author's notes: merry slightly belated christmas to those who celebrate! i'm so sorry to everyone who reads this.

winter wonderland

Looking back, Ella realised that the "foolproof" plan was truly very bad indeed. She just carried through with it because she needed some peace and quiet in the house.

Winter holidays were upon them. To the kids and Alecto, this meant snow, cookies, Santa, and, much to Gellert's chagrin, more clothes. From a parent's perspective, holidays included messes that took five hours to clean, cookie frosting e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e, sticky fingers from all the candy, christmas present demands, and going deaf from all the noise and shrieking.

Add the fact that everyone else was on vacation the entire weekend before Christmas and had left her with every single last one of their children, and you had one Very Stressed, Very Annoyed Ella.

So she decided to take them all to the lake to ice skate.

What could go wrong? she thought. It would keep them occupied, and maybe Gellert would leave his pants on for a few hours.

•

The question, she decided later, wasn't what could go wrong; it was what couldn't go wrong.

Ella and Thorfinn each drove a car filled with kids, equipment, and comfort animals to the lake. It had been reported frozen solid and quite safe to skate on, though every year there was at least one unlucky person who somehow managed to fall in anyway.

She hoped that wouldn't be any of them.

•

The trip was fairly painless; everyone behaved themselves, and Gellert, strapped into the back of Ella's mom van, was unable to take his pants — or any other article of clothing — off, which was a relief among the other van occupants.

When they arrived, they were met by Thorfinn and his band of miscreants which included, but was not limited to, Severus, Modesty, Nagini, Credence, and Newt.

Thorfinn conjured child-sized gear with a brisk wave of his wand, and attached them to their correct owner with another wave. Not having to dress everyone by hand was a huge timesaver and would give them more of the day to play.

The lake didn't only host skating, either. There were giant piles of snow off to the side that could be sledded down, a snowball arena, and even a little station where you could have a snowman-building contest.

"There are only two of us," Ella told the children before they could run off. "This means that if you're at one place and want to go somewhere else, you come and tell either Thorfinn or myself." She pulled the older children off to the side, leaving the toddlers with her fiancé. "I am giving you my full trust because I feel that you are all old enough to behave with decorum in a public place such as this, so there will be repercussions — very harsh ones, in fact — if this trust is broken."

Alecto, Credence, Nagini, and Modesty nodded solemnly. "I'll look after them," Chastity said, taking Credence's and Alecto's hands and setting off around the lake, Nagini and Modesty trailing behind.

"Thank you!" called Ella after the little group. Upon turning back to her fiancé and his crowd of little kids, she rubbed her temples. Severus, Albus, Harry, and Draco were clinging to Thorfinn's legs, Gellert was doing his very best to wriggle out of his snow pants (and coming dangerously near to succeeding), and Newt was chewing on the tail of his Niffler plushie while staring absently into space.

Thorfinn shrugged at her and tried to pry Draco from his ankle. The blond boy merely held on to his father's leg tighter and buried his face in the denim covering Thorfinn's knee. "Who wants to go ice-skating?" Ella asked in a cheery voice. Nothing. No response from anyone. "Okay, then…who wants to have a snowman-building contest?" Still nada. She clapped her hands briskly. "Does anyone want to throw snowballs at me and Thorfinn?"

Gellert let go of his pants and ran off as fast as his tiny legs could go toward the snowball arena, followed closely by the others. Thorfinn lost his balance from being let go of so fast and fell backward into a large pile of snow. Ella didn't wait for him to get back up because she was under strict orders to not let any of the children out of her sight and she was pretty sure that it counted as "out of sight" when the children were on the other side of the park and…she couldn't see them anymore.

"Shit!" she swore under her breath as she scanned the park for any sign of toddler movement. She hadn't even known that kids could run that fast.

Oh, she was so dead.

•

She eventually rounded up everyone (no easy feat as all but Modesty, Chastity, Nagini, and Credence had spread out across the entire park), and spent the last forty-five minutes of their visit lecturing them all. When their time was up and all the children looked suitably reprimanded and sorry — excluding Alecto, because goodness only knew what mischief (if any) the woman-child would be sorry about — Ella and Thorfinn packed everyone back into the vans and took off back home.

The ride back was even quieter than the first. Everyone in Ella's van was asleep — tired out from all the running and hiding they'd done, and it was much the same in Thorfinn's.

The other parents wouldn't be home for another twenty hours at least, so Thorfinn and Ella still had their work cut out for them. Dinner had to be made and served, baths were needed all around, and then came the struggle of putting everyone to bed at a reasonable time.

The first two went by without much fuss, but the bed situation was simply not happening. Alecto required milk and cookies after her teeth were brushed, and her bag of shiny rice and Fiona were needed to cuddle with before she could sleep. Credence slept with Nagini for comfort, but he warned Ella before he retired for bed that he often had nightmares and though Dragon always came in and held him until he went back to sleep, he wanted to make sure that she didn't feel obliged to do so. The toddlers were put two to a crib, and extra cribs had to be conjured because, well, Ella and Thorfinn only had the one kid and they were hosting several more than they were used to dealing with.

Things settled down eventually, though. Alecto fell asleep with her rice bag under her him and Fiona tucked into the crook of her arm. Credence hugged snake-form Nagini and slept peacefully the entire night. And the toddlers, while used to making tons of mischief and staying awake past their bedtimes, conked out almost immediately.

Thorfinn peeked in on everyone before returning to the room he shared with Ella, where he found his fiancée fast asleep, not even having bothered to pull the covers up over herself. He smiled and tucked the blankets in around her, then turned out the light and was asleep in minutes.

•

"They weren't too much trouble?" Les asked worriedly the next day. She was a little early (read: several hours) in picking her kids up, so Ella had answered the door in her PJ's, hair nearly as wild as Bella's.

"Oh, not at all," Ella reassured her Dementor friend, stifling a yawn. "They were wonderfully well-behaved. Do let me know if I can ever take them again if you and Barty ever want to have a night out."

"Thanks, Ella Bella," said Les gratefully as she ushered sleepy-eyed Severus, Gellert, and Modesty under her Dementor cloak. "I'll definitely be taking you up on that."

Ella forced a smile through another yawn. "Lovely," she said. "Looking forward to it."

Les waved and was gone in a cloud of black, lickable smoke à la Maisie.

Ella groaned and bonked her head against the doorframe before shutting the door and tromping as noisily as she dared without waking anyone back up the stairs. She needed more sleep to be able to lie convincingly upon Maisie's arrival. There was no way she could Les-lie to Maisie, so she definitely needed all her lying skill for when she told Maisie how perfect an angel her daughter was.

word count: 1,377