I decided to take a break from my other story to write... a Christmas fic? If you're here from Suddenly, don't worry; I'll try to update by June. This is going to be a brief short story, no more than five chapters at the most, but I'm still excited to write it. There are so few Muggle characters in the HP universe.

Please note that this contains some racist terms and stereotypes. I really wanted to confront some of these issues through the eyes of my new OC, an African-Hispanic fourteen-year-old who wants to be a computer engineer when she grows up. How does this relate to wizardry? I guess you'll just have to find out (:

Also, please note that I am not Hispanic and I have had to rely on my research to guide me through this. If you know the language and see I've made any mistakes, please let me know. Thanks!

Enjoy, and ciao.

The name's Andy.

I know, I know, it's a boy's name. But anything's better than what my mother calls me; I swear I'd projectile-vomit all over my work if I hadn't already spent years practicing not to.

"ANTONIA!"

Speak of the devil; I flinched horribly and made a desperate move to right-click on the URL of the shady, yaoi-dedicated website I was on, copied it to my clipboard, and replaced the webpage with Google just as she came into the living room.

"Mama, it's Andy!"

"¡Cállate! Hush! Did your brother not ask you to pack your bags earlier?"

I stared determinedly at the Google homepage, away from my mother's intense face. "I dunno,"

Mama tutted disapprovingly, crossing her arms. "Andy, I've been telling you for weeks to pack for Uncle's, and instead you whittle away the hours on this useless machine!"

"Mama, it's not useless!" I protested, accidentally banging my knees against the top of the desk and flinching. "Ah... it's amazing! Ten years from now computers will be—"

"Mi querida. My dear," Mama barked dangerously, narrowing her hazel eyes at me. "Enough of this computer nonsense. It's nothing more than a fad, you'll see. Now pack. We must be ready to leave by this afternoon."

I slumped back into my chair, grimacing.

"Ah, such an ugly face," Mama brushed her soft hand through my untameable tangles, which she so often told me was like my father's. "You could be Nana's sister with an expression like that,"

"Ha-ha," I said grouchily.

She sighed, tugging at my tight curls. "So much like your father," she muttered, stalking out of the room.

I shook my head, reopening the website I was browsing and continuing to scroll down. Mama would be seeing stars if she ever caught me looking at slash, especially on a Sunday. What's more, it was Christmas Eve. I'd never hear the end of how Jesus would continue to bawl at my atrocious actions until Judgement Day.

Mum's strictly Catholic; always has been, and always will be. Her parents were wealthy Hispanics from south of the American border, and had immigrated to the States seeking a better life. Turns out pesos are about as valuable in America as driftwood.

"A trabajar, a trabajar, mi flor," Mama would always tell me whenever I asked about her life in America. "Hard work, hard work, my flower. Papi knew that. We could never be rich like we were in Mexico if we hadn't put in all our effort."

"I guess three brothers helped with the cause, eh?" I would grin and say.

While she would grin back at me, I had to admit that she was a real stick-in-the-mud sometimes. I never believed her when she told me stories of sneaking out to go to parties with her girlfriends. But according to her, it was on one of these outings that she met him.

He was dashing, she would say with a faraway look in her eyes. Fun, too. He was like her, hardworking, as he had gone out of his way to escape his childhood home of an Atlanta ghetto, passing racism by to become an influential and wealthy businessman. Apparently he couldn't resist the exotic Latina that my Mama was, and five months after they met she realized she was pregnant with me.

I always found it difficult to bite my tongue from reminding her that sex before marriage was condemned among Catholics. Still, I knew that she would simply scowl and tell me that it wasn't adultery or sinful if two people were meant for each other.

Papa was adamant about lavishing her lower-class family and treating them after years of working themselves to the bone. Forgetting the life he had detached himself from in Atlanta, he took Mama and her parents to Great Britain where they married and where I, nine months later, was born. Mama named me after her father, Antonio, as he had passed away before I was born.

Dad's business trips and funds should have lasted us all a lifetime, but it was all cut short when I was six years old.

Mama had just had my little brother, Noah, and Dad had gone to the drugstore to pick up formula and diapers. I was paying more attention to my colouring book than his leaving at the time, but I remember him kissing the side of my head before he left.

It all happened too fast for anyone to really comprehend what had happened. There was a knock on our door, and two burly policemen stepped into the sitting room. I only collected bits and pieces of what had happened, as my grandmother had made me stay in the kitchen while they spoke to the adults of the house. Mama started to wail. My baby brother, disturbed, followed her example.

It was a long time before I fully understood what had happened. Dad had just come from the store, formula and diapers in hand, and was heading to the car when he was cornered by an armed man. According to the autopsy, the assailant had clearly been intoxicated. An eyewitness described how he started attacking my father, marking him as a "filthy nigger" that was destroying the pride of his country. Dad tried desperately to calm the situation, pleading with the gunner, but it was to no avail. He shot Dad in the head. Panicked, he then turned the gun on himself and pulled the trigger.

I sighed, shutting down the browser. I wasn't in the mood for yaoi anymore.

"Were you looking those gay boys again?" came a voice from behind me, and I swivelled round. I groaned, dismissing the new arrival with a wave of my arm.

"Don't say it so loud, you little git," I hissed. Noah was running around in his red Power Ranger suit again, which he refused to let Mama wash. I crinkled my nose at the smell of him.

"I wanna go on," he whined, stomping over to the monitor. "Let me on or I'll tell Mama you've been looking at that boys love stuff again,"

"Why should I?" I smirked. "So you can look up 'Melissa Joan Hart naked' some more?"

His dark eyes widened to twice their original size. "I—I don't—"

"It's called your history, bucko. Delete it next time. For an eight-year-old, you sure are perverted."

He backed away from me slowly, his expression telling of a deep, inner turmoil he was battling. "Fine, you can have it. I won't tell Mama if you won't."

"Cheers," I got up from the desk chair. "But I'm done anyway. See ya," I patted his head, which he flinched away from, and entered my tiny room at the end of the hall. Lord knows that both Mama and Nana would be on my ass if I didn't start packing for Uncle Santiago's soon.

"Hermana! Sister!" Uncle bellowed, taking Mama in his arms and kissing her cheeks. "Merry Christmas, yeh little rascal!"

Mama seemed deeply unamused as she pinched his cheek. "Only by three minutes, idiot,"

They continued to chat happily in Spanish as I unloaded our trunks from the car by myself, throwing nasty glances at my relatives every so often.

"¡Feliz Navidad, little sprout!" Uncle Santiago called to me in his mother-tongue, waving an arm. "Just put those in the sitting room, won't ya?"

"Thanks for the help," I shouted in his language, and he gave a roar of merry laughter.

Struggling past the twins, my brother, and my grandmother, I shouldered my way through the front door and into the familiar living room. I groaned, cracking my sore neck and flopping down onto my Uncle's couch. Mama's twin was the only of her brothers to accompany them to Britain. He never married, instead owning several large hounds which he kept in his backyard.

Even from where I sat, I could hear Nana reprimanding Uncle about not marrying, and as he helped her into the house she continued listing a number of nice Latina girls he might fancy.

Uncle Santiago sighed. "Ma, how many times must I tell you? I'm gay."

"Gay, gay, yes!" Nana cried dismissively. "Say what you must to avoid it, I just think you haven't met the right girl yet,"

Uncle and I exchanged looks, and I promptly turned my attention to a loose thread in the couch to distract from my urge to burst out laughing.

"Dearest," Mama called to me, releasing my brother's hand and allowing him to wander around the house. "Fetch us some wine, will you?"

I moaned incompliantly, sinking further into the couch. As I opened my mouth, a snappy reark at the tip of my tongue, I caught her eye and promptly shut it away inside of myself. "Yes, Mama,"

"Santi!" Mama called. "Where's the wine?"

"Huh?" I shouted from the other end of the house.

"WINE! THE WINE!" she hollered back.

"BASEMENT!" he called from the kitchen, where Nana was helping him prepare dinner. "I just had a new doorknob installed today!"

"New doorknob?" I questioned, rising from the couch.

"Dogs probably ripped it off again," Mama said worriedly, biting her lip. As I turned away, she caught my arm. "Antonia! You didn't brush your hair!"

I tore away from her, insecurely touching my wild curls. "This is Papa's hair! I'd like to see you brush it."

She shook her head disapprovingly. "Not that hard, mi flor, just straighten it. Oh, and make sure to get the red."

I snorted, prowling away from her and towards the basement door. "'Just straighten it', she says. Like I've never tried that,"

From the kitchen came ravenous laughter from the adults, and I sighed. Like this was going to be an eventful Christmas. Mum would probably haul us off to Church before we even got a chance to open our presents. I came to the basement door, still grumbling to myself, and twisted the cool metal of the doorknob.

"Papa would never say something that stupid," I continued to mutter, flicking on a light and stomping down the steps. "Papa wouldn't force me to take Spanish classes, or church, or... oh, come on!" I yelled, watching as the light bulb flickered dead. I blindly grabbed a bottle from one of the dusty shelves; red or white, it would have to do. "Damned, useless bloody thing..."

I started back up the stairs and reached the door, sighing. When would my life begin? When would I stop being bossed around? When...?

I reached out, the neck of the bottle clutched tightly in my left hand, and made to twist the knob. And then, just as suddenly as I hand laid my hand on it, there was a dull, crunching noise. I felt myself shudder and pulled away from it in an instant, only to trip backwards off the staircase.

I tumbled down, down, down into blackness. I heard the thumping of my own body against wood, the snapping of bone, and at last the shatter of a bottle at my side. For a moment, there was dull silence, and then a horrible pain like fire erupted from my ankle and right hand.

Broken, I thought. My mind seemed so distant from my body, and was working surprisingly efficiently from the rise of adrenalin in my body.

"Andy?" I heard my mother call from above. "Are you okay down there?"

I tried to make my mouth work, but I couldn't force it to reply to her. The light from the living room far, far above me shone down in a single ray towards me, through a crack in the ajar door. Slowly, I began to stir.

"Andy?"

Noah was at the top of the staircase, hesitantly making his way towards me.

"N-no!" I croaked, finally finding my voice. "Call... 999..."

Noah froze, his silhouette shaking slightly, before he turned and began running of the stairs, calling for Mama.

"Noah," my voice was audible as I could possibly make it as I reached my hand out to him. "D-don't touch—"

Noah crumpled as he made to open the door, cradling his fist. "A-aaaah... MAMA!"

I froze, catching sight of my own, pulsing right hand. It took me a moment to fully register what I was seeing in the dim basement light.

All around me were increasing puddles of blood. My own hand, once five-fingered and normal, was now reduced to only my ring-and-pinky fingers, the rest and a large chunk of my flesh now torn away.

I gasped deeply for breath, positively shaking in terror, and let my own long, drawn-out scream fill the basement.

That's when I blacked out.

The art I used for the profile picture is by andythelemon from Deviantart (I swear the names are a coincidence). Check her out; the art doesn't belong to me!

I got this idea from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when Mr Weasley is attacked by Voldemort's snake. You can reread the Saint Mungo's chapter to find out what I'm talking about, but there's mention of Muggles being placed in the hospital for a magical incident. This is that incident!

I own only my OCs. The world of Harry Potter belongs to JKR.