Chapter Fourteen: Christmas Colors

"What's your favorite class, then?" I asked, staring up the Falmouth Falcons poster on my ceiling. The one of captain Randolph Keitch, my favorite player, holding the Quaffle back, ready to let it fly. The plush Quaffle I tossed soared up, nearly touching it, before falling down into Hermione's hands. She threw it upwards and it fell wide, making me nearly fall off the bed to get to it. We were lying upstairs in my temporary room at grandma's, waiting for her, Mum, and the Grangers to finish gift wrapping down the hall.

"Transfiguration. And Charms. But I do wish we had more language classes." When she tossed it this time, it nearly hit me in the face. Thank goodness she didn't plan on making a future as a Chaser. "I heard Katie Bell telling Alicia Spinnet—they're two of the Chasers on our Quidditch team, remember?—about Ancient Runes. It sounds fascinating."

"Naturally it would—to you," I chuckled. "What year is that in?"

She sighed, defeated. "Third." She shifted to lie on her side, facing me while I continued to toss the Quaffle upwards. "What about you? You've got quite the talent for Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions, you notice?"

Of course I'd noticed. I wasn't the only one, either. It was, well… "It's something of a norm amongst Slytherin students, Hermione."

"But you enjoy it, don't you?" I frowned, not sure whether she was talking about my fitting in, or the classes. I paused my Quaffle-tossing, eyeing her, watching her smile. "What?"

I ignored both options, preferring to continue staring at Randolph's poster above me. It was one of the reasons why I liked staying with grandma—Mum would never let me stick a poster on the bloody ceiling of all places, let alone of my favorite player, who I'll admit I had the slightest of crushes on. But of course I was twelve, while he was twenty-something, so good luck to me.

"I prefer Astronomy, as typical as that sounds," I shrugged, hearing the light tap as the stuffed Quaffle finally hit its paper counterpart. I heard Hermione giggle. "Yes, it sounds cheesy because that's Mum's class, but given that I've grown up learning everything about it, I feel that much more in love with it, you know?"

"You have always had a talent for it," Hermione pointed out, smiling as she turned back over to look at the ceiling. "I won't ask you who your favorite teacher is then. You'll be biased."

"I will not!" I exclaimed, although the truth was, we both knew I would be. It was Mum after all. Briefly, I heard Pansy's snide voice telling Draco I'd be a teacher's pet, a snitch because of my relationship with my mother. I turned to look at Hermione, handing her the plush Quaffle and asked her, to silence that nagging Pansy voice, which teacher was her favorite.

"Hold that thought," Mum interrupted us, her head poking through the doorway. "If I hear what you girls have to say about my colleagues now, when we get back, that's all I'll be able to think about when I see them."

We both laughed, and I tossed the Quaffle at her, watching her duck beneath it. "You're no fun."

"I suppose I won't let you girls know that we're done wrapping gifts then—"

"No! I take it back!" I shot off the bed, Hermione hot on my heels, and we raced past my mother and down the hall. I cried triumphantly, throwing myself onto the couch before Hermione and grinning up at her. "I win."

"This time," she said, pushing my legs off the couch and taking a seat beside me. Mum joined us soon after, sitting across from us with the Grangers.

"I was bringing all this food in for your girls to snack on while we unwrap, but I get the feeling you don't quite need it," Grandma said, setting the Christmas plate down, decorated with all sorts of food, placing six of her fanciest goblets beside them. Four quickly filled with wine, while the other two shimmered with milk for Hermione and me. Mum waved her wand and in the corner, under the tree, the gifts they'd wrapped appeared.

Food forgotten, Hermione and I launched ourselves at the stack.

Back in my room, Hermione stuffed the new notebooks her parents had given her for the rest of the school year into the bag to bring to her house, as well as the Muggle money they'd told her she could convert at Gringotts if she so wished. Carefully, she added my mother's gift to her in her bag—a unique set of quills she'd picked up in the summer from one of her star-mapping trips through Europe.

I flopped onto my bed, pulling my arms closer to my chest, snug in my new Falmouth Falcons sweater that the Grangers had given me. I was happy they'd remembered, without help from Mum, a team from a sport they didn't fully understand. It was nice of them.

"Where do you want me to put this?" Hermione asked, holding up the small, functional telescope my mother had given me. It was beautiful, but as she said it was meant to "stop my sneaking up to star-gaze in the Astronomy Tower" I didn't have much use for it. I mean, I lived in the dungeons, beneath the Black Lake. How was I supposed to look at the starts from down there?

"On my suitcase is fine. I'll find a place for it when we get back, I guess."

"Just be careful of Pansy," Hermione spoke, setting it down carefully. "Wouldn't want her breaking it."

"On second thought, maybe I'll leave it here," I winced, imagining Pansy's delight at smashing the beautiful hand-held telescope. "She'd enjoy it too much."

As I stared up at my Falmouth Falcons poster again, I heard Hermione grunting, tugging something from her bag, and grinned. We had yet to exchange gifts, which is why we'd retreated to my room. "She's really—ugh—awful, isn't she?"

"Cow," I shrugged, rolling off my bed towards my dresser. I opened the middle drawer, lifting a ratty blanket I'd had since I was a kid—something grandma had knitted and given me one Christmas, if I remembered. From underneath it I pulled a thick scrapbook, finding my gift for Hermione with far more ease than she was having. I stepped back onto my bed, clutching it to my chest, watching. "Perhaps you should've taken it out first, and then put your gifts in."

"Be quiet," she hissed, though not unkindly, and seconds later, she pulled her scrapbook free, crying triumphantly. She shot me a look. "See? I was just fine."

"Uh-huh." She hopped onto the bed, sliding to sit beside me, holding her tattered book just as tightly. These books were nearly as old as we were, because we'd started this Christmas tradition when we were little, soon after we'd met. Because Mum and I didn't always stay with grandma, and sometimes went traveling, or home, there were times were I had no contact with my best friend. So we'd devised a way to tell the other all the stories of things we'd missed out on—scrapbooks filled with pictures and writing. From Christmas last year to just before we'd left for the holidays. Important events in our lives together, apart, and everything in between, slowly chronicling out friendship.

Even before exchanging scrapbooks, even before hearing the spine crack as we turned the pages, even before seeing the faces of friends we shared and Hogwarts experiences we didn't, I knew. I knew that this year, above all others before, would be thicker in the scrapbook. I knew it would be different.

Because one was lined with green.

The other with red.

Thank you for the reviews. I apologize for this being such a short chapter. The next one's longer, and I'm almost done it.
A bit more of a look into Elena here with her favorite team and player, as well a Christmas tradition that will continue into later years. Anywho, leave me your thoughts as always.