Chapter 8: Christmas Break
Note: Here is the newest chapter. This part of the series will be coming to a close soon. I think in about three more chapters. If you want me to make a sequel, say something. I have a few ideas but I don't really want to write if no one really cares about the stories.
Enjoy the story!
Evelyn's POV:
The rest of the semester went by fast. I spent most of my time with Alice and Lily. Trust me, Gideon and Fabien were far from forgotten. Seeing as I had no classes with them, I usually spent my meals sitting with them. Seeing both pairs of friends interact is always a spectacular event. Lily, being the know it all that she is, spent most time trying to persuade Gideon and Fabien that she was right. It usually ended up with Lily ending up like a tomato. She would then storm off. We wouldn't see her until we entered the common room. On days when Gideon and Fabien weren't bugging Lily, they would sometimes flirt with the two. They would say rather stupid pick-up lines that would cause Alice to blush and giggle and Lily to scowl and tell the two off. But life was good, and it was happy. I was so caught up with my friends and the grades that I barely noticed that James and I hadn't said a word to each other since the beginning of the year.
There were times during the days when I would remember James and his little group, but he seemed rather happy and I don't really want to disturb that. But as Christmas slowly came our way, I began to remember all those years before.
On Christmas day James would come bounding into my room and shaking me awake. When I groggily got up James would point outside and tell me is was Christmas. With a newfound adrenaline James and I would then chase each other into our parents room. We would continuously jump on there bed until our dad would make some silly joke up us waking him up. After we got our parents to sit up, we would clamber off the bed and into the living room all the while laughing at stupid things we said or did. We would tear open our presents and our parents would later come in holding mugs of coffee. They would take a seat on the couch and watch the two of us either open the rest of our presents or we would show of our presents to them. When we had finally finished examining our presents we would go into the kitchen and eat our pancakes that mom had so thoughtfully prepared for us.
After we had finished eating and getting ready James, Mom, Dad and I would have our traditionally story telling time. It usually was about some of dad's secret jobs as on auror, but my favorite was how mom and dad met. Sometimes, after when I had turn eight, they told the story about how James and found me in the alley. The first time I had heard that story I thought it was a joke but they later explained to me that I really was adopted. I really don't remember anything before my encounter with James.
When story time had finished, my parents, James and I would go down to diagon alley and have our brunch there. Then we would go to ice cream parlor and dad would by some plain vanilla ice cream. When we got home, James and I went outside and had our share of fun in the snow. Usually we had classic snowball fights, or make snow angels, or go sledding, but sometimes we would just sit there and tell stories. By the time James and I would enter the house our feet and hands would be numb, and Mom would give us her special hot chocolate. When we were younger James and I would go take naps, but as we got older James would go and do boy things with dad and Mom and I would sit inside and talk. Sometimes mom and I would both start drawing. It was really fun, we would draw each other or we would draw the scenery around our house.
Then we would have an early dinner around 7:00 o'clock. Mom would cook her usual pasta with cream sauce with a fish, turkey, chicken, and sometimes we would have cow. Then when we finished mom would pull out a fresh chocolate cake, or an apple pie. One time when I was six, she made the huge brownie with chocolate chips in it. It was so good. Especially when we would eat it right out of the oven.
When dinner was done, the family would head out to see a play. Usually the plays were light hearted but sometimes then were sad. The night would end with mom tucking me into bed and saying goodnights. Then dad would come in a sing a lullaby in Russian.
This year would be different. I just had that feeling.
"What are you doing for Christmas?" Lily asked, sitting down for breakfast. It was the morning that we were leaving back for home.
"I think my family and I are going to France." Alice responded, before the both looked over at me. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going home. We're going to have your annual Christmas Eve party with friends and family and then on Christmas day we have our usual plans." I responded, only giving them a shudder when I said the party.
Alice and Lily shot me sympathetic looks. Gideon and Fabien finally decided to join us. They were a mess. They had probably spent all last night fooling around with the other boys.
The breakfast continued silently, until the twins finally had enough energy to play practical jokes on Lily and Alice; for some reason they had resorted to not playing them on me. I think it was because I got really angry when James did that stupid prank at the beginning of the year.
After breakfast all five of us returned to our dorms and finished up packing. I didn't have much more to pack except toiletries. I took out my two presents for Lily and Alice and then took the other two out for Gideon and Fabien. It was kind of hard to get them but I had sent my mom the list and she was more than happy to send them here to me.
"Alice, Lily." I said, and waited until they looked over at me. "I have your Christmas presents here." The both scrambled over to me eagerly.
"Are we able to open them now?" Alice asked.
I shrugged," Only if you want to."
Lily looked at hers debatably, "I think I'm going to wait. Builds up the excitement."
Alice followed Lily's example and they both put them into their trunks.
"I'm sorry but do you think you can wait until Christmas to get yours?" Lily said, suddenly looking very sullen.
My face grew ten shades brighter. "You didn't have to get me anything. But yeah, I can wait."
Alice nodded in agreement also stating that she was in a similar predicament as Lily.
We all headed down floating our trunks behind us. They were much to heavy to carry ourselves, but Professor Flitwick's charm class always had it advantages.
"I'm heading down early. So I'll meet you down stairs." Lily said. Alice and I watched as she made her way out.
Alice and I left our trunks in the designated area, and then sat down by the fire. Alice was soon caught up in a conversation with some other kids. I took this time to space out and fantasize about when I would go home and James would be back to normal. I didn't notice my two favorite twins trying to gain my attention.
"Eve!" I heard the strange sound of skin hitting skin right by my ear. I looked up at found Gideon staring intently down at me. "You alright. We've been trying to get your attention for a couple minutes now."
"Oh, sorry." I looked around noticing that the common room had grown in size. It was then I realized that people had left. "The carriages are ready?"
"Yeah." Fabien responded this time.
"They already took, "Gideon began.
"All the trunks." Fabien finished.
Gideon grabbed my arm and pulled me off the chair. Fabien then grabbed the remaining items on the chair.
"Oh, Look Gideon. These little parcels have our names on them." Gideon took a glance at the presents.
"Why, I believe they do. These wouldn't happen to be our presents, would they munchkin?" Gideon asked, casting his eyes towards me.
"Yeah, well they are."
"Aw, don't you think this is so kind of our dear friend, Gideon." Fabien teased.
"Yes I do Fabien. You think we should give her our presents?"
"Yes, I do in fact think that we should."
By the time they had finished their little mock debate, we had made it all the way into the front hall. They both dug through the secret pockets of their robes and found their presents. Handing them over to me they said, "They would catch me on the train."
The train ride with uneventful, but very sad. When, the five of us got off the train we went our separate ways. I looked over the crowd searching for Aaron or for Maria. I turned around, just in time to see James face and his hand resting just above me shoulder.
"Hey." He said, a grin splitting across his face.
"Hello." I replied not sure if I could give him a hug or not. But James, being the physic that he is, answered me unasked question.
Pulling me into a hug, it was the first time in a while that I felt safe. It felt good to be able to be brother and sister again. When we both took a step back it was then I noticed that I had grown some. I used to be up to James' shoulder but now I was up to his nose. James patted my head before grabbing my trunk and walking away. I followed behind him.
After a bit of stumbling and jogging to keep up with James, we both arrived in front of our parents unscratched.
"Oh, my sweet little girl. How has your first year been?" My mom cried pulling me close to her.
"Fine mom. I made some really close friends." I mumbled out.
"That's great. Lets talk about this when we get back home. It will be easier to hear and we will be more relaxed." My father stated, gently tugging my mother away from me.
"Okay, so the party starts around 7:00. Its 3:00, so we have four hours. But those hours we have to be preparing the party. So Aaron would you please be so nice and go out and buy snacks and appetizers. James you get started on cleaning up the living room and the entrance hallway. And Evelyn you are helping me out in the kitchen." Maria stated, before promptly clapping her hands together and stalking into the kitchen.
"Slave driver." James mumbled slowly getting all the cleaning supplies down from a closet shelf.
Aaron chuckled, "One day James. You're wife is going to have you running around the house like a mad chicken. You best get used to it now."
James grumbled something under his breath. I let out a little giggle before kissing dad on the cheek, wishing him luck.
"Don't I get a kiss?" James whined.
"A shucks James. I didn't know you loved me that much." I teased back. James grinned, before attacking me at my sides.
"Evelyn! James!" Maria shouted from the kitchen. She must have heard my laughter.
I kissed James on the cheek and waltzed into the kitchen. Maria sent me a smile and laughed as I spun myself and curtsied to my invisible partner.
"Get up here and help me cook this chicken!" Maria teasingly commanded.
I had finished taking my shower and I walked back into my room. Mom had picked out a simple dress. It was a deep maroon color, with spaghetti straps. The top had a simple design, that stopped after a sewed in fabric belt. The rest of the dress hung down until it stopped right above my knees. My shoes were black flats, which had roses on the top.
After putting my dress on, mom came in a traditional black dress. It had a crew neck with three-quarter sleeves. It reached just below my mom's knees. She was wearing black 3-inch heels.
"You look wonderful." Maria gleamed with pride slowly spinning me around. "Now your hair."
With a wave of her wand, my hair was slowly smoothed out and put up into a bun. Some of the hairs were left out in order to frame my face.
"Your earrings. There an early Christmas present." Mom said handing over a pair of studs. They had little turquoise gems in the middle. I put them on happily.
"Oh, darling doesn't she look wonderful." Aunt Kaitlin said.
We had all taken our seats for dinner about an hour ago, and we were just getting started on dessert.
"Yes, if I do say so myself. Evelyn, you will turn out to such a beautiful bride." Uncle Klein said. The rest of the table happily agreed. I could feel my cheeks burning and looked down at my empty plate.
"Oh, look what you did Klein. You made the poor girl embarrassed." I heard Josh's voice reprimand jokingly.
"Well, its not like he's the only one shocked." Aunt Clara's snotty voice rung out. A silence fell around the table.
"What do you mean by that?" James' innocent voice asked. I could hear the faint protectiveness in it.
I could hear Clara flip her hair over her shoulder. She let out a sigh; "Well she was rather pitiful when she first came here. So downcast, and thin and obviously unsightly. She was unpleasant to even look at, let alone admire. She was an orphan. I had my doubts that Maria and Aaron here could change her into a gentle woman. I would have been surprised if they were even able to get her to stay in the house."
"How could you think that?" Uncle Kevin's voice rung with abhorrence.
"As I said she was an orphan," Clara snorted, very unlady like if I may say, "I had my doubts. I even thought that Maria's and Aaron's money is better well spent on more useful things."
"Like what! You mean those stupid Chinese cups you collect. Or how about the huge amounts of dresses you buy that you don't even wear!" Kaitlin defensively argued.
"Well heavens no. I just thought that maybe bringing an orphan off the streets wasn't a very smart idea. I mean what if the child turned into a killer; we wouldn't want that hanging over the Potter's heads. We had no idea what this child was going to end up like. For all we know she still could be rather dangerous." Clara said.
The tears had finally come, and so had the anger. "Well, at least I'm not lonely. Do you want to know why Uncle Don left you? Its because your snotty, and rude, and ignorant, and all together an ugly person. All those stupid dresses, or make-up, and those hideous hair-dos can't stop people from noticing how ugly you truly are. You are the ugliest, meanest person I know. I wish I wasn't related to you because you're the one that brings down the Potter reputation!" I screamed at her. Somewhere during the middle of that speech I had stood up and was screaming directly in her face.
I didn't get time to realize my mistake, or apologize. I didn't have time to smile proudly at the hideous shocked expression on her face, or the see the slight smirk on James face. I didn't see the mix between shock and pride that flashed over my father's, or the complete humor that was in Uncle Josh's eyes. I didn't see the satisfaction in Aunt Kaitlin's face or the blank expression on Uncle Klein face.
"Evelyn Eileen Potter go to your room this instant! Do not come down until you are told to do so!" My mom was the only one to take command of this situation.
I hurried to my room, and slammed the door shut.
For the rest of the break I stayed in my room. On Christmas day I had James bring all my presents to my room and he hung around all day.
And I noticed I was only going to be really happy again when I was back on the train going to Hogwarts. In that little room, filled with my friends, were I could tell them about my break and know that they would understand. I would be away from my family and stupid Aunt Clara.