Harry Potter and the Monster of Gryffindor

On Christmas morning Harry awoke to a strange weight on his feet. By now he was used to Nagara curling up on his torso, but weight on his feet was quite unusual. When he looked the weight turned out to be made up of a number of small, brightly wrapped presents. Harry stared at them. Before he’d only received one present on Christmas day, usually wrapped in old newspaper. Last year, he vaguely remembered, he’d got a pair of Uncle Vernon’s socks. He wondered what had happened to them. Presumably when he’d left number 4 his aunt and uncle had cleaned out his cupboard. Maybe Uncle Vernon had taken the socks back. Now, Harry thought with a warm feeling of satisfaction, he had socks of his own. He pulled on a pair after his shower and reflected on all the good things that had happened so far. As he left the bathroom Harry thought he’d never been happier in his life.

Ron was grudgingly awake when Harry got back to the dorms. “What are you looking so pleased about?” he grumbled at the sight of Harry’s smile.

“I’ve got presents!” Harry burbled, not wanting to put into words the pleasure he felt from not being at the Dursley’s.

“What did you expect, turnips?” Ron’s pile of gifts, Harry saw without rancour, was much larger than his own.

They fell to the business of opening presents with a mock seriousness. Nagara joined in, slithering in and out of the torn and crumpled paper, hiding and then lunging out as Harry threw wads for it to catch. After the snake’s last moult Harry had more-or-less decided that Nagara was probably female, much to his disappointment. How was Nagara going to be the King of serpents if it was, in fact, a Queen. He contemplated making another to try to get a boy but had decided that one illegal serpent was probably enough. And the next one might not have Nagara’s strange eye issue that seemed to render it- her- harmless to look at.

Harry was pulled from his observations by a screeching at the window. Suku was outside, flapping furiously to remain stationary while carrying another package. This one turned out to be from Hermione and contained two books, one for Ron and one for Harry. Ron’s was a book on essay writing and came with a note from Hermione that he was please to lend it to Harry to read also. Harry’s was a field guide to snakes. The note enclosed in this said I would have got you a book like Ron’s but I couldn’t let this one go.

Harry’s other presents were equally satisfactory. He and Ron both received a box of chocolate frogs from Neville, and a ‘Weasley’ jumper from Ron’s mother. Harry was touched that she had included him in her gift giving. Ron grumbled that his was maroon, but he pulled it on readily enough, Harry noticed. Harry also got a flute from Hagrid, which sounded, to Suku’s annoyance, a bit like an owl, and a box of dominoes from Tom and Dave. Harry recognised these at once. They were one of the older sets in the bar. Instead of shuffling the tiles you merely had to shake the box to make the dots redistribute themselves. This one was Harry’s favourite. The dots had a habit of settling to the lowest point, so that Harry and Dave had once played a game with nine double-blanks and a double-eight. He shook it vigorously now, just for the pleasure of it.

The last present was unlabelled. Harry couldn’t think who it could be from. There was no-one else in his life who could possibly want to give him gifts. He opened it slowly, still pondering. Ron was busy exclaiming over a subscription he had received from one of his older brothers to Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle and didn’t notice the change in Harry. Nagara did, and picked herself up from the floor to watch proceedings from his shoulders.

The package turned out to contain a cloak of a silvery material which flowed like water in Harry’s hands. A note fluttered out which Nagara lunged for but missed. Harry picked it up. Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well. Harry stood and tried the cloak on. It was very long on him and puddled around his feet, but incredibly light. It felt like wearing nothing at all. He turned to look in the mirror and yelped. His body had vanished.

Ron finally looked up from Martin Miggs. “Blimey, Harry!” he ejaculated, “you’re invisible.”

Harry reached up, noticing that his hands became visible as he shook them free of the cloak, then raised the hood and tucked his hands away again. Ron stared at where he stood. “Bloody Hell,” he said, rather gormlessly. Harry looked back to the mirror. He simply wasn’t there. There was no blurring of where he was, no shadow on the floor. He was simply invisible. He pulled off the cloak and sat on his bed, running the silver fabric through his fingers. From this side there was no indication that the cloak had such a power.

Nagara inspected it, then returned to Harry’s shoulders, shaking her head as though it had smelled bad. “Cold and damp and death,” she explained when Harry asked what it smelled of.

“Dangerous?”

“No. Not to Harry.”

“To who?”

“Prey. If prey cannot see Harry, Harry can strike prey easily.”

Harry smiled at the snake’s rather simple world view. “Blimey,” Ron said again. Harry looked at him. “An invisibility cloak. I’ve only heard of them. They’re really rare, and really valuable.”

“The note said it was my father’s,” Harry said, feeling oddly defensive. He’d never had something valuable before and he didn’t want Ron to think he’d used his own money on this.

“Wow,” was all Ron said.

At that moment the twins burst in. Harry hid the cloak below its wrapping paper, but Nagara wasn’t quick enough.

“What’s that?” the twins asked in unison. Harry noticed that they had a letter on the jumpers they wore over their pyjamas. As the letters were the twins’ initials this was presumably to prevent confusion, although Harry wouldn’t put it passed them to have deliberately switched.

“Ah,” Harry said.

“Oh,” added Ron.

“Please don’t tell anyone!” Harry said, urgently, “she’s a secret.”

“Who is she?”

“Nagara. Her name’s Nagara. She’s mine,” Harry explained.

“She’s not a boomslang, is she?” asked one twin, wearing G.

“No, she’s not a boomslang,” answered Harry, completely truthfully.

“Is she dangerous?” asked the twin wearing F.

“Only if she wants to be. But she’s quite laid back usually,” Harry wasn’t sure whether this was an answer the twins would accept, but it was true.

“And she’s a secret?” asked G.

“You know we’re not allowed snakes at Hogwarts,” Ron said brusquely. “If anyone knows they’ll take her away, and she’s not doing any harm. She only just hatched before school started.”

“We won’t say a word,” said F after the twins exchanged looks.

“On our honour as totally untrustworthy people,” added G, and they broke into identical grins. Nagara slithered under the collar of Harry’s new jumper, causing the twins to notice this for the first time. “Harry’s got a Weasley jumper!” G exclaimed.

“His is nicer than ours though,” said F, giving Harry a critical look, “mum obviously makes more effort if you’re not family.”

“Harry hasn’t got a letter on his,” commented G, “she must think you’ve already learnt your name. But we’re not stupid: we know we’re called Gred and Forge!” Harry grinned back at him.

“What’s all this noise?” growled a voice in the doorway. Percy stood there, his own Weasley jumper over one arm, glowering at his brothers.

The twin Harry could now only think of as Forge (wearing the F) seized Percy’s jumper. “P for Prefect,” he exclaimed, holding the garment up for the room to see. “Come on, get it on, Percy, they’re lovely and warm. We’re all wearing ours.”

“Even Harry’s got one,” added Gred, helping his twin force the jumper over Percy’s protesting head. They frogmarched Percy down to the common room telling him loudly that Christmas was a time for family, and they expected him to sit with them today.

Harry and Ron shared a look and burst out laughing.

***

Wizarding Christmas was a lot more fun than the muggle one, Harry decided. Partly his enjoyment came from not having had to cook the mountains of food which decorated each table in the Great Hall. For the first time he wondered who did do the cooking at Hogwarts, but the thought was quickly supplanted by the wonderful smell of chipolatas. There were the crackers, which emitted a bang loud enough to send Harry a few paces backwards when he stood to pull one with Percy, and from which several live mice emerged. Sadly for Nagara, there weren’t enough people to screen her and allow her to snatch them from the table. Harry promised her that she could go hunting after dark. There were real hats and proper games inside the crackers too, despite the fact that they shouldn’t fit. At the teachers table Professor Dumbledore was wearing a bonnet and exchanging jokes with Professor Flitwick when Harry looked up. He wasn’t surprised to see that Professor Snape looked miserable at the whole thing.

Finally, Harry and the Weasleys, full to bursting with Christmas food, their arms full of presents from the crackers, traipsed back up to Gryffindor tower, where they spent the afternoon engaged in quiet matters. Fred and George on working out the charms for keeping snowballs whole, Percy in reading a book he’d been sent by his brother Bill-in-Egypt and Harry and Ron having a noisy game of chess by the fire.

It wasn’t until they went up to bed, still full of Christmas lunch, that Harry remembered the invisibility cloak from that morning. Ron fell straight into bed, tired out from the days’ activities, but Harry sat on his bed, running the material through his hands again. Use it well the note had said. Use it… Harry could go anywhere in this cloak, and no-one would know.

Harry felt wide awake. This was a chance in a thousand. Maybe even a million. He and Ron had enjoyed exploring the castle by daylight, but had to be wary of teachers. Now, with the castle asleep and a way to hide no matter what, Hogwarts was open to Harry in a way it never had been before. And it had been his father’s cloak. Had Harry’s father, like Harry now, crept out of the portrait hole invisibly to explore the silent castle? Navigating by moonlight, Harry crept along corridors, past sleeping portraits and silent suits of armour, until he reached a part of the castle he only vaguely recognised. It was on the fourth floor, he thought, near the transfiguration classrooms.

He walked for some way down this corridor, without trying any of the doors, until he reached a stretch of corridor where the moonlight was blocked by a large tapestry covering the windows. In the cover of this darkness Harry cautiously tried a door. It was unlocked, which came as no surprise. Hogwarts, Harry had discovered, was full of unused rooms which were usually kept unlocked. He had wondered aloud what they were all for but hadn’t received an answer. This room looked to be just another empty classroom; the desks were pushed back against the walls and the chairs stacked in haphazard piles. In the centre of the room, however, was a large mirror.

Harry, intrigued, walked over to it. He glanced around the room quickly, to check that he was really alone, then pulled down the hood of his cloak, turning to see his disembodied head in the mirror again. But the mirror didn’t show his head. Harry let out an audible gasp of surprise. Standing in the mirror he saw himself (all of himself, regardless of the invisibility cloak) and dozens of other people. He checked around the room again, but it was still empty. He looked at the mirror itself, searching for some clue. Above the glass was some sort of incantation Erised stra ehru oy tube cafru oyt on wohsi. Harry whispered it under his breath, but it made no difference to the image in the glass.

He looked closer at the faces of the people behind him. The woman just behind his left shoulder was crying. The tears welled up in bright green eyes, marring her beautiful, freckled face. Her eyes are just like mine Harry realised, as she smiled at him. He looked at the man standing next to her, who had put an arm around her shoulders. There was Harry’s mop of hair, and the quirk of his ears that made one stick out more than the other. “Mum?” he asked, in a whisper, “dad?” They smiled and waved at him out of the mirror, silent. Harry saw his father place a hand on Nagara and stroke her back absentmindedly.

He looked into the other faces and traced in them the lines of his own face. He saw the people who must be Grandma and Grandpa Evans, Aunt Petunia’s parents. Grandma Evans had the same pinched face, but her eyes were much brighter than Aunt Petunia’s pale blue. He saw his Potter ancestors, the male line all showing the same black unruly hair. A man who could have been his Grandfather, or even Great-Grandfather, had a hand stained blue with some potion or other. Harry grinned when he saw this.

He touched the mirror gently, wanting to fall through it into the fabulous vision it showed. The image didn’t ripple, as Harry half expected, but the mirror stayed solid: an impenetrable barrier between Harry and the dead. Unable to tear his gaze away Harry stared at them all, but most of all at his mother. In her eyes was something he’d never seen but he knew it immediately. It was love. Love so strong it leaked out of her eyes in the tears which still fell. He reached a hand up, to try to wipe them away, but felt only the cold glass.

A noise in the corridor outside made Harry remember where he was. He looked once more at his mother, whispered “I’ll come back,” and hurried from the room, pulling the hood of his cloak up as he did.

***

The following morning Ron didn’t know whether to be annoyed that Harry had gone exploring without him or pleased at the promise of a night-time excursion that evening. Harry was on tenterhooks all day. He couldn’t settle to games or schoolwork, even though the start of term looked a lot closer from this side of Christmas. Ron eventually had to get Percy to play chess with him while Harry wandered the hallways near the kitchens with Suku watching Nagara look for escaped mice. The little owl was plainly uncomfortable underground but took comfort from the normalcy of interacting with Harry.

Eventually Nagara returned to Harry, complaining that the floors were cold, and her nose was getting tired. Harry obligingly slung her around his shoulders, and she wriggled under his collar again. Suku gave a short kew of annoyance as Nagara bumped against his feet. The sound reverberated down the long empty passage. Harry quickly turned to go back to the great hall, sure that the sound would attract a professor, or worse, Filch and Mrs. Norris.

***

When, at last, the twins had gone to bed, Harry and Ron ducked under the invisibility cloak. With two of them under it the cloak didn’t pool around the floor quite so much which made it easier to move in. They headed downstairs rapidly, so rapidly that Harry was a bit vague about which floor they came out on. He saw a suit of armour, though, and hastened to the door next to it, which should lead to the mirror corridor. It was locked.

“Move over,” Ron whispered, pulling his wand out of his dressing gown pocket. Harry hadn’t thought to bring his, and he once again cursed his muggle upbringing. “Fred taught me this one. I’m not great at it. Alohomora!” He said the spell slightly more loudly than he intended to, and the click of the lock was unheard under Harry’s frantic “shh”.

Harry opened the door and walked in, unseeing in his hurry. When his mind did register what his eyes were telling him he stopped dead. This was clearly not the correct corridor. For one thing it was far too short. For another it had far fewer windows. And for a third it had far too many dogs. Harry backed hurriedly towards the door, bumping into Ron who stood transfixed. Feeling slightly better at the few steps distance he had gained Harry was finally able to take in what he was seeing. There weren’t dogs, there was one dog with three heads. Cerberus, the name came uselessly to mind from the section of Greek Mythology they had done in primary school. At least he knew the name of what would kill him.

All three heads were growling and sniffing. Ropes of saliva dangled from snarling lips that showed far too many teeth. It couldn’t see them, Harry realised. It hadn’t eaten them because it couldn’t see them. But it was getting closer, led on inch by inch by those three great noses. Ron grabbed Harry’s shoulder and tugged. Ron, it seemed, had had the presence of mind to concentrate on getting out of that corridor, and away from that monster.

***

 The Adventure of the Midnight Cerberus, as Ron dubbed it, blunted Ron’s desire to hunt for a magical mirror. It distracted Harry, but not enough that he gave up looking for it. Finally, near the end of the holidays, he found the room again, but the mirror was gone. Harry sat forlornly on the floor where it had been and called up the pictures in his mind. His father and mother, grandparents, aunts, uncles except, now he thought about it, not Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. Was that a clue? Did the mirror only show magical relatives? But no; Grandma and Grandpa Evans had been muggles, and they had been there.

Harry hugged his knees and wished he could see them all again, wished the mirror hadn’t been moved, wished he and Ron hadn’t got mixed up a few nights ago, wished, wished, wished that he could touch them, hear them, see them.

That night he wasn’t disturbed. Eventually, still sitting on the floor hugging his own knees, he fell asleep, and woke when the dawn began to lighten the room.