Uncle smiled to himself as the shop began making preperations for Christmas. Although it was a few weeks away, decorations - and sales - were already up, and he was enjoying the approaching holiday. The only dark cloud on his horizon was that he had heard nothing from Jade since she began attending Hogwarts. Now, he knew it would be easy, especially for Jade, to get caught up in everything she was learning and forget to write home, but it had been 3 months. He also hadn't heard anything about when to come get her for winter break.
Sighing, he pasted a smile to his face as visitors arrived. Jackie had decided that it would be a nice surprise for Jade to have the entire 'J-Team' assembled for her return for the holidays. Viper had arrived early, and had been helping around the shop. (Uncle privately expected that this was merely a thinly veiled excuse on both their parts to spend time together, no matter how much in denial about it Jackie was.) Tohru was helping to mind the shop, humming Christmas Carols and baking cookies. His mother was expected in two weeks, when Jade would presumably be back. As for right now, their two guests from Mexico had just arrived.
El Toro walked in, carrying a large stack of presents which, after exchanging greetings with everyone, he began to set up under the tree. Paco, meanwhile, having greeted everyone visible, looked around, somewhat confused and maybe just a little upset. "Where is Yade?" he asked, trying to make the question casual.
"Yes, I was wondering about that," El Toro said. "It is not like the little senorita to be tardy with greetings."
"I've actually been here a whike," Viper spoke up, "and I haven't seen Jade at all. Jackie keeps getting evasive when I ask about it, Tohru says it's not his place to say, and Uncle said to wait for everyone." Viper turned to Uncle. "I assume this is the everyone you meant, so talk."
Uncle nodded. "Before I say anything, though, I must swear you all to secrecy. What is said here about this must remain absolutely secret. You are not to breath a word of it to anyone, on pain of fate unspeakable."
El Toro and Viper both nodded. Paco, however, asked, "What sort of unspeakable fate?"
"Aiyah! What part of 'unspeakable' is so hard for you to comprehend? It may not be spoken of!" Uncle crossed his arms and glared over his glasses at Paco until the boy nodded ascent. "Hmph! Very well." Uncle moved to clear his throat, but there was a sudden tapping at the window.
"Why is a snowy owl tapping the window with its beak?" Paco asked, confused.
Uncle turned and opened the window. The owl flew in and alighted on a table, setting down a small package before roosting. The owl gave a soft, "Hoo," sounding quite pleased with herself. Uncle picked up the package. The address read, "Uncle Chan, Uncle's Rare Finds, San Fransisco."
Uncle smiled. "The reason Jade is not here, is because she is attending Hogwarts, School of Withcraft and Wizardry, a very prestigous school in the wizarding world, located somewhere in England. It is, however, a boarding school, and so she is still there. I presume this package contains a letter from Jade, with instrunctions regarding picking her up." Uncle opened the package.
A small glass sphere filled with white mist rolled out of the wrappings before coming to a halt on the table. As everyone gathered around to stare, a bright light emitted from it. The entirety of the shop seemed to vanish, to be replaced by a large room containing several tables, chairs, and a large fireplace. Most of the room distant from the sphere was shrouded in mist. Standing between the table the sphere was still on and the fireplace was Jade, dressed in wizarding robes in red and gold, bending over the sphere.
"Looks like it works just fine," Jade was saying. Then she stood straight, lifting the sphere in her hands. "Hey, Uncle! Sorry I haven't written you in a while. I've been SOO busy, and this place is amazing! The grounds are expansive, the castle is incredible, and the classes! I am just so bushed at the end of each day. I've been making good progress in my classes, but it's left me pretty tired out. Before I forget, I'd better give greetings. Please give my best to Uncle Jackie, Mom and Dad, Big T, Mrs. T, El Toro, Viper...and my second best to Paco." She grinned wickedly.
"Hmph!" Paco said, crossing his arms. When he spoke, the images paused for a moment, then continued.
"Just kidding," Jade continued. "I even miss that annoying twerp. Oh, by the way, I crafted this so that the playback would pause if anyone spoke in the middle, so you won't miss anything. I've gotten pretty good at magical crafting, and I'm really proud of these."
*As well you should be,* Uncle thought to himself, marveling at how advanced the magic was to craft such specific spellwork into something like this...especially for a Hogwarts first year!
Jade walked along, carrying the sphere. Instead of Jade moving, the image around the sphere shifted. "Come on, there's some people I need to introduce to you." The imagery shifted into white mist. When it returned to clarity, it was plain they were in a dungeon, in what looked like a chi wizards laboratory. Uncle managed to stifle a gasp at what he saw. "This is the Potions classroom. The things I learned from you, Uncle, have been a big help in this class." She walked up to the desk, where a tall man with slick black hair and a hooked nose sat, grading papers from the looks of it. "This is Professor Snape. He teaches the class. He's head of Slytherin House and - despite my being a Gryffindor, and the age old rivalry between the two houses - he's my favorite teacher."
"Thank you, Miss Chan," Professor Snape said. "That is kind of you to say, but who are you talking to?"
Jade smiled at Professor Snape. "Uncle. I'm making a magical recording to send him, since I haven't had time or energy to write since I got here. Come on, say hi to Uncle."
Professor Snape smiled thinly. "Hello, sir. I must say, you can be proud of your neice. She is most skilled. I'd say more, but I'm rather busy just now."
"Sorry to disturb you Professor!" Jade turned away, and the scene once more dissolved into white mist.
When it returned to clarity, they were in another classroom. Jade introduced the teacher sitting at the desk. "This is Professor McGonagall, head of Gryffindor House, and the Transfiguration teacher."
"Jade!" Professor McGonagall interrupted. "Have you finished your assignments?"
"Oops! Get right on that!" Jade turned to leave fast, and the scene went white again.
El Toro chuckled. "It seems some things have not changed, si?"
Viper shushed him. "Don't talk during the movie big guy."
El Toro subsided with a quiet, "Sorry."
The scene came back into focus, once more in the room Jade had started the recording in. This time, though, there were other people. Jade spoke again. "Now I'm going to introduce you to some of my friends. Hey!" The sphere flew across the room to land in the hands of an older boy with bright red hair and freckles, grinning hugely. A nearly identical boy stood next to him with a matching grin.
"Hello, guv!" the first boy said. "I'm Fred Weasley!"
"And I'm George Weasley!" said the other. "We're good friends with Jade. She's a right rascal when she wants to be." Their grin was infectious, but they suddenly started hopping around like they had ants in their pants, and the sphere went flying through the air again to land in the hands of a girl Jade's age.
"She is trying to write a letter home, you two. Honestly!" She carried the sphere back to Jade. "Here you go, Jade."
"Thanks Hermoine!" Jade said with a smile. Turning back to the orb, she continued. "This is my friend, Hermoine Granger. We're kinda the magical brainiacs of our year, always compeeting to see who's better. Hermoine's more of a show off than I am, if you can believe that!"
"That's somewhat frightening to contemplate," Jackie commented quietly.
The scene continued. Jade brought the sphere over to two boys playing chess...but the pieces were moving on their own. "This is Ron Weasley," she said, introducing a boy with the same red hair and freckles as the twins from earlier. "Fred and George are two of his older brothers."
Ron smirked. "I've got three others, you know. Care to take them off my hands?"
Jade laughed. "Ron's been a good friend here. I'm glad I met him." She shifted to the other player. "And here's the first friend I ever made here at Hogwarts, Harry Potter."
Harry looked up at the sphere. "So, you're sending a video message home in a crystal ball? Kinda like sending home a tape from a video camera?"
"That's right," Jade said happily.
"What's a video camera?" Ron asked, confused.
Jade laughed. She stepped away from them, waving back at them. "You probably remember Harry, Uncle. We met him in Diagon Alley. Hagrid was helping him with his shopping for Hogwarts." Jade grew pensive. "Listen, Uncle...it's not all good tidings, unfortunately. I...won't be coming home for Christmas this year. See, apparently I put too much power into my spell casting, and I have abnormally low magical reserves. This results in me fainting quite a bit. To top it off, I've even managed to combine what I know of chi magic with the wizardry I'm learning here-"
"Aiyah!" Uncle interrupted. "Do not be doing that Jade! That is very dangerous, and will be very hard on your body!"
"Shh!" Viper said, although she was as worried about Jade as everyone else at this point.
The scene continued. "-which was even harder on me. The first time I did that, I was unconcious for neraly three days. Thankfully, it was the tail end of Friday, all of Saturday, and most of Sunday, so I didn't miss any classes."
At this, Jackie smiled at the notion of Jade being worried about missing classes.
"Also, the teacher's were understanding about my assignments due on monday being a bit late. But anyway, Headmaster Dumbledore consulted with Madame Pomfrey, the school nurse, and Professor Snape - the Potions Master, who you met - and decided it wasn't safe for me to return home over Christmas this year. Given how I am and the kinds of things we got up to, I had to agree. Guess I'll be seeing you all come summer instead. My love to all of you." The message started to fade out, but then snapped back into focus. "Oh, the owl who delivered this? Her name is Hedwig. She's Harry's owl, and I asked her to wait for a reply from you. I'd really like to hear from you, too, and I know it's hard to find an owl in San Fransisco. Thanks. Bye!" As Jade waved, the scene dissolved back to mist, and then the shop was once more visible.
Viper sat down, sighing. "Guess we won't be seeing the kid this Christmas."
"Do not be concerned!" Uncle turned to a nearby desk and began writing. "Uncle will write her a letter giving her all our best wishes, as well as send her something to help her with her magic problem!"
Tohru smiled happily. "We can send her our presents for her as well!" Tohru said happily. Turning, he sorted through the presents and placed all the ones for Jade - a rather large pile - on the table next to Hedwig.
Hedwig gazed at the pile, then spread her wings. Although she had a 5-foot wingspan - slightly large for a snowy owl - she was still smaller than most of the presents. She looked up at Tohru sadly and gave a helpless sounding, "hoo..."
Jackie looked down at Hedwig. "I think she will need some help," he said blandly.