It was December in 1684, and Perenelle Flamel was hurrying home through the streets of London to the home she shared with her husband Nicholas in the wizarding section of the city, hidden off a side street near Diagon Alley. She was bundled up warmly in a thick woollen gown, and an even thicker fur-lined cloak, with a fur muff for her hands.

"Dear!" she cried out joyously when she bustled through the door. "You'll never guess what's happening outside! The Thames is frozen so prodigiously thick that some merchants have set up a fair on the ice! The ice is over a foot thick, they say, and getting more solid every day. There's merchants setting up tents on the ice selling all kinds of good things to eat – roast beef, and gammon, and chestnuts. And exotic things to drink, not just wine – there's coffee houses with stalls on the ice, and chocolate to drink, too! You know how I love that. Some goldsmiths have set up tents too, selling jewellery and you'll love this – there's a printer who's set up a stall selling his wares! And there's ice-skating, and people pulling boats on the ice you can ride in, and a bear that dances if you give a coin! And someone brought a fox out on the ice for people to hunt! And fiddlers and dancers everywhere! It was so merry, you simply must come and see."

"It sounds… nice," said Nicholas Flamel, who was sitting in a chair in front of the fire, staring fixedly into the flames with a disconsolate expression.

"Were you even listening to me at all, Nicholas Flamel?!" said Perenelle huffily, placing her hands on her hips.

"Yes, I was listening," he said, glancing at her. "A frost fair, it sounds delightful."

"Well, go and get dressed to go out then!"

"I went out already today," he said, sounding woeful. It changed his wife's mood immediately; she knew her husband, and something was clearly very wrong. She walked over and stood by the chair he was sitting in, and wrapped her right arm around his shoulders. He leant his head on her chest sadly, and she brushed his hair with her free hand soothingly.

"Tell me. Tell me what's wrong," she said gently.

"I saw a child today." She felt a pang of sadness. From time to time, they both mourned that the gift of long life the Philosopher's Stone granted came with a price – try as they might, they had never been able to have natural children. They had adopted twice, but lost both in infancy to illnesses, and hadn't had the heart to try again for many years now.

"He was dead," Nicholas said, tears in his eyes. "This brutally cold winter, it's so hard. Hardest on the poor. His clothes were so ragged, and he was frozen solid. People were just walking around his body. I'm not sure they even saw him – he was half buried in a snowdrift." He started sobbing as his wife cradled his head and murmured words of comfort, about how the child was surely in a better place now.

"It's not enough," he choked, "it's not enough to just hope for another life, when this one is so hard. I think, I think we have to do something. All the money we have, our long lives, what are they good for? Such suffering the little ones are going through now! The poor children, Perenelle!"

"We'll do something," soothed Perenelle. "We can't do much with magic, you know that the Wizengamot is in talks with other nations' leaders about banning all interaction with Muggles – not showing them magic for any reason. And we don't want to start another witch hunt, or have our own secrets discovered, at any cost. But we can do something, surely. Perhaps some charitable effort – we have all the gold we want, after all. Even if the goblins refuse to bank it the Muggles will take it. We can do some good."

"Yes, yes we must. I'll think about how best to go about it. Some charitable effort that can't be tracked or traced back to us would be best. Something to help the poor children. Christmas is coming and it's going to be a miserable one for so many."

Pimmi, one of their house-elves, popped in with some mulled wine and a couple of slices of pie. "Master? Would Master feel better with a little snack? Mipsy has some steak and kidney pie – Master's favourite. Nice and warm!"

"Thank you Pimmi," Nicholas said, with a weak smile.

"Anything Pimmi can do for Master! Just say, Master! We's will be doing anything to help!" she said, flapping her pointed ears excitedly and bouncing up and down on the spot.

"Hmmm," said Nicholas thoughtfully, staring at Pimmi. "Thank you again. I might speak to you later about that."

"Pimmi will be listening for Master's call!" she said happily, and popped away.

Nicholas steepled his hands and returned to staring into the fire, but with an expression that was less brooding, and more thoughtful. Perenelle kissed him on the top of his head, and left him to his planning. Clearly they wouldn't be visiting the frost fair today – he had other things on his mind, and at least he was occupied with more productive thoughts now, and less sad ones. She went and fetched an embroidery hoop to work on, to keep him company, settling down on a cushioned chair in front of the fire. She would wait – he would share his thoughts when he was ready. He never wanted to share his plans until they were fully formed, it just wasn't his way.

The next two days he spent sequestered in their hidden laboratory in the basement beneath the house. Their neighbours and visitors weren't even aware they had a basement, and the Flamels lived under the assumed name of "Jones". Hardly original, but the unremarkable surname didn't draw attention to them from any of the pure-blood notables who might study them too closely and discover them. The Philosopher's Stone was something many of them had heard of, and coveted desperately.

"Not Elixir, I hope dear?" checked Perenelle at one point.

"No, I know better than to share that with all and sundry. I'm making gold. I'll need a lot for the purchases I have in mind."

The following day, Nicholas went out shopping. He also assigned Perenelle a task. "For what I have in mind, we're going to need more house-elves. Will you withdraw what money we have in Gringotts, and purchase as many house-elves as are available in the market, my dear?"

"How many?"

"All they have."

"Even if it's a hundred?"

"Even if."

"We can't keep them all here," worried Perenelle. "I'm not sure what you want with them, but there's simply no room."

"I'll be finding them accommodations elsewhere. A large warehouse in the Muggle world. Somewhere in the country, perhaps."

And so his plan unfolded. Perenelle purchased fifty-eight house-elves in Diagon Alley's slave market from the surprised and pleased seller, and she and her husband took turns bonding them. Nicholas had trouble finding a suitably isolated warehouse, and after a few days searching, settled on buying a property in the north of England. The farmhouse was only a small wooden cottage, but there were two enormous barns on the grounds, the winter accommodation of cattle having been ranked by the previous owner a higher priority than that of his own family. The farmland they didn't need and likely wouldn't use, but it provided a buffer of land that would stop the neighbours noticing anything unusual.

Nicholas made a large number of purchases in the Muggle world with the transmuted gold. Large bales of cloth and wool, piles of pine logs, metal wire, paint, dyes, nails and all kinds of raw materials were delivered to their home in London. There were only one or two deliveries at a time but the neighbours were starting to wonder what was going on, and where everything was being stored (as they never saw it leave – the house-elves took it all away shortly after delivery).

"We'll have to sell and move north, before the Muggles grow too curious. I was tiring of London anyway," said Perenelle reassuringly. "It's grown quite dull."

"What did I do to deserve an angel like you," Nicholas said, giving her a kiss with a smile.

"It's all the gold jewellery," she teased, with a laugh. "How could I resist that?"

And so they moved into the wooden cottage, which took but an instant of time as the army of bored house-elves leapt to do any task they possibly could as fast as she could direct them. Perenelle made their new home snug with charms and wards, and helped her husband give instructions to the elves as they set up shop in the barns.

They were to make toys - lots and lots of toys. Wooden toy wagons and boats for many poor children, dolls and stuffed soft toys for the girls, and skates, pretend wooden muskets and swords for the boys. Rattles and bonnets for the babies, and snug woollen jumpers and socks for everyone to help warm them in the bitter winter. And there were little muslin cloth bags tied up with brightly coloured ribbons, filled with a mix of dried fruits and nuts as a little treat to eat, which the poorest and hungriest families would likely greatly appreciate. And more - all manner of delightful gifts!

Perenelle instructed the elves to make themselves some snug little outfits for themselves out of some rolls of green woollen cloth they'd purchased rather too much of. The poor things were cold in the barns, and some of them kept toiling away rather than stop work to recast Warming Charms as needed; it was a harsh winter indeed and she didn't want to see any creature suffer.

Soon, it was almost Christmas, and a prodigious amount of toys had been made and wrapped, waiting in the second barn to be delivered.

"It will be quite a job to distribute them all, even travelling by Floo," she said. "You should get the elves to help. They're good at sneaking in places without being seen."

"Yes, I will dear," said Nicholas. "But if we do get caught, I need to be seen to have led the endeavour. I can't have a house-elf prosecuted for exposing our world – I must be the one to take responsibility should anything go wrong."

She nodded.

"Besides," he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "I'm rather looking forward to it, and you shan't spoil my fun with logic! I want to leave gifts for the children, and imagine the joy they'll feel to find some gifts left for them by the mysterious 'Father Christmas'!"

"It's a delightful conceit," said Perenelle. "You'll be just like your namesake Saint Nicholas, who left dowry gifts for those three young girls. Though I doubt he wore bright red robes," she teased.

Nicholas looked down at his outfit. Long cherry red robes with white fur trim, and a broad buckled belt and matching knee-high boots of black dragon-hide. "What's wrong with it?"

"It doesn't look very Muggle. They'll wonder who the odd old man with a beard is, wearing a dress."

"Fashions change so quickly," he scoffed. "Who has time to keep up with such things?"

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Well, apart from you, dear. You know it's not my strong point. Anyway, it won't matter, no-one's going to see me.

"Well, it's time to get started!" he concluded with a happy cry. "To me, Pimmi! Yolla! Tippa! Dancer! Rex! Dasher! Flindle! Blitzen! Mollit! Jumper! Load up the enchanted sacks, and start with London!"

All night the laughing white-bearded man in the red robe appeared in fireplaces across the country in a burst of green flames, in blatant defiance of the Wizengamot's opinion on appropriate destinations for Floo travel. There were more and more regulations every year – they drove Nicholas quite mad at times. Luckily, he knew the old ways to travel by Floo, and didn't have to rely on Ministry specialists to activate a fireplace.

At times, he was seen by a wakeful adult, who was promptly hit with a Memory Charm. And on a few occasions, he was seen appearing in a fireplace by a curious child, who was told that he was Father Christmas, just come down the chimney to deliver some gifts, made by his helpful elves at the North Pole. (There was no need to go giving his real address, when some busybody might want to chastise him for telling children about 'special Christmas magic'.)

There was one whole family of children in a wizarding family who caught him all together early in the evening – their mother, a Bulgarian immigrant widow, was still out at work, and they were waiting up for her. They laughed gleefully at hearing his plan to spread some Christmas joy, and asked for some gifts from 'Father Christmas' too. Reaching into his sack (which held much more on the inside than you'd expect due to Expansion and Lightening Charms), he pulled out some gifts that seemed appropriate.

"Here Miroslava, for you I have a little set of paints and a paintbrush. I saw your beautiful charcoal sketch of that Hebridean Black on the wall, with your name on it. Your mother must be very proud of you!"

"Thank you, Sir," said the young brunette, with a shy curtsey.

"Me next!" said the eldest eagerly, a teenage boy with red hair. "Something to help Blackie and I be a good rescue team for people stuck in the snow. If you have something suitable, Sir." He ruffled the thick fur of the dog sitting at his side, its tail thumping the floorboards in pleasure at the attention.

Nicholas laughed, and dug in his sack, and produced a wrapped parcel for the lad, who tore off the bright paper eagerly to reveal a pair of snowshoes.

"They're perfect!" he cried.

"Say t'ank you, Stanislav," said the youngest girl chidingly to her big brother.

"Thank you! Really, thank you so much! Mama said we couldn't afford such things."

"And what shall I produce from my sack for you, dear one?"

"My name's Nikolina."

"And what do you like Nikolina, what are you best at doing?"

"I like magical animals, but not stupid ordinawy ones. And I am starting to wead my letters - Mama says I am vewwy smart, and I'm vewwy good at helping Mama cook, and I'm also vewwy good at stomping on Stanislav's foot when he takes my dollies and won't give them back."

The children and Nicholas all laughed, except for Nikolina who stomped her foot crossly. "It's twue! I'm good at fighting!"

"Well, I think I have the perfect gift for you," said Nicholas with a chuckle. "This little lady needs someone special to love and look after her. Someone who can defend her from harm."

From his sack he drew out a plush pale lavender Pegasus, with silver threads picking out a pattern of feathers in its wings.

"She's bewdiful!" sighed Nikolina happily, hugging her tight. "T'ank you, Favver Cwistmas."

"Well, it's off to the fireplace for me!" said Nicholas. "I have many gifts left to deliver before the night is through, so farewell from 'Father Christmas'! It will be a long night and I'll surely be hungry for breakfast by the time I'm done!"

"Next year we'll leave you out a pwate of cookies!" said Nikolina earnestly, as they waved him goodbye.

'Father Christmas' visited many households over the next few years, both magical and Muggle, in both England and on the Continent, before the Statute of Secrecy was brought in eight years later, in 1692. He packed away his magical sacks with a sigh, closed up the workshop, and found new homes for the elves. By then though, the new additions to the legend of Saint Nicholas were well established in the minds of children everywhere. And in the magical world, lacking explicit specific instructions to stop (and loving the work and the joy their task had brought) Nicholas' former house-elves who were now scattered across many magical homes still worked on Christmas Eve to bring gifts from 'Father Christmas' to little witches and wizards all over the world.

A/N: A Christmas gift for "Hermione J Krum", who provided the inspiration for this fic. Merry Christmas to you and your family!

And a very Merry Christmas to all my lovely readers and reviewers! I do so love to see all your comments, and I try to reply to all of them. Please leave a review on one of my fics as a little Christmas gift to me, if you're enjoying my work but haven't left a review before. :)