Chapter Ten: New Family Traditions
Sorry about the wait! Now it's Christmas time! I hope you all enjoy this one! And please review after! (I'm still in need of prank suggestions) Have fun!
"James! Sirius! Wake up!" I yelled bursting into the boys' room with Skippy and Twinkie hot on my heels. It was so much easier to navigate around the Potter's house because I had spent so much time there. Plus in Hogwarts everyone was always getting in the way.
"Is it Christmas?" James muttered.
"It had better be," Sirius threatened. "I was having a very good dream involving a very cute girl,"
"Brunette?"
"No, blonde,"
"Keena, this had better be important," James said agreeing with Sirius.
"It is important, I swear," I said using my hands as I talked.
"Well?"
"Guess first!" I said, bouncing up and down on my heels.
"Skippy thinks Miss should tell Master James," Skippy squeaked.
"No, that takes out all of the fun," I laughed.
"Keena!"
"Not even one guess?"
"No!"
"Ugh, fine," my enthusiasm was gone. "I'll just go and tell your parents that you don't want to help decorate the house or pick out a gigantic tree. After all, a blind girl like me can certainly pick out the ugliest and smallest one and be satisfied just fine," I said turning around to leave.
Behind me there was a sudden flurry of noise as the boys raced towards the door. They flew past me and I listened as they continued down the stairs, sounding like a herd of elephants.
"Keena, let's go!" James shouted from somewhere down below.
"Oh no, Miss, please don't run again!" Skippy begged.
"Yes, it makes Twinkie tremble! What if Miss hit a wall?"
"I won't hit a wall!" I said defensively. "At least not on purpose," I added in an undertone before taking off with both elves trailing behind me.
"Jeez, Keena, what took you so long?" James asked as I entered the kitchen, one elf hanging off of each leg.
"They made me walk," I said, annoyed.
"Oohdno Oohkencome an demobv white?" Sirius asked through a mouthful of breakfast.
"I know I can, but apparently James' mother told them not to let me run in the house," I said, slightly ashamed at having learned how to understand Sirius and James when they talked through their food. "But I'm done running now, and I'd like to sit down," I said facing the ground where the house elves were still latched onto my ankles.
There was release and the elves muttered their apologies before two faint pops signaled their leaving.
I walked over to the counter and summoned a box of cereal.
"Should I just eat outta the box today?" I asked the boys.
"No one's stopping you," James said dismissively.
I walked over and sat down in my chair, which was across from where James normally sat with Mr. Potter on my left and Mrs. Potter on my right. Sirius' chair had been placed next to James' and they had gotten into habit of switching around where they sat every meal. A very helpful thing when they asked me specifically to pass the salt. In revolt, Mrs. Potter and I had switched the contents of the salt with the pepper.
"So, Keena, you got us down here," Sirius began.
"Where are mum and dad?" James finished.
"They said they'd be back once they'd picked up your dad's parents at the Leaky Cauldron," I said, munching on a marshmallow from the Lucky Charms box.
"What are those?" Sirius asked suffering from a moment of A.D.D.
"Eh?" I asked picking around to find another marshmallow. Addictive little things they were.
"That cereal," Sirius specified.
"Oh," I said popping another piece into my mouth.
"It's a muggle cereal," James filled in. "I was actually surprised, I thought it'd taste horrible, being made from a factory and all,"
"Anyway," I said as Sirius' footsteps rounded the table so that he could inspect the newfound food. "What are your grandparents like James?"
"Well, my gram is like any other,"
"Oh no," Sirius whined. "She doesn't go on and on about how you should perfect yourself and stay away from muggle-born people too does she?"
"Uh, no,"
"But you said she was like any other," Sirius said confusion evident in his voice while his hand groped in the box of cereal.
"I meant any other doting grandmother who can't get enough of feeding me sweets and stuff like that," James said.
"Can I have your grandmother?" Sirius asked, finally extracting his hand from the box. There was a crunching noise and then, "Hey these aren't too bad!"
"Told you so,"
"You can't have my grandmother!" James laughed.
"Can I share her?"
"She'll be ecstatic," James said. "I'm her only grandson, and she's always going on and on about how she should've had more kids and how my mum should've had more than just me,"
"Wait 'til she finds out there are two more of us waiting for her here," I said a smile tugging at my lips.
"Okay, so that's your gram," Sirius said moving on. "What's your grandfather like?"
"Gramps is—er—indescribable," James said, struggling with his wording.
"How so?" I asked.
"Uh," James stalled. "He's like a really, really old kid," James said at last. "In fact once when I was riding my broom out in the yard, he decided he'd come and join me,"
"What's wrong with that?" I asked.
"Well, first off he's nearing his 85th birthday,"
"That could cause some issues," said Sirius knowledgably.
"Second, when I was fooling around with a snitch once, gramps decided he would 'help' me catch it. It didn't turn out too well. Gramps was landed in St. Mungo's, almost literally,"
"He fell off of the broom?"
"Yup,"
"That must have been a great visit,"
"Yeah, I felt so guilty my gram baked me the cake instead of my gramps," James said in a far away voice. "It was a great cake,"
"Hello! James, come back to earth now!" Sirius teased.
"Right, sorry," James said. "When do you guys think they'll be back?"
Just then a strange sound filled the room. It sounded as though the flames in the fireplace were exploding into these puffs of smoke.
"Speak of the devil," Sirius said.
"James!" shouted an unfamiliar woman who I could only assume was his grandmother. Her voice was rich and she sounded as if she hadn't seen James for ages.
"Hi gram," James said, his bare feet slapping against the ground as he walked around the table to get to her.
"Oh, don't worry about these bags dear, your house elves will get them," Gram said as more puffing sounds filled the room. "That'll be your mother,"
"James, Sirius, you're awake," said a surprised Mrs. Potter when her feet hit the tile. "I'll take it Keena woke you both up," she added jokingly.
There were several more puffing sounds, and a few moments later two more pairs of feet had stepped past the hearth of the fireplace.
"Everyone make it okay?" Mr. Potter's strong voice asked once he had entered the kitchen.
"Nat, honestly, it's not as if we haven't done this a hundred times before," said another unfamiliar voice, though this one had to belong to James' grandfather. His voice was somewhat boy-like in the manner in which it spoke, though you could certainly tell he was aged well.
"Sorry dad," Mr. Potter said in a defeated tone.
"So, this must be Sirius, and this must be Keena," Gram said, clearly excited about there being two more children in the house than usual.
"Hello," I said, placing the box of cereal on the table and standing up.
"Oh, no need to stand up on our account, dear,"
"Let the child be, Brita," Gramps said. "God knows if you can't baby your own grandson--"
"I wasn't babying anybody, Matthew; I was just trying to be considerate,"
"Didn't you say we were going to be doing the Christmas decorating today, Jaime?" Mr. Potter cut in.
"Yes," Mrs. Potter agreed. "Kids, do you want to do the baking first or get the tree?" Mrs. Potter asked us.
"Let's do the baking first," Sirius said quickly.
"Sirius, you can't eat it immediately," I reminded him.
"Oh," he thought for a moment. "Let's get the tree first,"
"I agree with Sirius," said James.
"Then go get dressed you two," Mrs. Potter commanded.
I shook my head as they thundered up the stairs. I took the opportunity to walk over to the cabinet and put the cereal away, before resting my elbows on the high counter waiting for the returning thunder.
"So, Keena, how do you like Hogwarts?" asked Gram in a way that made her sound truly interested.
"It's great, I have loads of fun with the guys," I said eagerly, hoping to make a good impression on James' grandparents.
"That's good,"
"Keena, what did your family normally do for Christmas?" Mrs. Potter asked after a moment.
"Well, on Christmas Eve we'd go to my dad's parents' house and hang out with the family on that side and exchange presents and stuff. Then we'd spend Christmas day with my mom's side. It was always really loud," I added.
"Did you have a very big family?"
"Yeah," I said without thinking.
"What happened to them all?"
"Uh…" Suddenly there was a thunder from upstairs as the boys returned from getting dressed. Nice timing…
"How about this one?" James shouted half an hour later. We'd been traipsing around the woods for what felt like an eternity, arguing over which tree we should get. Not exactly the best time of my life, but it was amusing conversation to say the least.
"It's shorter than Keena!" Gramps shouted back.
"Hey!" I said in mock offense.
"Let's get this one," Sirius said, his feet snapping tons of twigs as he ran to a tree.
"Well, at least it's taller," said James, as more twigs cracked as he made his way back over to where everyone else was.
"Oh, look at this one!" said Mrs. Potter, dragging me over to a tree with her. I felt one of the branches. The needles weren't horribly prickly if you moved your hand the right way.
"Ew!" I said pulling my hand away suddenly.
"What?"
"Pine sap!" I moved the sticky goo around in between my palms, knowing that I was only making things worse.
We ended up getting the sap-filled tree; Mrs. Potter said she knew a spell that would de-sap the tree, which she used on my hands before we left.
"Who wants to crack the eggs?" Mrs. Potter asked the over-excited boys.
"Me!"
"No, me!"
"Why don't each crack one?" I asked, laughing at the way they were behaving.
"That leaves one left over," Sirius said.
"No it doesn't, there are three of you and three eggs," Mrs. Potter said. "Unless Keena doesn't want to,"
"If I don't, one of them might kill the other," I said grinning.
I held out my hand for the egg to be placed in. Someone handed it to me and I felt its cold shell between my fingers. I felt for the tip and the bottom (the smaller part of the oval and the bigger part) and held it between my middle finger and my thumb. I heard two cracking sounds and a breaking of shells before the plop of the yoke into the bowl. I took my egg and firmly tapped it against the counter.
"Where is the bowl?" I asked sheepishly.
"Right under your hands," replied James.
I broke the egg, successfully getting yoke onto my hands as well as in the bowl.
After another hour of stirring and rolling we finally got all of the cookies and the cake into the oven for baking. We had made enough for fifty people in the end. Okay, maybe not fifty, but certainly more than was necessary.
"Ready to see the tree?" Mr. Potter asked coming into the kitchen.
The smell of pine in the living room was sweetly overwhelming, mixed with hints of ginger bread and candy cane. If it smelled this good, it must've looked even better.
"Nice job, dad," James said, his footsteps heading for the far left corner of the room.
Someone grabbed my arm and by his footsteps I could tell it was Sirius. We went over to where James was and stood in front of the tree. Carefully, I reached out to brush the tree to get a sense of what it was.
"It's bedecked in all sorts of golds and reds," said Sirius.
"Very Gryffindor," I said, a smile tugging at my lips. In my head I envisioned red and gold baubles hanging from every limb of the tree. "Are there lights on it?"
"Fairies," James replied.
"Whoa,"
The next night was Christmas Eve. We all stayed up late listening to various Christmas tales, all of them ones I knew from the muggle world.
"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight," finished Gramps.
"A goodnight is right," said Gram.
"Not yet," James and Sirius begged. I didn't argue. I was half-asleep between Sirius and James on a couch. A nice soft, fluffy couch…
"Yes, now," Mrs. Potter said from somewhere in the room. I was too lazy to try and figure it out. "It's past midnight! How will Father Christmas ever deliver the presents?"
"He'll find a way," James said quickly.
"James," said Mrs. Potter in her warning tone.
"Okay," James said sounding defeated.
The boys got up off the couch and I fell over on my side, nearly dead with sleep. I stood up on shaky legs and attempted to sleepwalk in my half-conscious state before Sirius and James each took hold of an arm.
"Well, at least one of us is tired," James joked.
We made it to my room and the boys said goodnight. I closed the door and fell onto my bed.
"Miss is very tired," said Twinkie, pulling the covers of my bed up to my chin.
In moments I was asleep, and what felt like moments later there was a bang and I was tackled.
"Keena! Wake up! It's Christmas!" Sirius shouted as he and James pranced around my room.
"Can't it be Christmas in a few hours?"
"C'mon!" James shouted, pulling my covers off exposing me to the cool morning air. I shivered.
"Fine," I said, dragging myself from the bed. One of them grabbed my hand and we flew down the stairs and back into the living room.
James yelled up the stairs for everyone else to come down. It took several minutes before everyone was gathered in the living room. In the meantime I had curled up on the end of the couch and closed my eyes.
I knew I should've been excited like everyone else, but this was the first Christmas I had spent away from my friends and family, not that James and Sirius weren't my friends, I just missed everyone.
Moments later, my attitude had brightened as we began opening presents.
"Ladies first," said Gram, and I was handed my presents.
The first card I opened was from Mr. and Mrs. Potter. It was sort of heavy for your average card, and I had no clue what it was. I opened it and several papers fell into my lap.
"What is it?" I asked, counting out five papers total.
"Well we talked to Dumbledore about your condition," Mrs. Potter began.
"And he said all you needed were legal guardians of some sort and you'd be able to get your eyes healed," Mr. Potter finished.
"Really?" I asked in shock.
"Yes," Mr. Potter said.
"Those papers introduce us as your foster parents," Mrs. Potter said. "We just have to go to St. Mungo's to work out when exactly you can get your eyes fixed,"
"Thank you so much," I said, clutching the papers tightly.
I'm going to see again…
That's the end of that one! Finally, it took so long! Oh, I forgot;
I don't own: Harry Potter, Lucky Charms or The Night Before Christmas.
Please review! And thanks to those who have!
:-D