Chapter 29 : Christmas Eve
Summon Manor — December 24, 1991, 10:00 AM
Cork had opinions about Christmas decorations, and he was not shy about sharing them.
"The garlands go higher, Young Master — HIGHER — Cork cannot reach but Young Master has wand and magic and also ARMS —"
Matt levitated the holly garland to the top of the drawing room doorframe while Cork directed from below, hands on hips, tear-stained face set in the fierce concentration of an artist at work. Behind them, the drawing room was undergoing a transformation that bordered on architectural renovation. Enchanted snowflakes drifted from the ceiling without melting — Cork's specialty, tiny magic that required enormous precision and a house-elf's particular brand of devotion. The Christmas tree had been re-decorated twice because Cork decided the colour scheme was "not festive ENOUGH" and started over.
Harry was helping. Or trying to. He stood on a stepladder with a box of enchanted ornaments, placing each one on the tree with the careful deliberation of someone who'd never decorated anything and was treating each glass ball like a relic.
"The blue one," Cork said. "Yes — no — LEFT, Harry Potter sir — perfect! Cork LOVES that one."
Harry adjusted the ornament. It glowed faintly, cycling through shades of sapphire. His reflection warped in its curved surface — a boy with crooked glasses and messy hair and an expression of total, bewildered happiness.
"I've never done this," Harry said. "The Dursleys decorated. I watched from the cupboard."
The words landed like stones in water. Cork's eyes filled — which was his resting state, admittedly — but the quality of the tears shifted from joy to something that made his small fists clench at his sides.
"Harry Potter sir will decorate EVERYTHING," Cork said, with a ferocity that suggested the house-elf was prepared to go to war over the matter. "Cork will get MORE ornaments."
He vanished with a crack. Matt caught Harry's eye and grinned.
"He's going to empty the storage room."
"I don't mind." Harry hung another ornament — a tiny golden stag that pranced along its branch. "Where does this stuff come from?"
"Centuries of accumulation. The Summon family never threw anything away." Matt attached a fairy light string to the mantlepiece. The lights resisted — the charm was old, finicky, and the wiring had developed the particular stubbornness of magical objects that had been in storage for decades. It took three attempts and a muttered Reparo before the string lit up in warm amber.
"Always the third try," he muttered.
Hermione was in the kitchen with Tilly, engaged in what appeared to be a negotiation about Christmas pudding. Hermione had offered to help cook. Tilly had responded with the dignified horror of a professional whose competence had been questioned. Compromise was reached: Hermione was allowed to stir the pudding mixture exactly seven times counter-clockwise while Tilly supervised from extremely close range.
"She offered to help," Matt heard Tilly saying through the kitchen door, voice oscillating between affront and grudging approval. "No guest has EVER offered to help Tilly. Tilly is not sure what to do with this information."
---
Creature Library — 2:00 PM
While Harry and Cork completed Operation Christmas Tree (Mark III — Cork had decided the fairy arrangement was "lopsided" and started over), Matt retreated to the creature library to prepare gifts.
He'd been planning since September. Each gift was deliberate, personal, chosen not for cost but for meaning.
For Harry: a charmed photo album. Leather-bound, enchanted with preservation charms that would keep images pristine for centuries. The pages were blank — no pictures yet, because the point wasn't the past. Matt had inscribed the inside cover in careful script: For the memories we'll make. Under the inscription, a small enchantment: each photo placed in the album would animate, and the album would reorganise itself chronologically, building a timeline of life as it was lived.
For Hermione: a first-edition copy of Scamander's Supplementary Index to Magical Creature Classification, 1927. Rare, academic, the kind of book that existed in twelve copies worldwide and had been sitting in the Summon creature library for sixty years, unread, waiting for someone who'd appreciate it. Matt had added a personal note inside: For the finest mind I know. Challenge me again anytime.
For Ron (via owl, to arrive Christmas morning at the Burrow): a set of wizard chess pieces carved from enchanted birch. The pieces were old — Summon family, three generations back — and genuinely valuable, but Matt had wrapped them in brown paper and included a note that said Found these in the attic. Thought you'd give them a proper game. Ron would never accept an expensive gift. Ron would absolutely accept something presented as a discovery.
For Neville (also via owl): seeds. Specifically, a packet of Dirigible Plum seeds — exceptionally rare, difficult to cultivate, requiring exactly the kind of patient, knowledgeable Herbology skill that Neville possessed. The note: Professor Sprout says these are nearly impossible to grow. I told her you'd manage.
Matt laid the gifts out on the library desk. Twig emerged from his hair and inspected each one, bark-fingers tapping the paper with the assessment rhythm of a creature who understood wrapped objects and approved of their existence.
[QUEST UPDATE: "TRUE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT" — HOST PREPARING PERSONALISED GIFTS FOR PACK MEMBERS. COMPLETION UPON DELIVERY. REWARD: +100 SP, +AFFECTION (ALL BONDS).]
Pack. The system's word for it. Matt's creatures, Matt's friends, Matt's people — the system didn't distinguish between species. A bond was a bond. Family was family.
---
Drawing Room — 8:30 PM
The fire burned low. The tree stood complete — Cork had finally accepted its decoration status, though he kept adjusting a single ornament in the back that he was convinced was "slightly irregular." Enchanted snow drifted from the ceiling in lazy spirals. The drawing room smelled of pine and cinnamon and the particular warmth of a house that was being loved into life after years of emptiness.
The three of them sat by the fire — Matt in the armchair, Hermione on the rug with her legs curled under her, Harry on the sofa with Whisper in his lap. The Kneazle had claimed Harry within an hour of his arrival and now treated him as secondary territory, defending his kneecap from all threats with the proprietary air of a creature who'd decided this human needed supervision.
"Tell me a memory," Matt said. "Best Christmas you've had."
Hermione went first. "I was seven. My parents took me to the British Museum. The Egyptian wing — the Rosetta Stone. I stood in front of it for forty minutes. My dad had to physically carry me away." A smile, soft with distance. "I didn't care about the presents that year. I'd seen the key to understanding an entire civilisation. That was enough."
"That's the most Hermione story I've ever heard," Matt said.
"I know. Your turn."
Matt considered. His real best Christmas — the old life — was a distant, grey thing. Takeaway curry and veterinary documentaries. The loneliness of it was so familiar it hadn't registered as loneliness until he'd been given something to compare it against.
"My grandmother's portrait told me a story," he said instead, picking a memory from this life. "My first Christmas here. I was seven. She told me about the time she rescued a Runespoor from a collapsed mine in Cornwall. Three heads, each with different opinions about whether she was helping or kidnapping them. She spent four hours negotiating with the left head while the right head tried to bite her and the middle head fell asleep." He smiled. "She made it sound like an adventure, not a rescue. That's how she saw everything — as an adventure worth having."
"She sounds incredible," Hermione said.
"She was."
Harry's turn. The silence stretched. Whisper purred in his lap, filling the quiet with engine-rumble warmth.
"I don't have one," Harry said. "Christmas at the Dursleys — I watched them open presents. That's it. Every year."
The fire crackled. Somewhere in the kitchen, Tilly was preparing tomorrow's feast with the focused intensity of a house-elf who considered Christmas dinner a military operation.
"This one," Harry said. "This one's the best. The decorating and the — Cork, and Luna in the garden, and being somewhere that —" He stopped. Swallowed. "Somewhere that wants me."
Matt didn't speak. Hermione's hand found Harry's ankle and squeezed once.
Cork appeared in the doorway. He'd changed into a clean tea towel — his formal attire — and was holding a candle with the solemnity of an elf about to perform a sacred duty.
"Cork would like to sing," he announced. "A Christmas carol. For Young Master and Young Master's guests."
"Go ahead, Cork."
Cork cleared his throat. He held the candle high. And he sang.
The melody was recognisable — barely — as "God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs," a wizarding carol that Matt had found in a songbook in the library. Cork knew approximately forty percent of the words. The remaining sixty percent he invented on the spot, substituting lyrics with enthusiasm and volume and the occasional sob that he incorporated into the melody as though emotional collapse were a musical technique.
"— and Dumbledore did saaaaay, remember Hippogriffs are proud and do not look awaaaay — oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and — oh comfort and —" Cork lost the words entirely, substituted them with weeping, and finished the song with a triumphant bow.
Harry applauded. Hermione applauded. Matt applauded. Cork burst into fresh tears of joy and vanished with a crack to prepare midnight cocoa.
The fire burned. The snow drifted. Twig dozed in the Christmas tree, hidden among the branches, indistinguishable from the pine.
Eventually, Harry's head tilted. His eyes closed. His breathing slowed, and Whisper adjusted in his lap without waking him, settling deeper with the particular boneless grace of a cat-shaped creature who took her guardian duties seriously.
Hermione caught Matt's eye across the fire.
"He's never had this," she whispered.
"I know."
They found blankets. Covered him. Hermione tucked the edges with the care of someone handling something fragile, and Harry slept in front of the fire with a Kneazle on his chest and snow falling from a ceiling that wasn't cold, and Christmas Eve became Christmas Day in the silence between one breath and the next.
Matt stood in the doorway, watching. Pip appeared beside him — silent, grey-eared, the elder elf who'd served long enough to recognise a turning point when he saw one.
"Young Master's grandmother," Pip said quietly, "would be proud."
Matt's throat tightened. "Thanks, Pip."
He went to wrap the last gift — Harry's album — and carried it downstairs to the tree while the house slept.
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