Christmas Eve

There would be a feast on Christmas Eve, even though there were hardly any people left at school.

With more than eighty percent of its students gone, the entire Castle suddenly felt deserted. Even the Library, usually the most crowded place of all, was empty now except for Harry and Ron.

The two of them were agonizing over whether to carry out the task Hermione had assigned them.

Before leaving Hogwarts, Hermione had given them a new direction for their search for information about the Philosopher's Stone-the Library's Restricted Section.

Ron had been so astonished that, for a moment, he wondered whether he had imagined hearing it.

Ever since the Troll incident, Hermione had become less touchy about school rules and no longer brought them up all day long. Even so, this was the first time she had actually suggested breaking them.

Harry felt a real sense of achievement. There was an indescribable pleasure in leading a good girl astray.

Still, as enjoyable as corrupting the well-behaved Hermione had been, the task she had left them gave Harry a headache.

How were they supposed to get into the Restricted Section so easily?

Portraits guarded both sides of the Restricted Section, much like the one beside the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room. If someone tried to pass without permission, the portraits would scream, bringing Madam Pince running. Then the troublemaker would be punished in all sorts of inventive ways.

Harry had seen those unlucky souls, and he had no desire whatsoever to share their fate.

Besides, to be honest, he no longer cared quite so much about the Philosopher's Stone. It had been a long time, after all-long enough that it had begun to slip his mind. If he had not still had Potions Class every week and occasionally run into a long-faced Snape in the corridors, Harry might have forgotten about it altogether.

Unless he could learn the Disillusionment Charm or the Mirror Image Technique and turn invisible, allowing him to slip past the two portraits.

In fact, Harry was very interested in both spells. But although the Mirror Image Technique was a very low-level spell in Neil's memories, Harry had failed to learn it no matter how much he practiced. As for the Disillusionment Charm, he had yet to find any instructions for learning it at school.

Harry had tried asking the twins, only to discover that they had been yearning to learn that spell themselves for more than two years.

Harry could understand that perfectly. If the twins knew that spell, they would not get caught every few days by a professor or even Filch, then suffer all sorts of punishments that left them miserable while Harry and everyone else watched with grins on their faces.

Yes, watching someone else suffer a bit of bad luck-especially when it was nothing too serious-felt pretty good.

After agonizing over it for most of the day, Harry and Ron still failed to get into the Restricted Section.

Oh well, Snape seemed to have quieted down lately anyway...

That was how Harry and Ron consoled themselves.

That evening, before dinner, Harry and Ron hurried eagerly to the Great Hall. Fewer than fifty students had stayed at school, most of them from Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. Not a single Slytherin had remained.

Christmas meant something entirely different to wizards than it did to ordinary people. Harry had casually browsed some material on the subject during his visits to the Library over the past two days. The wizards' Christmas had absolutely nothing to do with Christ.

Although wizards had spent centuries laughing at Christ's attempts to hunt witches, that hardly gave them any real affection for Christianity.

Their celebration of the season combined the passing of winter, the coming of spring, the renewal of life, and the New Year. A little of it also came from the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia-which was why wizards had Christmas trees and Christmas presents too.

Since the holiday held some significance for wizards, most pure-blood families held events to mark it. According to Ron, wizarding families, especially pure-blood families, often hosted feasts around this time.

The Weasley family had attended in earlier years, but after the fourth and fifth children-Fred and George-were born, money had become too tight. There was not enough to spare for suitable gifts for their hosts and dress robes, so they had gradually stopped going.

Ron had only heard Bill and Charlie mention those gatherings. Even Percy had hardly ever attended one.

The Weasley family might not attend, but other wizarding families still did. As a result, almost all the Slytherin and Ravenclaw students went home. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, which had more young wizards from Muggle or half-blood families, had more students staying at school.

Harry did not care much about any of that. All he cared about was the feast.

Hogwarts already served excellent food on ordinary days-at least, Harry thought so. But whenever there was a holiday feast, the standard rose another notch. Ice cream, cream puddings, and jelly, for instance, were rare on ordinary days but plentiful during the holidays.

As they hurried eagerly to the entrance of the Great Hall, they ran into a professor-a common enough occurrence, yet a little unexpected this time.

It was a female professor, and both Harry and Ron froze for a moment when they saw her.

She was a remarkably beautiful professor, her long brown hair casually tied back in a ponytail. Unlike the naturally wavy hair of many people in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, hers hung straight and smooth, like a waterfall.

Her eyes were brown too, and together with her almost perfect features, they left Harry momentarily dazed.

"Good evening, Professor Babbling!" Ron recovered first and hurried to greet her.

"Good evening, Professor." Harry came to his senses and quickly followed suit.

"Good evening, Mr. Weasley, Mr. Potter." The beautiful professor nodded. Her voice was ethereal, with little emotion in it, matching the detached serenity of her expression, as though she stood apart from the world.

After exchanging greetings, the professor walked calmly through the doors and into the Great Hall.