Victoire had never quite experienced a Christmas morning like this before. Ever since she was smaller, the tradition was that no matter how early she and her siblings awoke, they would have to stay upstairs and wait for their mother or father to call them down to see their gifts. As children, all three would sit against the upstairs railing, peering through the bars in an attempt to catch a glimpse of what was just beyond the entrance to the living room. It had always been a rather futile effort, but it never stopped them from trying. Their mother would make cocoa, and their father would playfully taunt them from the bottom of the stairs with claims of, "Wait until you see what you've got!" Those mornings were some of Victoire most fond memories from Christmases past, if not her entire childhood.

The tradition had mainly stayed in tact through the years, though, of course, changes came as they got older. As soon as they were all tall enough to reach the top of the railing, leaning against it had replaced peering through its bars; not to mention that instead of waking at the crack of dawn as they once had, any of them were lucky to be out of bed before nine o'clock these days. In fact, last year their father had to come and rouse Louis out of bed after shouting up the stairs for twenty minutes to get him up hadn't worked.

It was this Christmas morning in particular that Victoire had woken to find that ten o'clock was staring her in the face. She had rolled over in bed and stared at her clock on the bedside table, wondering if she was somehow imagining things. She squinted to be sure before reaching up to rub the sleep out of her eyes. Looking back at the clock, the little hand was still on the ten, the larger hand on the one. They had actually let her sleep this late? No one had come to get her?

She sat up and blinked her eyes a few times. She still felt groggy, but that was due to having stayed up until three o'clock in the morning to finish Ted's coupons. She had counted on the rest of the day to complete them, but what with his fantastic surprise of turning up home from Russia early, it had been necessary to take the most of the night just so it could be ready for today.

She glanced at her desk, where two wrapped presents sat staring back at her from its spot on top of a stack of books. The longer she looked at it, the more she found herself smiling. She couldn't wait to give it to him.

But that was something for later, not now. With a lazy sigh, she pulled her covers off and lifted herself out of bed. Grabbing her robe, she pulled it on over her nightgown and quickly shuffled over to find a pair of socks to throw on her cold feet. As she pulled open her bedroom door, she noticed that both Louis and Dominique's doors were still shut tightly. There was noise coming from the kitchen, as well as the sound of the Wireless playing a mellow holiday tune from somewhere in the house, but that was all she could hear. Everything else was otherwise still.

Victoire took to the first few stairs before coming to a halt less than halfway down. A lover of traditions at heart, she didn't want to come down without being told she was allowed, just like every Christmas. Then again, it seemed rather stupid to adhere to a tradition when it seemed that she was the only one still doing it.

Still…

"Mum?" she called out. "Dad?"

The sound of a chair behind dragged across the hard floor was followed by a muffled pair of footsteps. A moment later, her father's head poked out from inside the kitchen.

"Morning, sleepyhead. Glad to see someone's up." He smiled. "Happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas," she said, looking back at Louis and Dominique's room. "I'm really the only one up?"

He nodded. "Your mother and I figured if you three were all going to have a lie in, we were going to let you."

Victoire stood rooted the spot. She had honestly been under the impression she had been the last one up. "Oh."

"But," he checked his watch, "it's getting late, anyway. Why don't you wake Lou and Nic up? Let's get things started."

"Who iz up?" came her mother's voice, followed a moment later by her head poking out of the kitchen as well. "'Ello, sweet'eart. Joyeux Noël."

"Joyeux Noël," Victoire repeated, smiling at her mother before she made her way back up the few stairs she had descended. She reached her sister's room first and knocked hard on the door. "Wake up, Nic!"

Without waiting for a response, she moved onto to Louis's room. He was easily the heaviest sleeper in the house, and it was often joked that he could sleep through an explosion without so much as stirring. She could hear him snoring through the closed door, so she put her fist up to the wood and pounded it three times. "Wake up, Lou!"

There was no immediate response, so she placed her ear against the door to see if Louis's snoring had ceased. It hadn't. She reached up and pounded once again.

"Victoire," called her father's voice from downstairs. "You'll knock the whole house down at that rate."

"He won't wake—"

"I'm up!" yelled a grouchy sounding Louis from behind the door of his room.

"Oh," Victoire said, smiling involuntarily at the door before she turned and called back down to her parents. "Never mind!"

She backed away from Louis's room and took her familiar spot at the banister railing. As the oldest, she always took the position nearest to the stairs that allowed her first access down to the living room. She knew it probably shouldn't matter who was first these days, but as far as she was concerned, Christmas morning always brought out the ten-year-old in her. She wasn't about to relinquish her spot.

She leaned up against the railing and looked down as her parents both patiently waited for the other two bedroom doors to open. A minute passed with them all still waiting. Then two. Then three. It seemed Dominique and Louis were taking their sweet time.

"Hustle up!" her father called up the stairs. "Fleur, do you remember when it was them dragging up out of bed?"

"Funny how zings change," her mother smirked.

After another minute, Dominique's bedroom door finally opened. Standing in her pajamas, her hair matted to one side and her eyes only half awake, she lazily made her way next to where Victoire was standing. She didn't bother speaking, but rather closed her eyes and rested her head against the top of the railing.

"About time," Victoire said.

She made an indecipherable sort of noise that sounded somewhere between a snore and a groan.

"Joyeux Noël, sweet'eart," said their mother, smiling up at Dominique.

"Joyewnole," Dominique mumbled, lifting her head up to rub her eyes.

"Louis, get a move on!" called their father again. "I swear he sleeps like the dead."

Louis's door opened, just as he was called, and he appeared while still pulling a baggy jumper over his head. He, too, looked groggy and grouchy, but not half as grouchy as he would be in a moment's time. The second he and Dominique met each other's gazes, they both gave off identical reactions of scowling, rolling their eyes, and immediately looking away.

"Morning, sweet'eart," said their mother. "Joyeux Noël"

"Joyeux Noël," Louis said sleepily, scratching his head and walking over to take his spot at the railing next to Dominique. The second he had, Dominique scoffed and stepped around Victoire towards the stairs.

"Hey…" said Victoire, her expression immediately protesting the sudden switching of spots. "You can't…"

"We're not five-years-old anymore, Vic," said Dominique as she took to the stairs. "It doesn't matter who's first."

Victoire frowned, but no one else seemed to care or correct the action. Dominique reached the bottom and stopped so that she could hug both of her parents, and when she was done, she walked straight into the living room.

"You two coming?" her father asked, looking up the stairs curiously.

Victoire nodded and glanced at Louis, who seemed to waiting for her to go. She wasn't sure if he was adhering to their age old tradition or whether he just didn't want to follow after Dominique. For some reason, the latter seemed far more likely.

From that point on, the morning could be summed up in one word: stressful. Dominique planted herself on one side of the room and Louis on the other; both refused to acknowledge that the other was even present. It made for a very awkward exchange of gifts, and, despite their parents' best efforts, the sense of family togetherness and camaraderie that they were clearly trying to achieve was now falling pitifully flat.

Victoire wasn't quite sure what had happened between Louis and Nicki after the fight in the kitchen the night before, though it was beyond certain that nothing had been rectified between then and now. Both of them had clearly gone to bed angry and now seemed content with simply not speaking to each other. They didn't acknowledge each other, they didn't get near each other, and they barely looked at each other. Even when they did, the looks were usually forced and fleeting; not to mention, sour.

The tension was inherently apparent to all, but it seemed to Victoire that her parents didn't want to acknowledge it. They seemed to want to ignore it. Perhaps it was on the blind hope that presents and Christmas would make it disappear; that things would fix themselves over such a lovely occasion of giving and receiving. It was hard to say what their reasons were, but both her mum and dad pressed on, bound and determined to make the most of Christmas morning.

As it was, Victoire wasn't sure what was more awkward. Her brother and sister's over-the-top obviousness or her parents' attempts at pretended that obviousness didn't exist. All she did know was that she had to pick a side, and siding against her parents didn't seem like the best of ideas.

In an attempt to make it seem like all was not lost, Victoire did her best to put on a positive attitude; even going so far as to get a little too excited by gushing over a new set of professional looking quills that she'd received every year since she'd stared school. Someone had to put on the brave, happy face so that her parents' efforts weren't completely lost. Still, even she knew her attempts at over the top smiles and extra excited reactions could only carry the group so far.

That's not to say anyone seemed ungrateful or that there weren't positive moments. Dominique beamed from ear to ear and thanked her parents endlessly for her new broom, even going so far to jump up in down while clutching it tightly. Louis's eyes had practically bugged out of his head when he realized he'd received the entire special edition collection of Nymph Chaser's albums….but these moments were both fleeting. As soon as either of them was reminded of the situation at hand, the stagnant coldness returned to their demeanors. Even the usually people-pleasing Louis couldn't be bothered to pretend that all was well.

Victoire tried to ignore everything as much as she could. She instead focused on the positives, like enjoying her mother's reaction to her new perfume and the pretty new cloak she had received, as well as her father gushing over his brand new dragon skin travel bag. She didn't have to pretend to be ecstatic when she received a new camera—the clear highlight of her morning— with her usual bounty of clothes. Her parents had been exactly on point this year in making sure to get each one of their children the present they had asked for. It was just a shame that given the lulling tension in the room, that fact couldn't be celebrated more properly.

With her new camera in hand, Victoire had just begun to attempt to figure out its features when her mother pulled out the two last presents from underneath the tree.

"Zere are two left," she said as she held them up. "How did zese get forgotten?"

Dominique reached up and took one of the parcels from her mother before tossing it to Victoire. "Here, Vic. For you. Love me."

"Me?" Victoire asked, picking it up where it landed. "But you already got me that potions organizer."

Dominique merely smiled as Victoire examined the outside of the wrapped gift, her eyes falling last upon the tag. It read: To Louis, from Nicki.

She looked back at her sister. "This is for Louis."

"Not anymore it's not."

"Well, in that case," Louis said, walking over to take the other present his mother was still holding, which he in turn handed to Victoire. "Happy Christmas, Vic."

Unsurprisingly, the tag on that present read: To Nic, from Louis. Victoire stared at both presents, unsure of what exactly she should do. Both Louis and Dominique were staring at her, but so were her parents; the latter did not look altogether pleased. Their forced cheerfulness seemed to have reached its boiling point.

"Okay, enough is enough," their father said wearily. "You two," he pointed to Dominique and Louis, "either cool it or you can spend Christmas upstairs. I'm tired of whatever it us you two are at each other throats for, but it ends now. Is that clear?"

Neither Dominique nor Louis said anything, but neither looked like they were about to cool anything off either. In the awkwardness of the moment, Victoire reached down and tore the paper off one of the presents to offer a distraction. Inside was a set of Quidditch gloves—the kind that guaranteed its wearer a firmer gripe on the broom's handle.

"Gee," Victoire said dully, looking over at Louis. "You shouldn't have."

"Those are the cheap kind," Dominique muttered purposely.

"They weren't when I help picked them out," her father countered.

Dominique made a sheepish face as Victoire attempted to move things along by opening the other present, which turned out to be a portable Wireless. Louis automatically dubbed it the "rubbish one that falls apart after a few plays," but relented commenting further on it when his father gave him a very particular glare.

It had been the most nerve-racking Christmas morning Victoire could remember in record memory, and not to mention the quickest. Tradition usually called for playing with their new goodies while enjoying breakfast all together. What they got was Louis claiming he was going upstairs to listen to his new albums while Dominique went outside to test her new broom. It left Victoire alone with her parents—both of whom weren't faking their way through anything by this point.

"I get that they're upset," Victoire heard her father saying to her mother from the living room as she stuffed wrapping paper into the rubbish bin in the kitchen, "but it's Christmas and I will not have the two of them ruining it for everyone else. Did you see Victoire acting overly happy about everything to overcompensate?"

Victoire laughed a little as she used her wand to cast a Compacting Charm on the trash inside the bin. Apparently, acting wasn't in her future.

"Just give zem a little time," she heard her mother say gingerly, her voice louder and sounding as if it was growing nearer.

"I just wish they'd realize it's not just their holiday they're spoiling," he muttered, his voice now sounding close as well. Victoire turned and saw that both of them had entered the kitchen behind her.

Her mother smiled when she saw her. "'Ave a good 'oliday?"

"Great," Victoire said, braving a smile. "Fantastic."

Her mother came over and kissed her on the forehead. "Glad to 'ear it. Now," she walked around the kitchen and began pointing her wand at various pots and pans, "time for ze cooking to begin."

"I'll do the potatoes," her father offered, walking over to where a sack of potatoes sat resting against the pantry door. "Vic, what time is Ted coming?"

"I told him around four," she said, thinking back to the night before where her father had agreed—without hassle, amusingly enough—to have Ted over for dinner. "We always tend to eat a little earlier than usual, so I thought that was safe."

He hummed. "Yeah, that should be good." He got quiet for a moment. "It'll be his first dinner with the family, huh?"

Victoire stared at him. "He's had dinner with us a hundred times before."

"Yeah, but not as—" he made a funny face "—'the boyfriend.'"

"It's really not that different," Victoire said as she joined her father where he stood. She drew her wand and reached out to grab a spud and help peel.

"Oh, it's completely different."

Victoire watched as potato skin started separating itself from the rest of the potato. "How so?"

He smiled at her. It was a funny smile, as if he was highly amused by something. "Because boyfriends get special treatment."

Victoire eyes went wide, a little afraid of what he was playing at. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He continued to grin, but said nothing.

"Dad…"

He laughed.

"Do not hassle him! It's so ridiculous when you pretend to be the tough, scary dad."

This time, both he and her mother stared laughing.

"It's not funny," she said seriously.

Her father reached out and tousled her hair. "I think that's entirely dependent on which side of this you're on.


"Stop it," said Dominique after Victoire had taken another picture of her with her new camera.

It was probably the fifteenth picture she'd taken of her sister over the last few minutes, but she was the only one offering her any opportunity to use her new camera. Her father had disappeared on a quick errand, her mother had threatened to take the camera back if she took any pictures of her while she was up to her elbows in cooking grease, and Louis was still locked away in his room. That only left Dominique, who hadn't minded the photos while she was flying around on her broom; now that they had come back inside, she seemed to be tiring of them.

"I'm serious," Dominique added as she walked back through the front door of the house, broom in hand. "Stop."

Victoire snapped another picture of Dominique while she happened to be staring at her with a disgruntled, ornery expression. She grinned as she lowered her camera. "I'll call this one, 'Nicki: On any normal day.'"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you look grumpy and foul," Victoire said, "like any normal day."

"Don't be surprised if your camera accidentally finds itself thrown over the cliffs by the end of the evening."

"Don't be surprised when your broom joins it."

"Girls," said their mother, who had appeared from kitchen to meet them in the entrance way. "Don't you start." She looked purposely at Victoire. "You both should go dress for dinner."

Dominique grumbled. "Why do we have to get dressed for dinner? What's the difference between this dinner and every other dinner we have?"

"Because it's Christmas," Victoire said, making an obvious face.

"But why does that matter?"

"Why do you have to argue everything?"

"Because it iz a special occasion," their mother said brightly, her mood seemingly increased from earlier in the day, "and because you both look so lovely and pretty when you are all cleaned up."

Dominique shook her head. "Flattery gets you nowhere, Mum."

"Annnnd," their mother added with cheerful inflection, "because we 'ave company joining us."

"Since when?" Dominique asked. "Who's joining us?"

"Ted's coming," Victoire said brightly.

Dominique's eyes immediately rolled into the back of her head. "Ted doesn't count as company."

"He does, too."

"He does not," she countered. "He's just Ted. When I think company, I think of being forced to dress up and look stuffy. Ted's not the type of company you need to dress up for. Even he'd tell you that."

Victoire considered that. She did have a point.

"Even if he wasn't coming," their mother said, ushering them both up the stairs at a hasty rate, "you know ze rules. Go put on some of your new zings, clean up, and look presentable for dinner. Tell your brother to do ze same."

Both girls shuffled up the stairs, and, without even discussing which one of them was going to tell Louis, Victoire reached the top first and walked straight down the hallway towards his room. She knocked twice while listening to the sound of loud music trickling out from just behind the door. When there was no response, she knocked harder.

"It's open," called Louis.

She opened the door and poked her head inside his room, which was messy and had a stale and very—what Victoire considered—boy-like quality about it. Louis's new Christmas presents and discarded boxes were strewn about the floor, and his new clothes and robes were lying just on top of his desk. On his unmade bed in the middle of the room, Louis lay holding a thick bound book above his head, as if he'd been reading it. He glanced at Victoire as she entered, but waited for her to speak first.

"Mum wants—" she began to say, but stopped when she realized she wasn't about to be heard over the music. Louis seemed to realize this as well because he reached just above his bed, where his Wireless lay on a low shelf, and turned the volume down.

"What did you say?" he asked.

"Mum says you have to get dressed for dinner."

He tossed his book to the side and checked his watch. "This early?"

She shrugged. "I'm just the messenger."

"What do we have to get dressed up for anyway?"

"Mum likes it," she said, still standing in the doorway. "And we've got company coming."

"Who?"

"Ted."

Louis rolled his eyes in a manner identical to Dominique's. "Ted's not company."

Victoire smiled a little, wondering if Louis and Dominique ever really realized how similar they were sometimes. "Nicki said the same thing."

"Well, then I take it back," he said. "Maybe he is."

Victoire sighed and leaned against his door frame, her arms folded in front of her. It was strange to see Louis's anger simmer like this. He was the one who—when he actually got mad—just exploded once before letting it all go. He didn't forget, and he may not forgive, but he never dwelled like he was now. This was more Dominique behavior.

"Lou," she said, "you knew this was how she'd react when she found out."

"Vic, I'm really not in the mood."

"Yeah, well, Mum, Dad, and I aren't in the mood to have our days crapped on because you and Dominique want to be stubborn. I mean, Lou, you're not supposed to be the stubborn one. You know that."

He looked up at the ceiling, seemingly uninterested in what she was saying. "I can be whatever the hell I want to be. Thanks."

"Well, how about you consider not being a prat and just talking to Nicki like an adult?" she offered. "Because you know damn well she'll sit on this until the end of time. She's far too stubborn to come to you. You need to talk to her. If not for you, then do it for Sarah."

He looked back at her, but didn't say anything.

"And no offense, but she has every right to be mad at you," Victoire said before she turned to leave. "You did lie to her."

"I didn't lie to her—" he began before he stopped mid-sentence. "And I can't believe this is coming from the person who was this close," he held up his index finger and thumb millimeters apart from each other, "to being in the exact same position I am, except with Mum and Dad."

"And had I not been lucky," she muttered, "they would have been mad at me—and rightfully so. I easily could have been in that position, but I did get lucky. I'm sorry you didn't, but that doesn't mean you should just let things fester."

"Whatever," Louis said curtly, throwing his legs over the side of his bed and sitting up. "I need to change."

"Fine," Victoire said, sighing heavily and taking the hint to leave without arguing the matter further. She stepped out of his room and shut the door behind her, glancing back at the door briefly. She stared at it for a moment before walking back to the other end of the hallway towards her own room.

Louis was supposed to be the easy one to reason with; he was supposed to be sensible. He wasn't supposed to be the difficult one and he certainly wasn't supposed to equal Dominique's level of petty stubbornness. If he was being this difficult, she didn't even want to think about what Dominique would say. Dominique would fight this tooth and nail, and she positively wouldn't relent unless Louis came to her first.

Still, even in knowing this fact, Victoire had to assume she had nothing to lose with at least trying to talk to her sister. She could make the effort for the sake of salvaging what was left of the holiday. Perhaps she'd perform a Christmas miracle and make Dominique come to her senses before Louis could. Perhaps she'd go to him. Stranger things have happened…

She walked back to her room, where she sat on her bed and positioned herself next to the open bedroom door that offered her a complete view of the hallway. It was here that she leaned back against the wall and waited, glancing casually out towards Dominique's room until the sound of her door opening, followed by footsteps, caught her attention. She sat up straight.

"Nic," she said before Dominique had managed to get to the stairs. "I need to ask you something."

Dominique appeared a moment later in Victoire's doorway, though didn't say a word. She was staring at Victoire, as if waiting to see what it was she'd been summoned for, but Victoire couldn't help but take in the almost strange site of her sister.

Standing there, wearing something besides an oversized jumper or beat up trainers, Dominique actually looked very put together. She actually had on a new, fitted, clean looking jumper than didn't make her already rail thin frame look smaller than it actually was—the usual effect of wearing clothes that we far too big for her. She even matched! She also looked as if she'd taken the time to properly part her hair with a brush, as opposed to just dragging one through it to catch a stray knot or two. As per the usual, when Dominique actually tried, she always looked so incredibly pretty.

"What?" Dominique asked finally. "And this better have nothing to do with taking my photo."

Victoire smiled. "But you look so nice."

"What'd you really want?"

Victoire stood to shut the door behind her, specifically so that Dominique wouldn't storm out when the topic of she and Louis was breached. In an attempt to find an excuse as to why she had called her sister in here, she glanced at the pile of new clothes she had received for Christmas. Here goes nothing…

"Well, I need help," Victoire said, pointing towards the clothes.

"With?"

"What I should wear."

Dominique cocked her eyebrow. "Then why are you asking me?"

Victoire shrugged. "Your suggestions couldn't hurt."

"They probably won't help either."

"You put that together," Victoire said, pointing to what she was wearing. "You look fantastic."

"I only put this together because Mum put all of this," she gestured to her entire outfit, "in the same box together. I assumed she probably did that for a reason."

"Still," Victoire said, ignoring her excuses and gesturing once again to the pile. She'd already spotted what she was probably going to end up wearing, but Dominique didn't need to know that. "I need some direction."

Dominique sighed—the kind of sigh that sounded like she'd rather be doing anything else in the universe. She begrudgingly walked over and picked up the first two things on the pile before turning around to hand them to Victoire as soon as she could be rid of them.

"Here. This."

Victoire took what she had offered her—a pretty blue dressrobe and a pair mud-brown shorts. Even if the two didn't clash terribly, it wasn't as if she could physically wear one with the other anyway. But, Victoire chose to ignore this fact as she took them from her sister and smiled.

"Thanks."

"Glad to be of help," Dominique said lamely, turning back towards the door.

"Nic," Victoire said before she could get too far away. "You need to talk to Louis."

Dominique stopped in her tracks and slowly rounded on her. "Louis's the one who messed up. He needs to talk to me."

"I agree with you," she said, "but, he's not going to because he's offended that you seem to think his relationship with Sarah is just some fling that means nothing."

"Why shouldn't I think that?"

Victoire shrugged. "Why should you? Since when has Louis used anyone?"

Dominique sighed. "Vic, I'm not talking about this right now."

"Fine," she said, just as she had to Louis. "Don't talk about it with me, but talk about it with him. You two are setting everyone else off, and it's selfish to think your fight is only affecting the two of you—"

Dominique didn't wait for her to finish. She instead walked straight over to the door and pulled it open, exiting without a word or a glance back at Victoire.

Victoire's mouth had still been open from speaking, but she quickly shut it. Well, that was that then. She had made the effort, which was really all she could do. If neither were going to listen to sound reason, then the two of them would have to stop being so stubborn and work out their own business without outside help. She had more pressing matters to focus on at the moment.

She checked the clock on her desk. It was nearly four, which meant Ted was due at any minute. It meant he'd soon be here to open his present, and it would be a nice to have him around to change the stiff dynamic of things.

But she still needed to get dressed. She glanced down at the clothes Dominique had handed her, making a quick face at the combination of the two terribly paired items. Leave it to her sister to find create the ugliest combinations of things. What on earth went through that girl's head sometimes?