This was written for Checkmated's Holiday Challenge 2004: "Christmas Past". It was originally written as a one-shot (as per the Challenge's rules), but I have divided it into five short chapters. The Challenge also specified that the fic be written in first person.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, settings, or situations from the Harry Potter books. Ideas from "A Christmas Carol", of course, come from the book by Charles Dickens.
A Warning
Christmas Eve.
I lay in my bed staring at the curtains which surrounded it, listening to the snores coming from my best friend, Harry Potter, who was asleep in his own bed nearby. The dormitory was otherwise empty, as all the other sixth-year Gryffindors had gone home for the holidays. As a matter of fact, for the past few days, all of Gryffindor Tower had been empty except for me, Harry, Hermione Granger, and my sister, Ginny. Mum and Dad wrote last month saying they wanted to visit my brother Charlie in Romania for Christmas; shortly thereafter, Hermione received a letter from her parents suggesting that she stay at Hogwarts for the holidays too, as they were busy at their office. I still think these were convenient excuses to make sure we, along with Harry, stayed at Hogwarts where we're safe.
I sighed and rolled over, pounding my pillow and trying to get comfortable. Hermione. For months after the battle in the Department of Mysteries, my main worry had been Harry's feelings over the death of his godfather, Sirius, and the safety of us all. Lately, though, a new worry had begun creeping into my thoughts. Hermione. And that git, Viktor Krum. She hadn't said much about him, but I'd seen all the letters she'd been getting (it was hard to mistake that bloody ugly owl of his). And then there were all the nights she sat and wrote long rolls of parchment, covering them with her hand when I tried to see what she was writing and telling me it was none of my business who she was writing to. Apparently things were getting more serious between them. I had begun to expect Krum himself to show up.
And then yesterday, his owl appeared at breakfast carrying not just a letter, but a package. Hermione started to stick it into her bag to open later, but Ginny was giggling like crazy (why do girls do that?!), telling her to open it, she wanted to see. So Hermione opened the package.
The bloody git had sent her a charm bracelet.
She and Ginny oohed and aahed about it for a while, then Hermione put it on. I saw her admiring it several times throughout the day, looking at the charms thoughtfully.
So I came up here to the dormitory, put away the gift I had bought for her, and got out her other gift, the one I had bought just in case I lost my nerve about giving her the present I saved for months to buy.
Christmas Eve. Hermione's real present still sat in my trunk, and the "just-in-case" gift was wrapped and under the tree in the common room.
I turned over again and pulled the covers up to my chin, starting to feel a little sleepy. In the distance, a clock began to strike midnight. All was quiet, then...
"Ronald Weasley," a voice breathed. It sounded like it was coming from just beside my bed.
"Who's that?" I whispered, sitting up.
"It is I, Mr. Weasley". Through the curtains drifted the ghost of the Bloody Baron.
"What do you want?" I asked angrily. "Can't you see I'm trying to sleep?"
"I am here, Mr. Weasley, to warn you that you need to see the error of your ways. I, too, followed your path, and it lead to my ruin."
"What are you talking about?"
"I was once a young man, a student here at Hogwarts. I, too, held a young lady in esteem, but, uncertain of her feelings, I kept silent. I never told her how I felt, and shortly after we left Hogwarts, she married someone else. I sunk into the deepest depths of despair as I watched her in her new life, knowing that I would never be a part of it. My life was but an empty shell without her." He gestured to himself. "You may have wondered why I am so bloody. 'Tis my mark to carry throughout eternity. The blood of my heart, which was broken and never mended."
"What does this have to do with me?" I asked him, knowing the answer very well.
"You, too, will suffer this fate if you do nothing to change it. This night, you will be visited by three ghosts. Heed their warnings. Change your ways. Or else...." He drifted away through the curtains.
I watched for a moment to see if he would return, then I lay back down slowly, thinking of what he had said. Finally, I shook my head and pulled the blankets up over my head. Mental, that one. Crazy bloody Bloody Baron, I thought as I drifted off to sleep.
I didn't sleep long...