"We may only have tonight
But tell the morning sun you're mine
Play the music low and sway to the rhythm of love."
*~* Rhythm of Love – Plain White T's *~*
Disclaimer: I fully respect Joanne Kathleen Rowling's rights to the Harry Potter series. None of the following characters belong to myself.
Author's Note: It's been a while since I've written a Harry Potter FanFic, so I thought I'd give it a go. That's how I started off on this site to begin with! As I'm writing this A/N, I really still have not even a vague idea of how I'm going to write this, or what I'm going to write about. Well, let's see how this turns out.
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Harry ran his hand down the branches of fresh, green pine. He was always forbidden to lay a finger upon the tree devoted to Dudley's ornaments and Dudley's pictures and Dudley's star. He leaned into his wife, Ginny, and breathed in the sweet strawberry aroma of her red hair. There were no memories of his childhood Christmases worth remembering until the year when he turned twelve. When he'd gone to Hogwarts, met the Weasleys the year before, and spent his Christmas vacation at the Burrow. There was an unspoken connection between him and the Weasleys. Without them, Harry did not know where he would be.
His glance turned down to the red and green, plastic box at their feet and back up at the seven-and-a-half foot pine tree that reached up over their heads, "Al! James! Lily!" he called.
His and Ginny's children. When Harry was young, a mere seventeen, he had not even dreamed of children, of a family, of a future. Now was different. Harry had become a grown man; he had learned the secrets Albus Dumbledore was once reluctant to tell him at age eleven.
The sounds of children's feet stampeded down the stairs; he and Ginny looked in their direction. Albus Severus and James Sirius in the front, playfully pushing each other to either side of the wooden staircase to be in front. Lily Luna trailing behind, sliding on her bum to avoid rolling down the set of stairs.
"Play nice, boys, before one of you gets hurt!" Ginny laughed.
"Mom," James whined, "we are playing nice."
"Are not!" cried Lily who had reached the foot of the stairs at last.
"Peace, peace, and quiet. Come on, it's Christmas eve," Harry smiled.
Al was already at the plastic holiday box pulling out house decorations of holly and mistletoe.
"Slow down, Al. You won't want Christmas to go by so fast," Ginny said.
In so many ways, Al was exactly like his father with the eagerness and excitement that lay only in those small hands and piercing green eyes. He picked up an end of the string of glittering holly, and James took the other. They playfully wrapped it around a giggling Lily Luna, encasing her in a holly mummy case. Harry laughed and sat at Lily's feet, unraveling the string as James rushed upstairs with a bunch of mistletoe. He wasn't surprised if it didn't end up at the tip of his bedroom door; James was always full of glee in teasing his parents when they exceeded with their "PDA" as James called it. Ginny sat cross-legged on the floor with Albus Severus showcasing a spell to make a magic Santa Clause zoom around the living room.
When the holly was strung upon every windowsill and fireplace mantel in the house, Harry lifted the lid of a second holiday box that his children happily surrounded. Inside lay dozens upon dozens of ornaments that he and Ginny had collected over the years with their kids.
"I wanna be first!" cried Lily.
"No way, I'm oldest. I'm first!" barked James.
"No fair," sighed Al.
"Shh!" said Ginny. She handed a glowing ornament to each of the children. A pink for Lily, A green for Al, and a blue for James. The ornaments glowed and blinked different colors upon the children's touch.
Harry watched the look of admiration in Lily's eyes as the color changing reflected in her eyes and her smile lit with glee. This was what Christmas really meant to him: happiness. It was something that he lacked for the first ten years of his life. It was something he cherished at first taste.
Before the kids attacked the box, Harry pulled out a single ornament and placed it in his pocket.
Unsurprisingly, the ornament box was empty within fifteen minutes. The tree was drowning in color, plastic bells, velvet ribbons, popcorn chains, and glass ornaments.
Ginny sighed with relief and plopped her body down on the couch; the children mimicked her and did the same, landing on her lap. She laughed. Harry couldn't stop loving her laugh: the gentle sound that tickled his very heart. He walked slowly to the box and sat on his knees. Pretending to pull the ornament in his pocket from the box, he said, "Ginny, you've forgotten one."
She smiled at the sight of it and sat up slightly straighter as the golden broom glistened in the palm of Harry's hand.
It was a small ornament, no longer than the size of one's middle finger. It sparkled in the reflection of hundreds of blinking colored Christmas lights. It was something he and Ginny would share forever. When they'd been young, they had both shared a love of flying, of Quidditch. It was a freeing experience. During the times of Voldemort, freedom was hard to come along. Long after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry and Ginny had become a couple. For their first Christmas together, Harry had bought a pure gold mini-broom ornament, knowing that it was the one thing they cherished the most.
He beckoned her to stand up and tilted his head toward the pine. Ginny lifted herself off from the couch and from under the children. She placed her hand on the ornament and Harry put one hand on top of hers. He kicked out the stool and pushed her gently up the stairs. Standing behind her, he moved her hand toward the tip of the tree. She hooked the ornament upon a branch and turned to kiss him.
"Ha!" James laughed. "I got ya!"
They looked up. Mistletoe. They laughed.
"Come on, Lily, I think it's your turn for the star," Ginny smiled.
"Yay!" she squealed.
Harry faked a bull charge at her and threw her upon his shoulders. Ginny handed Harry the plastic gold star, which he tossed up to Lily.
"Careful, now," he said.
He walked slowly to the tree. As Lily was reaching out to place the star upon the tree's tip, Harry playfully jumped back, making her yelp in playful terror. He laughed and allowed her to place the star at the tip of the tree.
He tossed her gently on the couch next to her brothers and stood next to Ginny, "You ready?"
"Most definitely," she said.
He kneeled to the floor behind the tree and plugged in the lights. The brightness and flickering of several colors knocked him breathless, just as it did every year. The children clapped with joy and delight sparkled behind Ginny's eyes. He leaned against the wall, and all he could do was just smile.
Merry Christmas, he thought just as the clock struck midnight.
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Author's Note: Yeah, I hope that was a cute one-shot, at least that's what I wanted it to be. Merry (late) Christmas, everyone! And whatever other holidays you celebrate, I hope you enjoyed them. Happy (late) New Year! Oh, I'm just late with everything this year.