Snowball Fight

Garian and Lila didn't stay long in the common room. After about half an hour, they were ready to leave.

They weren't even going to attend Hogwarts's Christmas feast together.

"We're meeting Pomona at the Three Broomsticks," Lila said, looking eager. "I can hardly wait... Madam Rosmerta's specially brewed pumpkin-flower mead."

Looking at her expression and the hurried steps she took as she left the Gryffindor Common Room, Silvan couldn't help seriously considering something she had said earlier.

"...to visit friends, and see you while we're at it."

Silvan had reason to suspect that might have been the honest truth.

After Garian and Lila left, Silvan went to the Great Hall with the others.

"Your parents are really something," Fred said, coming up beside Silvan. "How did they get in?"

"Probably through Professor Sprout," Silvan replied.

He didn't find it strange that they knew the Hufflepuff Head of House.

There weren't many wizards in the United Kingdom who studied magical plants, and even fewer had published academic papers. With so few of them, they were bound to know one another.

But when Fred heard Silvan's answer, a flicker of disappointment crossed his face.

At first, he'd thought the two of them had come in through the Hogsmeade passageway.

Parents sneaking into the castle in violation of the rules—what a familiar style. It was practically just like them.

Besides, they happened to have a magical map that clearly marked several secret passages from Hogsmeade into the castle.

So when Fred and George had seen two adult wizards in the common room, they'd even wondered if they might be two of the map's creators—Padfoot, Prongs, Moony, and Wormtail.

They'd whispered together for ages, trying to work out which nicknames might fit the pair.

But who would've thought they'd come in properly through the front doors, like a couple of rule-followers?

What a letdown... Well, at least the specially dried Bubotuber was pretty interesting.

The group entered the Great Hall and was greeted by the rich aroma of roast chicken. Even though only a few students were staying at school for the holidays, mountains of delicious roast meat, fried potatoes, and tasty little sausages were spread out across the tables.

Every few steps along the tables, they came across huge piles of colorful wizarding crackers. They held all sorts of fun little trinkets, and if you were lucky, you might even find the latest model of flying broomstick.

Of course, getting a flying broomstick was only a legend. No one had ever actually found one.

Silvan opened a few at random and got a quill that wouldn't produce ink, a brooch, a packet of glittering balloons, three biting teacup coasters, and... a dried pufferfish?

Silvan couldn't understand why anyone would put something like that in a wizarding cracker.

Cat treats?

He tried tapping the dried fish against the table. It went thunk, thunk—just like Hagrid's Rock Cakes.

Well, it wasn't completely useless. He could at least throw it at someone and give them a nasty bump on the head.

The Christmas feast began, and all the students, regardless of house, sat together at one table. Silvan wasn't particularly interested in roast turkey, a holiday-only dish, but the roast meat sandwiches and brandy-soaked fruit pudding were delicious.

In the afternoon, Fred suggested they go outside and have a snowball fight. Harry and Ron were the first to agree. Percy, the oldest, thought it was childish and hadn't wanted to join in, but the twins half-dragged him out of the castle, and he eventually gave in.

Silvan saw Hagrid and a few professors leaving the school together. After a moment's thought, he joined the others.

They played in the snow all afternoon without using magic. It was fun, but by the time they came panting back to the common room, their clothes were soaked through, and they could only huddle by the fire to warm up.

"Wait, where's Silvan?" Harry, who was playing Wizard's Chess with Ron, looked around and suddenly realized they seemed to be one person short.

"Dunno." Fred glanced around too.

"Was he there this afternoon?"

"He was!" Ron said firmly, rubbing his shoulder. "I remember clearly—there was a rock in the snowball he threw at me!"

He was probably the only one who'd gotten hurt during the snowball fight. He'd nearly been hit in the head by a flying snowball, but luckily he'd slipped just then, so it struck his shoulder instead.

"Silvan definitely didn't do it on purpose," Harry said quietly, though with conviction.

"How do you know?"

"Because I was the one who packed that snowball." Harry suddenly looked guilty, then quickly explained, "You didn't say anything, so I thought it was fine, but I really didn't know there'd be a rock in there."

Ron stared at him for a moment, then let out a quiet sigh. "Forget it. It's fine."

"If you mean that first-year, he went to find the gamekeeper," Percy suddenly said from nearby.

"You know?"

"I saw him," Percy replied. "About an hour ago, after the professors came back from Hogsmeade, I saw him talk to the gamekeeper for a bit. Then they left together."

"The gamekeeper... that's Hagrid," Harry said.

"Right, Rubeus Hagrid. That's his name." Percy nodded.

"Strange. What did he want with Hagrid?"

"What else? It's got to be about making wands. He loves that stuff," Ron said confidently.

"But it's Christmas!" Fred said, baffled. "Everyone wants to spend the whole day having fun."

"Silvan doesn't," Ron said. "He's obsessed with making wands. He doesn't even take weekends or holidays off. I hardly ever see him anywhere but the dorm on weekends."

Fred and George exchanged a look.

Was making wands really that much work? You couldn't even take a holiday?

They thought of the copy of Guide to Wand Making and Usage they'd recently borrowed from the library. For some reason, they suddenly didn't feel like reading it anymore.

As it turned out, Ron had guessed right this time. Silvan really was making a wand, but he didn't find it tiring at all.

In the hut by the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid sat beside the fire, sipping hot tea as he watched Silvan fiddle with a finger-thick white "rope."

Hagrid pressed his lips together.

Every time he saw this, he couldn't help feeling genuinely amazed.

Because a month ago, that "rope" had been a two-foot-long bone as thick as a bowl.

Over the past month, he'd watched that Troll Spine gradually turn into what it was now.

How had Silvan done it?

Hagrid had asked him more than once, and Silvan hadn't kept it secret. He'd told him it was the crucial step in turning a material into a wand core, called the Wand Core Fusion Charm. But Hagrid couldn't understand it. Even after seeing the whole process with his own eyes, he still didn't get it.

He'd always thought making a wand meant figuring out how to put Unicorn Tail Hair inside a rounded stick of wood.