A/N this author does not own the amazing world of Harry Potter, just playing with other people's toys

Chapter Eleven: Holiday Greetings Pt. One

I wasn't sure how to react to learning about what my friends were keeping from me. I've been known to get lost in the castle like many other first years, there should be a map to this place, but what if someone had gotten lost and wound up there. It could happen, other kids know the unlocking spell alohomora with its backwards 'S' wand motion. People do read, like Ravenclaws for example.

It'd be: oh, look a door. I'm a curious child and I wonder what's in there. Ahh, then chomp, chomp, no more little first year named Kenny.

At least Neville looked relieved that he no longer had to lie to me and that he was the one who gave me space after the fact. Hermione and Harry had kept apologizing but wouldn't tell me why they'd kept it from me. I spent the whole of Sunday, that day after, locked up in McGonagall's office with the professor. She was grading papers and I was camped out on the couch she'd transfigured from the chair that normally sat in front of her desk, reading one of the books I'd gotten for my birthday.

The silent treatment I had going with the two dark haired Gryffindors worked until Fred and George locked us in a broom closet on the 23rd of November. Fred had lured me there saying he and George had finally found an idea for my prank, when we got there he just shoved me in the room and locked it. Made it so alohomora didn't even work. I was sitting on a bucket, playing with my purple flame when the door opened again and in came Hermione and Harry.

"WE'VE ENOUGH of whatever argument you lot have been having," just from their voices I couldn't tell them apart "been right depressing it has, seeing little Whiskers moping about. Hermione and Harry the Fantastic in not much better state…"

"…yea, so this is the Weasley therapy hour," the other twin cried and smacked the door "fix whatever you've going or we'll make it our mission to see as many pranks on you done as possible before Christmas. Understood?"

"Why do they do that?" Harry asked as he slid down the wall opposite of me to sit on floor "add some those things to my name?"

I shrugged and gave up my bucket to Hermione to sit beside Harry "don't know, because they enjoy it maybe and it's never anything bad."

"I'M SORRY!" Hermione suddenly shouted causing me and Harry to jump "I'm sorry, Athena, that I let Ron talk us…me into not telling you what we found on the third floor corridor. He said you'd turn us into to McGonagall because she was your grandmother."

I blinked at her in the purple firelight "so you let him convince you that I was untrustworthy. Me, that you've know longer than him," I frowned, that really hurt "huh…I see that our friendship that started before Hogwarts, before we even got on the train meant what?" I asked "it meant nothing? Hermione, you were the first person my age that I was…am friends with but I'm not sure I'm your best friend. I mean, you're mine but I'm not yours."

Hermione gasped, horrified "how can you say that?"

I looked to Harry and back to Hermione "how can I be your friend, the both of you, when you believe that I'm untrustworthy…that I'm a tattler and you let someone convince you of this."

Harry bowed his head "we just thought that it was safer this way for you, if you didn't know."

"Well, thanks for excluding me for such a good reason. Not like I'm perfectly capable of finding my own trouble," I rolled my eyes "appreciate it."

Hermione came to sit on the other side of me and laid her head on my shoulder "I promise never to lie to you again," the brunette said meekly, sliding her arm through mine and hugging it "I promise."

Harry mimicked this, but he did look uncomfortable about it "me as well, Athena. We strays must stick together."

"Ronald doesn't like me, ya know," I pointed out to both of them "everything I do just seems to make it worse. I could be the nicest person in the world to him and he'd say I was only pretending because I wanted something," I shrugged "maybe it is all my fault, I don't know. Just know that I will never be his friend."

Hermione sighed "he says the same thing about you; that you just like seeing him get into trouble. That you've turned the twins against him."

"He did that on his own," I smirked "ain't nobody going to make them do something they don't want to do, expect their mum."

Harry chuckled "this is true, but you should add McGonagall and Madam Hooch to that list."

"Madam Hooch is scary." Hermione shivered as Harry and I nodded in agreement

Sometime later the twins returned with Neville and Jubilee, who was carrying a tray of sandwiches and Neville had a large thermos and some cups. They joined us in the broom closet and we had chicken sandwiches with hot chocolate. Apparently the locking of the closet had been Neville's idea.

….

About the start of December, Aunt Andy sent me a few catalogues from several shops in a few UK magical shopping districts. As only third years and above got to go to Hogsmeade it made Christmas shopping for us younger years slightly difficult. With Aunt Andy's method, I could order stuff by writing down the codes of what I wanted to get and she'd send off the order and made sure they were paid for. She would help me wrap them as well shopping for the Tonks and myself would be done when I came home…she used those words, home. I had a home.

I showed the catalogues to the others and they were quite taken with the idea. Expect they had to do different methods of payment, Hermione wrote her parents, Neville his Gran and Harry used the last of his pocket money that he'd gotten out of the bank at the beginning of the year. Ron was actually decent about it and said that he'd been saving up his allowance for this and asked to borrow one of the magazines. No harm in that, so I lent one to him.

That seemed to make his day, even if I never did get it back. Gorgo was happy, too, when I finally gave her my letter back to Aunt Andy. I was very careful in writing the order numbers and what catalogue they were from down and how much they would cost, not sure about tax…or if there was any. Anyways…with that done I was free to do other things which was good because that type of shopping made my head hurt.

It was the Monday, two weeks before term ended that McGonagall gathered us first years together in the common room. She held up a sheet and told us that if we were staying over the holiday then we needed to sign it. The sheet would be by on the bulletin board by her office door in the future.

"Nah," Neville shook his head when Harry asked him later if he was staying "me Gran has big plans for this Christmas and there's the Malfoy's ball the day after Christmas. She wants to show off her heir," he huffed at that.

Harry looked to me next "Aunt Andy wants me to come home," I grinned "home, I like that but, hey, I could ask her if you could come along, Harry. If you want."

The dark headed boy shook his head "I asked McGonagall about that before she left the common room but she said I could only go to my guardians as a first year or with written permission from them and I don't see that happening."

"I'll be here with you, Harry," Ron grinned "Mum, Dad and Ginny are off to visit my brother Charlie. His in Romania at the dragon persevere there."

I chuckled "at least you'll have the twins for company, Harry. That should cheer you up."

"Oi!" Ron protested "what am I, chopped gizzards?"

Hermione elbowed me before I could reply "my parents want to visit my grandparents for the holiday. They're in Cardiff, so we're taking the train."

"What about you, Athena?" Neville asked looking over at me

I shrugged "I've no idea what they've got planned, just want me to come home."

Neville grinned "maybe you'll get dragged to your aunt's ball and I won't be alone."

The blonde boy chuckled when I smacked him "not funny, Neville, not funny at all."

My friends teased me about that, Ron just sniggered. I do have to say that Ronald and I were getting along better now after the Nicholas Flamel deal and that McGonagall hadn't come hunting him about the whole third-floor corridor thing. Myself, I was more than willing to forget about a giant three headed dog and what was assuredly a really stupid idea that included the stone.

Christmas decorations started going up that next week. Flitwick could be seen floating ornaments into place on the massive tree that Hagrid had gone into the forest for. Even McGonagall was busy collecting signup sheets from all the houses for who was staying, running down students whose names were barely legible just for confirmation. It made me wonder what she was doing for the break.

She looked a little uncomfortable when I asked "I have Christmas dinner with family at Fraoch tur," McGonagall finally admitted, we were in her office the day before train was to leave for London. She'd been entering the names staying into a book for Dumbledore "Bridget and her brood come in from Mount Greylock for the holiday."

"Oh, right," I nodded suddenly feeling foolish because I had wanted to invite her to Christmas at the Tonks. I had started to forget there was that void between us and that I wasn't part her family anymore. That hurt, deep in my chest because I was getting used to idea of her being my grandmother "sounds like fun. I have to go finish packing and make sure that Jubilee didn't repack it to her satisfaction."

The older witch tried to stop me from basically fleeing her office but I was out the door before she could free herself from her desk. I wasn't a McGonagall and I never would be but by blood. I curled up on my bed and jumped a little when Tiberius seemed to come out of nowhere, purring loudly at me and trying to comfort me. Damn, I am really going to have to read that book about him.

….

McGonagall did try to talk to me before those of us heading home left for Hogsmeade's station. I just wished her a Happy Christmas and continued on after Hermione. I'm sure that my voice wavered and I did see the hurt flash through the older witch's eyes but I just wanted to avoid to whole conversation. That'd be nice.

Hermione, Neville and I spent our train ride back in the company of Susan Bones, Megan Jones (Hufflepuff) and Terry Boot, Sue Li (Ravenclaw). That was fun, never really had a chance to talk anyone from another house. Too busy with something or another. As it was, I really liked the four students we'd found ourselves with.

Susan Bones, much like myself (but without the disownment), was being raised by her Aunt Amelia. The same Amelia that was Madam Bones of the DMLE; their head of department. Nym had described her as a fair and capable head with a hell of a death glare for young Aurors who mess up. From that I'd suspect that Nym had been on the receiving end of a lot of those glares.

Megan Jones, as it turned out, was the younger cousin of Gwenog Jones; captain of the Holyhead Harpies and the younger sister of Hestia Jones, who was just few years ahead of Nym and already a full-fledged Auror. Hermione frowned when the conversation had turned Quidditch for a bit when Terry Boot had asked if it were possible to get a signed poster of Gwenog because he was a huge fan.

Terry Boot, now there was a kid with great family history, if you believe the stories. Hesitantly, he admitted that his family was most likely the descendant of Webster Boot, the adopted son of the Ilvermorny founders James Steward and Isolt Sayre. His family owned an apothecary in Liverpool.

The wildcard of our group was Sue Li. She was the third youngest of the Li family, a very quiet but powerful noble family in and around London. They had fingers into everything, broom making, a stock in Ollivander's Wand shop, apothecaries around the UK and a very profitable dragon manure export from the preserve in Northern Ireland. Like I said, they were everywhere.

Between the six of us, we came up with enough pocket money to get a good haul off the cart. Sue insisted that we get the strangest things on the cart. Which turned out to be fun. I saved a few pieces of ice mine, chocolate cauldrons and various flavored jelly slugs for Angie when she finally came around like she said she would as we were boarding the train.

Hermione groaned loudly when I introduced Angie around and mentioned Megan's Holyhead Harpies connection. That led to another conversation about Quidditch that ended just before we pulled in to King's Cross Station. Neville and I just had to laugh at our flying challenged friend; she really disliked Quidditch and only watched it because some of her friends were players.

Aunt Andy, Nym, Uncle Ted were waiting with the Grangers on the platform when the train arrived. They were bundled up and happily chatting. It would seem that Aunt Andy had found quite the friend in Denise Granger. As women of medicine and as women in general. They were busy professionals but worked to make time to have girl's night and tea times.

Did wonders for Mrs. Granger's understanding of the wizarding world. The two muggles didn't seem at all uncomfortable with the magical happening around them. Aunt Andy was laughing when I crashed into her once I was off the train and my trunk (with Tiberius's cage) was dropped unceremoniously nearby.

"Well, hello," Aunt Andy hugged me back tightly "happy to be back, are we?"

I shrugged noncommittally "meh, it's alright…hey!" I protested when Aunt Andy started poking me in the sides.

"And you, love?" Mr. Granger asked greeting his daughter "you happy to be back?"

Hermione smiled up at the man whilst Nym was helping her mum gang up on me "yes, Poppa, I am."

The teasing ended when I went limp in Nym's arms and nearly brought the older girl to the ground with me. Our sobering moment came when Neville with his grandmother to introduce us. His redden cheeks let me know that it wasn't his idea. Augusta Longbottom was a tall woman, would have been able to look McGonagall in the eyes, she was boney and quite possible scarier than Madam Hooch. She was hearing a tall hat over her steel grey hair and eyeing me like she wanted to hit me with that red handbag she was holding.

"Lady Longbottom," Aunt Andy recovered herself and bowed her head to the woman "how lovely to see you again."

"Yes," Lady Longbottom nodded politely but her eyes were on me and very assessing "it is lovely," she tilted her head slightly as I straightened myself out "my grandson as told me a lot about you, Miss Black," I gulped at that and it made the elderly woman chuckle "says that you've vowed yourself as his ally and even help him with his schoolwork. Between you and a Miss Granger, you are the only reason he's passing potions."

I shrugged as Hermione came over to stand beside me "in truth, Snape is scary. Saw a potion once jump back into its vial because he sneered at it. Though, that might have been because Crabbe messed up and added the wrong bits," I saw the corners of her lips struggle to stay even "Neville is a good friend too. He's defended me and Hermione when he could have gotten hurt."

Augusta raised an eyebrow at me "do you know the debt your family owes mine?"

"They're only children," Aunt Andy went on the defensive "now is not the time nor the place to speak of it. If you wish, this coming summer we can meet officially, Lady Longbottom."

Augusta turned to Aunt Andy and smiled "that shan't be necessary Andromeda. If Miss Black is honest in her vow and brings no harm to my grandson then official measures need not be taken," she looked back to me "it was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Black. I do hope that you live up to the hype of my grandson."

I raised an eyebrow at the woman as she turned and walked away. Neville gave me an apologetic look before quickly following after the woman. Looking over my shoulder at Hermione as she slipped her arm through mine.

"How is it that you make impressions on people you haven't even met?" she asked setting her chin on my shoulder

"I'm talented?" I offered and Hermione scoffed

….

We said goodbye to the Grangers just outside the snowy station. They would be leaving Christmas day and be back the day before New Year's; this meant that Jubilee could still deliver Hermione's present. Between Uncle Ted and Mr. Granger our school trunks were loaded and Tiberius was in the back seat of the Tonks family car. Our owls had flown home instead of riding the train.

One last hug and I watched my best friend walk with her parents towards their car. Took about two hours through the traffic, weather and distance to reach the Tonks home. It was a very odd feeling, returning here and calling it home. Tiberius was very happy to return, he nearly took out Uncle Ted as he streaked through the front door and slid on his damp paws across the tiles of the foyer and he started his sprint of the house.

Uncle Ted was okay, though, he'd shrunken my trunk so the side of a shoebox so he was able to grab onto the doorjamb. I got a glare from the man as I failed to stifle a giggle at the cat's antics. Then I was laughing as the man had launched himself towards me and started tickling me.

Aunt Andy came to my rescue and shooed me towards my room with Nym and my trunk (so she could enlarge it no-magic for me). Nym, even though we'd been exchanging letters all term, quizzed me over everything that had happened. She wasn't too happy when I told her about Fluffy and what we thought it was guarding. Hogwarts was a school not a bank like Gringotts, or even get it out of the country if you wanted it protected.

She was a little disappointed in Hermione for how the girl had acted. Then she smacked me upside the head for how my interaction with Ronald were going. Nym smacked me harder when I finally told her about Binns. Yea…hadn't written about that because I didn't want either Nym or Aunt Andy storming the school. From the look on Nym's face, Aunt Cissy was in for another howler…if that's all she got then she'd be lucky.

"Why didn't you write about this?" Nym demanded sitting on the end of my bed "do you know what could have happened if you salt line failed?"

"I'd prefer not to think about it," I muttered unable to look at the now red-headed girl "I'm never doing that again."

Nym growled "you better not!" she cried "and don't tell mum, she'll go off the rails about this. She just might murder her sister."

That'd be bad, I sighed heavily and changed the subject "so, tell me honestly, what have they done about me being heir? I mean with Sirius in Azkaban there's not much I can do to bring the family back until I'm of majority."

Nym shook her head "you're twelve, don't worry about it. Though, I know that mum and Aunt Cissy have been to Azkaban, just before Halloween."

I was shocked "this family has to get better a communication," I shook my head "how'd that happen?"

Nym shrugged "they partitioned Madam Bones for visitation rights and after a long hassle they got the rights to visit."

"What happened, though?" I wanted to know

The older girl, whose hair had gone back to bubblegum pink, shook her head at me "that's not for me to say, mum and the sneaky aunt want to tell you. Don't worry, so…" she grinned "you and me are going to spend the morning shopping. We can go to Diagon Alley or…I can take us to either Glasgow, Inverness or Dublin, or…if you ask nicely we can hop a portkey to Paris."

I hummed at this because these opened so many options. Never been to Glasgow or Dublin before. Paris was fun and definitely had a freer society for magical creatures, lots of business owners. Veela's have a lot of shops Paris's magical shopping district, Fraser always said they had an unfair advantage with that lure of theirs. Not sure what that was but they did do a lot of business with wands, charms and enchantments.

Inverness was home to a lot of suspicious Highlanders and had the highest number of Oblivators working for the ministry. Their district was old and most of their shops were named in Gaelic, thank goodness for pictures. Always felt like someone was watching whenever Fraser took me there so that was a no go.

"How about Dublin?" I asked looking up from my duvet "a portkey doesn't sound like fun with shopping bags."

Nym smirked "I can always shrink the bags, kid, I can do magic."

I shrugged "point taken but I've never been to Dublin before."

The older girl nodded as she got up off my bed "Molly Street it is."

….

For the record….still don't like magical transportation. Aunt Andy had woken me early the next morning for breakfast, Nym just nodded at me from her spot at the table. I hoped she'd be more awake when it came time to apperate. Aunt Andy gave her a lot of coffee. When it was time to go Nym wrapped her arms around me and left with me in mid-sentence to Uncle Ted about wrapping paper; he was asking what design I wanted. Nym thought that was just hilarious until I threatened to be sick on her shoes.

Molly Street was in the heart of Dublin's shopping district, go figure. The entrance to the street was marked by a small statue of the fishmonger girl. While muggles believe that Molly Malone was just a girl in a song, to wizards and witches, she was real. Molly Street hadn't always been named such but the girl had made an impact and…well, she was haunting the street still trying to sell her fishy wares.

It was a lot of fun to spend time with Nym, I'd almost forgotten. She seriously was like the older sister I'd never had, Angie came in a close second. Nym liked to make me laugh so she kept changing her face as we were walking down the street, tripping several times and that only made me laugh harder.

We visited all the shops that we could before it was time to go back to London. Nym shrunk the shopping bags and apperated us back and thankfully she gave me a warning this time; no threat of upchuck on her shoes. We had lunch with there at the house, Aunt Andy had ordered take out from the Chinese place down the road and we got Jubilee to join us. Nearly had the elf in hysterics over the invite to the table, surprisingly she fell in love with dumplings.

Nym promised to wrap what I had gotten for Aunt Andy and Uncle Ted whilst they were taking me out to shop for the older girl. Shopping with them was much more laid back and lacked the same energy that shopping with Nym had…and no body tripped at all. It also took a lot less time so we were able to get back to the house sooner.

That's where we found Nym talking with Kaylee in the kitchen. I felt a bit bad as I hugged the preppy woman, I had meant to invite her but after that conversation with McGonagall I forgot. However, it seemed that Aunt Andy had asked her over long before I even thought of it; this meant that Kaylee would be sleeping in the extra guest room…aka Nym's old room that she was moved out of. Nym would be camping with me for the holiday.

Aunt Andy and Kaylee were in the middle of making dinner, so they could properly talk, when the fire roared to life. I was wondering when Aunt Cissy would make an appearance. She gave me a hug despite my glare at her and silently pulled me into the kitchen. The woman was too happy and excited, something was up.

"Why are you upset at me?" Aunt Cissy pouted as she sat me down at the table "was it because of that broom?"

"Partially!" I growled and leaned closer "why did you send me that book?" I demanded "what were you thinking giving me that damn thing! Binns literally exploded! It was traumatizing."

Cissy just shrugged "I just gave you the book, dear, you didn't have to use it for anything beyond a door stop. I do thank you for having Draco return it."

I huffed and folded my arms across my chest, Aunt Andy looked over the counter where she was working "what did you do this time, Cissy?"

Aunt Cissy's eyes widened "I did nothing," she had an innocent look on her face.

"Pfft," I shook my head "all guilty people say that. Why did you send me a broom? You know first years aren't allowed them! I would have like to have seen your face when McGonagall's howler arrived."

It was Aunt Cissy's turn to glare, but she did see my cover up "that was rude of her, arrived before coffee. That old hag has a set of lungs," she muttered "didn't know howlers could yell that loud."

I huffed "thanks for the broom but shitty timing on the delivery."

"Oi!" Aunt Andy protested pointing her wooden mixing spoon at me "watch your language, Athena, or I will wash your mouth out with soap. McGonagall already wrote me about your mouth so watch it!"

"McGonagall's a tattletale," I muttered and Aunt Cissy just sniggered, glaring again at her I asked "whatcha doing here Aunt Cissy? Just come to wreak havoc?"

She snorted "no, my temperamental little niece. I've come to tell you that you are going to be my guest at my Christmas Ball. The Blacks are making their come back now that Sirius has signed papers that reinstates Andromeda and Nymphadora..."

From the living room was heard "DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

Aunt Cissy ignored the protest "as part of the Black Family. He also made Andy his proxy, this allows Andy to take up the Black's seat at Wizengamot and allows her to make financial decisions at Gringotts, with my help of course."

"Oh, so that's what you lot did out at the Big Rock of Gloom and Doom," I nodded in understanding, Aunt Cissy glared towards the living room where Nym was watching the telly "wait! What do ya mean I'm your guest? I don't want to go to a ball, balls are for kicking or throwing, not going to."

Kaylee chuckled at this and called "give it up, pumpkin, you're never going to win this one."

"You're not helping!" I called back to her

….

Aunt Cissy stayed for dinner and grumbled about having to help me set the table. Her older sister just smirked that Cissy had to work for her meal. They, Aunt Andy and Aunt Cissy, told me more about their meeting with Sirius. He was truly surprised to learn that the house of Black had an heir, meaning: he'd either forgotten or he thought I was dead or he could have cared less because I was Bella's spawn. I'm not taking bets on any one of those.

There was a part of me that desperately wanted to ask if they'd visited my mum whilst they were there. Maybe it was the festive season or the hurt from McGonagall that made me want to know more about her, about the woman who'd been my incubator for nine months and gave birth to me on Gunpowder Day.

The only bright point of the whole conversation was when Aunt Cissy pointed out that because Aunt Andy was Sirius's proxy, she had to go with me to the Malfoy Ball. That didn't make Aunt Andy look very happy but made Aunt Cissy laugh at her sister's mutterings.

Before Aunt Cissy left, she and Aunt Andy presented me with a present wrapped in black paper…original…with a silver bow. The box wasn't very big, about the same size as a watch box. With the sisters watching intently I tore the wrapping off and found a little Christmas ornament. It an animated knight, in steel plated armor and a long purple feather for his helm's plume. He kept twitching and brandishing his long Claymore sword, but he couldn't move his feet because they were glued to a little wooden base.

"This is a Black Christmas tradition," Aunt Andy explained "every Black child receives one the year they got to Hogwarts or to whatever magical school they've been expected to. It represents their wands, their connection to their magic."

"Mine is a sphinx," Nym said proudly "because my wand holds the core of a sphinx's tail hair."

Aunt Cissy smiled "Draco's is a unicorn stallion. He got his this morning over breakfast."

The little knight bow his head to me and saluted me with his war sword. The pommel of the thing came up to his collar bone. Aunt Cissy stayed long enough to watch me hang the ornament on the tree near Nym's preening sphinx. She left after giving me a hug and a pointed look to her sister.

We spent the rest of the night watching old Christmas movies. I was squished between Nym and Kaylee, being fed popcorn and green apple-chocolate frogs with apple cider to wash it down. It was Uncle Ted who carried me to bed, I was dimly aware of this as he was picking me up and carrying me up the stairs. I'd fallen asleep during 'It's a Wonderful Life'.