Ernie and Lizzie arrived back at Hogwarts the day before term started again, sharing a compartment with Justin and Zacharias as they had done on the journey home. It was lovely to see the other boys again, even Zacharias. They spent the train ride swapping stories of their holidays and wondering what Christmas at Hogwarts had been like for Susan and Hannah.

Draco stuck his head in to their compartment about an hour into the journey to ask Lizzie if she wanted to do something that evening, but she said she wanted to spend the time catching up with the girls before they got swamped with work. He looked a bit dejected at that.

The rest of the journey passed relatively peacefully, or as peacefully as it can be with the odd game of exploding snap. A couple of people looked in to make brief small talk, but otherwise the first years were just left to themselves (the boys in their card game, Lizzie with her book).

"Lizzie!"

Lizzie had taken three steps into the common room when she was tackled by Susan, followed by Hannah, who had had to pause due to the amount she was laughing at Susan.

"Hi, Susan, can you let me go?" Lizzie choked about between laughs.

Susan let go, and moved on to tackle the boys as Lizzie got her chance to hug Hannah.

"Hey, how was Christmas here?"

"It was good," Hannah replied, "but we missed you guys quite a bit."

Lizzie looked over to where Susan was chattering away to the boys and smiled fondly.

"We missed you guys too."

Hannah smiled, "how was your Christmas?"

Lizzie grimaced.

"That good?"

She snorted in response, "something like that".

After they'd had their hugs and said they're hellos, they sat in front of the fire and finally had their catch up.

Lizzie and Ernie's Christmas, despite being together, had been fairly different as Lizzie then discovered. Whilst her's had been full of tension and stress, he had found it fairly relaxing. She laughed at bit at that, everyone did. It wasn't like he was oblivious to the stress their parents had put Lizzie under; he just didn't have to deal with it.

Justin's was fairly standard. They had family round, all opened presents together after lunch, and either played charades or napped after that. Zacharias had to ask what charades was at this point, much to everyone's dismay and amazement.

In comparison, Zacharias' Christmas was much more similar to Ernie and Lizzie's: big meal as a family, seeing other wizarding families over the course of the few weeks.

Hannah and Susan had the best time, in Lizzie's opinion. Hogwarts had been fairly quiet but it just meant they had free reign over more of the castle than usual, and less people to nearly walk into whilst going from place to place. On top of that, they had a good amount of snow, and the Christmas roast sounded divine: a hundred fat, roast turkeys, mountains of roast and boiled potatoes, platter of fat chipolatas, tureens of buttered peas, silver boats of thick, rich gravy and cranberry sauce. Lizzie made a mental note to stay at Hogwarts over Christmas next year.

"Dumbledore ended up with a flowered bonnet from the crackers," Hannah was saying.

"I think he swapped it with someone, but it looked quite nice on him," Susan finished.

"Your Christmas sounds like it was better than mine," Justin said, looking pretty down about it.

"Justin, don't be stupid, it was just different to yours, and we didn't get to see our families at all," Susan said, poking his cheek with her finger.

"That's true," Justin shrugged.

"I'll take the lack of family," Lizzie grinned, "sounds pretty great to me."

They all laughed, even Ernie for a few seconds until he realised that he classed as Lizzie's family and gave a shout. This, of course, made them all laugh harder than ever.

"Did you see much of Draco over the holidays?" Susan asked. The girls were in their dormitory by this time and having a private catch up before bed.

"A little, why are you giving me that look?" Lizzie replied, rolling her eyes at Susan.

"Can you two just admit you have feelings for each other?"

"No, because there aren't any feelings other than ones of friendship."

"Did you really just say that?" Hannah said, staring at Lizzie in disbelief.

"See! Hannah knows!" Susan said, a triumphant grin on her face.

"So, Hannah is judging Lizzie for saying the words 'other than ones of friendship'" Hannah grinned at them both.

"But do you agree there are feelings that should be admitted?" Susan pressed.

"I think Lizzie is stubborn, and Draco sounds stubborn, and if they're in denial then they will be in denial for a very long time."

Lizzie threw her arms in the air in frustration, "unbelievable."

"You are stubborn," Hannah smiled.

"I am aware of that," Lizzie huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.

"At least you admit it."

"Whatever," Lizzie laughed, walking over to her bed.

"Lizzie?" Susan's voice called out to her across their (not very big) dormitory.

"Yeah?" Lizzie looked over at her as she pulled back her quilt, ready to get into bed.

"I'm glad you're back, it's been weird not having you in the room."

"I agree," Hannah said, moving over to her bed.

"Thanks," Lizzie said, feeling genuinely touched. "I reckon I'll stay here next Christmas."

"You think?"

"I can't hack my parents; I don't want to deal with it all over again."

"That's fair enough," Hannah said, and Susan nodded in agreement.

"What happened with presents?" Lizzie wondered aloud.

"They were at the foot of our bed when we woke up, ones from home and everything," Susan answered.

"So there really isn't any need to go home, you don't miss out on anything?"

"Apart from seeing family."

"I'll survive."

The girls all laughed. Lizzie had missed this; Ernie was great but the girls were, well, girls. They just connected on a whole other level to the way she and Ernie did, and that was mainly just a twin thing.

"Night, you guys," Hannah said, blowing out the candle by her bed.

"Night," Susan said, doing the same.

"Sleep well," Lizzie said, taking her turn to extinguish the candle and plunge the room in darkness.