DISCLAIMER: Why even ask?
A/N: Hiya guys! I was just wondering about an anonymous review I got by someone who called themselves simply "T". It made no sense to me, so if you are the person who left the review or you know who they are, I would appreciate if you could explain it to me, as it didn't seem to have a thing to do with this story, and they said some things directed at me (the author) that were rather unpleasant and didn't make any sense whatsoever. I would appreciate a PM explaining what you meant if you would so kindly oblige.
~Ari
The thing about Christmas is, people become so busy gathering gifts anticipating presents, rushing around cooking for in-laws or making arrangements with family that everyone seems to forget to slow down for a moment and just look around them.
As the youngest, I was always dragged through the whole Holiday process. A good thing about that though, was that I got both the perspective of a young child watching it all and wondering what the point was when everyone seemed more stressed than joyful, and the chance to slow down myself.
One of my favorite memories of my childhood was Christmas Eve the year I was six.
I remember Mum bustling through Diagon Alley with Ron and I in tow, everyone else at home being babysat by the older boys. The few last-minute shoppers like ourselves rushed around us, calling out to one another with holiday greetings.
I remember hanging back as my mother and brother entered each shop, preferring to wait out front in the waning light, promising that I would only go so far as that lamp post or that storefront.
The sun set, drawing a curtain over the world and weaving ribbons of purple and pink through the evening sky as it went. The streetlamps flicked to life neatly at the flick of a shopkeeper's wand, and the dancing, enchanting Fairy Lights fluttering around the boughs that twined up the iron poles of the lamps. Snow drifted around me in lazy, yet perfectly choreographed dances.
As Mum stumped into the last shop, Ron behind her clamoring for sweets, I watched the door swing closed, the copper bells wrapped around the handle jangling a jarring silver behind my eyelids.
The Alley was now truly empty. Silence, I decided, was a lovely sound. Even the tiniest noise seemed to be put under a microscope when all is encompassed by silence.
That Silent night, the usually-busy and full Diagon Alley was mine. All mine.
I lifted my hands, folded into the faded yarn of sky-blue mittens that used to be Fred's, my arms and small body wrapped in an old, chocolate-brown cloak of Bill's, my long copper curls cascading down my shoulders and back. My head tipped back, and my eyes closed, my nose wrinkling as soft snowflakes tickled it. I imagined that one kissed each of my freckles. I could feel thick flakes catching on my golden-red lashes, gently tumbling down my cheeks like crystalline teardrops.
As I twirled in the snow, joining the flakes in their somehow both clumsy and beautiful dance, my laughter sounded around me in that silence I loved so much.
It was a wonderful sound, if only someone cared to listen.
A/N: Ahh, I love Christmas. So, a sweet drabble, and I hope you enjoyed! Tell me how your holidays were: Hope they were as great and fun-filled with mine, but that you still had those moments to listen to silence.