Harry rolled over in his bed, pulling the covers over his head and keeping his eyes shut. He tried to recall the dream he’d been having only moments ago, before Ron’s loud shouts had pulled him from it. He could remember only the faces of his parents, and that the dream had been one of the best he’d had in a long time. Feeling slightly disgruntled and a little irritated at Ron for taking the dream away, Harry reluctantly pulled the blankets off his head and sat up. Immediately, his scar began to throb but Harry didn’t take any notice of it.

Ron was sitting on the edge of his bed. He had stopped paying attention to Harry and was instead digging through a small pile of packages at the foot of his bed. There was a similar, larger pile at the foot of Harry’s bed. Harry thought this was rather odd, as Ron surely had more family and family friends than him.

It had been several long weeks since Harry’s visit to the Dursley home, and Harry’s time at the Burrow had been the most amazing time that Harry had ever spent with anyone. He’d played Quidditch almost everyday, stopping only to come inside and eat another of Mrs. Weasley’s fabulous meals. He’d shyly engaged in a few decent conversations with Ginny, and was slowly falling back in love with her. He found that he was dreaming about her almost as much as he dreamed about his parents, and was anticipating the day when, perhaps, they could be a couple once more.

He’d also noticed that Hermione and Ron were closer than he’d originally thought. He’d seen them look at each other with looks that he was sure were not far from the looks he’d given Ginny when no one was looking. They blushed every time that the other’s name was mentioned, and Ron was prone to dropping things when the name “Victor” or any variation of it was mentioned. Harry had asked Ginny about their relationship, but the only information she’d had was that they were as close as they could be to being a couple without actually making it official.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Aren’t you going to start opening those?” Ron’s loud comment brought Harry swiftly back to reality. Grinning at Ron, he climbed out of bed and reached for the present on top of the pile.

To Harry’s disappointment, most of the presents were not really presents at all. Most of them were tubes with parchment letters in them, or packages that simply contained a long, long note stuffed up in them.

But what was most surprising was that all of the letters were from complete strangers. There were a few of the letters that scorned Harry for making up his tale of memory loss in order to gain fame (Harry assumed they’d been reading Rita Skeeter), but most of them congratulated Harry and offered their assurances that they believed his story.

“Blimey,” said Ron, reading over Harry’s shoulder. “I’m surprised so many of them believe you.”

Harry looked over at Ron, questions in his eyes. Why wouldn’t people believe him? He didn’t think he’d ever done anything in the past to make people doubt him, unless Ron and Hermione were holding something back from him.

Ron hastened to explain as soon as he saw that Harry was confused. “Well, back in fifth year, when you tried to explain about You-Know-Who coming back and all, nobody really believed you. It was all Fudge’s doing, really, but still there were a whole lot of blokes doubted you, who thought you were a nutter.”

“But they figured out I was telling the truth in the end, right?” said Harry a little anxiously.

“Of course,” said Ron reassuringly, “I mean, they can’t exactly ignore You-Know-Who himself appearing out of nowhere at the Ministry! It all worked out, but I thought…well you know, since this is all really sudden…”

“That no one would believe me this time either,” finished Harry.

Ron’s ears turned a little pink on the end, and Harry tried to draw his attention away from the subject, which he guessed would not be very hard to do.

“I got you something,” he said, rummaging under his bed for the oversized, thin box he’d wrapped yesterday. He found it easily (after all, it was the biggest thing occupying space under his bed) and dusted it off before handing it to Ron. Ron’s eyes widened at the size of the present. They widened even more when he finished ripping the paper off the Broomstick. It was a Nimbus 2000.

“You shouldn’t have!” he said, his hands shaking as he ran his hands over the sleek handle of the broom. “I mean- you can still take it back can’t you? Because this is too much! And I already have a broom, Mum got me that Cleansweep only last year!”

Harry just smiled as a response. It had not taken much to buy Ron the new broom, and he felt that he owed The Weasleys and Hermione something for all the time they’d spent worrying and taking care of him.

“It’s a gift,” said Harry firmly, “I’m not taking it back. If you don’t want it I’ll throw it out the window or something but I’m not going to return it.”

Ron looked as though he was about to argue, but his mouth snapped shut. Harry laughed a little bit. He knew there was no way that Ron was going to pass up the chance to keep the broomstick, especially after Harry has so convincingly told him to keep it.

“Thank you so much, Harry!” he exclaimed, setting the Nimbus down carefully before giving Harry a large bear hug. After a moment he said quietly, “This makes my present seem very lame.”

“Don’t even worry about it,” said Harry. “I don’t want anything special. I’m just glad to be here.”

An awkward silence followed, but only a moment later the door burst open. Hermione and Ginny were standing behind it, and they hurried into the room enthusiastically.

“Harry! Ron! Happy Christmas!” squealed Hermione, running to hug them both after putting down two presents on the bed.

Harry hugged Hermione, then Ginny, who was also holding presents for them. Hermione, after separating herself from Ron, picked up the presents and handed one to each of the boys. Ginny grinned, obviously in on whatever Hermione had bought for them. Harry was about to open his, but then he remembered his manners. He dug under his bed again, grabbing the remaining two packages from under it. Ron, who, halfway into unwrapping his, saw what Harry was doing, turned a little bit red and quickly dove under his own bed, emerging with three gift bags. He handed one to each of them, as Harry handed his two to both Hermione and Ginny.

They hesitated as Harry picked his back up. Then the four of them enthusiastically began ripping apart their presents. Harry opened Ron’s first, feeling it was only fair because, after all, Ron had opened Harry’s first as well.

It was a large book. Harry was mildly surprised, and also intrigued. He hadn’t known that Ron was one to buy books for people, in fact he’d been under the impression that books as presents was a rather repulsive idea in Ron’s opinion.

The Quidditch Champion glittered across the page in fancy, scripted letters. Harry’s spirits immediately changed from curious to intrigued.

“It’s got tips on playing and everything,” said Ron loudly, obviously trying to cover up the giggles from Hermione and Ginny over the book that he’d bought, “And in the back there’s a whole bunch of moving pictures of different moves you can do.”

“This is great!” exclaimed Harry happily, “I mean, I can use this to practice and everything! Thanks, Ron!”

Ron grinned in response, obviously pleased with himself for picking out such a worthy gift. “It was nothing.”

Later that morning, Harry found himself sitting comfortably at the table in the kitchen, between Fred, who had come home for Christmas along with George, and Mr. Weasley. It was a nice, calm breakfast. Mrs. Weasley bustled around the kitchen, serving ham and eggs to her family.

“So Harry,” began Mr. Weasley loudly in the middle of breakfast. He’d taken to speaking loudly whenever Harry was in the room in an effort not to leave him out of any conversations. “How are you feeling? Going to Hogwarts next week and all?”

“I, er, I don’t know what to expect,” said Harry nervously. Then, realizing how short his answer was, added, “I’m a little nervous about the classes, to be honest with you. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“I suppose you must be quite excited,” Charlie said quietly, “Going back to Hogwarts and all. I wish I could go back…Some of the best times I’ve ever had happened at Hogwarts.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Weasley warmly, smiling at her husband, “Hogwarts was one of the best things that happened to me.” Ron made a face at Harry when they weren’t looking.

“I wish I could remember that things that happened to me there,” said Harry quietly to himself. He hadn’t meant for anyone else to hear him. The thought was supposed to be for himself alone, a secret worry that had been bothering him a lot more than before. Somehow, he felt like only half of himself was there anymore, which made sense, now that he knew all about his past, but it still bothered him because he was no used to feeling so empty and it caught him by surprise.

“Don’t worry,” whispered Fred from beside him. You’ll do fine, and you’ll get your memory back. Maybe even soon.”

“You think?” asked Harry, who had not known Fred to be so thoughtful.

“I’m positive,” he continued, “After all, we can do magic, can’t we?”

“You’re right,” agreed Harry. “We can do anything.”

Fred laughed good-naturedly, “Now don’t go thinking we can do anything. But if you ask me, it’s pretty darn close.”