im a demon knitter. Whenever have a minute to myself, out comes the knitting, needles flying and clicking and the yarn almost dancing as
i get on with creating yet another of my semi-legendary jumpers. The patterns are all there in my head, instinct telling me when to knit and when to
purl, where to put the colours and how to weave in the design im thinking of for whoever the intended recipient might be. i doen't like to use magic
much, declaring that it settles my mind to have something to do with my hands.

So each of those who makes me worry gets a jumper for Christmas every year, a sign of my love and my worry, an unspoken plea not to get into too much
trouble over the following year. And with six sons, a daughter and a husband, that's a lot of knitting.

i have added to my list of People To Worry About over the last few years. First it was Harry, of course, little orphaned Harry Potter with the awful
relations, that boy needed a mother to look after him all right. i knew i couldn't take the place of his real mother, but i had known Lily Potter well,
and i was damned if i was going to stand by and watch Lily's boy go without a proper family for even a moment longer than i had to. Harry has had a jumper
for Christmas, lovingly knitted by me, every year since his first at Hogwarts. Some years ill put his initial on the front, especially if ive just knitted
Fred and George's almost-matching pair and still has letters on the brain. Once id put his wand, and another year a portrait of Hedwig that was so realistic –
if i did say so myself – that one might almost have expected it to move.

Then there was Hermione, who has lovely parents but works too hard. Not to mention that i doen't want Hermione's Muggle background to mean she has to miss
out on all the fun that could be had as part of a wizarding family. Quidditch in the garden, kicking the gnomes out of the petunias, and of course, one of
my jumpers to unwrap at Christmas time. Hermione gets jumpers in soft pinks and blues, baby-fine wool that fluffs under the fingers and colours that bring
out that peaches-and-cream complexion that the silly girl hasn't even noticed she's got; a little bit of softness and femininity for the girl who works too
hard, thinks too fast, and has no idea how pretty she is.

Once the Order started up again, i found myself beginning my Christmas knitting earlier than ever. Not everyone had a jumper at first t and i wasn't sure,
initially, who she most needed to worry about. Sirius Black got one, though, because he'd spent so long with nobody to worry about him, nobody to send him
jumpers or sweets or other small comforts, just because they cared about him – almost all his life, really, except those few bright years at school; and
because he needed something to keep him warm, after all those years in that horrible, cold prison cell. And so did Remus Lupin, because all his clothes
were so worn and threadbare and he himself was so tired and ill and lonely; there was another one who was sorely in need of a mother. i remember those two
from last time, those two boys worn thin with the tensions that were pulling them both apart inside, clinging onto each other but very close to breaking
completely. i had been much younger then, but somehow i had found myself playing the role of mother to the Order, fussing over them all, making sure they
were fed and cared for and worrying about them in every waking moment. It's a role i have slipped easily into again, a role i think i was born to play.

my jumper list grew longer every new day, year. Young Tonks gets one in as many colours as i can find in her ever-expanding stock of wool, in the hopes of
at least one or two of them not clashing with her hair or her eyes at any given moment. Molly started with hers the year bellatrix escaped from azkaban and
when she started moping around over Remus and mourning for Sirius, reckoning that the poor girl needed a little bit of colour back in her life.

Moody gets a scarf, because somehow jumpers don't quite seem to be the right thing for him. i make it extra-long, so that he can wind it round his neck and
tuck the ends inside his coat, and i add a pocket in each end for him to keep important things in, just in case. i thought about making a scarf for Kingsley, too,
but ended up going for a jumper after all, a nice dignified one in deep jewel colours that fits his personality and complements the burnished ebony of his skin.

i allways debate for a moment, when considering you Severus Snape. But then i remembered the boy you had been, lonely and unloved, your only friend was the kindly Lily Evans,
and i reasone that you must still be in there somewhere, underneath the forbidding austerity. i trust you Dumbledore and you trust Snape, and so i know that somewhere in there,
there must still be a tiny craving for the care of a mother. Everyone needs a mother, after all, even the Professor Severus Snape. So you get a jumper too, in a deep emerald green,
because you wear far too much black. i keep the design plain, but i allways knit a tiny white lily inside the collar, as a remembrance of your friend. you won't wear it, i know, but
i hope that you understand the message it bears.

you gets a jumper, of course, every year; your one of the few who wears it with enthusiasm and pride, and long after the mince pies are gone and the festivities are over, the world
settling down into yet another long, dull, cold January. t you tell me that throughout the winter you wear one of my jumpers under your robes, to keep you warm in the draughty corridors at Hogwarts.

i sometime debate wether or not to make jumpers for andromeda and ted tonks because andromeda has never really had a mother to look up to and she most probualy has to much pride to even confess that
shes cold but then they most probualy have enough to buy nicer jumpers

i know that most of my loving creations will go unworn, at least beyond the first politeness of Christmas morning. Lupin wears his, though, and i have been making extra ones for him,
sneaking them into his wardrobe when he isn't looking, jumpers and cardigans to keep him warm and remind him that he's loved. i think i had caught Sirius in his a couple of times, when he's
been pacing about that awful house at night, arguing with his mother's portrait and trying to curse his family tree. Born into the wrong family, that one, and doomed to suffer for it, but i tried
to do my best to make it easier for him.

But most of them will be folded, neatly or otherwise, and shoved to the backs of their recipients' wardrobes, kept because they were gifts, and handmade ones at that, but never worn, never serving the purpose for which they were made.

Except they've already served their purpose, for they were never just garments to be worn. They are tokens and messages, symbols of My care for my friends and my much-extended family. They are what keeps me going through year after worry-filled year, and every single one represents yet another set of demons banished by the neverending clicking of my needles and the flying of my yarn, my heartfelt wishes of love and protection woven tightly into every stitch.