Christmas Spirit

Somehow, it's even worse now than when he was a kid, when he had never heard of Hogwarts, when he had no friends. Now he knows what it is to share Christmas with friends and family, to wake up early to open his gifts, to look forward to a big, garish, lumpy jumper.

Harry pushes his hands into his pocket and walks through Diagon Alley, trying not to look at the illuminated windows and swerving to avoid the street vendors selling hot chestnuts and mulled wine. Why did he go out?

Harry knows why, of course. The darkness and grandeur of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place has been becoming oppressive, especially as Harry refused to put up even the smallest branch of mistletoe, much to Dobby's disappointment.

Loud Christmas carols are blazing out of the shops, and suddenly Harry's eyes are burning. He can hear Hermione's favourite song drifting out of Fortescue's, and the Quidditch supplies shop is playing a carol Ron used to sing, though with bawdier lyrics. He remembers Hermione pursing her lips and snapping "Ronald!" in that schoolmistress's voice she had down to a pat, and Ron taunting her. He remembers Ron falling under Malfoy's Killing Curse and Hermione being drained of her blood by one of Voldemort's vampires.

Harry turns back. He should never have come here. Those people. . . they don't know. Death Eater attacks, it was something they read about in the Prophet, something that happened to others. They didn't lose their family to the folly of Voldemort, their mentor to the treacherousness of his trusted lieutenant, their friends to the nightmarish army Voldemort had gathered.

Harry's not running, he's not. He's just walking very quickly in the direction of the Leaky Cauldron. His eyes are full of tears and his glasses are fogged up; he nearly stumbles over a little girl he hasn't seen.

The girl is knocked to the ground, and Harry helps her to stand up, anxious that he might have hurt her, or even. . . But no, she's screaming her lungs out, so at least he knows she's alive. The mother hurries to her side.

"What happened, pumpkin? Are you hurt?"

"He. . . he made me faaaall!"

"Shh, my love, it's just a scraped knee. Let me find my wand, pumpkin."

Clumsily, Harry takes out his.

"I'm sorry. Let me. . ." he offers.

The little girl screams even louder and seems to be trying to shrink down into her mother's cloak.

"No, don't," the harried mother says. "She doesn't like seeing wands ever since Death Eaters attacked our home and killed her brother before her eyes, but she doesn't mind mine."

She spells the torn skin to close and wipes the blood from her knees and the tears from her face, but Harry isn't looking at her anymore. Instead, he looks at the people milling around them.

For the first time, he sees a man with an empty sleeve, a woman wearing a black mourning band, a teenager with one-hundred-year-old eyes. . . He turns back to the woman.

"I'm sorry about your son, ma'am."

She turns her eyes away and shrugs, almost indifferently, but Harry can see her pain.

"Life goes on. Well, good night, sir, and happy Christmas!"

"Happy Christmas."

Harry watches the woman and her daughter until they are lost in the crowd. He turns back toward the shops and strides through the push of people with a new purpose.

He has a tree to find.