31 Chapter 31: Christmas and Alchemists

The year entered December as several feet of snow began to cover Hogwarts, and the Black Lake was frozen solid. Harry had to decide whether he wanted to stay over the winter holidays or return to the Gremory Mansion in the Underworld.

After a long debate with himself, he decided to remain at Hogwarts during his first year. He was the only one among the first years of Ravenclaw. All the others decided to go home over the holidays, including Hermione, Daphne, and Tracey. Daphne couldn't wait to see her sister. She had been worried sick when she heard her sister had caught some kind of sickness recently and wanted to check on her.

Harry wasn't sad. Christmas wasn't really a big thing in the Underworld since it was more of a celebration from the Church, the enemy of all Devils. Although he wanted to see the Gremorys and the rest of Rias' Peerage, this was just too good of an opportunity to pass up.

The castle would be mostly empty as most of the students left for the Christmas holidays. Only a few upper years and, from what he heard, the Weasleys from Gryffindor would remain. Even most of the teachers would leave over the holidays, which meant there would be no prefects patrolling the corridors and very few teachers.

An optimal opportunity to sneak into the restricted section of the library and get his hands on some of the more interesting books, especially the ones focusing on rarer topics of magic. With his newly learned Disillusionment Charm, Harry was quite confident that he would be successful.

Maybe he could also check out the forbidden corridor on the third floor, but he didn't dare to sneak past Fluffy with just the Disillusionment Charm. He had heard from Hagrid that with its three heads, a Cerberus had an even sharper sense of smell than regular dogs, and its other senses were also sharper. Sneaking past it with just harder visibility would be very dangerous.

To even attempt it, he needed to find a way to play music so he could put Fluffy to sleep. Although he had his phone, he didn't want to just leave it behind to keep the dog asleep until he returned, since he didn't know yet what was ahead. So he was looking for magical alternatives. He had already found one: the Music Charm. It wasn't too complex, but it required a musical instrument to be cast on. Unfortunately, he didn't have one. Conjuration was still out of his reach right now. Transfiguration was overall a very complex class with its own laws to follow. Unlike Charms, he couldn't just skip ahead and study more advanced applications. But maybe he could "borrow" one of the instruments from the Music Club of Professor Flitwick without attracting attention.

Well, it was a work in progress. But he wanted to at least check out what was behind that trapdoor before he continued on, so Fluffy had to be taken out without being killed.

At least, after visiting Hagrid again and asking why Fluffy was inside the castle full of children, he got another indicator of what was hidden there: the name Nicolas Flamel, a person related in some way to Headmaster Dumbledore. Harry could have sworn he had heard that name somewhere before.

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The castle emptied, and the Weasley twins got into trouble again for hexing snowballs to follow and hit Professor Quirrell's turban as the last students boarded the train to London and left for the holidays.

Meanwhile, the Great Hall and the castle were beautifully decorated with large Christmas trees and other festive decorations. To avoid Ron Weasley pestering him to play Wizarding Chess, Harry spent most of his time inside the library, where Ron wouldn't set foot since it was related to school and studying.

After sending Hedwig with the last of the Christmas presents he had bought, Harry sneaked out of the Ravenclaw Common Room during the night while under the Disillusionment Charm. He managed to reach the entrance to the restricted section without any trouble. Once he made sure there was no magical monitoring charm on the entrance, he sneaked inside.

The restricted section was similar to the regular area, filled with a myriad of different leather-bound books. Although slightly smaller in size, some of the books were even chained to the walls, indicating their rarity or value.

Unlike the regular books, many of these books emitted a magical aura. To avoid triggering any traps or curses, Harry focused on the books without magical enchantments. He suspected that these magical books required a special method of reading, but since he was sneaking inside, he couldn't ask anyone for guidance.

Harry spent almost the entire night making copies of the unenchanted books in his tower. He didn't waste time reading them since his time inside the restricted section was limited. He aimed to complete copying all the unenchanted books during the holidays. That's how he spent the night before Christmas before returning to his empty common room early in the morning to catch some sleep.

As Harry woke up with only two hours of sleep before breakfast, the first thing he noticed was a small pile of packages at the foot of his bed. With a happy grin, he picked up the first parcel on the pile. It was wrapped in thick brown paper, and "To Harry, from Hagrid" was scrawled across it. Inside was a roughly cut wooden flute that Hagrid had obviously whittled himself.

"One problem less," thought Harry with a smile as he blew into the flute. Next, he cast the Music Charm on it, and it started to play a small melody, albeit a broken version. "Well, I will have to practice it more," muttered Harry as he heard the result.

From Hermione, he received a large box of Chocolate Frogs, while Tracey gave him some magical sweets. Daphne sent him a copy of an older book on curses, mentioning that it was a copy from her family's library and contained many books no longer available to the public.

He also received gifts from home. Lord and Lady Gremory sent him some new clothes, while Grayfia and Sirzechs sent him the collected works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. It was likely Grayfia's choice, as she wanted to encourage his hobby of reading. Koneko gave him some sweets, and Akeno sent him a calligraphy set. Rias, on the other hand, sent him all the latest manga volumes he had missed while at Hogwarts, including Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece, and more.

As he read the new Fullmetal Alchemist manga, he finally remembered where he had heard about Nicolas Flamel. It was in one of the previous chapters of Fullmetal Alchemist that Rias had gotten him hooked on. In the Fullmetal Alchemist universe, Nicolas Flamel was a 15th-century alchemist who attempted to create his own Philosopher's Stone. He was mentioned by Edward Elric, the main character of the manga, while he was researching the Philosopher's Stone at the library in Central.

"Is this just a coincidence, or is the Nicolas Flamel of Fullmetal Alchemist based on a real person?" Harry pondered. He pulled out his laptop and connected to the Devilnet, grateful that it worked anywhere in the world. After a quick Google search, he managed to find some information on the real person, Nicolas Flamel.

Nicolas Flamel was born in France in 1327 and was said to have created the Philosopher's Stone, granting immortality and the ability to transmute metals into gold. "If this is the same person Hagrid mentioned, he should be over 600 years old. So he really did create the Philosopher's Stone. I'll have to check it in the library," Harry realized. "The only thing that could be hidden on the third-floor corridor is the Philosopher's Stone, but immortality isn't something I need with my natural devil lifespan of 10,000 years. I have enough gold too, but it should still be an interesting object to study. After all, it was created with magic."

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