Holiday Spirit

The holiday spirit hadn't escaped the three young residents of Room 32 of Rickman's Hill Orphanage. Tracy Lennar and Hero Gale, the two older children, had just gotten back from boarding school, and they were surprised and delighted to find that Aquarius Zamora, their roommate and little brother of sorts, had decorated their room with hand-made decorations.

"They're beautiful!" Tracy exclaimed, hugging the little blond boy to her breast. "I love them!"

"Thanks!" Aquarius said brightly, while Hero merely rolled his dark eyes in the progression of that all. The dark-haired boy simply wasn't a touchy-feely type, Tracy had discovered long ago; yet she loved him and the other boy like brothers. Here at the orphanage, it was useful to have allies and friends when, say, the director chewed you out publicly or when the village boys tripped you for the umpteenth time because you were an orphanage girl.

"We should make more," Tracy announced, making Hero jump in shock.

"Um... What?" The second year Slytherin mustered what remained of his dignity while he scanned the scattered pieces of tinsel and red and green construction paper. "I mean," he said with renewed strength, "It's very well decorated, it would be a shame to ruin such a... masterpiece."

Tracy's green eyes bore into his black as she smiled again. Hero sighed – Tracy had been all right when they were growing up, and it was right out bizarre that the atmosphere of Slytherin House hadn't affected her in the four years she had attended; in fact, she had become more enthusiastic than ever after returning from Hogwarts.

She, in turn, amended her enthusiasm to the knowledge Hogwarts procured her. Tracy was a studious student and a curious person, overall; when the supervisors of their wing of the orphanage sent her out to do errands, she always returned with a used paperback in her pocket, or two.

"It's the hols, Hero," she replied, "surely you can be a pleasant person for once."

He knew that she was only teasing him, but Hero was pissed off all the same. Pleasant person, his arse! He thought that he was a plentiful pleasant person, thank you very much – he merely happened to appreciate silence, far more than those two from the looks of it. "Fine," he grunted, partly because he was tired of arguing, and partly because he was curious of how the bloody hell would they decorate their room with practically no material at all. "What'd we do?"

Tracy shot him a look and opened a drawer from their desk, filled with coloured papers and scissors. "From here," she said, grinning at Aquarius and Hero. She took two sheets of construction paper and tossed them to Hero. "You can cut us out a Father Christmas-"

"Yeah, Father Christmas!" Aquarius exclaimed, in a voice that could only sound cute on a six-year-old.

When Hero continued to look at the sheets of construction paper suspiciously, Tracy said, "C'mon, Hero – you're not going to spend the entire evening reading your schoolbooks, are you? Christmas is a time for family." The last sentence wasn't entirely untrue, the girl mused, because it wasn't as if they had proper families, anyway.

Perhaps it was the word family that softened Hero's hardened heart. Whatever it was, the boy looked up and smiled – a rare expression of happiness was on his face. Hero Gale wasn't someone of particularly joyous character, Tracy thought. "Okay," Hero said, shrugging. "Might be kind of deformed, though, but whatever."

Tracy soon set Aquarius with the task of 'dressing' pictures of animals from the magazines they owned in Christmas clothes, and then went to open the door of their wardrobe. It was large, its wood long faded from its original maroon, and the smell of the inside made her sneeze. Nevertheless, she fished inside until she found what she had been looking for: a desk-size Christmas tree. At the surprised looks of her friends, she explained, "The last resident left it here when I moved in with Hero, years ago. I didn't think of it until today, though."

She was tempted to use her wand to obliterate the industrial quantities of dust in the synthetic pine tree, but decided against – she preferred the Muggle way of things than getting a notice filed from the Ministry of Magic. Using a tissue paper, she tried to remove the most dust she could.

"You mind?" Tracy asked, pointing to the gold tinsel protruding from Aquarius' earlier work. When he shook his head, she reached out and picked it off, examining it. Hmm. It looked long enough to cut in a few pieces to hang in the branches of the tree, she decided.

Once the decorations were completed and hung on the wall, the three children sat on their beds and examined their handiwork.

"Nice," Aquarius grinned, the first one to talk. "'Specially the tree."

"A way of speaking," Hero said in reply, ever the cryptic.

"I think we all did a great job," Tracy concluded, squeezing her younger roommates' shoulders. She cocked her head. "Hmm, the room's a bit quiet. Perhaps a bit of music?" Without waiting for the boys' responses, she walked over to the old wireless and turned it on.

God rest ye merry, gentlemen...

Christmas in Room 32 of Rickman Hill's Orphanage was necessarily a frugal affair, but the smiles on the boys' faces couldn't help but make Tracy Lennar's chest warm with an affectionate glow that only ever seemed to expand with the years.

I love this chapter, though I have to say that the characters here will only appear at the earliest in year three, I think :P

And Aquarius and Hero aren't completely random OCs... Any guess on their parentage?

Please read and review, especially if you favourited/alerted!