Albus Potter and the Healing Springs

Panic burst throughout the entire family in just a matter of seconds. What was a calm dinner a few minutes ago became chaos. Almost immediately, all of the little children hid under the table. It extremely annoyed Albus, since the monster was at Hogwarts, and not at his house, but then again they were just children.

Grandma and mum began to magically clean up dinner and levitate all the plates back inside. Hermione put the backyard back to how it previously was while Bill told them more about what was going on.

“I went to see why Victoire missed the train, and they had no idea! They couldn’t find her, so Fleur and I went to look for her ourselves,” recounted Bill. “When we found her, she was fighting a beast in a dark corridor. Once we got there, it ran away. We were so worried about Victoire that we didn’t chase it down. We had to come to aid our daughter!”

“I understand,” sympathized dad. “Did you inform McGonagall about this?”

“Of course I did. She said she would take care of it, but I’m pretty sure she’ll need some help,” confessed Bill.

“Just like old times, eh?” said Ron, smirking at dad and Hermione.

“Ron! We can’t just drop everything and go back to Hogwarts!” spat Hermione.

“Blimey, Hermione! Am I an auror or not?!” yelled Ron.

“Auror or not, we have to protect our children. We have no idea what that beast is, or if there are more for that matter!” explained Hermione. “For all we know, a whole bunch of creatures could be invading the country! Do you want your children to be here, unprotected and vulnerable, while we are at Hogwarts searching for one? Who knows if it even stayed there?”
 
“There is no way for that beast to leave Hogwarts without anyone noticing,” argued dad.

“There wasn’t supposed to be a way for it to enter Hogwarts either,” corrected Hermione.

Albus had never seen such a discussion go on between his Dad, Ron, and Hermione. They always seemed the most mature, especially when in front of their children. They never even spoke much about work, and now they were discussing their strategies as if they were the only people in the room.

“Wow. So when they said they’d go back to old times, they weren’t kidding,” joked George.

“This sure does bring back memories,” reminicsed mum.

Albus thought about how so much was hidden from him, and now Dad, Ron, and Hermione were all about to go back to “old times”. That had to mean old times at Hogwarts when dad said he had to defeat Voldemort. Ron and Hermione, being his best friends, must have been the ones who helped him.

“Right. So Bill, Ron and I are going to go to Hogwarts tonight. We will hopefully be back by tomorrow morning. I’ll send an owl if anything changes,” clarified dad to which mum nodded.

“Be careful!” begged mum giving dad a kiss.

“But Daddy, tomorrow is Christmas. You have to be here!” protested Lily.

“I’ll be back. Don’t worry, pumpkin,” he reassured.

“Rose, Hugo, take care of your mother,” instructed Ron.

“Oh, right, because I’m the one who needs to be taken care of. You’re the one they should be worrying about!” exclaimed Hermione. She then kissed him. “Don’t do anything stupid, and don’t take too long!”

“I won’t,” reassured Ron.

“Bill, where is Victoire?” asked grandma.

“She is with Fleur and the rest of the family at our place. She needed rest,” answered Bill.

Dad, Ron and Bill all made their way to Hogwarts. Albus hugged his dad tightly before he left. He felt terrible. All this time, he knew about the monster. He just didn’t believe it was real. He could have said something, yet he didn’t. He could have prevented this.

Everyone else went back to their homes, and the Potter family and the Scamander’s all went to bed in Albus’ home.

Albus went up to his room, which now seemed a lot lonelier than it did before. This would be the first night he slept in a room alone. He was already so used to sleeping with Alex and Webster as his roommates. Especially with all the talk of monsters, it was scarier than before.

Albus couldn’t sleep. He spent half of the night staying up thinking about the monster, and the other half dreaming about it. This dream consisted of a lot of singing which contradicted the monsters’ shrieks.

* * *

The next morning, Albus was woken up by his dad. He opened up the curtains, which didn’t let in that much sunlight. Albus realized why, because it was finally snowing.

“Happy Christmas, Albus!” said dad. He picked Albus up and gave him a big hug.

“Happy Christmas, Dad! What happened at Hogwarts?” asked Albus.

“Never mind that now. I told you I’d be back by morning. Come downstairs to see your presents!” said dad.

Albus ran downstairs in joy because his father was there for Christmas. When he got downstairs, he saw that everyone was already awake. It seemed that his dreams made him oversleep instead of waking him up.

Lily was riding around the living room in a new hot pink bike. Only because it was Christmas would mum ever let her do such an act.

James had just finished opening his new broom, the Lightyear 6000.

“Yes! Thank you, thank you!” cheered James while nearly jumping on their parents.

“You’re welcome, son!” replied mum. She then noticed Albus. “Oh, happy Christmas, my angel! Come open your present!”

“Happy Christmas, Mum,” answered Albus enthusiastically.

He had no idea what his present would be. Mum went and picked out a red and gold box from under the Christmas tree.

Albus took hold of the box and carefully opened it. Not knowing what to expect, he preparing a reaction just in case he didn’t like it.

He opened the box and inside was two new outfits, and a big blank piece of parchment, which had a note that said “Keep away from James”.

“We didn’t know what you wanted, so I hope you like it,” said dad. He then whispered. “I’ll explain the parchment later.”

“Okay,” replied Albus. The parchment reminded him of his gift. “Wait here. I’ll be right back!”

Albus ran up to his room and looked for his bag. Right on his desk where he left it, he found his drawing of his family. Then dad walked into his room.

“Are you okay, Albus?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. I came to get this,” he answered as he showed him the drawing.

“Wow! I didn’t know you could draw. Son, this is amazing,” said dad.

“Thanks dad!” said Albus. “I can’t wait to show mum!”

“You know, for a moment I thought you were mad and didn’t want to be near us,” confessed dad. “I had to come check on you.”

“No, I love the gifts,” lied Albus. “I couldn’t have asked for anything better!”

“Well let me explain to you this,” said dad as he brought out the parchment that was in Albus’ box a few minutes ago. “It isn’t just a piece of parchment, it’s a map.”

“A map? But it’s blank.”

“It’s called The Marauders Map. Here, to open it you have to say ‘I solemnly swear I am up to no good,’” demonstrated dad. Then the parchment magically unfolded into a map, and Albus could see all of Hogwarts as well as footprints labelled with names.

“So I can see where everyone is?” he asked. “That’s a bit creepy.”

“Well, it was bloody helpful for me,” explained dad. “Maybe it will be for you, too. Just don’t let James know I gave this to you. Who knows what he’ll use it for.”

“But where did you get this?”

“It belonged to my father, and now I’m passing it down to you,” he answered. “And when you’re done just tap it and say ‘Mischief managed.’”

“Wow, this is great. I love it!” said Albus. “But dad, what happened at Hogwarts?”

“We looked for a creature, but couldn’t find one. McGonagall had a continued search going on and we’ve contacted the auror offices. That’s all we can really do for now. But enough about that! Let’s go downstairs and enjoy our Christmas, shall we?”

“Yeah, just give me a second,” said Albus. He then signed the picture with his signature ‘A’ at the bottom. It was now truly complete.

When Albus got downstairs, Luna brought out exotic presents for him and his siblings. Each of them got a necklace that was supposedly a charm to keep away nargles.

“Uh, thanks Luna,” muttered Albus.

“Anything for my god children,” responded Luna. She then continued softly. “Well, technically only Lily is my god daughter but in my heart you guys are all my god children.”

Albus took his drawing over to his mum, James and Lily. They all appreciated it just as his father did, and mum brought out a picture frame for it. It was placed right next to the Christmas tree where all the colorful lights could reflect off of it.

“I’m so happy to have you all here. I’m so blessed to have such a wonderful family,” she smiled.

The rest of Christmas consisted of getting ready. The annual Christmas dinner was always held at the Burrow.

In his room, Albus put on one of the new outfits his parents got him. At least they were convenient. It was a red sweater with black pants. Albus activated the Marauders Map several times while getting ready for the fun of it. He couldn’t wait to show Ronnie and Alex when he got back to Hogwarts.

Then it occurred to him that Johnny was still at Hogwarts during the holidays. Unsafe.

All Albus could do now was send him an owl. He would have to wait until he got to the Burrow and use one of their owls since mum and dad used their patronuses to send messages to people.

He quickly wrote a letter stating that a monster was definitely found and asking him to be safe, preferably staying in the Hufflepuff common room.

“Albus, it’s time to go to grandma and grandpa’s. Are you ready?” shouted Mum as she knocked on his door.

“Yes, I’m coming!” replied Albus. He folded the letter and put it safely in his pocket.

Downstairs, Luna and her family were all dressed with reindeer antlers on their heads.

“I think it really adds to the Christmas spirit, don’t you think?” Luna shared. “They are surprisingly comfortable.”

The car ride to the Burrow only took a couple of minutes, but it was long enough for Luna to go on about how she wanted pudding.

When they got there, the place was beautifully decorated to match the holiday spirit. There were decorative lights draped over the Burrow, as well as a huge snow covered Christmas tree in the back. Since it snowed, a tent was put up for them to celebrate the holiday in. It was a quarter as tall as the Burrow but twice as long.

Albus went inside the tent while mum went inside to the help finish cooking. Inside the tent was an extremely long table decorated in a white cover, with green and red plates and utensils, as well as plenty of flowers.

“Albus!” called Rose. She was wearing a red dress, with her hair untied. She must have worked hard to keep it tidy. She also had a ribbon in her hair and black shoes.

“Happy Christmas, Rose!”

“Happy Christmas to you, too! I guess we always seem to be the first at these family things.”

“Yeah,” giggled Albus. “Is everyone going to be here this time?”

“Yes, everyone is going to be here. Thankfully, my dad said he couldn’t find any monster at Hogwarts so everyone’s been worried.”

“But let’s just try to enjoy today,” insisted Albus.

“Agreed!” said Rose.

Lily was holding a bunch of presents which she put under a Christmas tree at the end of the tent. There were a bunch of presents there already. Every year, everyone put their presents under the tree and exchanged them after dinner.

That’s when Victoire entered with Dominique and Louis.
 
Victoire had long lush blonde hair. It was beautiful just like her mother’s. She had blue eyes and great features.
 
Dominique had short red hair and freckles.
 
Louis had very near blonde hair and resembled his mother as well.
 
Along with Victoire, hand in hand, was Teddy Lupin. Today, he was sporting a turquoise shade of hair.

Usually the ones in the family to be late, this came as a surprise. Dominique put all their presents under the tree, and then ran off to be with Louis. Bill and Fleur came in shortly after, carrying cookies to hand out to the kids.

Albus went up to Victoire to ask her questions. He knew she’d be confused as to why he was but he didn’t care anymore.

“Victoire, are you okay?” 

“Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks for asking,” answered Victoire. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“Do you remember what it looked like?” enquired Albus. “I think I saw it before too, just vaguely.”

“You did? Well, I only remember it being extremely big! I tried to make out what it was, but I couldn’t recognise it. It had the body of a bear, in a way, but also had a weird tail and wings.”

“That’s really weird,” he commented.

“What did it look like to you?” she asked.

“Oh, I didn’t really see it very well, only a shadow.”

“Well, we’ve got to be careful when we go back!”

Meanwhile, Percy and Audrey came in with Lucy and Molly. Audrey and her daughter, Lucy, looked almost like twins, and they were both wearing purple dresses. Molly was ecstatic in her yellow polka dot dress and Percy was just wearing a black suit.

The family began to organize themselves around the table, while George and Angelina came in with Fred and Roxanne. George was wearing a goofy green suit, and his son Fred had one to match. Angelina and Roxanne were both wearing white. Charlie, who was staying with them on vacation, came with a red suit.

Hermione came in levitating a bunch of plates while holding Hugo’s hand. Grandma and mum were doing the same and they set up the table.

Unlike yesterday, this family dinner went very smoothly. They tried to stay away from the topic of Hogwarts, but, here and there, Albus could hear dad and Ron whispering about it with Hermione.

At the end of the dinner, grandma made a toast about how glad she was to have her entire family with her on this cheerful day. It ended with everyone cheering, “Happy Christmas!”

Immediately, all the kids ran to the Christmas tree searching for presents that had their names on it. Albus found five presents for him, four of them being wrapped up galleons. Albus was officially at the age when his family would stop buying him toys and gave him money instead.

The fifth present, however, was from his grandparents. It was a knit sweater that grandma would make him every year.

“I hope you all like the sweaters I made you! It took me all year to make all of them,” joked Grandma.

All the kids, including Albus, quickly embraced her all at the same time, or at least tried to. She was always showing care for her grandchildren.
 
Before leaving, Albus sent an owl to Johnny with his letter. He hoped it’d reach him before anything bad could happen to him. 

After it was all over, they cleaned up the tent and everyone went home. During the car ride, it began to lightly snow again. Albus felt the happiest he had all year. He wouldn’t worry about the problems he was sure to face when he got back to Hogwarts. For now, he just wanted to enjoy his holidays.