The trio never spoke of that night again. Within a week, Luna's shoes reappeared outside her dormitory door, placed neatly side by side.
Luna didn't comment on it. She simply put them on and drifted to breakfast as if they had only stepped out briefly and returned.
After that, time moved quietly. Second year settled into its rhythm — classes, meals, the occasional chaos that came with living in a castle full of moving staircases and opinionated portraits.
The Chamber of Secrets had already been dealt with, which meant no whispers in the walls, no petrified students, no writing appearing in blood on corridors. Just ordinary Hogwarts.
Which was still, by any reasonable standard, deeply strange.
And then December arrived.
Snow came overnight, the way it always did at Hogwarts — sudden and complete, as if the castle had simply decided it was time.
The grounds turned white, the lake went dark and still beneath a grey sky, and the courtyard filled with the sound of students who had apparently never seen snow before based on their reaction to it.
Victor stood near the edge of the grounds and watched it fall.
"Snow," he said.
Not particularly to anyone.
"Are you excited for Christmas?" Hermione asked from beside him, her scarf pulled up, breath clouding in the cold air.
Across the grounds, Harry and Ron were constructing something that had started as a snowman and was now apparently a snow-Hagrid, judging by the ambition of the height.
Victor considered the question.
"It comes every year," he said. "And leaves every year."
Hermione gave him a look. "That's possibly the most miserable way anyone has ever described Christmas."
"It's accurate."
"Christmas isn't supposed to be accurate, Victor, it's supposed to be—"
"Supposed to be what?"
She opened her mouth. Then paused, apparently reconsidering her angle.
"When's the last time you actually enjoyed it?" she asked instead.
Victor didn't answer immediately.
The snow kept falling, quiet and indifferent.
"That long ago?" Hermione said.
He glanced at her sideways.
"Don't read into silences, Hermione."
"I'm not reading into it," she said. "You just answered without answering, which is somehow worse." She tucked her hands into her robes. "Most people are going home for the holidays. Are you staying?"
Across the grounds, Ron's snowman lost its head. There was shouting.
"I'm going home," Victor said. "But Christmas at my house is less of a holiday and more of a… gathering. Guests. Polite smiles. Conversations that mean nothing."
Hermione considered that. "Sounds exhausting."
"It is."
She was quiet for a moment, watching the snow.
"Why don't you come to my house then?"
Victor looked at her.
"It's just my parents. No guests, no gathering. My mum makes too much food and my dad puts on terrible Christmas music and that's more or less the whole event."
"Thank you for the invitation," Victor said. "But my parents won't allow it."
Hermione looked away. The disappointment was small but visible.
Victor looked at her for a moment.
"I can make arrangements," he said. "Sneak away for a day."
She turned back. "You'd actually do that?"
"It's manageable."
The Time Turner. One day there and back, his parents none the wiser. The holiday schedule at his house was rigid but predictable, which made gaps easy to create.
"Really?" Hermione said, smiling now.
"Don't overthink it," Victor said. "It's one day."
"It's Christmas day."
He didn't argue that.
Then from across the grounds came the distinct sound of Ron's voice jumping three octaves.
Draco had arrived.
He walked across the courtyard with Crabbe and Goyle behind him, surveyed the snow-Hagrid Ron had spent the last hour constructing, and kicked it apart with one unhurried motion.
The head rolled.
"MALFOY—"
The first snowball came from Harry, fast and accurate, catching Draco square in the face before he finished turning around.
The second came from Ron, less accurate but more enthusiastic. Draco spluttered, wiped snow from his eyes, and immediately directed Crabbe and Goyle forward like blunt instruments.
Then a snowball came from somewhere in the chaos and hit Victor directly in the face.
Hermione turned to look at him.
Snow slid slowly off his nose.
He said nothing. Reached into his robes, pulled out his wand, and with one unhurried motion sent an enormous chunk of snow sailing across the grounds. It dropped onto all five of them at once.
The shouting stopped.
Five heads surfaced, blinking. Only their upper halves visible above the snow.
"VICTOR." Draco's voice came out strangled. "You cannot use magic in a snowball fight."
"Yeah," Ron said, spitting snow. "What he said."
A rare moment. Draco and Ron, buried side by side in the same snowdrift, arriving at the exact same opinion.
"Who says you can't," Victor said. "You both have wands."
A beat of silence.
Draco and Ron looked at each other.
*****
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