Douglas handed out the gifts one by one.
For Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, he presented a delicate wooden box. Inside was a pair of wrist guards soaked in Egyptian hot sand, designed to radiate gentle, steady warmth and ease the ache in tired joints. Mrs. Weasley slipped them on, and her face transformed, surprise melting into something softer, genuinely touched.
Ron's gift was a large box of Chocolate Frogs. Ordinary ones, they were not. The cards inside displayed the animated crests of various Quidditch teams, and they could change on the owner's command. Ron let out a whoop, tore open a pack, and grinned like an idiot as the Irish team's green shamrock spiraled lazy circles across his palm.
Hermione's turn. Douglas handed her a scroll of papyrus, carefully wrapped in linen. She unrolled it with the kind of delicate care you'd give a museum artifact. The ancient surface was covered in elaborate, beautiful Egyptian hieroglyphic runes, rendered in deep ink.
Analysis of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Runes and Spell Structure.
Her eyes lit up brighter than any Lumos spell. Her fingers moved across the old characters with something close to reverence, and she was gone , completely absorbed, the rest of the room ceasing to exist for her.
Ginny received a crystal-clear glass bottle. Inside, a small handful of sand glimmered with a faint inner light. The sand, Douglas explained, could bloom into shifting, seven-colored sand paintings in mid-air. Ginny's eyes went wide, and she reached out immediately, curious fingers stretching toward the bottle.
Harry watched all of this with barely concealed longing.
Douglas did not produce another gift.
Instead, he smiled pleasantly and said, "Right. Let's check the homework."
He picked up Ron's parchment without ceremony. The ink wandered across the page in chaotic loops, riddled with errors. Douglas pointed out a few critical potion ratio mistakes , offhand, almost bored about it , and that was enough to turn Ron's face the color of a bad liver.
Hermione's was flawless.
Harry's was average. He had clearly tried, but the effort could only carry someone so far.
Douglas turned to Harry. The smile dropped.
"The newspapers had a lot to say about that night at the World Cup." His voice was even. "I want to hear your version."
The warmth in the living room went quiet.
Harry's account had none of Rita Skeeter's flair for the dramatic. No sensational turns of phrase. No color.
Just cold, bone-deep truth.
He talked about the masked Death Eaters, about the Muggle Roberts family dangling in the air like broken marionettes. He talked about the laughter , sick, ravenous, the kind that feeds on someone else's suffering.
"They didn't seem like they were casting spells," Harry said, his voice catching slightly. "It felt more like they were playing a game. A cruel one."
Then he got to the mark.
The enormous green shape, skull and serpent, rising slowly through the night sky.
"It was a kind of... cold."
"Not the weather."
"That cold gets in through your eyes. Crawls along your veins until it reaches your bones."
"Like even your soul was about to freeze over."
Douglas listened without interrupting. He watched Harry's eyes and could still see it there , that night's fear, clinging like a small shadow in the depths of his pupils.
"Oh — Professor." Harry's voice dropped. "About Godric's Hollow."
He told Douglas quietly: people from the Charon Detective Agency had visited during the summer. Seven full days, trying to restore the old house his parents had left behind. But the curses inside were too tangled, layer over layer, a nest of vipers wound around each other. In the end, all they managed was clearing the venomous tentacula that had taken over the garden.
"Sirius said he's too tied up to deal with it right now."
A faint light came back into Harry's eyes. "We agreed , next summer, we'll go together."
Douglas nodded. "Good. I'll arrange some professional curse-breaking support for when you do."
"Speaking of help, " Mrs. Weasley appeared from the kitchen doorway and sighed, stepping into the conversation with the air of someone who had accepted a verdict she still wasn't happy about. "Fred and George won't be home this summer."
She folded her arms slightly. "It took both Albus Dumbledore's word and yours before I'd even consider letting them go work for Sirius's... whatever it's called."
"They're assisting Remus at the moment," Douglas said. "And working through a book I left them , An Introduction to Magical Artifact Creation and Commercial Operation. Remus will supervise their studies alongside. When term starts, they'll come straight back to school from there."
Mrs. Weasley returned to the kitchen, still faintly unconvinced, and the conversation settled into easier territory.
While lunch was being prepared, Douglas reached into his perfectly unremarkable travel bag and produced the final package , and the largest.
He held it out to Harry.
"Your gift."
Ron leaned over to look. The sound he made was somewhere between a wail and what a turkey produces when something goes badly wrong for it.
Harry tore the wrapping open.
A thick, neat stack of parchment.
The latest revised edition of Essentials of Defensive Magical Knowledge.
And , attached , thirty sets of O.W.L.-level practice exams.
"Finish them before term starts," Douglas said pleasantly.
Harry stared at them. He could see his entire upcoming term very clearly now.
He picked up one of the papers. The ink used to print the questions was unusual , it carried a faint, clean scent of mint, sharp and alerting.
"Ah, right." Douglas tilted his head, as though the thought had only just occurred to him. "I added a small modification to that ink."
"If you haven't started writing within a week—"
"It will activate a Sonorus Charm and begin reading the questions aloud. Loudly. Repeatedly."
"Until the owner finishes."
"I find," he added, with great serenity, "the effect is particularly pronounced in public settings."
Hermione picked up a paper with the clear intention of lodging a mild objection to this entire enterprise. Then her eyes actually moved across the questions, and she stopped.
"Harry — look at this."
She pointed to a line of fine print at the bottom of one question.
"These questions , they're not fixed!"
"See here: Please discuss effective methods for defending against a Boggart. And then underneath, in very small text: If this question is answered incorrectly or skipped, it will automatically be replaced with: Analyze the underlying connection between the Red Cap's Frightening Charm and the Transfiguration Charm."
She looked up, eyes bright.
"It's , it's guiding you to think!"
➤ Next: Hagrid's New Identity: Silvermane Academy Keeper, Raking in Double Wages!
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