Chapter 50: Christmas Gifts
Christmas morning dawned over Hogwarts in a hush of white and silver.
Even the Slytherin dungeons, which were rarely lively at the best of times, had sunk into a deeper stillness than usual. There were no excitable first years scrambling about before breakfast, no older students sprawled in the common room boasting loudly about Quidditch, and no constant rise and fall of voices from every corner. Only the occasional crackle from the dying embers in the fireplace reminded the world that the dungeon was not entirely abandoned.
Tamara Riddle was awakened by suffocation.
Not murder, unfortunately.
Something softer. Warmer. Furrier.
She came to with a jolt, found breathing unexpectedly difficult, and realised at once that Nagini had somehow arranged its entire ridiculous black body across her face like a living scarf with homicidal tendencies.
"Get off."
Tamara seized the cat by the scruff and tossed it toward the foot of the bed.
Nagini landed with all the infuriating grace of a creature that knew it would never suffer consequences.
Tamara sat up slowly, rubbing a hand through her sleep tangled hair. Still half buried in green velvet curtains and warmth, she reached automatically toward the bedside table for her wand.
Instead, her fingers struck something else.
Paper.
Ribbon.
Boxes.
Her hand stopped.
Frowning, Tamara pushed the bed curtains fully open.
Then she stared.
At the foot of her bed, across the black walnut nightstand, and even scattered over the carpet itself, lay a sprawling mountain of Christmas presents.
There were so many of them that it looked less like a student dormitory and more like someone had looted an entire shop in Diagon Alley and dumped the contents at her feet. Bright paper gleamed in the pale winter light. Ribbons curled everywhere. One lumpy package looked soft. Another was tied with a frankly offensive pink bow.
For several long seconds, Tamara did not move.
Then she said, very flatly, "What is this?"
In her previous life, gifts had meant something else entirely.
Cursed daggers. Rare poisons. forbidden artefacts. Severed heads, if the giver wished to be particularly memorable.
But this?
Gold stars on wrapping paper?
Soft parcels?
A ribbon?
The system chimed in at once, sounding revoltingly pleased with itself.
[Ding! Merry Christmas, host!]
[It seems your good deeds this semester have won many hearts. Please enjoy the fruits of your labour.]
Tamara's face darkened.
With obvious distrust, she picked up the black wrapped parcel nearest her.
Draco.
Of course.
Inside was a beautifully crafted set of pure silver Potions maintenance tools nestled in velvet, along with an enormous box of premium Honeydukes sweets. A short card lay tucked inside.
To dear Miss Riddle. I had Mother order these specially from France. I hope you will find them acceptable.
Tamara examined the tools in silence.
"Tasteless," she muttered at last.
Then she set the sweets aside and kept the silver instruments.
They were, irritatingly, excellent.
The next parcel was from Pansy. A dark green silk scarf of decent quality, though entirely too sentimental for Tamara's liking.
Then came Goyle and Crabbe's contribution.
A truly heroic quantity of cakes.
Not refined cakes. Not elegant cakes. Just a large and vaguely alarming stack of cake as only boys like Goyle and Crabbe could interpret a gift.
Tamara eyed them as if they might explode.
Then she found a package wrapped in rough paper and tied with string so thick it looked like it belonged around a sack of potatoes.
Hagrid.
Tamara already knew before opening it that it would be dreadful.
Inside was a crude wooden carving of what was presumably meant to be a Hippogriff. In practice, it looked like a pig that had grown wings out of spite. There was also a cloth bag of rock cakes.
Tamara took one look at the cakes and dropped the bag aside as if it contained plague.
Below that lay a neatly wrapped brown parcel.
Cedric Diggory.
Her expression tightened at once.
Inside was a copy of Detailed Explanations of Basic Healing Spells, along with a short note written in a clean, sincere hand.
This might be useful to you. Also, keep warm.
Tamara stared at it.
"Meddling fool."
She put the book aside anyway.
The true horror, however, appeared a moment later.
It was a large, soft, indecently bulky package that seemed to bulge with a kind of domestic menace.
Tamara lifted it with two fingers and unwrapped it slowly.
A hand knitted dark green jumper fell into her lap. On the front, in large silver stitching, was the letter T.
For one whole second, Tamara could only look at it in cold disbelief.
Mrs Weasley.
The twins had told Molly her name.
That was the only explanation.
She held the jumper up as though examining evidence from a crime scene.
It radiated handmade affection so aggressively that Tamara felt as if her aesthetic sense had been physically attacked.
"I am the Dark Lord," she informed the sweater in a low voice, as though it were somehow responsible. "I am not one of Molly Weasley's children."
Nagini, now washing its paw at the end of the bed, appeared entirely unsympathetic.
At the very bottom of the heap lay a small box containing ordinary Chocolate Frogs.
No card.
No name.
No effort whatsoever, really.
Yet Tamara knew immediately who it must be.
The cheapness positively reeked of Gryffindor.
Harry Potter.
"Disgusting sentimentality," she said, though the edge in her voice had dulled somewhat under sheer exhaustion.
She sat in the middle of the pile of gifts, surrounded by ribbons and boxes and unsolicited goodwill, and felt a headache building behind her eyes.
She had intended to sleep in.
After that, she had planned to investigate the trapdoor again.
Now her path to productivity had been buried beneath brightly wrapped emotional debris.
Tamara pinched the bridge of her nose.
"System. Is there a function to destroy all of this with one command?"
[No, host.]
The system's voice, to her deep misfortune, turned serious.
[Not only are you forbidden from destroying the gifts, but you are also required to observe social etiquette.]
[Holiday Limited Mission Triggered: Reciprocity.]
[Mission Description: Accepting gifts without giving anything in return is rude, arrogant, and unsustainable for long term social development. While this does fit part of your personality, the system does not recommend it.]
[Mission Requirement: Prepare a return gift for every sender.]
[Special Restriction: Since each gift contains heartfelt effort, your return gifts cannot be cheap items purchased without thought. They must contain sincerity. Handmade objects or gifts carrying a magical blessing are recommended.]
[Mission Time Limit: Complete before midnight.]
[Mission Reward: Love +2.]
[Failure Penalty: Forced to wear the jumper knitted by Mrs Weasley and perform a tap dance in the Great Hall.]
Tamara went completely still.
Then her face turned paler than a corpse.
Her eyes slid slowly back toward the jumper.
There was no question at all that if she were forced to wear it in public, she would look like an idiot.
"How many people?" she asked, and her voice had the strained clarity of someone standing on the edge of madness.
[According to current records, twelve.]
Tamara nearly snapped her wand in half.
"Twelve?"
Twelve handmade gifts. In one day.
She shut her eyes and took a long, murderous breath.
"I hate Christmas."
By noon, the grand feast in the Great Hall was underway.
Tamara was not there.
Snow still fell outside. The Castle glowed with warmth, laughter, enchanted candles, and Christmas music.
Tamara Riddle, meanwhile, was undergoing what could only be described as festive hard labour.
Locked in her dormitory, she had driven Nagini out to go catch mice or do something equally useless and then emptied every remotely workable material she possessed onto the table.
Small blocks of wood.
Thread.
Bits of string.
Scraps of ribbon from the gift wrappings.
A few metal clasps.
And most importantly, several pieces of pale, clean wood she had collected earlier from the edge of a Bowtruckle habitat while practising Transfiguration.
She stared at the pile in grim silence.
"Handmade. Blessed."
Her lip curled.
"Fine. Ancient Runes, then."
It was the fastest approach available to her, and more importantly, it fulfilled the system's absurd demand for sincerity.
Tamara sat down, drew a carving knife toward herself, and began.
If any reputable witch or wizard in Britain had witnessed that scene, they might never have recovered.
The most feared Dark Lord in history sat at a dormitory table like an overworked craftswoman, carving blessing charms into wooden plaques one after another.
Her expression throughout suggested that every pass of the blade was a personal insult.
"For Draco..." she muttered coldly, selecting a narrow strip of wood. "Ehwaz. Horse and trust. Perhaps it will encourage him to develop a brain."
The rune bit into the grain beneath her precise hand.
"For Pansy..." Another piece. Another incision. "Kenaz. Fire and light. Perhaps she will stop staring at me with that ridiculous expression."
"For Hagrid..."
Tamara paused, knife hovering.
Then, with clear reluctance, she selected Uruz.
"Strength. Since brute force is the only quality he possesses in abundance."
One by one, the pieces took shape.
For Hannah Abbott, something gentler.
For Cedric, something steady.
For Goyle and Crabbe, charms simple enough that they might actually benefit from them rather than accidentally setting themselves on fire.
Then came Hermione.
Tamara reached for a piece of especially fine grained wood.
Her hand hesitated for only a moment before she began carving Ansuz.
Wisdom. Speech. Understanding.
She watched the symbol deepen beneath the blade and gave a disdainful little sniff.
"Do not misunderstand," she told the empty room. "I merely hope she will one day learn how to speak with greater logic and less emotion."
Which, for Hermione, was about as close to affection as Tamara would ever willingly admit.
At last there remained only one final piece of wood.
Harry Potter.
Tamara stared down at it with the flat intensity of someone considering murder through craftsmanship.
For a glorious second she genuinely entertained the thought of carving something far more interesting than a blessing into it.
A curse, perhaps. A small one. Educational.
The system responded by sending a warning spark dancing across her fingertips.
Tamara clenched her jaw.
"Oh, for the love of—fine."
With aggressive, clipped movements, she carved Sowilo into the last charm.
Sun. Victory.
"There," she said bitterly. "Let it stand for my own future victory instead."
Once all twelve plaques were finished, Tamara began the far more delicate work of layering magic into them.
That part, at least, she could do with true skill.
She infused each rune properly, locking in the intended blessing, refining the magical flow until even the cheap wood glowed faintly from within. By the time she finished, darkness had fully fallen outside the windows, and her shoulders ached from hours of relentless work.
The table before her was covered in twelve completed amulets.
Their material was ordinary. Their craftsmanship, however, was not.
Each one held a stable blessing. Each one carried the touch of real power.
If sold openly, they would likely command a price high enough to make respectable wizards faint.
Tamara leaned back in her chair and looked over them with exhausted contempt.
"If any of them knew who made these," she said softly, "they would probably scream and throw them into the nearest fire."
Still, the work was done.
She summoned school owls and sent the parcels off one by one into the night.
The next morning, the gifts were opened.
At Malfoy Manor, Draco received the Ehwaz charm and nearly lost his mind with delight.
"Dad! Look at it! She made it herself!"
Lucius Malfoy took the plaque from his son, turning it slowly between gloved fingers. The magical weight in it was impossible to miss.
His expression became unreadable.
"Indeed," he said after a moment. "Then you would be wise to thank Miss Riddle properly, Draco."
In the Hufflepuff common room, Hannah Abbott opened her Berkana charm and promptly declared Tamara the kindest person in the entire school.
When she put it on, a warmth spread gently through her chest, and she spent the next half hour speaking about it with misty eyed reverence.
In Gryffindor Tower, Harry sat by the fire with a handful of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans when an owl dropped a small parcel directly into his lap.
Inside lay a wooden amulet tied with a dark green ribbon.
There was no card.
No note.
Nothing but the faint pulse of magic within the rune.
Harry held it in his hand and felt the stored warmth in the wood, the subtle strength of the blessing. His fingers tightened around it.
He looked up toward the black winter sky beyond the tower window.
Then, very quietly, he said, "Thank you."
Back in the Slytherin dormitory, Tamara had collapsed across her bed face down and barely possessed the strength to resent the world properly.
The system, however, remained in excellent spirits.
[Ding! Mission Complete: Reciprocity.]
[Congratulations, host, for successfully spreading warmth to everyone.]
[Reward: Love +3.]
[Additional bonus awarded. Your handiwork contained exceptional sincerity. Extra Love +1.]
[Current Attributes: Love 18, Life 14, Wisdom 30, Courage 12.]
[Everyone's favourability has risen significantly.]
Tamara did not move.
She lay there staring blankly at the bed curtains, one arm hanging over the side of the mattress, looking like someone who had survived a natural disaster and regretted it.
At length, she spoke in a flat, deadly voice.
"Next Christmas..."
She took a breath.
"If anyone dares give me a present again, I will kill them."
.....
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