Unexpected Things

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and properties don’t belong to me but JK Rowling. The story contains spoiler from Philosopher Stone to Deathly Hallows so if haven’t read one of the books you have been warned. Danyealle helps editing the story. Thanks a lot for her help.

Unexpected Things

Chapter XVIII

It was a lovely day, Narcissa Malfoy thought as she walked in the wizarding area of Paris, France. What was she doing in Paris? Well, she was shopping for Christmas of course. So far she had bought new clothes for her son, her husband and herself. She had also bought presents for them and her sister. She meant Bellatrix of course since she didn’t communicate anymore with Andromeda since she married a muggleborn and disowned by their parents. That was a loss actually since she was closer to Andromeda than Bellatrix but she wasn’t about to disobey their parents.


Besides that, at that time she agreed with their parents. Her sister, marrying a muggleborn, was unheard of to a Black. But as time went by and ever since she saw the madness of Voldemort she wasn’t inclined to think that way anymore. However she kept her opinion to herself as not to endanger her family and not anger her husband or Bellatrix for that matter.


Her last stop was a private jewelry shop, known only to the elite of wizarding world. Not only did the shop sell jewelry but by request, it also provide enchanted jewelry, making it very popular.


“Lady Malfoy,” the shopkeeper recognized her once she stepped inside the shop. “Welcome to Antoline’s Jewelry. Please follow me,” she said, leading them to the back of the shop, where the owner greeted her important and high profile customers.


“Lady Malfoy,” Madam Antoline greeted her. ”Please have a seat.”


“Madam Antoline,” she said curtly in reply.


“I have your order ready,” the woman said, walking behind her desk and pulling two black boxes from the drawer.


Narcissa had ordered brooch for her son and her husband as their main Christmas present this year. It wasn’t a normal brooch because she had asked it to be imbued with protection charm. With all the things that had happened so far, she thought it would help to keep Lucius and Draco safe. After all, most of the Death Eaters were free and she knew they were only buying time until they launched an attack. If Lucius or Draco were caught in the middle, at least they could protect themselves.


Madam Antoline opened the lid and took out the brooches. The brooch for Draco was dragon shaped with emerald for the eyes while her husband’s brooch was the shape of a falcon with yellow canary diamonds for the eyes. That was the form of her husband’s Patronus.


She nodded her head, satisfied with the result. With that, she took out her bottomless purse and removed two pouches full of Galleon to pay Madam Antoline.


“Thank you Lady Malfoy,” the woman said then she chuckled. “You and your husband apparently have the same mind.”


Intrigued, Narcissa asked. “What do you mean by that?”


“Well,” Madam Antoline said as she leaned forward. “I’m not supposed to tell you this,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, “but Lord Malfoy has ordered protection bracelet. He even specifically ordered for us to put the strongest protection charm on it.” She then took out a black box and opened it, showing a gold bracelet adorned with emerald. The carving on the bracelet surface and the arrangement of the emerald were designed to form S letter. S for Slytherin perhaps since Lucius had always had a fondness for his house during his time as Hogwarts students. Judging from the masculine design, she guessed that it was Lucius’ present for their son.



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Harry sighed. Ever since his exhibition with Dumbledore, every student at Hogwarts had been talking about him non-stop. It was truly annoying.


“He beat Dumbledore you know!” one student exclaimed.


“It was just a fluke!” the other argued.


“Yeah, after all he only used disarming spell and it was full of fog!” another student joined the conversation.


“Well, I would like to see you to try a disarming spell on Dumbledore,” his friend challenged.


“What?” the boy spluttered. “That is-“


It was like that everywhere he went. Students looked at him while whispering to each other but the worst in his opinion was a group of girls consisting of varying ages that followed him everywhere. He actually thought that it was a mere luck or a fluke that he managed to used an Expelliarmus to summon Dumbledore’s wand. The headmaster was old, already one hundred fifty. It was no wonder that he had a loose grip on his wand.


The coming Christmas holiday also made it worse for him. If he had to worry about arrays of students who flocked to him after the news about his dueling exhibition with Dumbledore got out the situation had worsened ten times because of the mistletoe Professor Flitwick put up as a part of decoration at Hogwarts. The Charms professor put it up one week before they headed home. They were actually normal mistletoe, not magic or whatever to make two people under it kissed each other forcefully.


But still, the majority of the students there thought of it as the excuse to kiss him. Girls now even tended to follow him around, hoping to find him, under the cursed plant. He was never so thankful for the Marauder Map and his invincibility cloak that helped assist him in avoiding such things. Even the threat of losing house points didn’t seem to deter them.


He blamed Lucius for all of this of course. It was Lucius who forced him to duel Dumbledore. He also hated the satisfied expression Lucius had on his face after he won. The man was testing him. He knew that. Lucius wanted to see his progress it seemed. And judging from the man’s smirk after the duel he could say that Lucius got the answer he wanted. Harry only hoped that the gossip windmill would stop after the holiday.


Right now, he chose to stay at Gryffindor common room, reading book about Quidditch. Hermione was there too, reading one of the numerous books from her collection. Ron was having chess game with Neville.


“Checkmate!” Ron crowed happily.


Neville looked at the chessboard rather sadly. “I lost again. That’s the third time.” He muttered.


Ron however already moved to the different topics. “Hey, how about snowball fight?” he asked enthusiastically. Harry and the other Gryffindors readily agreed. Of course they had to persuade Hermione at first. They were on the way out when they met with Luna.


“Hi Harry, Ron, Hermione,” the girl dreamily said.


“Hi Luna,” they chorused back together.


“We’re going to have snowball fight,” Harry said. “Do you want to join us?”


“Of course,” she replied. “Nobody has ever asked me before. But Harry, we must be very careful. Nargles are really active during this season. We must not disturb them.” She told him seriously.


Hermione rolled her eyes but other than that she didn’t say anything, already used to Luna’s oddity.


They split into two teams, a red team and green team. Ron was chosen to be the captain of the red team and Luna the captain of green team. The election was definitely fair since Hermione had them all draw sticks.


Ron, as Harry had expected him, commanded his teammate using strategy that he probably learned from playing chess unfortunately he couldn’t beat Luna’s good luck. As the girl threw a snowball, which they all thought to be missing, when suddenly it hit the tree behind Ron’s hiding thus buried them under the snow that had fallen from the branches.


Harry flopped onto the ground, exhausted. Beside him, Luna followed his step and started to move her legs and hands around.


“Luna, are you okay?” he asked. Probably the girl was trying to lure one of the mythical creatures she usually talked about from their hiding places. With Luna, you would never know.


“I’m making snow angel,” she replied. “You should make one Harry. You too Ron, Hermione.”


That must be weird scene, Harry thought. A seventh year Gryffindor and one Ravenclaw lying around on the snow covered ground, flapping their legs and arms. He moved his arms and legs too. After a while, he stumbled to his feet and then turned around to view his handy work. An imprint of an angel lay on the ground.


“Whoa Neville!” Seamus pointed at Neville’s snow angel.


“What?” Neville asked, worried.


“Are you that fat?” Seamus asked again, teasing him.


“Slimmer than you I suppose,” Dean, his best friend snickered.


As reply Seamus threw a snowball at Dean and that triggered the second round of snowball fight.

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Harry, Ron and the other Gryffindors cheered as Neville was trapped under the mistletoe with Hannah Abbot. They all knew that Neville had a crush on Hannah but he was too shy to say or do anything about it. Right now, Hannah was also blushing red since her Hufflepuff friends apparently joined the cheers.


“Come on Nev!” Seamus shouted. “Where is your Gryffindor courage?” he added teasingly.


Neville stammered but after a few seconds, managed to find his courage and kiss the girl on the lips lightly.


“Way to go mate!” Seamus shouted again.


Hermione rolled her eyes. But judging from Hannah’s expression, Harry dared to bet that she actually like Neville too. He had to kiss Ginny once when they accidentally stepped under the mistletoe at the same time. He also had kissed Luna and Hermione plus, on one occasion, Lavender, who practically squealed at the opportunity. Kissing Ginny, Hermione and Luna felt like he was kissing his sisters, which didn’t stray far from the truth. He actually thought of them that way.


Many of upper year students who were dating used this opportunity very well. In fact Harry, Ron and Hermione had witnessed Pansy Parkinson who tried to appear under the mistletoe at the same time with Malfoy a few times. Malfoy at first was resigned to his fate and kissed the girl but as the same event was repeated again and again he very much tried to evade her.


This however surprised Harry since he was sure that they were going to be a couple with the way both of them teamed up to insult him or other Griffyndors on a daily basis and the way she always supported the ferret. If there was anyone he disliked more than Malfoy at school the honor would go to Parkinson.


“Draco,” Pansy whined. “What is the matter?”


“Nothing,” Malfoy replied curtly, walking past her hurriedly.


Speaking of Malfoy anyway, ever since that incident in dueling class the blond and the other Slytherins ignored him as if he didn’t exist, which was a good development for him. Harry suspected that Lucius must have had a heart to heart conversation with his son with the furious way he addressed Malfoy. Even he knew how things at Slytherin worked. The students there followed the one with the most powerful sire and that was Malfoy. They were hoping to stay in Malfoy’s good graces so in the future they could ask for his help.


As soon as Malfoy disappeared Ron opened his mouth. “And here I thought that he would jump at the first opportunity to kiss Parkinson.”


Harry had no doubt at all that Pansy Parkinson was seeing herself as the future Lady Malfoy. Gallivanting around Diagon Alley, wearing diamonds and silk dress. “Just imagine,” he muttered. “A hybrid between ferret and pug face Parkinson.”


Ron’s laugh could have raised the dead. “I can just see that,” he said between his laughs, much too Hermione’s annoyance.


She threw annoyed look at him. “Harry!” she scolded. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”


“Well, she is mean to us Hermione,” he replied. “Remember the way she teased you?”


“That doesn’t mean you have to go to her level,” she said.


“Hermione,” Ron whined. “You ruin my fun!”

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“I still hate you, you know,” Harry mumbled, which was actually absurd since he was seated on Lucius’ lap.


The man merely raised his eyebrow.


“It’s because of you that every students in Hogwarts is gossiping about me,” he grumbled.


“Potter,” Lucius began. “The topic of conversation the students have among themselves are definitely not my doing.”

“Like I don’t know what you’re trying to do.” He said.


“Do explain that part Potter.”

“You’re testing me,” he replied. “You want to see if I’m worth it. So, how do you find your observation? Do I live up to your standard?” he asked, running his right hand across Lucius’ chest suggestively.


“Very much so,” the man replied and bent down to kiss him.

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“Hey mate!” Ron said. “Have you packed everything? Hermione will be mad if she knows we haven’t packed yet.”


“Well, have you?” he asked.


“Uhm…” Ron scratched his head. “No actually.”


Harry laughed. “You’re so hopeless Ron.”


“Hey!” Ron protested. “What about you?”


“As a matter of fact, well, I have,” he said smugly. “So go and pack your stuff before Hermione has your head.”


Ron left, grumbling all the way about traitorous friend and scary girl to befriend.


In the morning before they left Hogwarts Harry was surprised when a third year students came to him with short memo from Dumbledore.


“Maybe he has something important to tell you Harry,” Hermione suggested.


“Well, I have to see him now,” he replied.


“You better be quick,” Ron added. “Don’t want to miss the train home.”


Confused as to why Dumbledore wanted to talk with him now, he went to the headmaster office.


“Professor,” he greeted.


“Harry,” Dumbledore said. “Have a seat please.”


“You said you want to see me, Sir?” he questioned.


“Ah yes,” Dumbledore rummaged his drawer and pulled out something. A red box with gold ribbon.


“Sir?”


“Merry Christmas Harry,” Dumbledore said, giving him the box, which apparently was his gift.


“Merry Christmas too Sir. Uhm…thank you,” he said, feeling awkward and confused as to why Dumbledore needed to give him his gift now? Why didn’t wait until Christmas?


“Now Harry,” Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling. “Why don’t you open it?”


“What?” he asked, aghast by the mere idea.


“Well, go on,” the headmaster urged him.


He had to open it too? What on earth was going on here? Pulling at the red ribbon that bound the box, he wound it absently around his fingers before folding the paper back to see what was inside. A book?

“Tales of Beedle the Bard?” he read the title aloud.


Author’s Note:


Hi. First of all I want to say thanks to all of you who have reviewed. 17 reviews in one chapter! I’m so happy. Sorry for the delay, I actually have finished writing this at December but I haven’t typed it yet on my computer.


This chapter is quite short because I cut it on the part where Harry got the book. So Harry would know that Lucius divorced his wife on the next chapter and Malfoy would catch them together.