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YOUR POV

I finally made my way up to the Gryfindor common room. The flickering fire and slight smell of cinnamon made it much more comforting than the infirmary (which ranked of medicine and cleanliness). Even better, knowing that a certain Professor returned my feelings, the day was already starting out better than I imagined. Smiling to myself, I crept up behind Matt and stuck a finger onto the left side of the back of his neck. I heard he was quite ticklish.

I was 100% right.

Matt let out a loud yelp-ish scream and whirled around to face his tickle-attacker.

"WHAT THE HECK IN MERLIN'S BEARD WAS THAT LUCAS YOU KNOW I HATE IT!" He shouted at me. When he had finally stopped yelling in my face and realized it was me, he pulled me in for a hug let me go........and starting shouting again. Sheesh.

"WHERE THE BLOODY HELL WHERE YOU?! WE ALL THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD OR WORSE. THE TWINS ALMOST STARTED TO PLAN YOUR FUNERAL. HARRY DIDN'T EVEN TRY TO STOP THEM."

I shot him a kind smile. "I'm alright guys," I stated to the gathering Gryffindors, "I got lost and I was found. Fairly simple."

Suddenly, the portrait hole burst open: it was Corinne. She made a few clumsy steps towards the maroon-robed crowd and panted out,

"Draco Malfoy avoided expulsion!"

All the present Gryffindors raged and roared angrily . Questions were re-loaded and shot at a continuous rate. Voices overlapped voices, but the most common question was:

"HOW?!?!?!?"

Yeah. How the bloody hell did he get out of it?

"Well, let me explain!" she huffed. "Apparently, his father persuaded Snape into keeping him here! I don't know how, but I do know some strings are pulled and that he's on probation."

My heart stopped dead. Snape had gotten extremely mad, and had punched Draco nearly unconscious onto the floor. He also said he would expel him! You cannot excuse rape! My head spun around while I tried to logically think 'why'. I recollected that Draco's father was an extremely powerful and wealthy man, so perhaps that was it. But....something still troubled me and the problem was, I had no idea what it was. A needle in a haystack. I shook the thought out of my head and decided to focus on the present. One by one, my friends handed me presents of all shapes and sized. I was a little cautious with the twins, I was expecting some sort of dung-bomb to go off in my face or love potion for me to fall in love with a telephone pole or something. Instead it was a home-knit Weasley sweater that their mom gave to them to give to me. I gave them both a hug.

"Thank you so much guys!"

"Your welcome!" They said in usion.

"But you know-" said Fred

"You really should check-" Said George.

"The bottom of the bag." They both made an exaggeration on the 'a' but it was still funny.

I started to unwrap it until I reached the very bottom. No. Way.

It was fudge. Honest to goodness Mother of Weasley Molly Weasley fudge!

"You guys know I'm a total chocoholic and you give my own box of homemade fudge to me?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Yep." Fred nodded his head with his eyes fully open and George mimicked him.

"Ah, you guys are the best."

"Yeah, we know. See ya around (y/n). We're off to go see if we can prank McGonagall." And with that, the twins marched out of the room, chatting about how and when to prank and what their escape plan was.

"Oh, um uh, (y/n)?"

It was Matt. "Yeah?"

"H-here. I thought you would like this..." He handed me a small box. It was silver with a white ribbon wrapped around it.

I carefully started to unwrap it: it was a rabbit's foot. I stared at it.

"I-uh. It used to belong to me, but I'm passing it down to you. You seem to need it more than I."

He passed a hand through his bushy hair.

I continued to stare at the sleek, white amputated foot. I picked it out of the box, and plucked a loose string from the bottom of my pocket. I wove it around the small, hooped chain that was on the rabbits foot and put it into my pocket.

"Thank you very much, Matt. I will always treasure this. It'll remind me of you." I put a hand in his hair and ruffled it.

"No problem (y/n). If you need anything, just come to me." He winked at me before heading out of the common room to snag whatever food was left from breakfast in the Great Hall.

So my total count of X-mas loot: fudge, locket from Snape....., sweater, rabbit's foot, Bernie Botts Every Flavor Beans (from Rebecca), a package of socks that magically appeared (I suspect a certain twinkle-eyed wizard), some cookies from Corinne, a watch from June, and a Remembrall from Thomas. Didn't Neville have one too? And aren't they for people who forget things? I couldn't remember.

Oh.

After all the festivities managed to die down, I managed to sneak down to the Potion Master's office and rap on the door. I heard footsteps approaching and backed up from the door.

He opened it. His face looked mad, angry, and looked like it may explode at some random interval. When he realized it was me, his faced smoothed out and calmed down.

"Miss (y/l/n)," His velvety voice in monotone, "what a surprise."

"Yep. I just got word that Draco Malfoy somehow wormed his way out of expulsion this fine day. Would you care to tell me why?" I admit; my voice came out harsher than I intended, but I thought it might have been necessary.

He looked to the right and left of the hallway. "In my office, now."

He held the door open for me and I walked in. The oak door shut behind me as her ushered me to sit down. He sat down on a black chair on the opposite side as me.

"I imagine you have some.....questions."