“
Not again,” Daphne muttered angrily when she came in for dinner one night. “How can Muggles listen to such dribble?”
“It’s ‘Joy to the World,’” Justin responded importantly. “How can that possibly be dribble?”
She scoffed at him. “Evidence shows that your Harry Potter figure—“
Harry gagged at her phrasing and nearly choked on the pumpkin juice he was drinking.
“As I was saying,” Daphne began again, “your Harry Potter figure was most likely born in March. Your scholars say so.”
Justin rolled his eyes.
“The only reason that your Christmas was placed at the end of December was because of pre-existing pagan holidays celebrating the darkest time of the year, when the pagan god is reborn having died at Samhain. Your god’s death and resurrection had been told hundreds of times before that in all notable pagan religions. And you stole our date and our customs—including evergreen trees and mistletoe.”
“I don’t think I like Jesus being called a Harry Potter figure,” Harry murmured to himself, finding the entire conversation suddenly frightening.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Justin said to Daphne, who pointedly ignored him.
“Why not?” she questioned Harry. “He somehow survived death to rise again when he shouldn’t have and was born to save the world. He clearly is a prefiguration of the entire prophecy situation we currently have. Who knows? In two thousand years there might be a religion surrounding you.”
Harry paled just at that horrifying thought, and was glad that Octavian celebrated Yule. After this Christmas, he would try never to think about those parallels ever again.
“What about angels visiting the shepherds?” Justin asked Daphne defensively. “Or the three kings? I bet you don’t have those!”
“You really think you came up with the kings?” Daphne laughed. “Don’t get me started on the three magical kings. They’re not even human!
”
”