Hols

[alt_hermione]

It's going to be the hols soon and all the students will be going home. I'll still be here of course and I'll really be able to get some work done on the Lord Protector's book. I spend a lot of time drawing the same pictures again and again because I want them to be good, and fortuneately I'm becoming a lot better at it. When I've made something good I will ask Madam Pince to use a spell and copy it here. Not that anyone wants to read what a Mudblood writes I know but maybe it would be nice for Headmistress McGonagall to be able to see what I'm making for her.

I was thinking about this time of year in the camps. I am much warmer now than I ever was then. We were lucky because we didn't have to go out to work outside the camps proper, but it was still very cold, in every camp I ever remember being at. Some of them are very different than others because different Muggle buildings are different but they were all cold.

Here I don't have to go out into the snow. I'm grateful for that. Mum liked to talk about how we should be grateful at Christmas. Last year it was harder to be grateful than this year because Mum and Daddy weren't there. I have more things to be grateful about now even though they aren't here, because of course I have everything in Hogwarts, which is lovely. Mum said things that make me think that when she was my age she had things like there are in Hogwarts, only she is a Muggle so I don't see how she could have, but I suppose things were very different then.

I think I might ask Madam Pince if I can put some fir branches over the doors in the library where they won't get on the books. When I was little Mum couldn't always get holly or mistletoe but she would always find something evergreen to put up somewhere, which I think must be something that Muggles learned from wizards because they're magical too, aren't they? Anyway they look very pretty against the snow.

Comments

[alt_terry]

boot was so surprised last year, when he saw how they decorate the castle for Christmas. never had imagined such a thing. Wait till you see it, Hermione. The Great Hall looks so beautiful, with all the trees they bring in and make beautiful. boot never ever saw anything close to it in the camps. and the food they serve at Christmas is so good, too.

boot is glad that you are here for Christmas this year and can see it for yourself. it will make Christmas

[alt_hermione]

Is it? Sometimes the guards had trees in their houses for Christmas. I got to go in one once when Mum was doing a bad extraktion, because they couldn't get hot water other places and she needed things to be clean. It had fairy lights and little glass bobbles. That was what Mum said they were like when she was a girl. Is that what it's like?

I can't imagine that it could be any finer than Halloween though.

What sorts of food is it? Pumpkin pasties? Will we get some do you think? I mean they will let us sit in on the feast, won't they, like at Halloween, even though it isn't exactly a normal meal?

[alt_terry]

they have not just one Christmas tree, they have something like a dozen of them around the Great Hall, all decorated, and really tall. and holly and fir around all the doorways and bannisters. and they serve all sorts of good food, like roast goose, with chestnut stuffing. you never tasted anything so fine. boot also tasted mince pies for the first time at Christmas last year.

[alt_hermione]

What's in a mince pie?

[alt_terry]

its kind of hard to tell, boot wasnt really sure. but theyre sweet, and full of things like raisins and other dried fruit. apples, too, maybe. boot is looking forward to trying them again.

[alt_neville]

Will you have any chance at all of seeing your parents over the holidays?

[alt_terry]

Mudbloods don't have parents, Mr Longbottom. not exactly.

[alt_neville]

I don't quite get what you mean, when you say that. Everyone has to come from a mum and a dad, right?

[alt_hermione]

Well we come from them, but we don't really have them any more. We don't live with them.

[alt_terry]

Mudbloods get taken away from the people we were born to, because they're supposed to have stolen the magic that mudbloods show. they always told us in the camps that the regime must be our parent now.

[alt_neville]

How old were you when you got taken away from your mum and dad, Terry? If you don't mind me asking?

[alt_hermione]

I don't think we're supposed to talk to students, especially not about ourselves. I don't want you to get into trouble.

[alt_neville]

Well, I don't want to get you in trouble either, so I won't ask any more questions, if you don't want me to.

If any one asks, I just asked to learn a bit more about the camps, all right? I mean, I suppose this is stuff we would end up learning in muggle studies eventually anyway. I'll tell 'em you weren't complaining or anything, or saying anything bad at all.

[alt_hermione]

All right.

[alt_terry]

boot is told he was three when it happened.

boot doesnt remember his family at all

had a small silver baby spoon with initials engraved on it. for awhile. it was the only thing boot had from his mum. but boot lost it, or maybe someone stole it at the camp when boot was about five or so.

[alt_hermione]

No.

[alt_neville]

I'm really sorry. Hope it helps a little, that at least you can remember them. And that, well, Christmas at Hogwarts will be really nice for you.

[alt_hermione]

It does.