"Richie?"
Richie looked up. Aunt Annabelle was standing right beside his bed.
"Put on your wizarding robes and grab your wand," she whispered. "I'm taking you to experience a real wizard's Christmas."
Hearing that, Richie immediately sat up.
A wizard's Christmas?
Driven by his aunt's hushed urging, Richie sleepily threw on his school robes and stood in the center of his room.
Annabelle grabbed his hand. A split second later, they vanished from the Harland household.
Central London. A red telephone box on a quiet street corner. Having Apparated into a nearby alleyway, Annabelle dragged Richie into the cramped telephone box.
She picked up the receiver and quickly dialed 6-2-4-4-2. Almost immediately, a calm, automated female voice echoed inside the booth.
"Welcome to the British Ministry of Magic. Please state your business."
"Annabelle Godwin. I have a scheduled appointment tonight with the Portkey Office in the Department of Magical Transportation."
As she spoke, Annabelle dropped a small card into the metal chute beneath the dial.
"Thank you. Please hold."
A moment later, the gentle voice returned.
"Merry Christmas, Senior Investigator Godwin. We wish you a smooth transaction."
The floor of the telephone box suddenly dropped, sinking into the ground like a high-speed elevator, giving Richie a brief stomach-dropping sensation of weightlessness.
After descending incredibly deep into the earth, the darkness outside the glass windows finally broke, replaced by brilliant, golden light.
The British Ministry of Magic, Level Eight — The Atrium
The door of the telephone box swung open from the outside. A woman in official Ministry robes nodded at them.
"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic."
Annabelle led Richie out of the booth.
"Enjoy it," she muttered. "Only official visitors get this kind of VIP treatment. If off-duty employees want to come in without paying the Floo Network fee, we have to flush ourselves in through the designated public toilets above ground."
Listening to his aunt complain, Richie curiously took in his surroundings.
Even on Christmas Eve, the massive Atrium was still bustling with wizards.
The centerpiece of the hall was an enormous fountain, though the water was currently turned off. In the middle of the basin stood a group of towering, solid gold statues.
A wizard and a witch stood tall, their wands pointed toward the ceiling. Surrounding them were magical creatures—a centaur, a goblin, and a house-elf—all looking up at the humans with expressions of absolute adoration.
If you didn't know any better, it looked like a beautiful monument to interspecies unity and harmony.
But Richie had taken History of Magic. He knew exactly how wizards actually treated other magical races. Looking at the statues now, it looked less like the creatures were admiring the wizards, and more like they were actively surrounding them to launch an attack.
Following Annabelle, Richie took an elevator up to Level Six: The Department of Magical Transportation.
After checking in at the front desk, they were led into an empty, windowless room labeled the "Departure Lounge".
The room was completely bare. All four walls were plated in heavy steel, and a single, pipe-like vent protruded from the ceiling.
"Please be advised: this is a single-use Portkey. Skin-to-surface contact is required for activation."
"Mild nausea and disorientation are standard side effects."
"Have a pleasant journey."
The Ministry worker handed Annabelle an object wrapped in a cloth napkin, then quickly stepped out and locked the heavy steel door behind them.
"Portkeys are a staple of long-distance magical travel," Annabelle explained as she unwrapped the cloth. "The magic is woven directly into the object. To keep Muggles from accidentally picking them up, the Ministry usually enchants literal garbage."
She pulled away the cloth, revealing a heavily splintered, ancient wooden hairbrush. It even had a few gross, greasy black hairs still stuck in the bristles.
"Alright, Richie. On three, we both grab the brush. Do not hesitate."
Following her instructions, Richie extended a finger, hovering just over the wood.
"Three. Two... One!"
They touched the brush at the exact same time.
Instantly, Richie felt an incredibly violent jerk right behind his navel, exactly like an invisible meat hook had snagged his stomach and forcefully yanked him forward.
It felt like getting sucked into the center of a roaring tornado. The steel room blurred into streaks of color, accompanied by a deeply nauseating sense of time distortion.
One second felt like a single heartbeat, and the next felt like he had been spinning through the void for a year.
When his feet finally slammed into solid ground, the sheer wave of dizziness and nausea nearly dropped him. He squeezed his eyes shut as the world aggressively spun around him.
Right then, a loud, gravelly voice cut through the ringing in his ears.
"Merlin's sagging socks! Took you two long enough."
"Give me a break, Dad. I hurried as fast as I could," Annabelle shot back. "Richie was literally asleep. I had to drag him out of bed."
"Haha! Look at my beautiful grandson! He looks exactly like Elena!" the gravelly voice boomed. "Though I'm not a fan of the bird's-nest hair!"
A heavy, pungent smell of cheap tobacco hit Richie's nose, forcing him to violently sneeze.
The sneeze actually helped snap him out of the Portkey nausea. He blinked hard, trying to focus his eyes.
Standing in front of him was an older man sporting a massive, greying beard and a pair of tinted yellow riding goggles.
As Richie's vision cleared, the man's face perfectly aligned with a photograph Richie had seen a hundred times—the photograph attached to a tombstone back in his Muggle hometown.
Dawson Godwin.
His grandfather. The man his mother claimed had died over a decade ago.
"Feeling better, kid?"
Before Richie could process the shock, Dawson grabbed him under the arms and effortlessly hoisted him into the air.
"Ho ho! Sturdy boy! Give him a few years, and he'll be built like a brick wall!"
Feeling his ribs getting aggressively crushed, Richie instantly realized exactly where Aunt Annabelle had inherited her terrifying, suffocating hugs.
"Hey, Grandpa... can you put me down?" Richie wheezed out awkwardly.
"Of course!" Dawson laughed heartily, dropping him back onto his feet.
"Alright, let's stop standing around in the freezing cold. We've got people waiting on us at home."
With that, Dawson turned and marched away.
Taking a look around, Richie realized they had landed on an abandoned, heavily snowed-in train platform. The area was completely isolated, surrounded by nothing but dark fields and falling snow.
The only source of light was coming from... a massive, jet-black motorcycle equipped with a sidecar?
"Let's go, Richie!" Annabelle called out. She walked over to the bike, effortlessly pulled a heavy helmet from the saddlebag, and strapped it on.
Seeing no other option, Richie trudged through the snow toward the bike.
"Get in the sidecar, little Richie! And put on the goggles and helmet!" Dawson yelled over the wind. "Unless you want the high-altitude freeze to permanently blind you!"
Richie quickly grabbed the gear from the sidecar and pulled it on.
Wait.
"High-altitude?" Richie paused. "Does this motorcycle fly?"
"Damn right it does!" Dawson roared proudly. "If a wizard's ride can't fly, they might as well bloody walk!"
Richie climbed into the sidecar and securely buckled the heavy leather seatbelt. Annabelle climbed onto the pillion seat behind Dawson, who took the handlebars.
"Hold on tight! We're heading home!"
Dawson reached down, gave Richie's helmet a reassuring slap, and aggressively cranked the throttle.
With a deafening roar that tore through the quiet night, the motorcycle shot forward down the snowy platform, hit top speed, and violently launched itself straight into the sky.