Bonjour mon amis! (Failed French, again.) So, this won't be as long as the last chapter. Mostly because that took me over an hour. It also won't be as short as chapter two. Seriously, I hate that chapter.

"He didn't catch it, he nearly swallowed it." Flint was still howling twenty minutes later, but it made no difference -- Harry hadn't broken any rules and Lee Jordan was still happily shouting the results --Gryffindor had won by one hundred and seventy points to sixty. 

Harry heard none of this, though. He was being made a cup of strong tea back in Hagrid's hut, with Ron, Hermione and I

Hagrid wasn't sure about me at first, but when Hermione told him that I was in Gryffindor and such, he didn't mind me. Especially after I told him about my love of dragons.

"It was Snape." Ron was explaining, "Hermione and I saw him. He was cursing your broomstick, muttering, he wouldn't take his eyes off you."

"Rubbish." said Hagrid, who hadn't heard a word of what had gone on next to him in the stands. "Why would Snape do somethin' like that?"

I exchanged a look with Hermione, Ron, and Harry.

"I found out something about him." Harry told Hagrid. "He tried to get past that three-headed dog on Halloween. It bit him. We think he was trying to steal whatever it's guarding."

Hagrid dropped the teapot.

"That was a perfectly good pot of tea." I scowled.

"How do you know about Fluffy?" he said.

"Fluffy?" I echoed.

"Yeah -- he's mine -- bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year -- I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the"

"Yes?" said Harry eagerly.

"Now, don't ask me anymore." said Hagrid gruffly. "That's top secret, that is."

"But Snape's trying to steal it."

"Rubbish." said Hagrid again. "Snape's a Hogwarts teacher, he'd do nothin' of the sort."

"So why did he just try and kill Harry?" cried Hermione. "I know a jinx when I see one, Hagrid, I've read all about them! You've got to keep eye contact, and Snape wasn't blinking at all, I saw him!"

"I'm tellin' yeh, yer wrong!" said Hagrid hotly. "I don' know why Harry's broom acted like that, but Snape wouldn' try an' kill a student! Now, listen to me, all three of yeh -- yer meddlin' in things that don' concern yeh. It's dangerous. You forget that dog, an' you forget what it's guardin', that's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel ---"

"Aha!" said Harry. "So there's someone called Nicolas Flamel involved, is there?" Hagrid looked furious with himself.

On our way back, I didn't stop talking. Hey, gotta make up for lost time.

"Us? Not meddle? I've never let anything be. There's this door in my basement that I was never supposed to open - ever - and I opened it. But seriously, all that was there was a book. I swear if my parents found out that I had that book, I would be deader than..... something that's dead." I proclaimed.

"Does that book happen to be the very book that changed your mind about muggleborns?" Hermione asked me.

"Perhaps...." I said with a mischivous grin.

"Jinx, I swear, if you defy your parents once more they'll disown you!" Hermione told me. I shrugged. "Then what would you do?"

"Live with you." I said casually. Hermione looked scared.

Christmas was coming. One morning in mid-December, I woke to find Hogwarts covered in several feet of snow. ("Oh snow!" I joked.) The lake froze solid and the Weasley twins were punished for bewitching several snowballs so that they followed Quirrell around, bouncing off the back of his turban. The few owls that managed to battle their way through the stormy sky to deliver mail had to be nursed back to health by Hagrid before they could fly off again. No one could wait for the holidays to start.

While the Gryffindor common room and the Great Hall had roaring fires, the drafty corridors had become icy and a bitter wind rattled the windows in the classrooms. Worst of all were Professor Snape's classes down in the dungeons, where our breath rose in a mist before us and we kept as close as possible to their hot cauldrons. Before class I chugged around like a train.

"I do feel so sorry," said Draco, one Potions class, "for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they're not wanted at home."

Christmas was worrying me. I had to talk to Draco. Yeah, we hated each other, but he was the only one I could go to about this.

I caught him after potions one day.

"What do you want?" He asked me coldly.

"Still pissed at me, eh? That's cool. Look, what did our parents say about me being in Gryffindor?" I asked seriously.

"I didn't tell them." Draco said quietly. "I thought you'd do that."

"I thought you did!" I exclaimed. "So they think I'm in Slytherin?"

"They must."

"Well, that settles it, I guess. I'm going home for Christmas." I said.

"I forgive you." Draco said suddenly.

"What?" I said dumbly.

"I forgive you for not telling me about the book. But I still have to be an ass to you." He told me. I grinned.

"Thanks. Just don't tell them about the book." I said.

"Why?"

"You know that door that we were never supposed to open? Well.... I opened it." I admitted.

"You did what?" He looked at me like I was crazy.

"I can never leave things be!" I said. "It's like the 3rd floor corridor..."

"You went THERE?" Draco said. "You must be crazy."

"I dunno. Must be. See you later." I said. I ran right into Harry, and fell over.

"Jinx! Are you alright?" He asked me.

"Here's a llama... There's a llama..." I said, slurring my words.

"She's alright." Ron said, laughing at me.

"Would you mind moving out of the way?" came Draco's cold drawl from behind them. "Are you trying to earn some extra money, Weasley? Hoping to be gamekeeper yourself when you leave Hogwarts, I suppose -- that hut of Hagrid's must seem like a palace compared to what your family's used to."

 Ron dived at Draco just as Snape came up the stairs.

"WEASLEY!" Ron let go of the front of Malfoy's robes.

"He was provoked, Professor Snape." said Hagrid, sticking his huge hairy face out from behind the tree. "Malfoy was insultin' his family."

"Be that as it may, fighting is against Hogwarts rules, Hagrid." said Snape silkily. "Five points from Gryffindor, Weasley, and be grateful it isn't more. Move along, all of you."

He looked at me. I was swaying, my eyes crossed.

"What happened to her?" Snape asked.

"She fell over. Might have a concussion. Or she's just being Jinx." Ron said.

"I like llamas." I said.

Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle pushed roughly past the tree, scattering needles everywhere and smirking.

"I'll get him." said Ron, grinding his teeth at Draco's back, "One of these days, I'll get him ---"

"I hate them both." said Harry. "Malfoy and Snape."

I frowned.

"Er, no offence Jinx." Harry said.

"None taken." I said quietly.

"Come on, cheer up, it's nearly Christmas." said Hagrid. "Tell yeh what, come with me an' see the Great Hall, looks a treat."

So we followed Hagrid and his tree off to the Great Hall, where Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick were busy with the Christmas decorations.

"Wow." I breathed. The hall looked spectacular. Festoons of holly and mistletoe hung all around the walls, and no less thantwelve towering Christmas trees stood around the room, some sparkling with tiny icicles, some glittering with hundreds of candles.

"Ah, Hagrid, the last tree -- put it in the far corner, would you?" Flitwick told Hagrid.

"How many days you got left until yer holidays?" Hagrid asked.

"Just one." said Hermione. I had forgotten that she was here. "And that reminds me. Jinx, Harry, Ron, we've got half an hour before lunch, we should be in the library."

"Oh yeah, you're right." said Ron, tearing his eyes away from Professor Flitwick, who had golden bubbles blossoming out of his wand and was trailing them over the branches of the new tree.

"The library?" said Hagrid, following them out of the hall. "Just before the holidays? Bit keen, aren't yeh?"

"Oh, we're not working." Harry told him brightly. "Ever since you mentioned Nicolas Flamel we've been trying to find out who he is."

"You what?" Hagrid looked shocked. "Listen here -- I've told yeh -- drop it. It's nothin' to you what that dog's guardin'."

"We just want to know who Nicolas Flamel is, that's all." said Hermione.

"Unless you'd like to tell us and save us the trouble?" Harry added. "We must've been through hundreds of books already and we can't find him anywhere -- just give us a hint -- I know I've read his name somewhere."

"I'm sayin' nothin." said Hagrid flatly.

"Just have to find out for ourselves, then." said Ron, and we left Hagrid looking disgruntled and hurried off to the library.

They had indeed been searching books for Flamel's name ever since Hagrid had let it slip, because how else were they going to find out what Snape was trying to steal? The trouble was, it was very hard to know where to begin, not knowing what Flamel might have done to get himself into a book. He wasn't in Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century, or Notable Magical Names of Our Time; he was missing, too, from Important Modern Magical Discoveries, and A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry. And then, of course, there was the sheer size of the library; tens of thousands of books; thousands of shelves; hundreds of narrow rows.

I, however, just sat around reading wizard comics.

"Aren't you going to help us at all?" Hermione asked me.

"It's in that big book you got from the library a few weeks ago." I said flatly. But Hermione wasn't listening.

I turned back to my comic. A few minutes later Hermione was pulling on my arm, leading me out of the library.

"What's going on?" I complained.

"Harry got kicked out of the library." Hermione scowled.

"Of course." I said.

We went off to lunch.

"You will keep looking while we're away, won't you?" said Hermione. "And send me an owl if you find anything."

"Me too." I piped in.

"And you could ask your parents if they know who Flamel is." said Ron. "It'd be safe to ask them."

"Very safe, as they're both dentists." said Hermione. I laughed randomly.

"What?" Harry asked.

"I don't really know." I said.