Harry had a panicked look on his face, when he glanced at his grandmother and said excitedly, “I can’t believe it. In two days, it’s Christmas! And I haven’t bought even one Christmas present! I have to go to Diagon Alley or somewhere today to buy Christmas presents.”

Remus added, “You see, Mrs. Potter, we went to Hogsmeade all together, but Harry had to stay in the Hospital Wing all the time, so he couldn’t go with us. And when he was allowed back to school he had tests every day, and then we came here, after a lot of worrying if he was allowed to come – so it’s not astonishing that he forgot.”

Mrs. Potter sighed. “Harry, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go anywhere, but as we already have Christmas Eve tomorrow, we just have to go today. I will accompany you to Diagon Alley, but you cannot spend a lot of time there, only get your presents and we come back, so that you can rest.”

“All right. Thank you very much.”

“Mrs. Potter, can we come too?” Remus asked hopefully.

“Yes, we can go all together, but as I said we won’t stay very long, and we cannot apparate or use the Floo Network and have to take the Knight Bus.”

Remus ran out of the room and straight into James’ room to tell the good news. Together they ran to wake up Sirius.

-----

They left immediately after breakfast. Fortunately, the Knight Bus came very quickly and took them straight to Diagon Alley in only three big jumps. When they arrived in front of the Leaky Cauldron, Mrs. Potter told them she would go with Harry, and the other four had to stay together all the time and had to meet them again in two hours at Fortescue’s ice cream parlour. Harry only needed to go to Flourish & Blotts as well as to the Quidditch shop and the Apothecary, because he had asked Lily to buy some chocolates for him that he could give to the Potters, so they were the first to arrive at the ice cream shop. He didn’t really want to eat anything but was glad to be able to sit down. The alley was so crowded two days before Christmas that shopping was very exhausting. They had to wait quite a while – the others were nearly thirty minutes late and Mrs. Potter was very angry with James and Sirius whom she obviously thought responsible for their delay.

“Oh I’m sorry Mrs. Potter, Harry,” Lily said. “That’s my fault, because I had to go to the sweets shop to buy some last minute presents, and you wouldn’t believe how crowded it was.”

“Which wouldn’t have delayed us at all if they hadn’t spent nearly two hours at the jokes shop, so it’s not your fault at all,” Remus added reprehensively.

“So is it our fault that the jokes shop was so crammed full that it took us two hours to go through it? Wait until we’re back at Hogwarts planning our next pranks, then you’ll be grateful to have waited a little today,” James said a little upset.

“Oh, it’s no problem at all, except that we have already eaten all the ice cream they had, so you won’t get any,” Harry countered jokingly and Mrs. Potter nodded.

“Yes, we have been sitting here now for nearly an hour and want to go home. We’ll have lunch at home and you can have ice cream for dessert – all right?”

They all agreed and took the Knight Bus back to Potter Manor. Even the Knight Bus was full of people, and it took them about an hour to get home. When they finally arrived and sat down for lunch after the House elves had taken their shopping bags up to their rooms, Harry apologized solemnly. “I’m sorry that you all had to take the bus because of me, although you could have floo-ed home in seconds.”

James countered immediately, “No, Harry, in fact we are very grateful. Do you honestly think my mum would have taken us to Diagon Alley a day before Christmas? No, only thanks to you we were able to spend a nice morning in civilisation.”

“By the way,” Lily said, “we met Professor McGonagall at the sweets shop buying sweets for Dumbledore.” Everyone laughed. “She asked about Harry, and we just told her he was with you, so that she couldn’t assume he was in Diagon Alley as well; I don’t know if she would have appreciated it.”

“Certainly not. I’m glad we didn’t meet her or anyone else,” Mrs. Potter replied mischievously.

-----

After lunch, Harry was sent to bed and James motioned the others to follow him up to Harry and Remus’ room to check the new joke items they had purchased. He showed them a small, dark brown wand.

“Well,” Remus said. What’s so funny with a wand?” Sirius grinned.

“Take it in your hand and try a spell – then let’s see if it’s funny.” Remus looked at the wand in order to take it and it immediately changed its form so that it looked like Remus’ own wand. He eyed it suspiciously and took it in his hand.

“Now, try something,” James requested impatiently.

Remus pointed the wand at a book on Harry’s bedside table and said, “Accio book”, but the book did not move; instead, blue sparks came out of the wand and formed themselves to a sentence. ‘That doesn’t work,’ was written in large blue letters in the air. Grinning he waved the wand once more and repeated, “Accio book,” but nothing happened. This time yellow sparks appeared and told him ‘Try harder’. Remus tried again just to be told ‘Have you still not given up?’ in red letters. Everyone was laughing now. Remus asked, “So how many different sentences does it know? Anyway it won’t work at all, will it?”

James and Sirius roared with laughter and Sirius suggested, “Just try it out, Moony, we’ll wait and watch.”

James said, “No, it won’t work. But don’t you think it’s worth trying it on McGonagall or so?”

Everyone laughed even more, but suddenly Remus had an idea. “Yes! I know what we do, but we need Harry to do it.”

Sirius snorted. “Our lazybones is asleep as always.”

Harry sat up very angrily. “No – I – am – not – asleep! Maybe you should go and wash your mouth Sirius!”

“Yes, Sirius. You’re very unfair. Continue with your behaviour and Harry and I will go back to Hogwarts,” Lily added.

“All right I’m sorry Harry,” Sirius apologized.

“What do you need me for, Remus?” Harry asked.

“Um… you can do wandless magic silently, right? I thought you could silently and of course wandlessly accio McGonagall’s wand out of her robe and replace it with this wand.”

“Yeah! That’s it!” James shouted and the others couldn’t help but agree that this seemed to be a great idea.

“Do you think you can do that?” Lily asked Harry and he nodded slowly.

“I’m not sure; I have to try wish magic on it. But I hope it will work without her noticing it was me, otherwise I’ll be grounded for the rest of the school year,” Harry replied laughing.

“I have an idea,” Remus said giggling. “Tonight after dinner, when James’ mum comes to check on you, we can try if it works. James takes this wand instead of his own, we all follow you here in the room, and you just try your wish magic to exchange James’ and his mother’s wand”.

“My mother sometimes places her wand somewhere in the kitchen. It would be easier for me to exchange it then,” James said.

“Yes, I know, but in order to know if Harry will manage to exchange the wands it would be better to try it on your mum,” Sirius countered.

“For that I don’t need Mrs. Potter. I can just try with one of your wands – what’s the problem?”

James thought for a mument. “All right. I assume you are not too keen to play a prank on mum, so I will try to get hold of her wand at dinner, and then we’ll see.” He grinned.

“So, what other things do you have? I suppose you haven’t spent two hours in the jokes shop just to buy a few wands?” Remus asked and they discussed a few more items until it was time to go down for dinner.

-----

At dinner, the atmosphere was very tense and Mrs. Potter wondered what they were up to. When she was clearing the table after dinner with Lily and Harry’s help, Sirius and Remus managed to distract her for a mument by quarrelling about something incomprehensible, just long enough for James to exchange her wand, which she had placed on the table with the faked wand.

“Alright, thanks for your help, Lily and Harry,” Mrs. Potter said, “Now Harry, let’s go to your room.”

Harry groaned but climbed up the stairs obediently, and James said audibly to the others, “Let’s go with them, maybe Harry will be allowed to go to the park with us.”

As soon as they reached Remus’ and Harry’ room James mother said, “Now you will please go into your own room, James and Sirius, Harry will definitely not be allowed to go to the park tonight.”

“Alright, but we want to watch anyway,” James insisted.

His mother sighed and told him, “I cannot imagine Harry wants to have all of you in his room.”

Harry mumbled uncomfortably, “I really don’t mind them Mrs. Potter,” although in fact he loved to have some time just alone with his grandmother.

“All right,” his grandmother said and tried the first spell, which, of course, didn’t work. She glanced annoyed at the pink letters that said ‘this doesn’t work’ and said to Harry, “I’m sorry my dear, this didn’t work, let me try again.” When the next time blue letters appeared and told her ‘You seem to be not so good at it,’ she glanced over to James and Sirius, who were obviously trying hard not to explode with laughter. “James and Sirius! This is not funny! Make my wand work again immediately!”

She sounded so angry, that James handed her wand over straight away. “Now you two, go to your rooms please, NOW! You will stay in your room until breakfast tomorrow,” she said angrily facing James and Sirius. Sirius still managed to giggle silently when they left the room. Mrs. Potter gave the fake wand to Remus and said, “I hope you do not intend to use this at Hogwarts.”

Harry laughed and said with an innocent face, “Not really; we will only use it on my great grandmother!”

-----

On Christmas Eve, they were allowed to decorate the huge Christmas tree in the parlour. As it was the first time for Harry to decorate a tree at all and the first time for Lily to decorate a tree using magic, James and Sirius had to teach them the required spells. Suddenly Harry took a piece of parchment from the table and transfigured it to a golden bauble with an image of his ice phoenix on it.

“Wow”, Remus said, “look, it’s adorable!”

“Can you teach us how to do this?” Lily asked, but Harry shrugged.

“I’m sorry; I can do it with wish magic, so I’m not able to tell you a specific spell to do it. You’d have to ask McGonagall about that, or maybe Mrs. Potter. But if you want me to I can make one for each of you.” They all agreed they wanted to have their own, so Harry transfigured parchments into golden baubles, decorating them with one of their animagus forms on each; he even made one for Severus, although he was not there.

Lily looked fondly at hers. “Harry, thank you! This snowy owl looks so beautiful in front of the golden background; I love it!”

Harry smiled, as his friends seemed to be so happy with their baubles. When they were finished with the tree, James and Remus glanced at each other for a mument before James cleared his throat and having the attention of everyone said, “As you know, tonight is the night of the full moon. What are we going to do? Are we going to spend the night in the park?”

“Yes, of course, we always do, don’t we?” Sirius fell in immediately.

Remus glanced hesitantly at Harry, but Harry said glumly, “I cannot go this time, but I won’t mind at all if you go without me. Go and enjoy the night; the park just looks beautiful from the window. Maybe tomorrow or the day after, we can go to the park together during daytime.”

James glanced at Harry, “Why can’t you come with us? Do you think mum wouldn’t let you? Do you still have a fever?”

“No, James, I don’t think so. But during the last months, every time we have spent the night outside I got a cold on the next day, and I don’t want to spend the rest of the holidays here in bed with a cold. Apart from that I’m not allowed to transform until the end of the holidays.”

“That is very reasonable of you Harry, and if you want me to, I can stay with you; I don’t mind,” Lily said calmingly, but Harry didn’t want to hear it.

“No Lily! You can go and enjoy the night with them. I’m looking forward to hearing a few interesting stories tomorrow. The only question is will your mum let you go?”

“Let’s ask her at dinner. It’s time for dinner anyway,” James said and went over to the kitchen. When they asked Mrs. Potter if they could spend the night in the park in their animagus forms, she was not too happy about it.

“Do you know how cold it will become during the night?”

“Yes” said James, “but in our animagus forms, we will be warm. Each of us has a thick fur, or in Lily’s case warm feathers and we do it at Hogwarts as well, every full moon.”

“But Harry cannot go, so wouldn’t it be nicer of you to stay with him this time?” she said but reluctantly agreed to let them go when Harry explained that he didn’t want to join them anyway.

“All right, then Harry, let’s go out with them for a minute – I’d like to see all the Animagi, I haven’t seen Lily’s and Remus’ yet. But if you get cold or tired or anything is wrong, you will come in immediately, is that clear?” She looked strictly at the four friends.

“Yes, of course Mrs. Potter. We are always very careful,” Remus replied earnestly. After dinner, they went out the kitchen door onto the terrace where James, Sirius, Lily and Remus transformed.

Harry couldn’t stand it – he wanted nothing more than to transform too, maybe he could try as long as he didn’t flash, just transform for a mument…

Lily noticed Harry’s sad face and flew on his shoulder. #Harry, are you sure, you don’t want me to stay with you? I really don’t mind!#

“No, Lily, my problem is that I want to transform as well but I dare not …”

#No Harry, you can’t. Wait another week and you’ll be fine.#

“All right Lily, I’ll go back inside, it’s too cold here like this. Have fun!”

#Thank you, Harry#. Lily flew to sit on a near-by tree.

Harry went back into the kitchen followed by Mrs. Potter who had noticed his miserable mood and wondered if there was anything she could do to make him feel better. They went upstairs to Harry’s room for his check-up. Harry seemed to be much better; the first spell showed nothing, and the second spell only showed a slight temperature. She sat next to Harry on his bed and asked, “Harry, you seem to be better today, but do you really feel better?”

Harry sighed and said, “Yes, granny, I feel much better, that’s my problem. If I felt bad, I wouldn’t mind to stay here during the night, you know. I never had so much fun as I had during the nights of the full moon together with them out in the forest. And I love being a phoenix, it feels so great to have feathers and be able to fly.”

“But you know you still can’t transform,” his grandmother said softly.

“Yes, but that’s not the problem, I’d probably be fine if I transformed now, because my head doesn’t hurt any more. However, the problem is that every time we spent the night outside I got a cold afterwards. EVERY time. And I don’t want to spend the rest of my holidays here in bed with a cold. That’s the reason I decided to stay here for the night,” he said sadly.

“I’m sorry, Harry, try to think of something else. Do you feel up to coming down to the parlour with me? We could sit near the Christmas tree and maybe read something.”

“I still have to wrap my Christmas presents,” Harry said and sighed.

“Then you bring them down and I’ll help you with it,” his grandmother suggested.

“Oh that would be nice, thank you very much. I will just wrap yours and granddads and come down with the rest.”

His grandmother nodded approvingly and left the room. Harry wrapped the two presents for his grandparents and took everything with him next to the beautiful tree. The Potters were just looking at the pretty baubles Harry had made. “Harry, these are beautiful,” Mr. Potter said. “Who made them and how?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know, I mean I made them, but I can’t explain how. I can do things with wish magic, and these I did with wish magic, so I don’t know a spell or something to do them with a wand that I could teach anyone.”

His grandparents were stunned. “Harry, I have never heard of anyone able to do wish magic except for small children who do accidental magic unintentionally, and the fact that you are able to do wandless magic alone is a sign of how powerful you are. Maybe one day you will be the most powerful wizard alive.”

“Yes Granddad, I know. Dumbledore told me before, he is the only one who is still more powerful, but he said, that one day I would be able to outdo him. I don’t particularly like it, I would give anything to just be a normal student like anybody else, but whatever I do attracts attention because in some way or other, I am an exception. I really hate it.” With this, Harry tried to focus on wrapping his presents and with his grandmother’s help, it took him only half an hour. He glanced at his watch; it was only 10 o’clock, and the night was still young. Perhaps he should go to bed and try to sleep through the night? After putting all his presents under the tree, he said good night and climbed up the stairs to his room. He quickly took a shower trying not to think about what the others would be doing out in the park. However, when he was in bed trying to sleep, his self-control was at an end; he couldn’t hold back his tears.

Two hours later his grandmother came to check on him before going to bed and saw that he was silently crying and noticed the heat he was radiating. “Harry” she said softly, and when Harry opened two glassy ices, she said, “I would like to give you a calming draught and a dreamless sleep Potion, alright?” Harry only nodded and sat up to drink both Potions before he lay down and was asleep seconds later.

-----

When he woke up again, he noticed that Remus was asleep in his bed. A glance at his watch showed him, that it was already after lunchtime. He got up, dressed, and went down to the kitchen to see if anyone was there at all.

“Good morning Harry, happy Christmas,” he heard when he was on the stairs and went to the parlour where his grandfather’s voice had come from.

“Hello Harry is everything all right?” his grandmother greeted him.

“Yes, thank you Granny,” he said, “thanks for looking after me during the night”.

“You are very welcome, my dear. Come here; sit here on the sofa please, so that I can do our check-up.” Harry obliged and she did the two spells and nodded contentedly.

“Now Harry, what about opening your Christmas presents?” Mr. Potter suggested.

Harry looked over to the huge Christmas tree. “Have the others already opened their presents?” he asked in a slightly strange voice.

His Granny went over to him and gave him a big hug. “Yes Harry, they opened them before they went to bed this morning. Lily wanted to get you, but I told her to let you sleep. I’m sorry, but you were in no condition to get up, you really needed the sleep.”

Harry nodded. “Yes, it’s all right. I will open mine now then.” He went over to the tree. There were still many presents; they couldn’t all be for him? He opened the first and saw it was a broom compass from James. His grandparents, the Potters, had given him dragon skin boots; from Remus he received an ever-lasting lollipop, that wouldn’t get smaller however long you licked it. From Sirius he got a book: ‘Magical creatures and how to cook them’ and from Hagrid a book: ‘Understanding dragons’. His Great Grandparents had sent him a parcel with a lot of new clothes, muggle clothes as well as wizarding robes – ‘Oh, that’s great’, he thought, ‘nearly all my trousers had become too short recently’. Poppy had sent him a copy of a very rare, ancient book about Natural Healers, which he frowned at but thought to ask her about it later. From Lily he received a ring, which was just beautiful. It was simple gold with six animals engraved on it – a stag, a bear, a dog, a snake, an owl and a phoenix.

“Wow, Granny, look what Lily gave me – this is beautiful!” He placed it on the ring finger of his left hand, and it adjusted its size accordingly to his finger.

Finally, there was only one parcel left, and it was from Severus. When he opened it, he saw another wrapped package with two letters on top of it – one addressed to him and one to Mrs. Potter. He anxiously gave the letter to his grandmother. “This letter seems to be for you, it’s from Severus Snape.”