'tis the season!
Harry Potter belongs to Warner Bros, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Heyday/1498 films, JK Rowling and Raincoat books. I don't lay any claim to it. However, this lot of characters:
Ilandere, Cassandra, Heather, Cleomenes, Isis, Chandra are © to me. If you wish to use them, please ask for our permission.
A/N: This fanfic takes place in an alternate universe I created during random conversations on the MSN with a friend. In this universe, Tom Riddle died from measles when he was three years old and Wormtail suffered the same fate during his third year at Hogwarts. xD
It begins as if we’ve never met Harry and co before. This is an alternative universe first book (or maybe some chapters of it)
"Come on mum we’re gonna be late!"
Nine-year-old Heather Jasmine Potter in her woollen red cloak and scarf was trying to pull on her mittens with no luck, while her mother Lily was disapparating from the one room to the other turning pillows upside down to find her missing wand.
"Heather, have you seen my wand?"
The little girl stopped trying to place her fingers in the mitten and held out a swishy wand, made of willow.
"Yeah I have it here."
With a pop an extremely upset Lily appeared next to her daughter, pulled the wand out of her hands and helped her put on her mittens at the same time.
"Why did you let me turn upside down the whole house before telling me so?" she asked sternly but her bright green eyes were flickering with the shade of a smile and as she took her daughter’s hand in hers she called "James, are you ready yet? We’re going to be late."
"Just relax Lil" sounded a voice from upstairs "We have to wait for Sirius and Isis anyway."
*
"God rest ye merry hippogriffs let nothing you dismay…."
Isis Black got in her daughter’s bedroom to find her husband having their nine year old daughter Cassandra, on his shoulders, singing carols at the top of their voice and completely off-key, following the jolly Christmas tune on the radio; their backs turned to her.
"Sirius we’ll be late."
"Oh tidings of comfort and joy…"
"SIRIUS!"
"...Comfort and joy…."
"SIRIUS WE HAVE TO GO AND MEET JAMES AND LILY!" Isis yelled right in his ear as she approached them and Sirius spun around abruptly and turned off the radio. "Is it time?" he asked but didn’t put down Cassandra, who was having fun with the colourful pointed hat her dad was wearing. "Like it Cassandra?" he asked and raised his wand "See what else it does!"
He tapped the hat lightly and it started changing colours that were extremely vivid, while playing a cheery but spastic Christmas tune, which made Cassandra clap her hands happily. Isis rolled her eyes and threw an utterly disapproving look at Sirius as she took Cass off his shoulders something that caused him to scowl.
"Why do you always have to be such a wet blanket sweetheart?"
Isis laughed out loud as she gave Cassandra her cloak and to put over a golden and purple t-shirt with the legend of ‘Pride of Portree’ on it.
"Excuse me but I won’t take anything in from a man who won’t accept that he’s thirty one years old and puts on hats like this!"
"Daddy are you really thirty one?" Cassandra asked; her big blue eyes sparkling with excitement "Merlin’s beard you’re ancient."
"Why, thank you young lady." Sirius said to his daughter pulling a supposed-to-be insulted face, which made her smile broadly and reveal a small gap in her mouth where her two front teeth were growing a bit uneven. He then turned to Isis "What’s wrong with the hat?"
*
"Isn’t Remus and Chandra coming by?"
"Ilandere wanted to go to the Diagon Alley. We’ll meet them at the Leaky Cauldron."
Suddenly green flames erupted in the Potter’s fireplace and spat a little black haired figure on the thick blue carpet. She stood up and brushed some soot off her clothes before running towards Lily shouting
"Merry Christmas Aunt Lily! Hiya Heather got your broomstick for Christmas?"
Lily laughed and gave the young girl a big bear hug and kissed her on both cheeks
"You will all get your presents tonight Cassandra, sweetie. Where are mum and dad?"
"Mommy is trying to get daddy take off that coloured hat of his" replied Cassandra as Lily let go of her and offered her some cinnamon flavoured cookies. "Dad wasn’t very happy" she added munching happily on the cookie.
"What did Sirius do now?" sounded a voice and James Potter’s mess of jet-black hair appeared on the top of the stairs and he smiled at his goddaughter while trying to pull on a red jumper. He sniffed the air as he went down the stairs and gave Cassandra a kiss on the top of her head before saying to Lily "This smells good. What is it?"
"It’s an apple pie for the children." Lily replied and rubbed James chin "You had Shaving Potion there dear. As for Sirius, Miss Black here said something about what made her parents delay and it involved a coloured hat and a mad Isis."
"Are you sure it wasn’t about a mad hat and a coloured Isis?" asked James and Heather and Cassandra burst into giggles before retreating in the kitchen that smelled strongly of apple and cinnamon.
"Did you bring it? Asked Heather and Cassandra’s eyes glistened mischievously and she stated in a fake posh voice.
"There are no snowballs without this stuff, darling"
*
Isis had finally managed to convince Sirius to take the singing hat off and they apparated in the Potter’s drawing room where Lily had just placed the apple pie on the kitchen’s counter for it to cool. Sirius who was lured in the kitchen by the smell, tried to put his finger in the pie but Lily smacked his hand, causing him to give out a small dog like yelp which summoned Cassandra and Heather.
"You’re such a nine year old sometimes Sirius." Lily laughed but Cassandra was quick to answer
"He’s not Auntie Lily! He’s thirty one!"
Lily and Sirius cracked up laughing but Heather’s eyes became round as galleons
"Your daddy is older than Merlin Cassandra!" she said in awe and Lily took her hand dragging her towards the drawing room where James and Isis were waiting impatiently.
"Your daddy and I are thirty one too young lady. Can we leave yet?"
James nodded and held out a bag full of glittering powder towards Cassandra and Heather but retrieved it the moment Heather was ready to pick a handful.
"We can’t let them on their own. Someone must go with them by Floo." He said and Lily agreed to stay with them. However Isis interrupted her
"Sirius will stay with them. He managed to lose his license again so he’ll go by Floo anyway. We’ll meet at the Leaky Cauldron."
Sirius rolled his eyes and as James, Lily and Isis disappeared with small pops he looked at the nine year olds and said impishly
"Show me the snowballs, Cass."
*
The platform that was packed with heavy trunks, impatient students, hooting owls and hissing cats half an hour ago now only sported a party of Five boys and a girl. They were all wrapped in scarves and cloaks as the snow continued falling in soft flakes, burying the world around them under a white veil. Four of the boys had flaming red hair and cinnamon eyes while the fifth had jet-black hair and bright green eyes. The girl had hazel eyes and a great amount of bushy brown hair. Two of the red heads that were apparently twins were jumping up and down and running around what seemed to be the oldest of them all.
"Percy we want to…"
"…Go and find Lee..."
"He is waiting for us at the Leaky Cauldron."
"He said he has- ouch. Don’t kick me again Forge"
"Sorry Gred"
"FRED AND GEORGE WEASLEY! Stop running around me. You’re not going anywhere till mum is here. Then do whatever you want." Percy said in an officious voice and the twins glowered at him and sat in a corner, their looks shooting daggers.
"Can you see mum anywhere?" asked the youngest red haired boy.
"No Ron, you?"
"Me, neither. Harry?"
The black haired boy shook his head. They were looking particularly nervous and they were turning their heads left and right scanning the platform. The girl checked her watch.
"Their late"
"We know that Ninny."
"Don’t call me Ninny!! My name is Hermione!"
"At least be quiet!" snapped Percy. "They’ll be here some time. You don’t have to act like ten year olds"
"Yeah Perce, they’re one year older than ten…" said Fred moodily and George added
"Big deal."
Suddenly Hermione cried, "There are my parents! Goodbye! See you tonight! Happy Christmas!" she said quickly to the rest before dashing towards a couple and a young boy, dragging her heavy trunk behind her.
Out of the blue, what looked like a red cannonball closely followed by a black one crashed into Harry, causing him to trip over and fall on the snow. On second look he understood that it was his sister and his godfather’s daughter who were both giving him a great, warm hug.
"Missed you so, so, so much!" cried Heather as they let go of him
"Hey midgets!" he replied which resulted in receiving a kick at the shin by Cassandra.
"I. AM. NOT. A. MIDGET.” she stated and everybody burst out laughing apart from Harry who threw a dirty look at them and rubbed his hurt leg.
"That was quite a nice welcome. Kick me for goodbye as well Cass"
At that moment a young skinny girl with white blonde hair and grey eyes joined them and offered her hand formally to Harry. As Harry shook it she said in a formal voice
"Good to see you again Harry"
"Hello Ilandere." Harry replied while trying to suppress a laughter and Heather said in a phoney insulted voice
"Harry James Potter, missing you doesn’t wipe away the fact that you are a rude pig"
"I’m a what?" Harry asked in surprise and all of them laughed again.
"First" started Cass "Lady Ilandere came and you didn’t even bow, kidding Ilan don’t glare at me, and secondly…"
"You haven’t introduced us to your friend yet" Heather finished Cassandra’s sentence
"Oh! This one is Ron, those two are Fred and Geo-"
"He’s Gred"
"And he’s Forge"
"Anyway one of them is George and the other one is Fred" Harry said sniggering while Percy clicked his tongue irritably "And this is Percy. Guys this red haired house elf is my sister Heather-ouch!"
"I’m not a house elf!"
"I know you’re not a house elf, you’re as tall as they are though.” Harry said crossly rubbing his leg once again "Will you two stop kicking me?"
"Only if you stop calling us names." Cassandra replied innocently and Harry smiled and pointed at her
"The Black devil. Cassandra Black"
"Cassandra or Cass for you." said Cassandra, who seemed to have taken a liking to Fred and George. Apparently being called the Black Devil wasn’t something that bothered her because instead of another kick she gave Harry a big grin.
"And finally," Harry went on "this is Professor Lupin’s daughter, Ilandere."
"The biggest bookworm you’ll ever meet." added Cassandra.
"You haven’t met Hermione yet." sighed Harry "Where are mum and dad?"
"Mum is trying to help a wizard in Diagon Alley. He was fooling with a Muggle thing that uses ecleci- elect- ecletriccity."
"There was a little girl and a woman who was telling him off."
The twins and Ron exchanged looks of significance.
"What?" asked Harry and Ron laughed.
"This sounds like our parents and Ginny"
"They all had red hair." stated Ilandere examining Ron, Percy and the twins "And the man looked like you" she smiled at Percy looking at his prefect’s badge.
"Where are your parents?" Harry asked Cassandra and Ilandere quickly to avoid another boring talk of Percy’s prefect duties.
"Quidditch Quality Supplies, where else could they be?" Ilandere said in a tone that reminded them all of Hermione when they suddenly heard angry voices, or to be precise a livid woman’s voice.
"-AND ACTING AS IF YOU’RE A TEN YEAR OLD-"
"What’s wrong with ten year olds?"
"YOU STAY OUT OF THIS GINNY"
"Molly dear-"
"PICKING UP THAT VAC-OOM CLEANER FROM THE MUGGLE SHOP-"
"Molly-"
Next to Harry Ron sighed. "Yeah, that’s our parents. Come on. Let’s go and help the situation." he said first to Harry and then to his brothers. There was no need to help though because Molly had spotted her four children who had been away from her loving embrace for three whole months and forgetting to go on with telling off her husband, got all four of them in a rib crushing hug.
"I missed you all so much!" she cried and let go off them when the twins started shouting that she was strangling them.
"Mum, dad" said Ron when he finally caught his breath "This is Harry Potter."
"Hello dear! I’ve heard quite a lot about you from Ronnie" Mrs Molly Weasley smiled at Harry who blushed and pointed at the young ones.
"This is my sister Heather and my honorary cousins Ilandere and Cassandra"
"And this is Ginny" said Ron pointing at the small red head girl who blushed and waved at them apparently too shy to even mouth a word. Cassandra got next to her and in a low-pitched voice yet still designed to carry as far as for everyone to hear she told Ginny
"You, have potential. You’re member of the gang from now on."
"Cheers!" Ginny smiled, obviously feeling more confident talking with people younger than her.
"Harry? Heather?" sounded a voice and Lily Potter, closely followed by Chandra Lupin and Ésis Black, made her appearance.
"Right here mum!" Heather called out and waved as Arthur Weasley, Ron’s dad, smiled at Harry.
"Is this your mum? Excellent, excellent!" he went on when Harry nodded " I gather she’s a Muggleborn! Very interesting, I might ask her to help me collect some eclectic-"
"Arthur!"
"Er. Right. I mean…-" Arthur Weasley mumbled but didn’t have to finish his sentence because in three loud bangs, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black and James Potter apparated right next to the children.
"Beat you this time girls!" Sirius called to Lily, Chandra and Ésis and stuck out his tongue playfully. Their wives however, seemed to have lost their high spirits, for Chandra started yelling at them.
"Are you cracked? Apparating like that not giving a knut for the International Statute of Secrecy-"
"In a Muggle area" continued Lily before Isis snapped
"What are you anyway Hogwarts first years?"
"What’s it with the Hogwarts first years?" Harry asked not sure if he was trying to defend his prestige or his rebuked father, godfather and honorary uncle.
"And really, first years wouldn’t be allowed to apparate Mum" Ilandere piped up "It would need much more skill-"
"I apparated once" Harry butted in going rather red and all of the children, apart from Heather, stared at him enthralled.
"You didn’t!" Cassandra said awestruck.
"He did." Laughed Heather "It was the time mum was chasing him with dad’s broomstick because he had broken Septimius Snape’s nose in the Wizagarden." This statement was greeted with roars of laughter and even Lily couldn’t help smiling.
"He ended up in a very awkward place though." James said still high coughing from laughing so hard. "He got stuck in our chimney and I had to demolish half the fireplace to take him out. By that time Lily had so many butterflies in fear he would be singed that she forgot to punish him."
"I remember that." Said Remus "Old Snivellus wasn’t too happy. He kept sending howler’s asking you to pay for his son’s treatment at St. Mungo’s."
Still laughing the grown ups introduced themselves properly to each other and the Weasleys agreed to pay a visit at Godric’s Hollow, where the rest of them would be gathering for Christmas dinner. Before they parted Ron cornered Harry.
"You never told me you had broken old Septy’s nose!"
Harry grinned evilly
"Mum said not to spread it around".
*
The tables were groaning under dishes and puddings of Lily’s, Chandra’s, Isis’ and Molly’s cooking. Godric’s Hollow was crammed despite its size, as they were a party of eighteen. Molly, Arthur, Ginny, Ron, Fred and George Weasley, Remus, Chandra and Ilandere Lupin, Sirius, Isis and Cassandra Black, the Potters and Hermione Granger with her brother Cleomenes. Arthur Weasley had clapped gleefully when the arrived, on a triple-decker violet bus known as the Knight Bus, because Hermione and Cleomenes were Muggleborns and Arthur was entirely obsessed with Muggles (non-magic people).
Cassandra and Cleomenes were sitting between the Christmas tree and the Weasley twins, not talking, until Cassandra turned to Cleomenes all of a sudden and asked
"Are you a wizard?"
"Would it make any difference to you if I wasn’t?" Cleomenes replied aggressively but Cassandra laughed.
"No twit! It would just be cool if you were because we would be going to Hogwarts together. You’re nine aren’t you?"
"Yes, I’m nine. And I don’t know if I’m a wizard. Ask my sister, she usually knows everything."
They both turned and scanned the room to spot Hermione chatting merrily to Ilandere.
"Hey Ninny" called Cleomenes and went on as Hermione glared at him "I can’t call you Hermione. It’s pretty damn long!"
"What do you want anyway?"
"Cassandra asks if I’m a wizard."
"’Course he is." Replied Hermione grimly "He keeps turning his teacher’s hair pink for the fun of it."
Cassandra, Cleomenes and the Weasley twins howled with laughter but Ilandere snapped at Cass.
"It’s not a laughing matter! It could be considered as a breach of the International Statute of Secrecy and-"
"Ilan, lighten up for Merlin’s sake!" Cassandra said lazily and returned to her conversation with Cleomenes in which Fred, George and Heather had joined.
Ilandere had completely idolized Hermione and they had spent half the evening talking about what had turned to be their favourite book. ‘Hogwarts: A history." Cassandra and Heather on the other hand had stuck with Cleomenes who was the exact opposite of his sister, something that greatly irritated Hermione. Those three had joined Harry, Ron and the Weasley twins and were currently planning on how they could manage to lock Septimius Snape and Draco Malfoy in a cage with rampaging Hippogriffs and throw away the key. Hermione and Ilandere who were still sitting near by were making disapproving noises with their tongues until Cleomenes got out of sorts and snapped at his sister,
"You suggest something to do, if you don’t like this subject."
Hermione just ignored him and turned to Ilandere again but then
"We could play truth or dare" Fred Weasley piped up, identical evil grins spreading on both his and George’s face. Hermione couldn’t see why those two were smiling so mischievously and replied,
"That sounds nice. At least we could just not answer or do something and leave the game."
Little did she know that the twins meant magical truth or dare.
*
“Truth or dare Fred?"
"Truth, after what you did to poor Ilandere do you think I’m going to pick dare?"
"Behold a Gryffindor!" his twin taunted him. Fred had a fair point though. Cassandra had dared Ilandere to get out of the house and scream ‘Homework, school and teachers suck’ thrice, for the whole neighbourhood to hear. When Ilandere refused to do it a chicken had popped above her head squawking and refusing to forsake the pitiable girl’s head. Similarly, if someone replied untruthfully to a question , letters forming the word 'LIAR' would fly around their head for the rest of the night.
"So, tell us who is your crush." Harry went on with his question and Fred replied immediately without blushing.
"Piece of cake. Angelina Johnson. And now," his eyes glistened malevolently "is my turn. Truth or Dare Cassandra?"
Cassandra considered about it a bit.
"Truth."
"Oh…Okay" said Fred sounding a bit disappointed "So err… Where do you want to work when you leave Hogwarts?"
"Joke Shop or Professional Quidditch Beater" Cassandra replied without thinking and the twins exclaimed "Marry me!" in one voice, something that caused a great deal of laughter.
"So…" Cassandra dragged her voice scanning around their faces to find who would be her victim and her eyes paused between Ron and Hermione. "Ron! Truth or Dare?"
"Dare. I’m a Gryffindor, hear me roar."
"It’s either this or you don’t want us to know whose photograph you have under your pillow" Fred taunted him making his ears turn red. Cassandra looked evilly at the twins and Cleomenes and winked.
"I dare you to eat the cookies I’m gonna make on the spot." She said airily. "From scratch. For the first time."
Ron’s grin paused on his face. It would be much easier for him if Cassandra had dared him to run around the street screaming ‘I love Septimius Snape’. Cass hopped on her feet happily and bounced out of the room as the rest looked at each other and stood up quietly to follow her in the kitchen, while Heather went in the drawing room to call Ilandere. They had all stuffed themselves in the kitchen where Cassandra had already put on an apron and had a big book propped open against a bowl and was ready to start making the cookies when Heather ran into the room huffing and closely followed by Ilandere.
"Harry, Harry! Dad is doing something to Mum!"
"What do you mean he’s doing something to Mum?" Harry asked alarmed ready to shoot out of the kitchen. His panting sister sat on a chair.
"I don’t know, they were under the mistletoe and he had his mouth all over hers and…-"
"Yeah it was really gross." Ilandere pointed out patting Heather’s shoulder sympatheticall
y. Cassandra rolled her eyes as she emptied almost a packetful of flour in a basin.
"Are you both complete dozey mares? He wasn’t harming her. He was just giving her a frenchie."
Heather chortled while Ilandere’s face reddened as it was the first time Cassandra knew something she didn’t and wasn’t about Quidditch scores. Cassandra now had flour on her nose and was moulding cookies in, what she insisted to be, hippogriff's shape. She filled an enormous baking tin with her malicious looking lumps and shut it in the oven before looking curiously at the several round buttons pressing one that deceptively appeared correct to her. Ron was sitting moodily at the table while the others were playing the "Colour of the Muggle'. A game a lot similar to chasing only the players should define someone as a Muggle who would be the chaser. The 'Muggle' had to say 'The colour of the Muggle is…' and choose a colour difficult to find. Once the 'Muggle' had announced the colour the chase started and whoever could find the colour and touch it was safe till the next round. Whoever was caught first were becoming the 'Muggle' and chaser.
It was the turn of Cleomenes to be the chaser, and by that time Ron had also joined them. The game was interesting, mainly because of a rule that when the chaser chose a colour like 'sky blue' the chased ones couldn't touch any blue but sky's blue. Cleomenes gave it a good deal of thought, then looked at Cassandra who winked and bellowed, "The colour of the Muggle is… SNOW WHITE!"
The children shot through the kitchen's door and out of the house, to the snow-covered garden to escape the 'Muggle's' wrath. Cassandra and Heather were the first to get to the garden and each picked a pre-made snowball from Cassandra's pocket to be safe for the round. They turned to look at the house and saw that the next to come out was Harry. They looked meaningfully at one another and darted the snowballs at him.
SPLAT!
Harry didn't know how the snowball the girls had thrown at him managed to hit his forehead. He had seen them throwing it and it was ten good metres away from him. The only thing he knew was that his temple hurt a lot where the snowball had smashed and that he had got woozy enough to see golden and red stars dancing around his head. Only when he started moulding a snowball did he understand that the stars had burst out of the snowball that had hit him and that it wasn't giddiness that had caused it, as the stars soon turned into dancing hippogriffs.
Before long the garden had been converted into a battlefield. The five girls, Hermione, Ginny, Ilandere, Cassandra and Heather were much more assertive than the boys, having Cassandra's auto-piloting confetti snowballs on their side. They were soaked from head to toe; stars dancing all around them only to be replaced by glittering galloping gargoyles and sparkling rampaging hippogriffs. Ilandere had apparently left her serious mood in the house as she was ready to shoot a snowball at Cleomenes but dropped it surprised at Cassandra's cry.
"MOTHER OF MERLIN I FORGOT MY COOKIES!"
They all dropped their snowballs and ran for it, following Cassandra who had gone wild at the thought of what her godmother would say if she managed to burn down her kitchen.
Entering the kitchen they found the oven smoking to some extent and Cassandra put on a pair of oven gloves and took out the baking tin. The lumps had swollen in twice their original size and were throbbing particularly viciously. Cassandra deposited on the counter and used a spatula to put her supposed to be cookies in a big platter.
"Here, you go Ron." She said gleefully, "Eat them."
Looking at her as if she was crazy, Ron picked a cookie hesitantly and bit on it. Well, he tried to bite on it; the cookie was so hard it wouldn't break for him to chew it. His teeth rasped on its surface and he abandoned any effort after the third unproductive attempt.
"Cassandra, those are even worse than Hagrid's cooking." He threw the cookie on the wall and it broke a great big whole on it. At that all of them started laughing and teasing Cassandra.
"We should take some of them back home. I remember Mum mentioning she wanted to fix the fence." Ginny suggested between Fred and George who had hysterics.
"I guess if we ever tied that lot on a ghost we would be able to get it sunk in the Hogwarts lake!" Fred said through tears of laughter as they heard James' voice calling them to the drawing room.
Abandoning the failed cookies in the kitchen, Ginny taking some with her to brace her trembling bed, the lot returned to the drawing room the exact moment the Potters' grandfather clock chimed seven times. With a pop a red dressed man with very long silver hair apparated in the middle of the drawing room, carrying a big sack on his back.
"Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!" he said and Harry caught a glimpse of a twinkling blue eye behind the thick mustache that made him turn immediately to his mother.
"But that's Professor Du-"
"Shhh!" Lily hushed him smiling as Santa Claus, who was no other than the Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, produced a piece of paper out of his sack.
"It has come to my attention that you held a secret Santa!" he said delightfully looking at the young children who had met him only once or twice to recognise him. When Ilandere nodded he went on in a particularly merry voice.
"Good, good! Now Miss Black, if you would proceed to give your present to your secret Santa?"
This secret Santa had been Ginny's idea, when she heard that they would probably be spending the holidays all together with Ron's new friends. She had suggested that if one pulled the name of someone he didn't know they would ask each other about them. Ron had added Percy's name as well but crossed it out mournfully when he told him he didn't have time for such nonsense in his O.W.L year. Hermione not standing to see Ron in such a bad mood because of the spoiled secret Santa offered to add her brother in it.
Cassandra took a minuscule packet out of her pocket and held it out so her dad could enlarge it back to normal. Sirius gave it a tap with his wand and as the packet grew to the size of a tennis ball she handed it to Harry. It was a professional Quidditch ball, a golden Snitch. Harry was playing Seeker for the Hogwarts Gryffindor team and this could help him practise. Having a great stupid grin plastered on his face, Harry thanked her and Dumbledore called Ilandere to give her present to her secret Santa.
It turned out that Ilandere had picked the paper that read 'Cleomenes Granger, Hermione's brother'. Having heard lots about Hermione she hadn't bothered to owl Harry to get him ask Hermione about what her brother would like, but just got a book called 'Charms and Spells, edition Deluxe'. She drew near Cleomenes and with a scornful look on her face offered him the neatly wrapped packet. He thanked her with an equal disgruntled face and ripped off the paper happily but his face fell when he saw the book.
"Thanks," he said forcing a smile "That is really unusual."
The rest had better luck with their pairs. Hermione had pulled Cassandra's name and asking Harry about it, she had gotten her a book called 'Proud Flyers', that was about her favourite Quidditch team, 'Pride of Portree'. Heather had given George Weasley a flying miniature of a Nimbus 2000 which he joyfully allowed flying over his head for the rest of the evening. Fred had to get something for Hermione and so he presented her with a changing colour quill, which was as he said 'The only thing she would like and wouldn't spoil my reputation'. Ginny received a beautiful journal with her name engraved on it in silver lettering from Harry, while Ron gave Ilandere a cube toy to build a Hogwarts miniature. Heather also got a Quidditch book from Ginny and Ron was offered a bag full of Honeydukes candies from George. Finally Cleomenes gave Fred an enormous bag of common Muggle sneezing powder that by all means made the twins jump around in delight. Professor Dumbledore had disapparated shortly after the Secret Santa was held, only to apparate back a few minutes later to join them at dinner. They were ready to sit at the table, when Lily's worried voice said,
"Harry what's that in your forehead?"
Harry automatically brought his hand on his still sore, from Cassandra's snowball, forehead and felt some scratch on the otherwise smooth skin.
"I dunno," he said "I must have been scratched at the snowball fight."
Lilly approached her son and pulled his messy, so like is father's, hair away from his temple. She examined his wound for a moment and then bent her head and placed a kiss on it.
"It's funny," she stated "It looks like a bolt of lightning."
"It sure does." laughed Chandra as they seated themselves at the table, "It's not deep though is it Lily?"
"No, it will be gone soon and leave no scar at all." added James after examining it as well and ruffled his son's already messed up hair.
"That's good." said Heather through a mouthful of turkey. "Imagine having to walk around for your whole life with a lightning bolt on your forehead!"
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