The Protagonist System

66 The Presence of Presents

It was the best Christmas eve I had ever experienced. The happy atmosphere made everything better. The joy on Petunia's and Dudley's faces as they opened their surprise gifts from me was worth surprising them. Petunia had a very expensive handbag that I had enchanted to be huge inside and she could summon anything she wanted from it, rather than root around.

Dudley got a gigantic toybox that would hold everything he would ever get for the rest of his life. He could throw anything inside and it wouldn't break and he could summon it out as well. He laughed and laughed as he threw one of his large rattles inside, it loudly echoed in the trunk, and he called it back to his hand to throw it again.

Vernon looked impressed when he opened his gift, because it was a Never-Ending Wallet that I had enchanted to hold as much money inside as he wanted and it already had a thousand pounds in it. It could hold coins, too. He could summon whatever denomination of bills he wanted, because I had made sure to give him an even mix.

I happily accepted the gifts of baby toys and made sure I played with them for an appropriate amount of time before moving on to the next gift. We ate a huge turkey dinner with all the trimmings that Cookie had outdone herself with. It was a wonderful meal with everything and Dudley and I enjoyed our mulch.

With my family pretty much tired out from the exciting day, I sneaked off to go to the mail room. Not surprisingly, I received a lot of fan mail for the holiday and the mail room was almost full. Most of it was Yuletide cards and well wishes, with a few gifts thrown in, and quite a bit of money. It had all been checked by the elves first and any obviously bad things were boxed up and sent off to the DMLE.

I received a package from the Weasleys with tiny knitted sweater inside with a large 'H' on it. It also had several compulsions cast on it and I shook my head at it. The tin of fudge had more potions in it that were keyed to the Weasleys, which told me Amelia hadn't had much luck finding support for the idea I proposed. I packed them back up in the box and added a note about the repeat offender.

I did up a form letter for the thank yous that didn't need a personal touch and Butter popped in with the large box of Christmas cards I had created. He handed me a stack of animated photos of me wearing my Harry Potter costume and a Santa Claus hat. It was me waving from in front of the North Pole sign and behind that were several tables with the house elves pretending to make toys.

It was a great fake scene and I stuck them to the front of the cards and added Happy Yule in crayon inside and signed the form letter before I folded it and put that and the card in an envelope. Thanks to magic and Butter's help, we were done in just under an hour and all five of the house elves popped into the room, grabbed a stack to deliver them, and disappeared.

I worked on the more personal responses while they were busy delivering the cards. A few of them needed me to show up personally, like with Amelia wanting an outfit like mine for her niece, Susan. I wasn't going to deny her request, not after all the extra work I had been sending her way. I even made her an expanded briefcase for her to take to work and included the instructions.

I also made Susan a female version of my outfit and transfigured a real monster crystal for the cape clasp. I also added the velvet inside the cape like Louise's, just so the outfit looked more expensive. After another minute of thinking about it, I included a copy of the Tristain Academy of Magic's schoolbook on elemental conjuration. It would probably blow Amelia's mind to get a new perspective on magic.

For Neville, I gave him some of the fruits and vegetables I had saved from the last world and a note for him to listen to his passion and see what he could do with them. It was a blatant hint for him to try growing things and I didn't care. I would keep the food under stasis for as long as possible and would have Floppy check on him to see if he was playing in the greenhouses with the elves.

I also did up a smaller book about safety protocols and emergency ward shields to send to Pandora Lovegood, Luna's mother. Yes, I knew it was seven years early. No, I didn't care. The sooner the woman starts thinking about her family's safety, the sooner she can head off blowing herself up in front of her daughter, Luna. That girl desperately needed to keep her mother alive for as long as possible.

I conjured up a pile of blankets, gloves, and wool socks, then charmed them to be warm, waterproof, and to never wear out. I had counted the prisoners in Azkaban the last time I was there and would distribute the Yule gifts and warn the prisoners about hiding them from the guards, then laughed. I quickly changed their color to resemble the same dark and dingy stone that Azkaban was made from and they were perfectly camouflaged.

There were a few other expensive gifts from people that I didn't know and had given to me, so their response gifts still needed a personal touch. I created a few things, like the ever-glowing lights from Danmachi, and slotted monster crystals inside and sealed them permanently. Breaking them open would destroy the crystal, which was perfect. No one was stealing that idea.

The last thing I did was create another cape in the shape of a swaddling blanket, a real magical stone included as the clasp, and added a card for Astoria Greengrass to let her family know I was considering their proposal. I doubted I would accept it until I was at least 17, because I had plans to complete long before then. The expensive watch they sent me was really nice, too.

I created a life-size Harry Potter plushie doll for Daphne, just because I could. That made me realize I could add one for Susan as well and reopened Amelia's gift and put one in there, too. I would have to either find a muggle manufacturer to make more or I could start my own business producing Harry Potter merchandise.

Should I wait for my first adventure book to be published? I asked myself as I stored everything in my inventory. If I did, I would lose three and a half years of sales. The first book doesn't come out until I'm five years old, according to the publishing date.

I wasn't sure how I was getting to Africa to confront a rampaging Nundu, which was a gigantic magical lion that breathed poison breath. That wasn't for years, so I had some time to figure things out, like finding the author and arranging for them to be the author in the first place.

Or do I have to? I asked myself. I took out the first book and I had another wonderfully funny idea. I already had the book and assumed the author's name was a pseudonym, which meant the real person might not want to be found and would write the books in secret. If I produced them myself and assumed the identity of the author, all that profit would come right to me.

That gave me another idea. All of that money could be used to pay the tuition of the students of Hogwarts, especially the muggleborns and muggle-raised that couldn't afford it. Even some of the pure bloods didn't have that much money to afford sending their children through school, which was why they usually held to a single child if it was a boy and sometimes had a spare if the first was a girl.

I pushed all those errant thoughts aside as something to deal with later and put on my Harry Potter outfit and my invisibility cloak. I went to the teleportation room and had to concentrate on the magical signature of Alice Longbottom. Once I locked onto it, I activated the circle and disappeared in a flash of light. It was going to be a long night being Santa Harry.

*

Magical people all over Britain were shocked the next morning when they found personal Yule cards from Harry Potter on their fireplace mantles. The letter inside thanked them for thinking about him and he hoped that they had a great holiday. With the evil dealt with, they were safe and should be happy. He had even signed the letter and the card himself in crayon.

Those that had received gifts were even more shocked. They hadn't expected anything in return, especially with the personal touches the savior of the wizarding world had included. It brought up their opinion of the boy that much higher and they felt special that he had taken the time out of his busy life to think about them.

Amelia Bones was one of those people. She stared at the outfit that looked even more expensive than Harry's did, especially the beautiful cape with the velvet lining and the glittering magical jewel for a clasp. When she moved it aside, she saw the book she had never seen before and picked it up to read the cover. She immediately opened it and started to read.

She ignored Susan as the nearly two year old girl giggled and hugged the plushie doll of Harry Potter and squealed about him liking her and they would be friends forever and ever. The expanded briefcase wouldn't be discovered until lunchtime when Amelia's reading was interrupted by a house elf to get her to eat. Needless to say, she was extremely flattered to be gifted a one of a kind expanded briefcase.

The Greengrass family was also in shock. Their daughter Daphne was just as vociferous about squeezing the life out of her Harry Potter plushie doll that was as big as her and claimed the same things as Susan. Her mother had already wrapped her small newborn baby in the expensive swaddling blanket and cuddled the delicate girl, not realizing Harry had already cured her blood curse.

The father read the card again and he was both worried and reassured by it. He was worried because if Harry found someone else to be with by the time he was 17, then the contract would be null and void. He was reassured that if the boy only played with the girls up to that point, his sick daughter's financial future was assured, as was their entire family, because Harry hadn't argued about the bride price.

The prisoners in Azkaban had the best Yule in their lives. Warm blankets, gloves, and socks had magically appeared in their cells. That they looked just like the stone around them, was perfect, because the guards wouldn't see them. The mugs of hot chocolate had fixed their internal chills, too.

*

I slept like a log until Nanny woke me up for breakfast. I was exhausted after such a long night and she couldn't give me a pepper-up potion. My baby body couldn't handle it. I sighed and let her pop me down to the kitchen and put me in my high chair.

“Was somebody up most of the night playing with their new toys?” Petunia asked when she saw my half-asleep state.

I nodded and almost fell asleep in my mulch. Vernon chuckled and Petunia moved over beside me to carefully feed me. Dudley was as loud and happy as always. I whispered thanks to Petunia when the food was gone.

Petunia smiled warmly and waved to Nanny. “Put him back to bed. He needs his sleep.”

“I bees looking after him.” Nanny said and snapped her fingers to float me out of the high chair and into her arms. “Bees okay by suppers.”

Petunia nodded and the nanny elf popped me back up to my room and put me to bed.

I woke up sometime later and sighed when I looked at the invisible clock in my head. I had an appointment with Andromeda today and needed to get going. Nanny popped in and admonished me for not staying in bed. I just shrugged, which still looked ridiculous as a baby, and she sighed and helped me get dressed in my noble outfit.

I gave her a hug and thanked her for her help, which made her blush, and she helped me to the teleportation room. After a whispered warning to take it easy, I disappeared in a flash of light and appeared in Andromeda's backyard. I walked over to her back door and knocked. The door opened almost right away and Nymphadora was there.

“Merry Christmas, Harry! I love my new backpack!” Nymphadora exclaimed and scooped me up into her arms and hugged me as if I was my plushie doll.

I was too tired to do more than make a groan sound.

“Nymphadora!” Andromeda's harsh voice cut through the air. “Put that boy down right now!”

Nymphadora made a sad sound and let me go. I dropped down onto my feet, which didn't want to hold me up, so I plopped right down onto my butt and fell backwards onto the step. Thankfully, it was made of wood and my head only bounced instead of cracking open. The thunk sound it made was fairly loud, though.

“NO!” Two gasps came from inside the house and Nymphadora was suddenly yanked out of the way and I was being carefully picked up in Andromeda's arms and the back of my head was examined by her husband.

“I don't see anything starting to bruise or swell.” Ted Tonks said and waved his wand over me. “No concussion, either.”

“Oh, thank Merlin.” Andromeda whispered and cradled me against her considerable chest and rested my cheek on her shoulder.

“M'Harry.” I mumbled into her neck. “Not Merlin.”

Ted chuckled. “Well, he's joking around, so he'll be fine.”

Andromeda nodded and pet my head. It was so soothing to be held like that, I fell right to sleep.

*

“The poor boy must be exhausted.” Ted said.

“Are you sure we should let him sleep like this after banging his head that hard?” Andromeda asked him and Ted waved his wand at Harry's head again.

“The diagnostic spell just says he's tired. There's no other damage.” Ted told her.

Andromeda nodded and turned to stare at her daughter with squinted eyes. “As for you...”

“You said to let him go.” Nymphadora said with tears in her eyes as she rubbed her arm.

Ted sighed and waved his wand at her arm. “You need some bruise creme for that.”

It was Andromeda's turn to sigh. “I'm sorry I grabbed you so hard, Nymphadora. I had to check on Harry right away. If anything happened to the savior of the wizarding world on our doorstep...”

Nymphadora let the tears roll down her cheeks. “I'm sorry.”

“We know you are, dear.” Ted said and gave her a hug. “Come on up to the bathroom. I'll get that creme and your arm won't feel so sore.”

Nymphadora nodded and followed her dad upstairs.

Andromeda closed the back door and went through the kitchen and into the living room. She walked over to the couch and carefully sat down on it and reclined a bit more than she usually did, because of the bundle of joy clinging to her.

It was surprisingly nice to have a baby to hold like that again and she decided to stay there for as long as necessary for Harry to wake up on his own. Getting to pet his soft messy hair was a good reason, too. She could wait for a little while longer to bring Sirius some Christmas turkey and to ask him if he was finally done feeling sorry for himself. The idiot would not be going anywhere for a very long time.