“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.”
-John Lennon

Draco, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle, and Hermione, as well, had left on the Hogwarts Express to Platform 9 ¾. Harry had been in the Common Room, playing chess with Blaise when hey realized that they were both hungry, and went to the Great Hall. When they walked through the doors, they saw the twelve large, ornament-covered trees. Snow fell from the ceiling, but vanished before it hit them. The goblets sang Christmas carols even when full of pumpkin juice, so it sounded like someone was gurgling the song. The High Table was filled with teachers, but there were only two house tables out because there were less students staying at Hogwarts.

Harry saw Ron sitting at one of the tables, talking to Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas. Harry and Blaise sat at the other table and enjoyed their Christmas Eve dinner. After eating and much laughing, which went well into the night, Harry decided to go to bed. Him and Blaise were the only two people in their dormitory.

Harry felt miserable, knowing that he weren’t going to get any presents. He had never gotten any real presents from the Dursley’s. The most he had gotten was some of Dudley’s some old, too big shirts. But Harry fell asleep without another thought.

Harry awoke to Blaise’s hands shaking him as he said, “Wake up, Harry! Its Christmas!” Harry rubbed the sand from his eyes, but didn’t put his glasses on yet. He sat up, he could see a blurry figure of Blaise next to him.

“Why? I’m not getting any presents. I never have,” said Harry groggily, wanting to go back to sleep.

“But you do have presents! Quite a few in fact,” said Blaise. His blurry body moved to the foot of his own bed.

Harry quickly reached for his glasses. Upon putting them on, he saw at the foot of his bed were boxes of presents. Harry jumped out of bed to look at them better. Harry reached for the one on top. It was a small box, poorly wrapped. He opened it furiously. It looked like a small, round glass object. Harry didn’t know what it was. Harry turned to the little envelope that was still stuck to the ripped wrappings. Harry opened it.

Courageous,

If you’re wondering what your present is, it’s a Sneakoscope. It whistles when something or someone dodgy is near you. I thought it would be of use to you; the other Slytherin’s don’t seem to be the most trusting of people, no offense. Merry Christmas!

Humorous

PS-I thought maybe that you and me could go roaming around the castle for fun tomorrow night. It’ll be easier to sneak out because there are less people. Write back.

“Yes! My mum got me something I wanted,” said Blaise at the next bed. Harry opened his next present to see it was chocolate pudding. Harry looked at the card it was from Hagrid.

The next present was from Hermione. It was a book full of simple, but useful spells; he read the title: “Little Spell Book” by Vene Libel. Harry took the card and read it.

Harry

Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoy the book. I thought it would be a good book for you to have. By the way, when you open the front over of the book, you’ll find a quill. It let’s only the intended reader or readers see what you wrote, no matter what ink you use. I bought one for Ron and I, as well. (I used my quill for this letter, in fact. That’s why I used your name.) See you soon,

Hermione

Harry opened the front cover of the book, and saw a pure white quill. He knew he would be using that every time he wrote to Ron or Hermione. Before turning to his next present, he went to his bedside table and put the quill in the box.

The next present turned out to be from Blaise. It was a book of Quidditch moves and helpful tricks to do on a broom called “Tricks for the Seeker” by Reor Solan.

“Thanks, Blaise!” said Harry. Harry saw that he had only a couple presents left. Wrappings were all around the foot of Blaise’ bed, but it was just the same around the foot of Harry’s bed.

“No problem. Thanks for the book on advanced Chess tricks. This will be very useful,” said Blaise with a large smile, as he flipped through the pages.

“Your welcome,” said Harry. He turned back to his presents. Harry opened the envelope that lay on top of the highest present to Harry.

Harry

Just thought I’d tell you now that the object in the box is called a Conglomerate Stone. Each different colored stone on the whole stone (when you see it, you’ll know what I mean) is a Portkey. So you can make each stone go to a certain place. But the best part about it is that the stone stays a Portkey to that place, even after using it a thousand times. Choose the places carefully because once a stone is assigned, it can’t be changed. To make a stone a Portkey, you have to say the name of the place while putting your wand against the stone, but you have to be in that place at the time. Enjoy. Merry Christmas.

Draco

Harry opened the box and saw the Conglomerate Stone. It looked like a regular rock with different colored stones in it, some further in the stone than others and some larger than others. Harry looked at the stones; there was a red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, gray, and white stone, which were all on different places on the rock.

As he held it, Harry realized that it was incredibly light. Like he was holding a couple of pebbles instead of a stone. Harry put it in his pocket out of pure curiosity to see if he could feel it tugging down, but he couldn’t. Pleased, Harry took out the Conglomerate Stone and put it on his bed.

The next present was wrapped in simple brown paper with string around it. Harry immediately knew it was from the Dursley’s. Harry opened it to find a bunch of pencils and a school rubber. Inside the box was a scrap piece of paper that said, “Can you stay at the school during the summer, too? Find out.” Bloody helpful pencils and a school rubber is at Hogwarts. Unfortunately, Harry knew Dumbledore would not allow him to stay during the summer.

Harry looked at his trunk. There was only one present left upon it. As he looked at the last present, he hoped that the others had liked the presents he had bought for them. Blaise said he had liked his book. Harry remembers ordering different kinds of good-looking candies for Ron, a bag for Hermione that organizes all the things placed inside, and for Draco a satin-covered rectangular box that he can keep precious items in since there is password to open it. Blaise came over and stood next to Harry.

“Opened all my presents. I see you have one left,” said Blaise. “Open it!” He said in an excited tone.

Harry unwrapped it. “It’s a cloak,” said Harry with a confused tone. He touched the material as he held it; it felt like he was touching warm wind.

“It looks like silk. Can I feel it?” asked Blaise. Harry nodded. Blaise touched the fabric. “Wicked! That feels like air! It’s amazing!”

“I wonder who would give me a cloak like this? Its looks dead expensive, ” said Harry.

“Was there a card?”

“Yeah, I think so,” said Harry. He put the cloak on his trunk and picked up the parchment. “It says, ‘This once was your fathers. I’m sure you’ll come to realize what it is. Choose carefully when you use it, and who you let know about it. It might come to be useful.’ Odd.”

“There’s no name,” said Blaise, as he looked over at the card.

“The card said it will be useful, but how? It’s just a cloak,” said Harry.

“I don’t know, but I think you should try it on, before I do,” said Blaise, with a smile.

Harry picked up the cloak again. He swung it around his shoulders and around his body, so that it covered him completely. “Bloody hell! Where’d your body go?!” exclaimed Blaise. Harry looked down, and shock covered his face.

“Bloody hell! My body!” Harry ripped off the cloak, and his body became visible again. “Well, now I know why the person said it would be useful. I can be invisible.”

“Its an Invisibility Cloak! They’re very rare. Who would give you one?” asked Blaise.

“I think I know,” said Harry more to himself. He was thinking Dumbledore.

“Who?” asked Blaise, before he picked up the cloak from the floor. He held it in his hands feeling the unbelievable fabric.

“Never mind,” said Harry. “I wonder if I can see through the cloak while it’s covering me.”

“Try it,” said Blaise. Blaise handed Harry the cloak. He pulled it around his body, but covered his head, as well. “Can you see through it?”

Harry walked to behind Blaise, and then spoke. “Yeah,” said Harry.

Blaise jumped in surprise, and turned around. To him, no one was there. “Bloody hell, Harry! Where are you?”

Harry took off the cloak, laughing. “Do want to put this cloak to good use?”

“As in what? Walking around the castle?”

“Yeah. We can do some looking around,” said Harry.

“We can pull some pranks on people! Filch. We have to do something to Filch,” said Blaise, excitedly.

“Like what? I don’t have anything for pulling pranks,” said Harry.

“Neither do I,” said Blaise miserably.

“We don’t have to use anything,” said Harry.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he always walks around the castle, right? We could just walk up to him and poke him and make walking noises right near him. He’d go bonkers!”

“Good idea! We can start after dinner,” said Blaise.

“Sure. After that do you want to try some of those tricks from that book you got me, on the Quidditch field?”

“Alright,” said Blaise. Harry put the presents he received into his trunk, and locked it. He didn’t see a rubbish bin, so he left the wrappings for later.

After a great Christmas day and then an amazing Christmas dinner and mouth-watering afters, Harry and Blaise left for the Common Room to quickly get the Invisibility Cloak, which Harry had left in the corner. He had put it on the ground, so it seemed invisible. Harry quickly grabbed it, and turned to see that Blaise had already put his hand to the wall.

“Come on,” called Blaise. He seemed a little too excited.

“Wait. We should put the cloak on in here, not in the corridor. Just in case anyone sees us,” said Harry.

Luckily, no one else was in the Common Room, so Harry pulled the cloak over both of them and they stepped into the corridor. “Lets look around first, then we can look for Filch,” said Blaise, in an almost-whisper. They both spoke in whispers, for fear of being heard.

“Okay. Lets see… where should we go?” asked Harry.

They were walking up the stairs to the ground floor. When they got to the middle of the stairs, a group of third year girls started walking down the stairs, giggling. Harry and Blaise pressed their bodies against the railing of the stairs as the girls walked by, but one of the girls was swinging her arms jokingly. Her hand hit Harry in the chest, and she suddenly stopped and turned, but no one was there to her. The rest of the girls didn’t notice and had kept walking. “Odd,” said the girl, before he hurried after the others.

“Close,” said Blaise.

“She didn’t know we were there. She just thought what had happened was odd.”

“She might tell her friends, though.”

“Even if she does, they aren’t going to think that two boys were under an Invisibility Cloak. You said yourself they were very rare.”

“I guess your right. Let’s keep walking,” said Blaise. They got to the top of the stairs and went along the corridor that led to the Great Hall. But they didn’t walk long; they soon saw a door on the ground floor of Hogwarts that said “Caretaker’s Office.”

“Blaise, lets go in Filch’s Office,” said Harry mischievously.

“Is Filch in there?” asked Blaise.

“I don’t think so. He’s probably pacing on one of the higher floors. But even if he is in there, he’s not going to see us,” said Harry.

“Alright. Lets go in,” said Blaise with a sly smile.

While under the cloak, Harry and Blaise moved toward the door. It was old and the sign seemed like it was about to fall off. Harry slowly turned the handle and pushed it open gently, so that the door swung into the room. It creaked loudly.