Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, its characters, its world, or anything else recognizable by JK Rowling in this story. I also don't own Santa Clause, though I do ask him nicely for things every Christmas :)

AN: So this is the story that's been running through my mind while I was supposed to be writing The Highland Way. For those of you waiting for an update on that story, I'm working on it. Hope this can tide you over ...

Chapter 1 - Dear Santa

This was insane.

Pathetic.

So pathetic.

"Three hundred fifty pounds and thirty-five pence."

Rose blinked at the vapid eyes of the blonde behind the glass counter.

Three hundred and fifty quid and thirty-five pence? Seriously? Let's see, that makes ... 70 Galleons, 1 Sickle and 5 Knuts.

Merlin!

"Really? It's that much?" Rose whispered, shifting uncomfortably.

The blonde blew and popped the massive piece of gum she'd been chewing like a cow before she blearily pointed at the sign posted on the glass separating them.

There it was in black and white.

35 pence per character per day.

10 percent discount for over 30 days.

1 Picture = 100 pounds per print

Rose stuck her tongue against the inside of her cheek as she considered the expense. If she had gone to the Daily Prophet, this would have cost her nothing. In fact, they would have paid her to do it.

Her family's notoriety was still going strong more than thirty years since the second Wizarding War.

But that was exactly why she hadn't wanted to go to the Daily Prophet. She didn't want anyone who knew her. She didn't want them to have anything to do with the Wizarding World at all. Not to mention, she didn't want her family to even guess at what she was up to.

Hence her being in muggle London. And paying through the teeth for a measly 91 characters in the muggle paper 'The London Times'.

"Look sweetie, you look like a nice girl, but we got a long line up behind you. Now are you going to pay me, or should I send your 'friend's' lovely paper through the shredder?" The blond didn't look so vapid anymore, or bored. She looked impatiently into Rose's eyes as she held out her hand expectantly.

Rose looked behind her at the completely empty lobby and then back to the blonde behind the counter.

The girl smirked and then grabbed the paper between them and held it out menacingly over the shredding machine next to her.

Last chance Rosie. What are you gonna do?

Last chance to ignore this insanity, go home and pretend it never happened. There'd be no evidence. None.

And face the rest of the Weasely's annoying questions and prods for ANOTHER Christmas?

The paper fluttered.

"I'll do it!" She yelled as the girl grinned devilishly and snatched up the crisp notes out of Rose's outstretched hands.

Oh Merlin, I hope I did the right thing, She thought as she watched the blonde merrily ring through her purchase and hand her back a receipt with a start and end date stamped into it.

"Good luck finding a nice fella Miss Roselyn Wellingby."

"Oh no, it's not for me, it's for my-"

The girl slammed the metal barrier down over the window before she could utter another word.

"-friend." She muttered uselessly.

Rose took her receipt, looked at the dates Dec 11, 2030 and below that Dec 21, 2030, and walked out of the small office.

Well, it was all up to Santa now.

"Mmm"

"Oh Albus ..."

"Oooooooo. Eeeeeeee... ummmmmm. Wwwwooooooo... Don't ever stop Albie."

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm -"

"What's this?" Albus abruptly stopped trailing his fingers down Melanie-Lynn's back and snatched up the piece of paper that had caught his eye. He swiped a hand across his mouth to erase any left over slobber and ignored the indignant squawks the blonde of the hour was making behind his back.

He couldn't believe what he was reading.

Seriously Rose? You've come this low?

"Melanie love when is this going to be printed?" He turned in time to see her huff and cross her arms across her ample bosom. She wasn't going to tell him.

"Oh come on sweetums, I didn't mean to leave you unsatisfied." Albus put his charm to good use, rubbing the girl's arms and picking up her hand to bring it in for a loud smooch. It echoed back off of the metal partition that was all that was separating the two of them from the London Times' office lobby and any customers that may be lurking there waiting for the only teller to come back from 'break'. "I'll make it up to you I promise, just tell me when this'll be printed."

Melanie-Lynn made a little moue with her extra plumped up lips. "Why do you wanna know Albie? Are you going to email her?"

"No no no, nothing like that. You know I'm only interested in you love. I just think this is someone I know, based on the email address." He pulled her wide hips closer to him and started nibbling on her ear lobe. "Come on love." He breathed as seductively as possible. "When will it print?"

"Oh Albie. It prints on Wednesday. December 11th. Until the 21st." Melanie-Lynn sighed and closed her eyes as her recent acquaintance Albus Pettigrew continued to massage her hips and flick her ears with his wicked tongue. She didn't see him discreetly whip out a long wooden rod and the sparks it emitted as he pointed it at the paper in his hands. She didn't notice him pocket a copy of that paper as he dipped her over his arm and finally pressed his lips to hers, something she'd been after since she met him last night at the local bar.

And she definitely didn't notice two hours later that when she typed in the 91 characters Roselyn Wellingby had given her for printing in the morning paper that the email now read rw2007, rather than rw2006.

What she did notice, was that she never saw Albus Pettigrew again.

I hate bets. I hate bets. I FUCKING. HATE. BETS!

"How do you win EVERY damn time Albus?" Scorpius ran both hands through his thick blonde locks and then massaged the back of his neck as he mentally calculated how many bets he'd lost against Albus.

... Ten, eleven, twelve ... this would be unlucky number thirteen.

"I dunno how you keep losing my friend, but I'm definitely not complaining." Al smirked as he poured them both a healthy dose of Ogden's finest Mead. "I do so heartily enjoy watching you squirm through fulfilling your forfeits after all."

Scorpius warily eyed the full glass Al handed him. A full glass of strong drink usually meant that he would really hate the consequence he'd be assigned from losing the latest bet.

Why'd he agree to this anyways?

I mean who cares how many times Marshal Creevy stammered out 'Yes Sir, Mrs. Weasley Sir' to his boss Audrey Weasley and got smacked in the back of the head for it by Al's uncle Percy.

It was a stupid bet and he'd been stupid to take it.

"Alright, what's your particularly sick wish for my latest failure?" Scorpius resigned himself to it. Last time he had to scrub out Al's bathtub wearing a pink foam bodysuit and his hands tied behind his back. Needless to say, his arse had felt raw for the next three days. And he was sure Al was keeping the pictures as future blackmail material.

"Oh don't worry my friend. This is going to be so easy, you're going to think I'm going soft." Albus grinned from ear to ear as he reached into the top drawer of the desk in his study.

Scorpius groaned as visions of those pictures being magnified and him having to carry them down Diagon Alley flashed through his head. He closed his eyes tight.

"Open your eyes Scorpius and read the top left corner." Albus ordered as he threw something papery into Scorp's lap.

He cracked open one eye to see the London Times, the muggle newspaper, opened to a page near the back sitting in his lap.

Scorpius sat up straight and opened both eyes. "What is this?"

"The personals." Albus said simply as he sipped his glass and sprawled out on the couch across from him.

Oh Merlin help me.

He skimmed through the top left corner. Then he read it again.

What is this gibberish?

SWF 24yo ISO SWM 24yo+, GSOH, date 4 family

xmas party. RSVP b4 xmas. Email rw2006 at wnet . com

Scorpius slowly raised his head to stare at his questionable best mate. "I don't understand."

Albus put down his glass and steepled his fingers together over his flat belly. "It means, my dear friend, that you, will be replying to a personals ad, and must accompany whoever this young lady turns out to be, to her family's Christmas party, in about ... oh four days or so."

Scorpius stared wide-eyed at Albus Potter and seriously questioned how his friend had ever ended up in Gryffindor. Al was Slytherin, right down to his rotten core.

AN: This story won't be sooo long. I think just a few fun chapters :) I can't wait to write out how they react to realizing they know each other.

Rose is 24 years old in December 2030, since she's born sometime in 2006.

I couldn't find anything about how much newspapers actually charged for characters in the paper, so I pieced some things together and came up with 35 pence. I'm from Canada, so forgive me all of you from the UK if I, a) butchered the way you say money, or b) am completely off when it comes to the cost of ads. She has 91 characters including spaces and punctuation and all that so it'll cost 350.35 to print the ad for 11 days, from the 11th to the 21st of December. Using a Harry Potter converter thing on the internet, that equals 70 Galleons, 1 Sickle and 5 Knuts. Which sounds like a lot to me. But is that too much? Too little? I'm up for comments. I can rewrite this chapter with the correct amount after all. Won't really bother the rest of the story.

What the ad means in case you guys don't read code (which I didn't until I looked it up on Wikipedia – and I only found a few standard codes rather than for everything, so whatever):

SWF = Single White Female

24yo = 24 years old

ISO = In Search Of

SWM = Single White Male

24yo+ = I made this up to mean 24 years old or over (it might be really how they write it but I'll never know that now lol)

GSOH = Good Sense of Humor

The rest is really self explanatory lol.

Oh and wnet . com is meant to be Wizarding Network. Yup, I made it up. And I had to write the email address with spaces because as you know, fanfiction . net makes it all go away if you leave it together as a link. Obviously Rose didn't have extra spaces in her email that she would've had to pay for uselessly. Oh, and Albus clearly charmed the one paper he picked up for Scorpius to have the correct email address on it.

Let me know what you think :D