Prompt: Christmas tree decorating
9th December, 2013
A large space had been cleared in the Potter's living room and the three children stood round it expectantly. The door opened revealing the end of a large cardboard box closely followed by Harry's face.
Lily ran excitedly to the doorway and attempted to help carry the enormous box causing her mother to smile at her from where she was carrying the back end of the box. The boys watched from afar.
"We can put it here, Daddy!" Lily announced, gesturing to the space her brothers stood around and they nodded happily in agreement.
"Help me open this box then," Ginny said from the floor where she was beginning to untie the fastenings on the huge box. Lily ran to assist her and Harry started undoing the fastening on the other end of the box. James and Albus were busy looking into the decorations box.
"I've already chosen my first decoration. You should choose yours too, Al," James said bossily to his younger brother. Albus glanced at the small, carved hippogriff on a string in James' hand.
"But that was the decoration I wanted to choose first," he stated glumly, knowing his brother would get to hang it on the tree as he was two years older.
"Well this one's taken; you can have this one though." He dived into the box and emerged with a sparkly pixie decoration that released glitter showers every time it moved.
"Yuck, no! That's a girl decoration," Albus said and he physically backed away from the contents of James' hand.
"There's no such thing as boy and girl decorations, we've talked about this." Ginny sighed. "Anyway, you love glitter, Al."
Albus gave her a sulky look and Ginny suspected the rejection of the pixie decoration had all been an attempt to impress his big brother - Albus completely idolised James.
"Hey! Give Pixie to me," Lily commanded as she scrambled up from the floor and grabbed the decoration, showering James with glitter in the process.
"Lily!" James shouted angrily as he brushed his hair of glitter.
"Don't fight over the decorations guys. There's plenty in there for all of you," Ginny told them. Albus was still sulking so she stood up and made her way to the decorations box, inspecting its contents.
"How about this one, Al?" she asked after a minute of searching. It was a bright red dragon decoration that breathed harmless, small flames when hung on the tree.
"Yeah!" Albus cried enthusiastically, bounding over to his mother and gently taking the dragon from her hand. "I love dragons."
"I don't…" Harry muttered from where he had finally managed to open the box.
James' face fell. "Oh but I wanted that one too! That's from Uncle Charlie isn't it?" He swung the hippogriff from his finger, giving it an evil look.
"James, Hippy is from Uncle Charlie as well," Lily responded exasperatedly whilst bouncing around Harry and urging him to get the Christmas tree out.
Hippy. Why did Lily insist on giving all the Christmas tree decorations names? James found it incredibly annoying.
"Hippy the Hippogriff? That's a stupid name. This is my decoration and I say he doesn't have a name," he commanded maturely.
"Here it is," Harry announced as he stood back to show a large, green, artificial tree laying on the ground. They used to always have a real Christmas tree in the house until three Christmases ago when they discovered that James, who was six at the time, was allergic to them. The poor boy had spent most of Christmas day dosed up on Sneezing Potion before they'd worked out what the problem was.
Lily was looking at the tree in awe, still clutching her pixie decoration. "How does it go up?" she asked loudly. Everyone turned to look at Harry.
"That's simple. Constructo!" He pointed his wand at the tree which was lying on the floor forlornly. Nothing happened.
"I'm not Hermione or anything, but I don't think that spell is designed to work on muggle Christmas trees," Ginny said laughing and the children looked between them with disappointed faces.
"Ok then, you try," Harry joked, passing her her own wand.
"Ok, I will." Ginny gave him a cheeky grin and replaced her wand onto the table where it had previously resided. She approached the dismantled tree and considered the pieces for a second before selecting one and snapping it into the base unit.
Harry watched with an annoyed look on his face as she placed the remaining section of the tree on top so the two clicked together and stood back to reveal a towering, perfect Christmas tree.
"Cool," said Albus.
"Yay, Mummy!" Lily applauded.
"Sometimes the Muggle way is the easiest way," Ginny said casually, feeling very proud of herself.
"Well I could've done that…" Harry muttered.
"Decoration time!" Lily cried and she ran forward to hang her beloved pixie on one of the branches.
"No Lily, we're not having your stupid girly decorations on the tree. Cool ones only." James ordered, replacing the pixie with his own hippogriff and throwing the pixie to the ground in a cloud of disappearing glitter.
"James," Ginny reprimanded in a warning tone from where she was opening a box of baubles decorated with different Quidditch designs. "If you can't be nice to your sister, you won't get to join in."
"Mine's cool!" Albus stated as he too ran towards the Christmas tree and proudly placed the dragon on a branch.
"Pixie is cool," Lily told him stubbornly, her eyes filling up with tears. "Why can't she be on the tree? It's not fair, Daddy." Lily picked up the pixie and ran to Harry, sniffing miserably.
"James, let your sister put her decorations on too. It's everyone's Christmas tree." Lily brightened up immediately as she replaced Pixie onto the tree.
"I've taught her well," Ginny muttered to Harry, nodding her head to Lily who was happily picking out the pinkest, most sparkly and girly decorations she could find and deliberately putting them next to wherever James put his own decorations.
"You fell for the fake tears too," she added mischievously to Harry who looked shocked.
"They were fake? How do you know?" he asked her.
"Harry, I grew up with six brothers. I know everything about being a little sister. She used the Daddy card too."
"Daddy card? She always calls me Daddy."
"She's got you right here," Ginny said, twirling her little finger around.
Harry scoffed. "That is just not true. Anyway, you're hardly one to talk."
Ginny put her hands on her hips and surveyed him as Lily dived between her legs for a stray decoration. "Meaning?"
"You can't say no to Al," Harry said smugly. They both watched as their younger son demurely placed a decoration on the tree, ignoring his siblings who were squabbling over who would get to put the angel on the top of the tree. His dark hair was on the neater side for once and his green eyes were alive with excitement.
"Look at him, he's you in miniature. He's adorable." Ginny walked over and pulled Albus in for a quick hug. He was startled, a decoration still in his hand, but he hugged her back.
"That's exactly what it's like with Lily," Harry muttered, watching his red-haired daughter twirl around on the spot, making her dress fly out around her.
"It's finished!" she cried, running at Harry and requiring him to employ his Auror reflexes rather quickly to protect himself from injury. Instead, he caught her and lifted her up into the air where she screamed in delight.
"Is it time for the fairy lights?" Albus asked excitedly.
"Fairy lights, fairy lights!" Lily squirmed to be put down.
Harry withdrew a large jar from beside the fireplace which contained several golden fairies, happily whizzing about. They'd purchased them from Diagon Alley just that morning and Lily had already named them all.
With the jar open, Lily was able to gently lower her hand inside and she squealed with delight as five fairies climbed onto the palm of her hand and she withdrew it. She rested her hand open on a branch of the tree and the fairies fluttered from her hand, nestling into the branches where they glowed prettily.
"Al?" Harry offered the jar to his son, who also collected and released a small handful of fairies onto the tree. One of the fairies fluttered to land on his shoulder instead of the tree and he smiled at it.
"Jamesy?" James scowled at his father's use of his childish nickname (which James had given himself when he first learnt to talk). "Sorry, James."
James was reluctant to scoop any of the fairies from the jar.
"Shall we give your turn to Lily?" Ginny asked with a knowing smile.
"No! I want to do it," James cried, rushing forward to retrieve his own handful of fairies. They too found places on the tree and the whole thing was flashing and twinkling.
There were enough fairies for the children to each have one more turn and James' sulkiness had evaporated by the time the jar was empty. The fairy on Albus' shoulder whizzed from her perch to the tree to join her sisters, leaving a little cloud of fairy dust all over Al's dark hair. Harry absent-mindedly went to brush it away and Albus smiled up at his dad.
Ginny placed the angel on the top of the tree to avoid any arguments and the Potters stood back to admire their Christmas tree. The bottom two thirds were a mess of random clusters of decorations where Lily had put all of hers right next to James' choices. Glitter from the pixie coated everything and would last for twelve hours before disappearing and the top third was more or less bare where the children couldn't reach it.
James, Al and Lily looked delighted. Harry and Ginny exchanged looks.
"Well done, kids. I think it's our best one yet!" Harry said convincingly.
"Redecorate after they've gone to bed?" Ginny muttered into his ear.
"Only if I get to hang the Hippogriff," he whispered back.
Thanks for reading day 2 of the 12 Days of Shipmas! Coming up on the 6th December, is 'Baby's First Christmas' starring a two month old Scorpius Malfoy :) check out my tumblr littlerose13writes to see the full list of prompts