‘Sorry, Gideon, looks like you’re on the cover again,’ Ruby announced as she left the store with the latest edition of the Daily Prophet in her hands.

‘I saw,’ Gideon replied, thumbing at the news rack in the shop window. ‘Let’s ignore it for now and just try to have a good time.’

‘How about visiting Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes next, then?’ Talia suggested.

The Hogwarts branch of the wizarding joke shop was a little smaller than the one in Diagon Alley, but it was no less colourful—or busy. Gideon, Ruby and Talia had to queue to get inside, and even then, it was hard to move about with so many other customers. Fortunately, his recent notoriety meant the tide of students tended to part for him somewhat upon noticing his presence.

Still, the problem, Gideon realised, was that it wasn’t just a Hogwarts weekend, it was the last Saturday before Christmas, so Hogsmeade had more witches and wizards visiting to do their shopping than at any other time of year. This shop even had decorations up. Gideon hadn’t given much thought to Christmas, but he supposed he would have to soon.

Suddenly, Talia let out the most uncharacteristically girly giggle, shaking Gideon out of his reverie.

‘Cheer up, young lady! How about one of our patented Perk-up Pokers?’ said a tall, red-haired man that Gideon recognised as Mr Weasley, the shop owner. He was wearing a white suit today with glittery red and green baubles embroidered all over. Gideon presumed he had come up from the main store for the busy period.

‘Let me tell you what you can do with your Perk-up Poker,’ started Talia dangerously before Ruby guided her away with an apologetic smile.

‘Ooh! I like her!’ the man said to Gideon with a wink before moving on to the next customer in a puff of smoke.

After half an hour or so of browsing and playing, they had each selected some items to buy and approached the register separately to pay. Behind the counter was a plump, frazzled-looking witch whose red hair was streaked with grey.

‘Honestly… Don’t see why I should have to work the till!’ she muttered under her breath. ‘Hello there, dear!’ she said brightly with a kind smile as Gideon nervously placed his items on the counter. Then, reaching for a piece of paper she had to squint at, she added in a forced monotone, ‘Can I interest you in any of our Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes Skiving Snackboxes, including our new Warty Whirls, Coughing Candies and Jaundice Jellies?’

She looked to Gideon for his answer with a hint of embarrassment. ’Err, not today, thanks,’ he said.

‘Right. That’ll be fourteen Sickles and five Knuts, please,’ the woman said as her smile returned. She took Gideon’s money and placed it in the till, when she let out a loud shriek, ‘Argh! Oh, George! Will-you-fix-this-blasted-thing!’ she cried while hitting the till repeatedly with a nearby foam Beater’s bat.

‘What’s the matter, mum?’ said Mr Weasley, smiling through gritted teeth.

‘It almost took my hand off! AGAIN!’ She told him. ‘Your change, dear.’

‘Huh?’ Gideon said, lost in the drama. ‘Oh, right. Thank you.’

‘Come again!’ said Mr Weasley, and as Gideon made his way toward the exit, he heard the man and his mother continue to bicker, ‘You’re doing it wrong, how many times do I have to show you?’

‘Don’t you take that tone with me, George Weasley!’ the woman responded, ‘When you said you needed a hand with the Christmas rush, you conveniently forgot to mention it was also a Hogwarts weekend! Just wait until your father hears what a slave driver you are! Can I help you, dear?’

Ruby and Talia soon joined Gideon outside and they took off while discussing the mother and son bust-up. Talia was delighted to share that by the time she had been served, the woman had got a hold of Mr Weasley’s Perk-up Poker and had jabbed him with it until he was curled up on the floor in hysterics.

Wreaths hung on many of the shop doors in town, including Dominic Maestro's Music Shop, where they discussed their favourite bands; Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, where they topped up their stationery; and Gladrags Wizardwear, where the shopkeepers were bitterly discussing their new competitor behind the counter.

‘Couldn’t she have opened in Diagon Alley?’ a man with a goatee was saying to his assistant. ‘We’re usually packed on the Hogwarts weekends, and this close to Christmas, too! But they’re all across the street!’

Gideon looked out of the window while Ruby and Talia were browsing. The man was right. The shop across the street, J-Max Designs, had quite a queue outside. They, of course, would not be visiting that particular store. It belonged to the sister who had so cruelly denied knowing Gideon on his last visit.

Instead, they looked in at the Post Office and its hundreds of owls of every variety, which sat in colour-coded alcoves based on how quickly they arrived at their destination. Finally, they observed the Shrieking Shack from a distance, which was said to be the most haunted dwelling in Britain, before heading to The Three Broomsticks Inn for lunch.

After their busy morning with nothing to keep them warm except movement between the shops, Gideon, Ruby and Talia were thrilled to get a table within range of the roaring, double-sided fireplace. They took off their cloaks, gloves and scarves and dropped their bags in an empty seat.

‘Hello, loves,’ said Madam Rosmerta, the curvaceous, loose-curled, older landlady soon after they sat down. 'We're running a special for Hogwarts students if you're interested. My homemade winter-warmer, chunky veg soup with freshly baked ale bread and a butterbeer is six Sickles.’

‘Mmm, that sounds nice,’ Ruby whispered happily.

‘I’ll have that too, please,’ Gideon concurred.

‘Make it three,’ Talia added.

‘Lovely. Won’t be a minute,’ said the woman kindly.

‘I’m so glad to be out of the cold and off my feet,’ Ruby exclaimed. ‘We did a good tour of the shops, though!’

'Yeah, we did pretty well. I just need to stop in Spintwitches Sporting Needs before we head back,’ said Talia.

‘Don’t forget Honeydukes!’ Gideon reminded her. ‘I can’t believe it’s Christmas next week. I can’t decide whether the time has gone by quickly or slowly.’

‘It gets quicker every year,’ Ruby said, ‘It’s your first year, though, isn’t it? I forget sometimes.’

‘When do we break for Christmas?’ Gideon asked.

‘Didn’t you get a notice in your Common Room? Christmas Eve falls next Saturday and New Year’s Day on a Sunday this year, so the Hogwarts Express comes Friday morning and we’re not coming back until Sunday the eighth of January,’ Ruby explained.

Gideon followed up by asking, ‘Do you two know what you’re doing for the holidays?’

‘We stay with my mum’s family in Wales on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then catch a Portkey to Romania, for Boxing Day with my dad’s side of the family,’ said Talia.

‘Our whole family usually gathers at our house. It gets so crowded, but it’s nice,’ said Ruby. ‘How about you, Gideon?’

‘Well, I guess I don’t know yet. We usually do celebrate but, well, you know…’

Ruby smacked her forehead, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot!’

‘No, it’s fine,’ Gideon assured her, ‘I’ll probably be staying at Hogwarts. Although, I guess I could be spending the break in Azkaban, depending on what the Prophet is reporting. Should we take a look?’

While Ruby fumbled with her bag and pulled out the newspaper with Gideon’s face staring out at them, Talia asked tentatively, ‘Are you sure that staying with your aunt is off the table?’

'Maybe not for her,' Gideon explained, 'but for me, it would be too weird. She used to come over for Boxing Day most years, but she didn't last year. Other than that, we didn’t see her much. It would be strange enough to spend the holiday with her, even if she hadn’t done what she did.’

‘Fair play,’ Talia commented, ‘So, what does it say, Ruby?’

Ruby scanned the pages of the paper while calling out the pertinent parts, ‘Basically, it’s about the fires. They’ve mentioned that it seemed to start with the small one in Gideon’s dorm, but also mentions a fire in Defence against the Dark Arts?’

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‘That tiny one?’ Talia asked, ‘That was hardly worth mentioning, you were new to magic, the rest of us all had those kinds of accidents when we were younger.’

‘Yes, well they’re saying things escalated from there,’ Ruby continued, ‘The Charms Classroom. Halloween. The Student Lounge. The door. And the bell tower. They’re all mentioned.’

'Someone inside the school must be blabbing!' Talia suggested indignantly.

'I can't say I'm surprised. Even if the Prophet wasn't blaming me, fires at the school would still be newsworthy, wouldn't it?' Gideon reasoned.

‘They don’t blame you outright. They’re leaving it to the readers to connect the dots, but they’ve drawn an awful lot of dots,’ Ruby concluded.

'The parents aren't going to be happy,' Talia predicted gloomily.

‘It ends with a statement from the school,’ Ruby mentioned, pointing it out to Gideon to read himself.

Professor Lilah Dandridge, Hogwarts Headmistress, had the following to say on the matter:

'The investigation into the recent fires is ongoing and is being taken extremely seriously. For security reasons, I cannot reveal details of the evidence we have uncovered, but Mr Drake has been ruled out as a suspect. We are taking further steps to ensure the safety of our students and hope to resolve the matter in due course. We ask for the cooperation of students and the understanding of parents during this time.'

The new Headmistress, less than four months into her new role, failed to mention why the potentially dangerous Drake has been ruled out, or what steps she is taking to track down the arsonist(s). One must wonder whether she is truly up to the task of running the famed school for witchcraft and wizardry. Are our children safe under her leadership?

‘What drivel!’ Gideon declared. ‘Put it away or it’ll put me off my food. Speaking of!’

‘Here you are, my loves,’ said Madam Rosmerta cheerily as she laid down a tray with their lunch. ‘Enjoy!’

That they did. Gideon couldn’t decide which was better, the soup, which seemed to have potion ingredients in it that spread a wave of warmth throughout the body, or his first hot and foamy butterbeer, which was like a mug of liquid gold. His anger over the Prophet article seemed to ebb away with every swig of the butterscotch-like beverage.

The snow had stopped by the time Gideon, Ruby and Talia decided to leave the warm confines of the pub. Even if it hadn’t, though, their meal had left them pulsating an inner heat. They stopped in the sporting shop Talia mentioned, where she purchased a magazine about Gauntlet news while Gideon admired the brooms, and then they each loaded up on Honeydukes treats before beginning the trek back to the castle.

Before leaving the village outskirts, however, they came across a huddle of young men, laughing raucously. ‘Oi! It’s him! The kid from the paper. I told ya I saw ‘im in da pub!’ slurred a man at the front of the pack in shabby robes. None of them were Hogwarts students. They appeared to be in their early twenties.

‘I think someone’s had a few too many Butterbeers,’ said Talia sardonically.

‘Just ignore them,’ Ruby advised, leading Gideon around the group by the arm.

‘Oi! We want a word with the dark wizard in training!' the man pressed.

‘I’m not a dark wizard!’ Gideon snapped defiantly as they passed the rowdy group.

‘Tell it to the Prophet, mate!’ the man retorted. ‘Maybe we should put you out of your misery right here and do you and the world a favour, eh?’

‘Leave us alone,’ Ruby pleaded before letting out a piercing scream. There was a flash, and she clutched Gideon’s arm hard and flinched. The man had shot a spell at her.

However, in the same instant, Talia had yelled in a controlled but dangerous tone that rivalled Professor Long’s, ‘Don’t you dare!’ and deflected it.

The man laughed and attacked again, casually flicking his wand repeatedly. Talia deftly deflected each spell, then roared, ‘Morsus!’

‘Talia!’ Ruby said with concern as the man dropped to his knees and dropped his wand, yelling with pain and nursing his hands, which were now red raw and swollen.

‘Get them!’ he managed to command through his agony.

As his four comrades came to the man’s aid, Gideon dropped his bags and nervously drew his wand to support Talia, but Ruby seemed too afraid to move.

Spells started firing back and forth but there were four strangers to their two, and even inebriated, they were undoubtedly more learned in magic. Despite this, Talia was unleashing hexes furiously and deflecting the incoming ones like a dueling pro. Gideon felt foolish that he could only think of the Knockback Jinx to use in the moment, but he kept the pressure on, and Talia was able to hit another of them with her nasty Stinging Hex.

Unfortunately, this emboldened the remaining three, and they started forcing back Gideon and Talia. ‘Flipendo,’ yelled Ruby from behind. Before they could celebrate her joining the fray, however, one of the men surprised them by charming the thick layer of snow beneath them to rise up like a wave.

Gideon, Talia and Ruby were swept off their feet. Feeling desperate, they scrambled to get up, but to their great surprise, found only one of their opponents remaining upright. Like his friends, he too was knocked to the floor after being hit by a jet of red light coming from another direction.

‘Wha-what?’ Gideon uttered as he spat snow out of his mouth and scanned the area, ‘Anthony?’

‘There!’ Talia said, pointing out a man in a long coat, standing some distance away with his wand raised. It wasn’t Gideon’s brother. The man turned and started to walk back towards the village.

Without thinking, Gideon decided to pursue him. A confused Talia followed while Ruby muttered, ‘W-wait! Where are you going?’

The man turned, realised he was being chased and sped towards the back of the nearest building. Just as he was about to round the corner, Talia yelled, ‘Immobulus!’

The man was hit square in the back with the Freezing Charm and was stopped dead in his tracks. It was a temporary spell, though, and he recovered just as Gideon closed in on him.

'Wait!' Gideon cried as the man unfroze and continued around the corner of the building. There was a loud cracking sound, and when Gideon rounded the corner after him, the man was gone.

Panting, Talia caught up to Gideon and looked down the empty alleyway. ‘He disapparated?’ she asked.

‘That’s what the noise was,’ Gideon said, more to himself than to her. It wasn’t the first time he had heard that noise. The last time had been in Hogsmeade, too, when he had foolishly chased someone into the wood between the school and the village, only for them to disappear following an odd sound.

It wasn’t the first time he had seen that man either. Talia’s spell had given Gideon enough time to get a good look at the man’s face. He recognised it. The tall, bearded, middle-aged stranger in the trench coat had now saved him for a second time. The first had been outside Middling Academy, where a car had almost mowed Gideon down.

***

Other students and shoppers in town soon came upon the group of stunned men and people from the Ministry were summoned to take them away. Gideon, Talia and Ruby were questioned, and then escorted back to the castle, where they met with Professor Long.

After what felt like an hour of recounting their story and assuring the deputy headmistress that they didn’t need to go to the Hospital Wing, they were finally allowed to leave. The three of them walked in silence for a while before Ruby came to a halt.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered through the hands now covering her face, ‘I was useless!’

Gideon’s heart broke a little. He still couldn’t believe what had happened, and that his friends had been caught up in it. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for,’ he told her, ‘It was my fault. They attacked us because you were with me. I-I’ve been too lax about this whole situation. If it hadn’t been for you, Talia…’

‘No. Neither of you was at fault. I let them get the better of me,' said Talia bitterly.

‘Are you kidding?’ Gideon exclaimed. ‘You were amazing! I couldn’t believe how you were holding them off, even though we were outnumbered, until—’

‘Until we had to be rescued by some stranger,’ Talia interjected, ‘Who was he?’

‘I don’t know… Come on, let’s get to work on these sweets!’ Gideon replied as Talia put an arm around Ruby’s shoulder, and they resumed walking with a chuckle.

Gideon didn’t know for sure whether the man had also been the person who Disapparated in the woods. It was a big leap to make that assumption, but he chose to believe it was true. To Gideon’s way of thinking, the three separate occurrences seemed to beg the question, was he being followed?

***

On Monday the school woke up to find the inside of the castle decorated for the festive season. On the way to breakfast, Gideon found that the walls had been adorned with tinsel, the places where spiders had dropped on Halloween were occupied by ribbons of holly and mistletoe, and the suits of armour had been enchanted to sing carols when passed, which the nearby paintings joined in with. In the Great Hall, snow fell from the enchanted ceiling and twelve towering fir trees had been decorated in the four house colours.

Whether because of the Christmas spirit that the elaborate decorations invoked, or the sympathy garnered from the rumours about their attack in Hogsmeade, Gideon found that the other students were less hostile towards him during the final week of term.

He had approached Professor Voronov about staying at the school for Christmas first thing on Monday morning, but it turned out the man had already made the arrangements on Gideon’s behalf while he was in the Hospital Wing. He was a little taken aback by this but supposed it made sense. At least he knew where things stood with his family now.

The idea of spending Christmas in the magical castle had its appeal, but it was a strange thought to be spending the holidays somewhere other than Maxwell Manor for the first time in his life. Gideon was hit with a particularly strong pang of loneliness when he bade Ruby and Talia goodbye on Friday morning.

They had exchanged addresses earlier in the week, though, and promised to stay in touch by owl. Gideon had cleverly suggested this, so he could send a couple of school owls ahead with presents that he had purchased for the two girls from Hogsmeade.

The long tables in the Great Hall were replaced with one smaller one once most of the students had departed. It made sense to Gideon seeing as how there were only about fifteen students remaining and less than half of the staff. As he approached for dinner that evening, Professor Voronov got out of his seat and met him by the doorway.

‘Before you sit down, the Headmistress would like a word with you in her office,’ he informed Gideon. ‘The password is Mistletoe Toxicity.’

On the way to the head’s office, Gideon worried that after the confrontation in Hogsmeade, his presence at the school had become too much of a liability, after all. Arriving at the stone gargoyle, Gideon uttered the Christmas-themed medical ailment and gained access to the hidden stairs. He collected himself and took a deep breath before finally knocking on the door.

‘Enter,’ called the headmistress.

Upon stepping into the room, Gideon was immediately seized around the middle and the breath he had taken was expelled by force. He was under attack.

‘Young Master!’ cried a voice.

‘Master Gideon!’ squeaked another.

‘Tilly? Tolly!’ Gideon exclaimed before bending down to embrace the elves as they sobbed uncontrollably.

‘Hello, Gideon dear,’ a third voice announced warmly. Standing in front of the Headmistress’s desk, clasping her crystal-topped cane with both hands, was Annabeth Maxwell, Gideon’s grandmother. By her side, looking weepy, was his sister, Jennifer.