"Sweetheart, you need to wake up."
Need to wake up... mother... Sirius... necklace... Hogwarts...
My eyes snapped open.
"Oh good, you're awake," said Madam Pomfrey, and although her voice was businesslike, she sounded slightly sad. She handed me a potion. "Here, drink this. You lost a lot of blood, but you'll be ok."
I quickly drank it, then looked around, and saw I was in the hospital wing.
I could feel bandages and dressings covering my back, and I suddenly realised why Madam Pomfrey sounded sad — she'd seen the words Mother had cut into my back, whatever they said.

"What do they say?" I asked quietly. "The words on my back, what do they say?"
Pomfrey looked at me quickly.
"The longer one says—" she hesitated for a moment "—disappointment."
"And the shorter one?" I whispered, somewhat dreading the answer.
"It says—" she started, but she seemed unable to finish.
There were a few seconds of silence.
"It says toy," she finally murmured, and I just broke down sobbing.

It took me a few minutes to realise how stupid I was being. After all, it was hardly the worst thing my mother had done to me. I took a shaky breath and forced myself to stop crying, wiping the last few tears from my eyes with the back of my hand as I did so.
"Can I go?" I asked Madam Pomfrey quietly, trying to stop my voice from wobbling.
"I don't think so, sweetheart."
"Please," I said, sounding a little more desperate than I had intended. "It's my first proper Christmas... I don't want to have to spend it in here."

Her face softened a little at these words, but she still shook her head.
"I don't think your body would cope very well with that, not after it's had to regain so much blood in such a short space of time," she told me, her voice soft but firm.
"I'll be fine," I assured her. "I've lived with this for almost nine years now, I don't see how my body's suddenly going to react any differently than it normally would just because someone actually cares now."
"I — but — that's not the point!" she said, and I raised one eyebrow.
"It certainly seemed to be what you were saying."

"No, I — hold on," she interrupted herself. "Nine years? That means you were—"
"Four years old," I said quietly. Tears stung my eyes again, and I looked away quickly. "I want to go and see my friends. Please."
"I — alright," she sighed, finally giving in. "But come straight back if you feel dizzy or anything."
I nodded slightly and stood up, checking my purse was still in my pocket as I did so. It was, so I started the long walk to the common room.

As I approached the portrait hole, I saw Sir Cadogan, who seemed to be having a Christmas party of sorts with a couple of monks, several previous headmasters of Hogwarts (I recognised them from when I'd been to Dumbledore's office) and his fat pony.
"Oh no," I groaned, absentmindedly rubbing my crescent moon necklace, which I'd clipped around my neck again. "I don't know the password."
"Merry Christmas!" roared a rather drunk looking Sir Cadogan. "Password?"
"Scurvy cur." The words had left my lips before I'd even had time to acknowledge I knew them.
To my extreme surprise, the portrait swung on its hinges, allowing me to enter the common room.

It was only then that I realised my necklace had become ice cold.

That can't be normal...
I put these thoughts out of my head as I spotted Harry and Ron by the fireplace, admiring a broomstick of some sort.
"Hi guys," I said, walking over to them and sitting down.
"Ivory! You're ok!" they both said at the same time, and I giggled a little.
"Of course I'm ok. I wouldn't be in here right now if I wasn't ok, I'd be in the hospital wing," I said, a smile spread across my face. "Where's Hermione?"
"She said she wanted a word with McGonagall. She'll probably be up in a minute or two," Ron said.

"Oh, ok then. What's that you've got there?" I asked, indicating to the broomstick on their laps. "I mean, obviously it's a broomstick, but what model is it?"
"It's a Firebolt," grinned Harry, looking excited. "Its an international standard broom, the best model there is!"
"Where did you get it?"
"Dunno. It was with my presents this morning, it didn't have a card or anything with it," Harry said, shrugging his shoulders.

Just then, Hermione came into the room, accompanied by McGonagall.
"So that's it, is it?" said Professor McGonagall, walking over to the fireside and staring at the Firebolt. "Miss Granger has just informed me that you have been sent a broomstick, Potter."
I could see Hermione's forehead reddening over the top of the book she was hiding her face behind. She didn't seem to realise it was upside-down.

"May I?" said Professor McGonagall, but she pulled the Firebolt from Harry and Ron's hands without waiting for an answer. She examined it carefully from its shining handle to its perfectly smooth and streamlined twig-ends. "Hmm. And there was no note at all, Potter? No card? No message of any kind?"
"No," said Harry, obviously confused as to where this conversation was going.
"I see..." said Professor McGonagall. "Well, I'm afraid I will have to take this, Potter."
"W-what?" said Harry, scrambling to his feet. "Why?"

"It will need to be checked for jinxes," said Professor McGonagall. "Of course, I'm no expert, but I daresay Madam Hooch and Professor Flitwick will strip it down—"
"Strip it down?" repeated Ron, sounding as though McGonagall was mad.
"It shouldn't take more than a few weeks," said Professor McGonagall. "You will have it back if we are sure it is jinx-free."
"There's nothing wrong with it!" said Harry, his voice shaking slightly. "Honestly, Professor—"
"You can't know that, Potter," said McGonagall, "not until you've flown it, at any rate, and I'm afraid that is out of the question out of the question until we are certain that it has not been tampered with. I shall keep you informed."

She turned around and left again, taking the Firebolt with her. As soon as the portrait hole had closed behind her, Ron rounded on Hermione.
"What did you go running to McGonagall for?"
Hermione, pink in the face, threw her book aside and stood up to face Ron defiantly.
"Because I thought — and Professor McGonagall agreed with me — that that broom was probably sent to Harry by Sirius Black!"

(A/n: What's this?? Me?? Publishing another chapter???
I'm so sorry I haven't updated the book for over a week now! I'd be lying if I said it's taken me that long to write this chapter... really it's taken me most of the time to procrastinate writing it and then maybe a few hours writing because I kept getting distracted 😂
Anyways, I think I'm going to go and start writing the next chapter so there's hopefully not such a big gap between now and the next update. Byeee!
~Charlie)