Merry Christmas, Albert

Clara froze.

Banban tilted their head and looked at her with round amber eyes, letting out an impatient hoot. A letter was tied to their leg, and a small crumb of owl food clung to their beak. Clara quickly realized she was in the Owlery. She looked down at the parchment in her hand and saw the date written on it: November twenty-fourth.

Clara still hadn't figured out the pattern behind the resets. She could only guess that they might have something to do with progress on certain tasks.

This reset had taken her much further back, to before the Yule Ball. If she remembered correctly, she would next run into Cedric outside the Owlery, ask him to the ball, and suffer a crushing rejection.

Merlin's stinky socks, did she really have to go through that again?

Clara looked at her messy handwriting on the parchment. The letter to her parents was half finished, ending right after "The school is holding a Yule Ball, and I've met a really nice boy. I'm wondering whether I should-" An ink blot followed, left there when her pen lingered too long as she hesitated.

She still remembered how nervous she'd been when writing the letter, wondering whether the boy would say yes. Of course, he hadn't. She'd been distraught for three days afterward; Rowle had said she looked as though she'd lost her soul.

Looking back now, those three days had been the easiest "failure" of her life. Compared with the countless times she'd watched Cedric die afterward, what was a rejection? At least he was still alive when he rejected her.

But the letter also mentioned preparing Christmas presents, and she'd still need to ask her parents for some Galleons. Those few lines were harmless, and she didn't mind them. Clara folded the letter, tied it to Banban's leg, and patted their head. Banban hooted discontentedly, probably complaining about how long she was taking. She pulled the last dried mouse from her pocket and fed it to them. Only then did Banban give her finger a satisfied peck, spread their wings, and fly out the window.

She stood at the window for a while, watching Banban's silhouette shrink until it vanished into the gray-white horizon. The snow had stopped outside, leaving a thin white layer on the roofs of Hogwarts. The treetops at the edge of the Forbidden Forest were covered in ice crystals, sparkling in the morning light.

It had been a long time since she'd enjoyed the scenery at Hogwarts so peacefully. Through those countless June twenty-thirds and twenty-fourths, her mind had been full of how to save him, how to convince others, and how to break this damned cycle. She'd long forgotten how beautiful Hogwarts could be, how good the air smelled after snow, and what the sunlight looked like on the treetops of the Forbidden Forest.

She thought the expression on her face must have been one of absolute delight.

Still, what had to come would come. She took a deep breath, turned, and went down the Owlery stairs. At the bend, she heard footsteps coming from below, light and quick, with that rhythm particular to someone fresh from training, along with breathing made slightly hurried by the wind.

Clara stopped.

Cedric Diggory stood at the bottom of the stairs, dressed in his Hufflepuff Quidditch Team training robes and holding a piece of parchment. His hair was tousled by the wind, and a thin sheen of sweat still covered his temples.

The November sunlight fell squarely on his shoulders, turning his dark yellow training robes golden orange. He looked slightly startled when he saw Clara, then gave her a smile she knew all too well.

"Albert? What a coincidence. Are you here to send a letter too?"

Clara nodded. Cedric was very happy right now, she thought. He'd even taken the initiative to greet her.

How strange. Why hadn't she noticed before? She'd probably been too preoccupied with figuring out how to ask him.

"You're happy, senior. Let me guess, is it because of the Yule Ball?"

"Yes." Cedric's gray-blue eyes shone. "Cho agreed to be my date... Uh, I mean, I think the ball will be fun."

He paused when he said "Cho," apparently feeling it was a little improper to call her by her first name in front of a schoolmate he didn't know very well. But he was so full of joy that her name had slipped out on its own.

Clara looked into his eyes, eyes that had lost their light countless times. Now they held only the irrepressible delight of a seventeen-year-old boy who had successfully asked out the girl he liked.

She looked at Cedric. He knew nothing. He didn't know that the cup in the maze would lead him to his death, or that the younger schoolmate standing before him had watched him fall on countless nights of June twenty-fourth. He didn't know he might have only a few months left to live.

If he was destined to die—if he would still die after she'd done everything she could-then at least he should be happy in the time he had left.

"Congratulations, senior. You two are well matched. I hope you have a wonderful time," Clara said. Even she hadn't expected to be so calm.

Cedric's smile widened a little further. Then he seemed to realize something and reined it in slightly, returning to his polite tone. "Thank you, Albert. You're going to the ball too, aren't you? Has anyone asked you?"

"Yes," Clara said.

In truth, she didn't know if anyone had. Someone had probably asked her six lifetimes ago, but she'd been so heartbroken over her rejection that she'd turned everyone down. "Go on and send your letter, senior. It's cold outside."

Cedric nodded and walked past her, heading up the stairs. After a couple of steps, he stopped and turned back to her. "Merry Christmas, Albert."

Clara paused. Christmas was still a month away, and he'd obviously said it now because he hadn't yet come down from his excitement. She couldn't help laughing. "Merry Christmas, Senior Diggory."

She stood on the steps and watched Cedric enter the Owlery, listening to the fluttering wings and the unfamiliar tune he hummed softly from inside behind her.

Then she continued downstairs.

The Christmas decorations had already gone up in the corridors. Garlands of mistletoe and holly hung over every archway, and gold and silver streamers dangled from the ceiling, swaying gently in the draft.

As Clara crossed the Entrance Hall, she saw Filch standing on a ladder, losing his temper with a string of enchanted lights. They kept changing color, from red to green to gold to blue, making his face change color along with them.

"Damn-these-bloody lights-" Every time Filch twisted a bulb, the lights flashed even more fiercely, like a miniature light show.

Clara sidled around the ladder and quickened her pace. She still had a lot to do.

She entered the Hufflepuff Common Room to find Rowle curled up on the sofa by the fireplace, eating a Chocolate Frog. When Rowle saw her come in, he jumped up at once, nearly dropping the Chocolate Frog on the floor. "Where did you run off to? Didn't we agree to go to Hogsmeade today to buy dress robes?"

Clara looked at her friend and suddenly felt an urge to cry.

Hogsmeade. Dress robes. Rowle had been planning for today for weeks. He'd said Honeydukes had a new kind of candy that changed color, the Three Broomsticks seemed to have a new flavor of Butterbeer, and Gladrags Wizardwear had received a new shipment of dress robes, including a particularly lovely silver-white one.

Last time, after Cedric rejected Clara, she'd shut herself in her dormitory and cried for three days. Rowle hadn't said much, just changed his plans and stayed behind to comfort her. Later, he'd gone to Hogsmeade on his own and brought back the silver-white dress robes, quietly leaving them by her bed.

"I'll go. How about after lunch?" Clara said. She sat down beside Rowle, took the half of a Chocolate Frog he offered her, and bit into it. As the sweetness melted on her tongue, she felt the tension that had gripped her for days ease a little. "Right now, I might need to go see Professor Dumbledore."

"Huh?" Rowle's eyes widened. "Dumbledore? You? Why?"

"To keep a promise." She ran outside as she spoke.

She turned and left the common room, a corner of her robes flaring behind her. Rowle called after her, but she didn't look back. She ran through the Entrance Hall and along the corridors, past the archways still being decorated with Christmas garlands, until she reached the stone statue by the Headmaster's Office.

The gargoyle looked at her in silence.

Clara bent over, braced her hands on her knees, and caught her breath. Then she straightened and pulled something from the deepest pocket of her school robes: a pair of rather crookedly knitted woolen socks, dark blue mixed with gold and red. The stitches were uneven, and one cuff was looser than the other.

Clutching the socks in her hand, she addressed the statue. "I need to see Professor Dumbledore urgently. My name is Clara Albert, fifth-year Hufflepuff."

The gargoyle didn't move.

Clara held up the socks, her voice a little firmer than before. "I need to keep a promise."

The gargoyle was silent for a moment, then leaped aside. A spiral staircase rose behind it. Dumbledore stood at the top, wearing purple robes, his blue eyes watching her from behind his Half-moon Spectacles with a hint of surprise and curiosity.

"Miss Albert," he said, "you seem a little different today."

Clara climbed the stairs, stopped in front of him, and held out the woolen socks.

Dumbledore looked down at them, at the crooked stitches and the gold and red threads woven through the dark blue. His hand paused in midair, then he reached out and took them.

"Woolen socks," he said softly. "Hardly anyone knows I like woolen socks. Only those I trust most would know." He raised his head. The smile gradually faded from his wise eyes, replaced by a seriousness Clara had never seen before. "It seems you need me to listen to something very important. And I suspect you've already told me more than once."

Clara's nose prickled.

"Yes, Professor," she said. "But this time, we have six months."

Dumbledore carefully folded the socks and tucked them into the inner pocket of his robes. Then he stepped aside and gestured for her to enter.

"Then we shouldn't waste a single minute," he said. "Come in, Miss Albert. Tell me everything."