Harry's holidays were exactly what he expected them to be, busy. He managed to stay awake until 10:30 the night of the ball. Cassandra had come to the ball but had gone home instead of staying at the Longbottoms', and was spending Boxing day with her friends. On Christmas,Harry barely managed to awaken in time to go to St. Mungo's to visit his godmother with Neville and Lady Augusta.
As such, it was only after they got back he opened his gifts. As he expected his family got him art supplies, a sweater, and a new pair of gloves. He was touched that Cassandra had gotten him three tickets to Les Miserables at the Barbican Theater. She noted in his card that she got the tickets for the same night he had gotten his uncle and cousin tickets to a boxing match so he and his aunt and maybe Neville could see it together. Her card said she had seen it and it was wonderful!
Neville, to Harry's surprise, had gotten him a sword set with a katana, waksashi, and tanto.
Lady Augusta and his trustees had paid for and signed him up for summer courses in beginner estate management, and basic wizarding law; to which he thought, "There goes my nice relaxing summer."
From the rest of his friends he got various books for pleasure or candy. Except for from Blaise who had gotten him a journal that would magically add as many pages as it needed for him to use it for a year and Hermione who got him a homework planner.
He was surprised to receive three books from Nicolas Flamel. One was a book about beginning principles of Alchemy. The second was a primer about the mind arts. The third was the one Harry found the most interesting because it was the private journal of a magical creature naturalist who had lived almost two hundred years ago. In it were his notes about a pair of snow phoenixes that he had found.
Harry dove into that book almost immediately after reading the short note Nicholas had enclosed.
Harry, there is very little information on snow phoenixes. But I found this at an estate sale put on by the Donniver Helegutas' family after he died in an accident in Canada in 1829. The Canadians buried him then shipped his belongings home to his family in Swizterland. They gave me the journal for a fraction of its worth, because none of them could read it. He was fond of the English language due to his wife being English and he used it in his work. I thought you might find this interesting.
N.F.
The journal documented Helegutas' work verifying the existence of the legendary creatures. According to the journal snow phoenixes, like their flaming brethren, had the ability to travel instantaneously from point A to point B, and carry heavy loads, had burning days(the fire was blue flames and were intensely cold not hot) and were effectively immortal. That was where the similarities stopped. Phoenixes were generally found in equatorial regions and were primarily fruit eaters. Snow phoenixes preferred cooler climates and were carnivorous. Phoenixes, when seen, were showy creatures, snow phoenixes preferred to hide in plain sight using camouflage. Harry found it interesting that the author wasn't specific as to what a snow phoenix's camouflage was. Snow Phoenixes did not as a rule bond to humans and were as picky as unicorns over who they allowed to approach them in their natural form. Only after he had sixty years searching under his belt had he found a nesting pair in Northern Canada. In the journal he voiced a desire to bond with one of the young in the nest. Unlike their flaming brethren who just flamed away, snow phoenixes were apt to get aggressive if approached especially by someone not worthy. Apparently the adults found him tolerable because they allowed him to observe them and even allowed him to collect a feather although once their young had fledged all of them disappeared. His journal gave witness to what could happen. He gave an account of a poacher that the adults killed when he tried to steal one of the eggs. Contrary to the legend of Beltharion which had inspired his research, he came to the conclusion snow phoenixes won't bond with wizards. All their focus was on their own families, and their aggressive nature made them self-sufficient. In this too they were unlike their brethren who if found in the proper stage would bond to most any good intentioned wizard.
Harry found he now had a new avenue of research and he found the observations very interesting. His innate cynicism had him thinking maybe that was how the Headmaster had bonded his phoenix. His phoenix not differentiating between intent and actions. Harry speculated that that meant the Headmaster acted from the best of intentions but that his common sense was non-existent and his execution was even worse, the road to hell and all that. He stroked Hedwig in her phoenix form. "Why me? What made you choose to bond to me? Why do you tolerate being around so many others to be with me?"
She merely churred at him before morphing back to her owl self.
Harry had the feeling she had a self-satisfied smirk on her beak. "Ruddy owl." he said without any real heat to his words.
Lady Augusta had a slightly larger house party this year. There were enough guests that played quidditch that an excursion to a public pitch was planned. Harry's team won due to his sharp eyes for the snitch. He returned to the Manse and spent several days doing his homework or checking the family library for information on either his private research or the Tom Riddle research. It hadn't taken him long to come to the end of the easily found information on Tom Riddle. He added him to the list of people he had Cassandra researching. When the Hogwarts Express returned, the study group crammed into one compartment so they could compare notes.
"Hagrid swears he didn't open the chamber, and swears 'Aragog didn't hurt no one.'" Neville said as spokesperson for his team.
"Aragog is?" Harry and Blaise asked.
"It took some work to get Hagrid to spill, but apparently he's an acromantula."
"Good god!" Hermione burst out. "They're a class five dangerous creature."
"Yeah, and apparently Hagrid is keeping a whole family of them in the forbidden forest."
"Marvelous." Harry intoned. "What else did you find out?"
Neville continued, "I crosschecked the family library. My great-grandfather was a naturalist and studied magical creatures, so the family library on creatures is one of the best. I'm ninety-nine percent sure it's a basilisk, seeing its image in reflection via camera like Creevy or in a pool of water like Mrs. Norris Halloween night results in petrification not death. Details about Justin are too sketchy to make any sort of determination. Spiders are afraid of them. I eliminated the lamia because not even Salazar would've been stupid enough to bring a lamia into Hogwarts seeing as they feed on children's souls. A parseltongue would be able to give directions to a basilisk."
"Well information on Tom Riddle is hard to find. He was Slytherin class of 1945 head boy, got an award for special services to the school; creature related two years earlier. But if Hagrid's pet was an acromantula, and the creature is a basilisk that means he told a few lies… Oddly he seemed to disappear a couple years after graduation. I've set Cassandra to investigating, she is actually going to do a full dossier."
"We have to tell a teacher." Hermione stated.
"I agree," said Susan.
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