Christmas

"Quick, quick, quick, get up! Time to get up and open presents!" Oren shook Harry and Ron awake.

The two little ones took quite a while to come to their senses. There was no helping it—last night, a flock of owls had flown in and out of the dormitory all night.

"Oh my God! Other than Oren's gifts, I actually got presents from other people too!" Harry looked utterly amazed.

"What did you think you'd get? Cabbages?" Ron rummaged through his pile of presents, which was several times bigger than Harry's.

Of course, compared to Oren's, it was like a shipping container next to a suitcase.

Harry grabbed the package on top, while Ron and Oren hurried over to watch him open his mystery box.

"That flute must be from Hagrid. I can see a plate of Rock Cakes underneath it too," Ron declared firmly.

Harry picked up another envelope. Inside was a coin.

"Is that Muggle money?" Ron was very interested in it.

Harry said, "You can have it. They're from Hagrid and my aunt and uncle. So who is this one from?"

"My mum sent it. You and Oren got one too, Harry." Ron blushed a little. "She must have knitted you each one of those Weasley family sweaters."

The moment Oren heard that he had one too, he immediately found the sweater and pulled it on. Then he returned to the two little ones and continued watching them open their mystery boxes.

"Hermione sent Chocolate Frogs. Wait, what's this?" Harry stared blankly at the silvery liquid-like puddle on the floor.

"Hiss... If I'm not mistaken, this is a very valuable Invisibility Cloak." As Ron spoke, he stuffed the Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans Hermione had given him into Oren's arms.

"An Invisibility Cloak? Let me see!" Oren took it and examined it carefully. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. What an incredible creation. If I tried to replicate it, I'd be lucky to make something one-tenth as good as the original."

"What! One-tenth?" The two little ones were stunned for a moment, then began looking forward to the alchemical items Oren had given them.

Ron asked, "What did the note with the Invisibility Cloak say?"

Harry said, "It says this was my father's heirloom."

"All right, you two. Hurry up and look at the presents I prepared for you." Oren stuffed two alchemical items into their hands.

"What is this?" Harry asked in delighted surprise as he looked at the exquisite silver bracelet in his hand.

"This is a bracelet. Dumbledore and I made it together. It slows you down to prevent you from falling from great heights."

"Its effective range is only two hundred meters. Beyond that height, you'll have to tank the remaining distance with your own body. Though I think you're pretty resistant to falling, Harry."

"What about mine?" Ron excitedly held up the delicate Wizard's Chess set.

"This isn't just prettier. These pieces are far smarter than ordinary Wizard's Chess pieces. They can even chat with the player."

What Oren did not say was that their conversations were anything but ordinary. Every piece had mastered the art of insulting people, each possessing seventy percent of Snape's skill. They would insult not only the opponent; if their player was too terrible, they would not be spared either. Hehehe.

"Wow! Then what did you give Hermione?" the two little ones asked curiously.

"A quill made with phoenix tail feathers, with infinite ink." Oren proudly put his hands on his hips.

That was his proudest work. It used tail feathers generously donated by Fawkes, a soul selflessly contributed by a giant spider fellow villager, and surplus metal nails from Snape's office door.

That tiny quill was the lowest-cost alchemical creation he had made so far.

"The nib has also been reinforced with metal. Even if she rubs her hand raw, the quill won't suffer any damage."

The two little ones gave him thumbs-up in unison.

"Hurry up and show us your Christmas presents." The two little ones rubbed their hands together eagerly.

The first was Hagrid's present: a huge pile of materials such as scales, claws, and teeth.

"I gave Hagrid a little stone dragon statue." Oren carefully recalled where the raw materials had come from. It seemed the twins had pried them off the steps outside Filch's office.

"Of course, that was the prototype. I gave the completed version to Dumbledore."

"It was a crystal—glass—house-elf statue, specially made to put sugar cubes into tea."

Oren tucked the study notes Dumbledore had given him into his arms as he spoke.

"Of course, I personally don't recommend that you drink the Headmaster's tea. I once gave him a teapot that could make drinks sweeter, but he still adds sugar cubes."

"One time, I brought a toad Snape used for potion testing and let it drink just a tiny bit of tea. It immediately let out a strange cry, collapsed, rolled its eyes, and started foaming at the mouth. Even Headmaster Dumbledore couldn't save it. Anyone who didn't know better would think the teapot was full of cyanide."

Oren opened another gift box. Calling it a box was more like calling it a large crate.

"Is this an entire wardrobe?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Professor McGonagall gave it to me. I gave her a folder that could automatically sort documents. After all, Professor McGonagall handles all the school's affairs, while Headmaster Dumbledore only doesn't do two things."

Ron asked, "Which two things?"

"This thing and that thing."

Ron...

Oren opened another crate.

"This is from Hermione! I swear, she must have stuffed the entire kitchen into this box!" Ron's eyes nearly popped out.

"This is a Christmas feast, right? I think I saw a turkey," Harry said, craning his neck.

Oren sealed the crate again, then casually opened a small package.

Harry saw Oren's mouth twitching continuously and asked in confusion, "What's wrong, Oren?"

"This is... This is actually a present from Snape. Even though it's a woman's hair clip, he actually gave someone a present!" Harry's voice cracked from surprise.

Oren gritted his teeth. "What I gave Snape was a set of shampoo."

Naturally, it was the kind made from the Potter family's old formula.

"Is this hot sauce?" Ron asked, pointing at the crate full of hot sauce.

"Authentic chili sauce. The writing on it is all Chinese characters—Cho Chang." Oren muttered as he read the note.

Oren kept opening presents, while the two little ones croaked "Wow! Wow! Wow!" like frogs. By the time all the presents had been opened, the jaws of those two were nearly dislocated.

"Harry and Oren have Weasley family sweaters too." The twins held down their older brother Percy and pulled a sweater over him as well.

"Their sweaters are much more elaborate than ours," Fred complained.

"Come on, Ron, put on your sweater." George roughly pulled Ron's sweater over his head.

The group went to the Great Hall and began enjoying the Christmas feast.

Harry and Ron ate with great gusto, but Oren sighed at the potatoes on the table. His appetite, one of the seven emotions and six desires, had been completely worn away by the Hogwarts kitchens.

"Eat, eat. Food is food, isn't it?" Oren muttered endlessly, trying to hypnotize himself.

After wiping his mouth, Oren prepared to go for a walk and digest his food, but Dumbledore dragged him away before he even left the Great Hall.

Inside the Headmaster's office.

"What's the matter, Headmaster? At your age, can't you be a little more composed? What's with all this rushing around?"

Dumbledore...

"Child, do you know that things with self-awareness are very dangerous in the magical world?"

Dumbledore pointed at the crystal—glass—house-elf on the table, which was holding its head and contemplating life.

"Oh, I thought it was something serious. This? This is magical intelligence I created. It's several major versions ahead of those Muggle scientists."

"I built safeguards into it when I made it. It cannot harm wizards, it must obey wizard commands, and it must protect itself so long as that doesn't violate the first two rules."

Dumbledore nodded. The safeguards did indeed seem quite reliable.

"Of course, if it ever asks you whether it looks like a wizard, that means its glass skin is asking you to acknowledge it as a spirit. Just ignore it."

Dumbledore!!!

"Are you my creator? Then can you tell me what the meaning of my existence is?" the glass elf asked.

Meaning? Of course, it was an experiment for projects like alchemical beings with souls, Jerusalem, and Aunt Wang. But that was not something he could say.

"To put sugar cubes into tea."

"Just to add sugar cubes?"

"Yes, that's it."

The glass elf hesitated for a moment, then leaped from the table and shattered into glass fragments all over the floor.

Oren and Headmaster Dumbledore exchanged glances, each seeing dumbfounded confusion in the other's eyes.

Dumbledore waved his wand, and all the glass fragments on the floor vanished.

Oren crooked a finger, and a flash of blue fire disinfected the floor as well.

"Ahem, Headmaster, I had a contingency plan for this situation too."

Oren pulled a glass elf from his pocket, except this one had no real self-awareness and looked completely vacant.

He kept writing something in his notebook without saying a word. Sociology +3.

"It's fine, Headmaster. The problem is solved. This glass—no, crystal—elf won't have those problems. The last one was an accident, purely because its machine spirit was unhappy. Don't take it to heart."

Dumbledore folded his arms. Keep bluffing. Go on, keep bluffing!

"Child, next time you make something like this, be sure to discuss it with me properly. We can talk it through together."

Dumbledore rubbed his temples. In the days before Christmas, Oren's alchemical work had been as loud as a demolition site, and he had kept making alchemical items. In a moment of negligence, Dumbledore had failed to notice that he had created such a frightening thing.

"Child, have you made any other things like this?"

"No. The statue I gave Hagrid can only move. Ron's Wizard's Chess set merely has more profanity—no, rhetorical techniques. And the elf I gave you is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece."

After being dragged through over an hour of ideological education by the Headmaster, Oren arrived at Hagrid's Hut clutching his throbbing head.

"Oren, you're here! Come in!" Hagrid, holding the stone dragon, smiled like an eight-hundred-pound child.

"I came to give you a Christmas present." Oren patted the snow off himself.

Hagrid glanced in confusion at the stone dragon in his arms.

Oren took crate after crate of alcohol from his tiny pocket, cursing inwardly without pause. Damn system, so you really are just running a general store? Whatever. This is a good chance to clear out some inventory at Hagrid's place, and it'll save me the irritation of looking at it.

Hagrid blankly watched Oren's departing back, then looked at the crates filling two-thirds of his hut. A dumbfounded expression appeared on his face.