked one up for Harry as a present.

"That's amazing! Since it's the holidays, most of the professors aren't around. I can try it outside. It should be fine."

Harry clenched his fist, instantly excited. The old, battered brooms they used in Flying Class weren't enough to satisfy him.

"Now take a look at yours. You've got at least fifty or sixty packages here." After opening his own presents, Harry turned to Ezio, still curious.

"I think I'll give myself the day off. It is Christmas, after all."

Ezio threw off his covers and got out of bed, but the first present he opened nearly made him lose it.

"What kind of lousy Wizarding World is this? Who gives someone chocolates laced with Amortentia for Christmas?!"

Ezio rolled his eyes. If the culprit had signed the gift, he'd have sent them a letter with a curse on it, just to show them what cruelty really meant.

He knew all about Amortentia. He understood just how powerful this "Love Potion" was. To put it bluntly, it was a kind of Imperius Curse that couldn't be resisted by willpower. After drinking Amortentia someone had sent you, you would fall madly in love with them, without reservation, and become a slave to their "love."

If capitalists knew about this stuff, they'd be pouring it down everyone's throat.

"I really don't get it. This stuff is clearly even more evil than the Imperius Curse. Why doesn't the Ministry of Magic ban it? Are all wizards out of their minds?"

Harry's mouth twitched. He hadn't thought anyone would pull something like that.

"Maybe you're just really popular with witches?"

"They'll do anything to get my 'love'?" Ezio tossed the poisoned chocolates aside. There were bound to be more gifts like this, and he could destroy them all at once later. "That's pretty barbaric. It's like watching cavemen knock someone out with a club and drag them away."

"Fake presents with curses on them, too? Too bad that sort of trick won't work on me."

Ezio quickly sorted through the mountain of presents, tossing aside all the ones that carried malice. What disappointed him was that none of the idiots had signed their gifts. He could probably follow the trail and identify the culprit if he took the time to investigate and ask the House-elves, but he couldn't be bothered. He wouldn't waste his time on things like this. Until they posed a real threat to him, he would ignore these little tricks.

There were sixty-seven presents in all, and a full forty-three of them were ill-intentioned or came with some kind of ulterior motive. The rest were proper gifts, most of them sent by Slytherin students. Some people in the house didn't like him, but others were well-disposed toward him.

"A magic tent? Harry, how did you think of giving me this?"

Ezio was a little taken aback after opening Harry's large package.

"You like practical things. I thought about it, and if you ever offend too many people and have to hide out in the wilderness, this would come in handy."

Harry had put a lot of effort into choosing Ezio's gift. This tent seemed like the best option to him.

"I'll try not to end up homeless." Ezio couldn't help laughing, but he had to admit that Harry's tent was pretty useful. "Thanks. I think I'll get some use out of it, though I hope it'll be for a vacation or something rather than hiding out in the mountains."

He opened up the one-person tent and peered inside. Well, Harry really didn't hold back. After inheriting his parents' fortune, Harry definitely counted as rich in the Wizarding World. This tent had to be worth at least a thousand Galleons. It had four rooms and a living room, plus a kitchen. It could easily serve as Ezio's mobile base in the future. It was far more comfortable than sleeping in a hotel, though it still needed a few protective enchantments. Once he'd finished learning Runes and could start studying Alchemy, he'd be able to work on modifying the tent.

"By the way, Ezio, Professor Snape gave me a bottle of potion. Do you know what it is?"

As they got ready to change and go out, Harry held up a potion bottle containing about a hundred milliliters and asked Ezio.

"Felix Felicis." Ezio's mouth twitched. It had been among the things he'd traded with Snape before. "Professor Snape sure is generous. A little bottle like that costs at least ten thousand Galleons just in ingredients. Even with all the ridiculously expensive ingredients assembled, very few Potions Masters can brew it successfully. As far as I know, only two people in England can make it: Snape and the former head of Slytherin, his teacher, the Potions Master Horace Slughorn."

"It's that valuable?" Harry asked in surprise. "Then should I..."

"Just keep it. I wouldn't be surprised if he sent you a bottle of Felix Felicis every year. He practically treats you like his son."

"Does he?" Harry thought about it. "Professor Snape is pretty good to me, though. I guess he really was a good friend of my mum's."

"Want me to give you some of mine? I read that you can't drink too much Felix Felicis. Ten milliliters is the most you can take at once, and you have to wait at least a year between doses. I might not use this much in my whole life."

"It doesn't expire, anyway. We can always save it as a family heirloom." Ezio rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a nearly identical little gold bottle. "I already made a deal with Snape once, so I've got enough. I paid for the ingredients myself, and he charged me two gold bars. Snape really is a piece of work."

Watching Snape so smoothly pass off something he'd gotten from someone else had left even Ezio, usually so easygoing, grinding his teeth with anger. But there was nothing he could do. When it came to brewing top-tier potions, Snape had Ezio completely at his mercy, because those ingredients were the best of the best and couldn't be bought for any amount of money.

Harry stuck out his tongue at that. He also thought Snape's little trick of getting something for nothing was a bit much. Ten thousand Galleons was no small sum, even for a rich boy like him with a mountain of gold in his vault.

"I'm not short on money. If I wanted to, I could get my hands on a million Galleons or so without much trouble." Ezio waved a hand. If he converted the money in his anonymous accounts into gold, he could probably buy two cubic meters of solid gold. He was a bona fide billionaire. Even if Giovanni hadn't left him an inheritance, Ezio could have found a way to get his hands on a huge amount of money in no time.

"I don't care how much Snape makes in fees, as long as he's willing to supply me with these potions."

"Maybe I can help with that when the time comes?" Harry understood what Ezio meant and grinned.

Snape, who had no idea about any of this, had also gotten up early. He opened the wardrobe that was carefully protected and looked at the half-photograph stuck to the inside of its door. A deep, undying longing flickered in his eyes.

"Merry Christmas, Lily."

He mouthed the words silently, remembering the Christmas more than ten years ago once again. But this time, he couldn't unwrap that special present at the foot of his bed.

Not many people stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas, and even fewer of the young students from pure-blood wizard families remained. But, to their surprise, they ran into several of the Weasley brothers in the Great Hall.

"You didn't go home?" Harry knew the Weasley Twins fairly well. For one thing, they'd helped him on the train at the beginning of the school year. For another, the Weasley Twins had joined Gryffindor's Duelling Club. Their reasons for joining weren't entirely pure, though. They'd come to make money. Whenever Slytherin and Gryffindor students went up to duel, the twins would take bets on the sidelines and make a tidy profit.

"Mum and Dad went to Romania to see Charlie. He's working as a Dragon Keeper over there. It's a dangerous job." Fred shrugged, and George continued, "They were worried Charlie wouldn't be able to handle it, so they went to check on him. That means we're stuck at school."

The four house tables were gone. With so few people around, there was only one long table in the Great Hall, and even that wasn't full. Fred sat opposite Harry, with George and Percy beside him. Their youngest brother, Ron, was at the far end, happily tucking into a chicken leg in each hand.

"Dragon Keeper? That sounds like a really cool job. Hagrid's always dreamed of raising a dragon, but I don't think they grow in the woods around Hogwarts."

"That's probably Hagrid's biggest regret." The twins knew Hagrid well, too, though in their case "well" meant that he'd chased them out of the Forbidden Forest at a dead run.

"Maybe one will show up someday. There are plenty of dragons in the Wizarding World, aren't there?"

Ezio knew that, if nothing unexpected happened, a dragon would soon be growing in Hagrid's Hut. But Harry and Hagrid's handling of it in the original story had been too rough. Ezio was looking forward to the day. After all, he and Hagrid were friends, and Hagrid had looked after him a lot. He'd even brought Ezio plenty of magical ingredients from the Forbidden Forest, and by the sackful, too. A dozen barrels of whisky wouldn't have been enough to buy so much.

"Wow, isn't this our Slytherin king—His Exalted Highness Ezio?"

The twins spoke with exaggerated flourishes, grinning all the while.

"If you two transferred to Slytherin, Professor McGonagall might actually approve."

"We'll pass." They both shook their heads in unison. "If we did that, we'd be torn to pieces when we got home. But honestly, Slytherin's pretty good these days. At least you got rid of that gorilla, Marcus. Playing Quidditch against Slytherin now feels a lot more like playing Quidditch than it used to."

As the best Beater duo on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, the Weasley Twins felt the changes on the Quidditch Pitch more keenly and understood better than most how much Slytherin had changed over the past few months. The Slytherin team was a little weaker than before, but win or lose, they at least carried themselves with some dignity now.

"I heard you two are a little short on money?"

Since he'd run into the twins, Ezio figured he might as well take care of the matter he'd put off earlier. He had a good impression of them. They were clever, but they weren't very interested in studying. Instead, they liked to research the things that interested them.

At that, the twins looked at Ezio in surprise. They were short on money. They needed a large sum to do something they really wanted to do.

"I heard you two are the best-informed people at Hogwarts, so I have a deal to offer. Are you interested?"

"How big a deal?" the twins asked, their expressions serious.

"That depends on how much valuable information you can provide."

"Maybe we can talk about it in a bit."

The twins understood each other without needing to exchange a glance, so they nodded readily.

After they'd finished their meal, they followed Ezio into an empty classroom off the corridor outside the Great Hall.

"Go ahead. What do you want to know? Hogwarts has plenty of secrets. We can't say we know everything, but we know a lot that other people don't."

"Like secret passages?"

"Of course!" the twins said confidently. "We know a bunch of secret passages even Filch doesn't know about. Some lead to Hogsmeade. If you want to order some Hogsmeade specialties, we'd be happy to help."

"But I prefer to get everything in one go."

Ezio reached into his bag, then set down several heavy gold bars.

"Each one weighs exactly five hundred grams and can be exchanged for five hundred Galleons at Gringotts. Goblins may be cunning, but they take money very seriously."

"How much you can take—or whether you take all of it—depends on the value you can offer me."

The little gold bars, so heavy and gleaming with a lovely golden sheen, held the twins' gazes fast. They'd only meant to get some pocket money to help their business along, but they hadn't expected the temptation in front of them to be so great.

It wasn't that we weren't loyal to Gryffindor. Ezio was just offering too much!

"We need to discuss it."

They managed to hold back their excitement and reluctantly tore their eyes away, then hurried into a corner to whisper together. About thirty seconds later, the twins had made up their minds.

"A map of Hogwarts, and not just any map. It shows everyone's location and name, and records lots of secret passages and hidden rooms."

"With it, there's nowhere in Hogwarts you can't go. Except the Headmaster's Office, of course. The password there doesn't show up on the map."

"I'll need to inspect it."

"Of course. No problem." They took an old piece of parchment folded up in their robes and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Black ink quickly spread across the old parchment. In moments, a map of Hogwarts appeared, showing the castle, the Black Lake, and part of the Forbidden Forest.

"With this, nothing in Hogwarts will be a secret to you. We guarantee it."

Ezio took the Marauder's Map from them and nodded with satisfaction after confirming what it could do.

"Then we have a deal."

"Is all of this for us?" The twins stared in amazement at the six gold bars on the table—three thousand Galleons.

"Unless you think the goods don't match what you promised."

"We swear it's worth every bit!"

The twins thumped their chests as they promised. They watched Ezio leave through the door, then lowered their voices and cheered, throwing themselves onto the dusty table as if afraid their windfall might attract attention.