(A/N: This chapter was scheduled to be uploaded on Christmas, But you know things never go as planned)
Christmas morning broke with a blinding white light reflecting off the snow-covered grounds, flooding the dormitory. The castle was unusually quiet, save for the distant sound of Peeves singing a rude version of "God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs."
Alister woke up, stretching his arms and feeling the chill in the air despite the heavy velvet curtains around his bed. He sat up and looked to the foot of his bed.
A substantial pile of parcels sat there, wrapped in bright paper and silver ribbons. He smirked, sliding his legs out from under the covers. "Let's see the haul."
He started with the most volatile-looking package, wrapped in garish orange paper that could only be from the Weasley twins. The moment he untied the string, the box sprang open with a soft pop, releasing a cloud of miniature, smoke-shaped dragons that flew around his head before dissipating.
Inside lay a box of their prototype "Skiving Snackboxes" and a single, heavy Fanged Frisbee with a note daring him to set it loose in the Slytherin common room. Alister chuckled, setting the dangerous toy aside.
Next was a neatly wrapped box in silver paper from Astra. It was heavy and smelled faintly of lavender. Peeling back the paper, he revealed a beautiful, leather-bound journal with pages made of shifting parchment that automatically dried ink the moment it touched the surface to prevent smudging.
It was an aesthetic masterpiece, perfect for his meticulous note-taking, accompanied by a glass dip-pen that shimmered like opal. It was a gift that understood his appreciation for the finer, quieter things in life.
Beside it sat a soft, rectangular parcel from Cho. Inside, he found a high-quality, cashmere scarf in his house colors. Tucked into the folds was a small tin of homemade treacle fudge, a sweet gesture that made him smile softly.
From Professor McGonagall, he received a stern-looking but incredibly rare book titled Theory of Trans-Substantial Vanishment. It was advanced reading. Professor Flitwick had sent a small, wooden box singing soft and relaxing tunes when opened.
From the Headmaster, the gift was characteristically eccentric. Dumbledore had sent a large bag of Sherbet Lemons that seemed to refill itself if you looked away for too long. There was also a package from Hagrid which contained some incredibly rare magic materials.
Finally, there was a small, unassuming package wrapped in plain brown paper. It bore no name, no note, and no holiday cheer. Alister picked it up, feeling a distinct lack of magical trace on the wrapping, which was a security measure in itself.
He tore it open to reveal a small, crystal vial stopped with wax. inside swirled a thick, pearlescent liquid—Acromantula venom. It was incredibly expensive and difficult to harvest. There was only one person who had access to such stores and the inclination to gift something so morbidly practical for potions.
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Alister held the vial of Acromantula venom up to the light one last time, admiring the deadly, pearlescent swirl within. With the precision of a Potions Master, he wrapped it in a velvet cloth and tucked it into the hidden compartment of his trunk, locking it with a complex tap of his wand.
The rest of the gifts found their places—the books on his nightstand, the sweets in his drawer, and the cashmere scarf draped around his neck to ward off the castle's draft.
With his room tidy and his mood lifted, he descended the spiral staircase. The common room was empty save for the crackling fire, but as soon as he stepped out into the corridors, the spirit of Christmas assaulted his senses in the best way possible. The stone walls were lined with holly and mistletoe, and suits of armor had been bewitched to hum carols, their metal visors clanking in rhythm.
The Great Hall was a spectacle of magic. Twelve towering fir trees stood along the walls, some glittering with tiny icicles, others with hundreds of lit candles. The enchanted ceiling mirrored the sky outside—a brilliant, clear blue with soft, drifting snowflakes that vanished before they hit the floor.
Alister joined the common table at center of great hall, which was laden with a breakfast feast that could feed an army. Alister spent the morning in easy laughter, exchanging pleasantries and watching the students marvel at the magical decorations.
After breakfast, he migrated outside. The grounds were a pristine sheet of white, the Black Lake frozen solid and glittering like a mirror. The biting cold was exhilarating. Alister, who just got out, found himself involved in a chaotic snowball fight. With a flick of his wand, he charmed his snowballs to curve mid-air, chasing everyone around the grounds until all them collapsed into a snowbank, breathless and red-cheeked.
As the sun began to set, painting the snow in shades of violet and gold, he retreated inside for the main event.
The Christmas Feast was magnificent. A hundred fat, roast turkeys sat on the tables, followed by mountains of roast potatoes and tureens of buttered peas. Alister sat surrounded by students, pulling Wizard Crackers that didn't just pop, but exploded with a cannon-blast of blue smoke, revealing live white mice, admiral hats, and intricate puzzle games.
He ate until he couldn't take another bite, watching Dumbledore at the High Table merrily swapping his pointed hat for a flowered bonnet he'd found in a cracker. The air was thick with the smell of pine, gravy, and woodsmoke, and a golden contentment settled over the hall.
The day ended in the common room, the fire roaring against the dark night. Alister sank into a plush armchair, the heat seeping into his bones. He opened the leather-bound journal Astra had given him, the fresh pages inviting.
Alister uncorked the bottle of color-changing ink Astra had given him. As he dipped the glass quill, the liquid clung to the tip, shimmering. He touched it to the page, and because his heart was full and his mind was quiet, the ink flowed out in a warm, burnished gold—the color of the firelight dancing in the grate.
The scratching of the nib against the paper was the only sound in the room as he wrote:
December 25th
The castle is finally sleeping. The fire has burned down to embers, but the warmth remains.
Today, I found the magic that came from the cold air on the frozen lake, the sting of snow against my face, and the way the Great Hall seemed to glow from the inside out.
There is a stillness here tonight that feels rare. Just the simple, profound reality of belonging somewhere.
I suppose this is the one thing you cannot learn from a book, nor take by force. You just have to be still enough to let it catch you.
A good day. A very good day.
He watched the golden ink dry instantly on the page, preserving the moment forever. With a soft exhale, he closed the leather cover, extinguishing the light of the words, but keeping the feeling safe inside.
The castle was silent. The feast was over, the snow was still falling outside. He stood up, extinguishing the last candle with a pinch of his fingers, and headed up the spiral staircase to the dormitory.
As he climbed into his bed and drew the velvet curtains, Sleep came instantly.
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The thirtieth of December was a day of biting cold, the kind that seeped through stone walls and settled in the marrow. By midnight, the castle felt like a tomb, silent and frozen, oblivious to the violation of natural law occurring in the dust-choked classroom.
Alister fell to his knees, the empty vial shattering against the stone. The sound was swallowed instantly by the roaring in his ears. The Catalyst Potion didn't just burn; it felt as though he had swallowed a star that was now trying to expand inside a vessel too small to contain it.
The reaction was instantaneous and violent. The dragon blood runes he had painted onto his skin began to smoke, searing into his flesh with the heat of a branding iron.
They glowed with a malevolent, pulsating crimson light that matched the complex circle drawn on the floor beneath him. The air in the room grew heavy and thick, charged with static electricity that made the hair on his arms stand up even as his skin blistered.
He tried to scream, but his throat had constricted, locking the sound inside his chest. His vision blurred, the edges of the room dissolving into a haze of red and black. He could feel his magical core—usually a steady, rhythmic thrum in his solar plexus—begin to vibrate wildly. It was beating out of sync with his heart, a discordant rhythm that sent waves of nausea and agony crashing through his nervous system.
The "Secrets of the Darkest Arts" had described this as a purification, a stripping away of the mortal limitations to allow magic to flow unimpeded. To Alister, it felt like being unmade.
He curled forward, his forehead pressing against the cold stone floor. The runes on the ground flared, linking with the ones on his body. A circuit was completed. Energy from the ambient air, from the castle's own ley lines, was being pulled into the circle, funneled through the dragon blood, and forced into his body.
His veins turned black, visible beneath his pale skin as the potion hijacked his circulatory system. Every heartbeat pumped liquid fire through his limbs. The pain was absolute, a white-hot clarity that obliterated all thought of the future, the system, or his ambitions. There was only the fire.
Sensation began to detach from reality. He felt as though he were floating in a void. He sensed barriers within himself—invisible walls that had always limited his output, his control—shattering one by one under the pressure of the Catalyst. It was a violent, structural renovation of every fiber of his body.
With a final, gasping breath that tasted of copper and ozone, Alister's strength gave out. He collapsed fully onto the center of the runic circle, his body twitching as the magic continued its work. The red light of the room intensified to a blinding flash, silent and terrible, before snapping out completely, leaving him in darkness.
Alister lay motionless on the stone floor, the smoke from his skin drifting up into the stagnant air of the abandoned classroom. The ritual was complete.
As light of dawn filtered through the windows, his consciousness returned not as a slow, groggy drift, but as a sharp, instantaneous snap. One moment, there was void; the next, Alister was awake, his eyes snapping open to stare at the ceiling of the abandoned classroom.
He lay still for a moment, waiting for the agony to return, but the burning fire of the ritual was gone. In its place was a sensation of profound, terrifying lightness. The stone floor beneath him, which had been freezing cold hours ago, now felt merely cool, his body regulating its temperature with unnatural efficiency.
He sat up. The movement was too fast.
He had intended to simply rise to a sitting position, but his body launched upward with explosive torque. He overshot, nearly flipping backward, before his reflexes—sharpened to a razor's edge—corrected the balance instantly. He froze, planting his feet on the ground, his breath catching in his throat.
The dried dragon blood on his skin flaked away like ash, leaving the flesh beneath pale, unblemished, and humming with a dormant power. The runes were gone, absorbed down to the cellular level.
(END OF CHAPTER)
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