CHAPTER TWELVE
watched Hagrid getting redder and redder in the face as he called
for more wine, finally kissing Professor McGonagall on the cheek,
who, to Harry’s amazement, giggled and blushed, her top hat lop-
sided.
When Harry finally left the table, he was laden down with a
stack of things out of the crackers, including a pack of non-
explodable, luminous balloons, a Grow-Your-Own-Warts kit, and
his own new wizard chess set. The white mice had disappeared and
Harry had a nasty feeling they were going to end up as Mrs. Nor-
ris’s Christmas dinner.
Harry and the Weasleys spent a happy afternoon having a furi-
ous snowball fight on the grounds. Then, cold, wet, and gasping
for breath, they returned to the fire in the Gryffindor common
room, where Harry broke in his new chess set by losing spectacu-
larly to Ron. He suspected he wouldn’t have lost so badly if Percy
hadn’t tried to help him so much.
After a meal of turkey sandwiches, crumpets, trifle, and Christ-
mas cake, everyone felt too full and sleepy to do much before bed
except sit and watch Percy chase Fred and George all over
Gryffindor Tower because they’d stolen his prefect badge.
It had been Harry’s best Christmas day ever. Yet something had
been nagging at the back of his mind all day. Not until he climbed
into bed was he free to think about it: the Invisibility Cloak and
whoever had sent it.
Ron, full of turkey and cake and with nothing mysterious to
bother him, fell asleep almost as soon as he’d drawn the curtains of
his four-poster. Harry leaned over the side of his own bed and
pulled the cloak out from under it.
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