A Merry Christmas by Lemon Curd

„School will be closed for the entire Christmas holidays.“

It took some time for Harry to really understand the words his Head of House had just said. He stared at Professor McGonagall. She was wearing Tartan robes today, and with her grim face she looked a bit like on of those warriors of old he had seen in some film Dudley had watched.

Indeed, Harry could well imagine her with a sword in hand.

Professor McGonagall controlled her anger very well, but Harry could still tell by the thinning of her lips that she was absolutely furious at – well, at Slytherins Heir, probably, but also at the Board of Governors for closing the school.

“Some people might want to stay to learn for their exams”, Hermione muttered next to him.

And that was likely the reason why Professor McGonagall was so angry. She couldn’t know about the Dursleys, could she? But she would know that muggleborns such as Hermione had no access to a magical library when they were staying with their parents.

Were there public magical libraries?

It was more likely, Harry thought gloomily, that the only magical libraries outside of Hogwarts were privately owned, located in manors owned by pureblood families like the Malfoys, who’d never let Hermione have a look at their books.

That was bad enough.

For Harry, it was worse. He dreaded to even think of what the Dursleys would say if he ruined their Christmas by being there. Harry wasn’t even sure what was worse – having to stay in his cupboard as punishment for not getting all the extra Christmas chores done in time, or having to stand by as Dudley unwrapped present after present while Harry got, if anything at all, some more of Dudley’s old clothes wrapped in old newspapers.

After last Christmas, after having thought that was how things were going to be in the future, Harry didn’t think he could handle another Christmas with the Dursleys.

And they probably couldn’t handle another Christmas with Harry. Sure, Aunt Petunia probably had to do more work herself now, seeing as Uncle Vernon wasn’t the kind of man who’d do any household chores after getting home from work, and Dudley was much too spoilt to pick up the slack.

Dudley might enjoy his presents a little less now that there was no Harry who could envy him, and Aunt Marge always had given the impression that insulting Harry was part of what made Christmas visits fun for her ...

Still, Harry was sure they’d be happier without him, all in all. Dudley didn’t like that Aunt Petunia gave Harry his old clothes, and had thrown a tantrum over Harry getting his old clothes as present at least once.

Aunt Petunia didn’t like the risk that Harry might do accidental magic.

And Uncle Vernon ... well, Uncle Vernon probably wouldn’t shovel snow himself if Harry wasn’t there to do it. He could just pay a neighbour boy to do it.

No, they’d certainly not miss him.

But for some strange reason that Harry couldn’t quite figure out, Uncle Vernon’s desire to be rid of him was only exceeded by his wanting Harry to be unhappy.

Harry was even fairly sure the Dursleys only sent him to Mrs. Figg when they went on vacations because they thought he hated it there.

He didn’t hate it. Not really. He always made sure to complain a bit, pretend to resent the fact that she made him look at photos of her numerous cats, but there was no denying the fact that sitting on her sofa and being shown picture after picture was a welcome break from having to do chores and being yelled at, not to mention Dudley’s beatings.

The worst thing that could happen wasn’t that the Dursleys would be angry he was there, the worst thing that could happen was that they’d keep him there, just as they’d tried before school started again.

Harry didn’t write to the Dursleys that he’d be home for the holidays. He didn’t ask if he could stay at school, either – he doubted any adult would understand.

Normally, he might have complained to Ron a bit, but Ron didn’t talk to him after finding out that Harry was a parselmouth, and Hermione would have made ‘helpful’ suggestions for solutions instead of just listening, so Harry didn’t tell her, either.

When the day came to board the Hogwarts Express, Harry did as he was told.

Being a known parselmouth didn’t result in him and Hermione getting a compartment to themselves, rather, they shared it with some excited first years who hadn’t heard the rumours about him yet, or were more interested in him being “the” Harry Potter.

He remained seated when the train arrived in London.

“I do hope you will have a merry winter solstice” a girl with brownish-blonde hair told him earnestly.

Before Harry could remember her name – or even if she had introduced herself – she was gone.

“I better hurry – my father doesn’t have much time, he had to cancel an appointment to be able to pick me up”, Hermione finally said. “Have a nice Christmas! I’ll write, of course.”

“Don’t write, the Dursleys wouldn’t like it”, Harry said before remembering he wouldn’t go there. “You too, have nice holidays, don’t study too much!”

“No such thing as too much studying”, she replied, smiling, and walked away.

Only after that did Harry finally get up, grab his school trunk – Hermione had demonstrated a featherweight charm on it which he hoped would stay for a while – and got out of the train.

There was no one he knew on the platform anymore. Harry realized, belatedly, that perhaps Mrs. Weasley would have invited him for the holidays if she had seen him, but now, that chance had passed.

Not that he was so sure he’d have wanted to stay in the same house with Ron, anyway.

They had been best friends, or so Harry had thought. They had fought a troll together. They had crashed into the Whomping Willow together. They had gone through so much together, only for Ron to decide that he didn’t believe Harry when Harry had just told that snake to stay away from Ron.

It was not his fault that the snake had not listened. In fact, it was to be expected. Okay, so perhaps Harry was a parselmouth and the snake was able to understand him – that hardly was a guarantee it would do what he wanted!

Hermione’s theory was that Ron was just jealous, which didn’t seem very plausible to Harry. Everyone treated him as outcast since that incident, Ron would have to be crazy to want that for himself.

Still, Hermione insisted that Ron wanted to be special. Like Harry.

Harry would have been perfectly happy to be as normal as Ron.

Since everyone he knew had left the platform, Harry left, too. He didn’t know his way around London that well, but hoped to find Diagon Alley.

That hope was eroded by several people asking him if he was lost, most of them sounding concerned and one man who seemed a bit like the old witch – or probably hag - Harry had encountered in Knockturn Alley: Predatory. Though Harry was pretty certain a muggle wouldn’t actually want to eat him. Probably.

He evaded all those questions by claiming to have seen his relatives nearby and running away, but it became clearer and clearer that he couldn’t stay in the Leaky Cauldron.
Even though Harry had been taking care of himself for years, had the money and was perfectly capable of renting a room at the Leaky Cauldron, where he wouldn’t even have to do anything a child wasn’t supposed to do, like cooking unsupervised on a wood stove, people would probably ask questions, and it would result in him being sent back to the Dursleys.

It slowly dawned on Harry that most people – almost all people, probably – didn’t see much difference between him and Dudley.

And Dudley clearly wouldn’t be able to stay in a hotel all by his own for even a day, not to mention the whole holidays.

So Harry put on his invisibility cloak, pulled his school trunk under it, and went to look for a place where he wouldn’t be noticed.

Being invisible, he found out fast, didn’t mean that no one could bump into him. He couldn’t risk to board a train without a ticket unless that train was half-empty, and he had to get out once people wanted to get in.

He couldn’t risk staying the night on the floor of an underground train station, either – what if some muggle stumbled over his sleeping body?

The solution he finally found was to spend the night in a park and ask Hedwig to warn him if anyone came close.

There was no snow on the ground, and after putting on two layers of Dudley’s old clothes over the jumper Mrs. Weasley had knit for him, then his robes and finally his school cloak and the invisibility cloak, Harry felt confident he wouldn’t freeze to death.

He had not accounted for the fact that not moving at all made the cold seep into his body. When he woke to Hedwig’s soft hoot in the morning, he was thoroughly miserable – cold, wet (it must have rained during the night) and hungry.

The only food he had with him were some sweets. Harry ate some Bertie Bott’s Beans, even though most of them tasted horrible, and went to look for a dry place.

With a sleeping Hedwig perched on his shoulder and no real breakfast, Harry didn’t have much energy to walk around, so he took to sitting on empty seats in a fastfood restaurant, ate the food people left on their plates and just moved to evade people.

Hiding his trunk was a bit of a problem at first, as people suspected there being a bomb inside it, but after Harry had shown himself and explained it belonged to him and was just his school stuff, people started to ignore it.
New people arrived, saw that everyone ignored it, and ignored it themselves and so on.

In the evening, Harry used the sink at the men’s toilets of a restaurant to brush his teeth and headed outside again.

At least, he told himself as he tried to get comfortable in the cold, wet grass of a park whose name he hadn’t bothered to find out, Hedwig was much happier here than she’d have been at the Dursleys’.

She normally preferred to hunt during the day, but had gotten used to hunting at night without a fuss.

The next morning, Harry was cold, wet and hungry again, but he didn’t really want to get up. He’d never survive that way. Perhaps he should go to the Leaky Cauldron and risk being taken back to the Dursleys?

No. He couldn’t. What if they didn’t let him leave again?

Uncle Vernon didn’t want him around, but he also didn’t want Harry at Hogwarts, and the bars on the window surely could be replaced.

It was only about two weeks, how hard could it be?

There had to be a solution. Hermione would know one, he was sure.

Hermione would go to the library to look it up... that was it!

He just had to find a library. And then the shelves with the boring books no one wanted to read.

There, he could just sit and rest for a bit.