December 19, 2022
Going home for the holidays wasn't as thrilling to Hugo as it was to some of the other Weasley-Potters. Almost all of them were doing something interesting over the holidays with their friends. Roxanne had her friend Alexandra staying over; James would also enjoy that, since he was close with her as well. Al and Rose were going over Leda Lestrange's house. Lily was visiting Autumn Vaisey. Louis was going to sneak over to his Muggle friend's house.
Hugo felt like he was the only one not doing anything. He knew that wasn't true - as far as he had heard, neither Lucy nor Molly had plans for the holidays besides staying home and visiting family - but it was still correct that a majority of his Hogwarts-age cousins were getting together with people outside of school; Hugo didn't have that. It wasn't that he disliked his roommates, but more that he never felt a connection with them. They were cordial enough, but Hugo could tell that he, with his history obsession and his famous family, was a bit of an outcast among the other four Hufflepuff boys.
Most of the time he was fine with that, but at this time of the year, his lack of friends was just a little more depressing. He wished that he had someone to visit, or somebody to invite over.
His mind jumped to Sylvia as he aimlessly wandered throughout the corridors. They had talked a few more times over the past month; she had asked about his war history books, and he had asked about her fashion design. It seemed to Hugo as though they were bonding over the fact that nobody else really cared about their respective projects. In the back of his mind, he couldn't help but wonder if they had progressed to the stage where they could go over each other's houses - but then he dismissed the thought. He and Sylvia were both quiet people - would either of them even take the initiative to do such a thing? Hugo liked the idea of getting together, but he couldn't picture himself actually working up the nerve to go up to her and saying, "Hey, do you want to come over during the holidays?" It seemed bold to him - it seemed like a Gryffindor thing to do.
He was so focused on his daydreaming and musing that he wasn't looking where he was going, and as a result he walked directly into Lily, who was carrying four books, each one bigger than the last. She smirked at him. "You realize you just walked right into me?"
"Er, yeah." Hugo picked up the books; they had fallen to the floor when the two of them collided. He tried not to look at the titles; knowing Lily, the books were about something just a little too close to Dark Arts for comfort. He handed them back to her. "What are these for? We leave Hogwarts the day after tomorrow."
"Exactly," she said, stuffing three of them in her bag; the fourth one couldn't fit, and she tucked it under her arm. "It's for Autumn and me. Her house is warded so that the Ministry can't detect any underage magic we do in there." She sounded far too excited about that, and Hugo repressed a shudder.
"I thought only the old houses like Malfoy Manor and Leda Lestrange's place had that sort of warding," Hugo said.
Lily shrugged. "Autumn's dad's an Unspeakable, so he knows a lot of magic that the general population doesn't know. Like that."
Hugo frowned at the mention of Autumn's father. "Lily," he said, "tell me you've given this at least some thought."
Lily raised her eyebrows. "Tell me what 'this' refers to, and I'll answer."
"If Autumn's father is an Unspeakable...that means he's at risk of being captured by the Circle. And if you're there - well, I'm sure you can only imagine what would happen if the Circle got their hands on you, the daughter of the most famous man in the Wizarding world."
Hugo swore he saw a hint of fear pass through Lily's eyes. He knew that she was well aware of what they were capable of - perhaps even more than the rest of them, if her reading material was any indication. In Hugo's opinion, Lily's knowledge of Dark Arts should only serve to make her fear them even more. The scared look was tamped down quickly, however, replaced by Lily's natural overconfidence. "Relax," she said. "The house is warded, remember? It's perfectly safe."
"Hogwarts is warded, too, and look what happened here."
Lily sighed. "Will you stop? It took me long enough to convince Mum and Dad that I would be fine going over there for a little while. Please, for the love of Merlin, don't make me hear the same thing from you, too." She shifted her bag on her shoulder; it seemed to dwarf her small frame.
Hugo decided to surrender; nagging Lily was never a very good thing. "Fine," he said, and then nodded at the book. "Don't get arrested."
"You only get arrested if you get caught," Lily said, and the two of them parted ways.
Hugo walked away, marveling at their two personalities When they were little, they - as the two Weasley-Potter children of the same age - had been forced together as playmates. But unlike Lucy and Louis, Rose and Al, or James and Roxanne, Hugo and Lily had always clashed. He was the quiet one, the laid back, easygoing one who'd rather listen to their parents tell the age-appropriate, not-too-dark war stories over and over again than play Aurors and Death Eaters or whatever the hell Lily's favorite pastime happened to be. When they reached Hogwarts, they had drifted apart even more, until they had become what Hugo saw them as now - a quiet, family-oriented historian-slash-author and a wild, sarcastic, rebellious future Auror just a little too dark to let Hugo rest easy.
He shook his thoughts of Lily out of his head; Lily, after all, was more than capable of taking care of herself, and it was probably best to let her do just that. Putting her out of his mind, he wandered around Hogwarts even more, looking for Sylvia. Hugo wanted to talk to her at least one more time before the holidays; he couldn't guarantee that he would see her on the day they actually had to leave, and tomorrow, Hugo knew, would be very busy - first classes, and then packing and the feast and everyone trying to catch up with each other before they parted, just in case they didn't see each other on the train.
It took him a while to find her, but finally he did, up in the Astronomy Tower. She was sitting on the floor, her sketchpad open on her lap, her pencil flying over the paper. It was still strange to Hugo to see someone using a pencil and paper in Hogwarts. He had seen them before - sometimes his mother used Muggle writing implements, for the sake of quickness and convenience - but almost never at school.
She looked up when he came in, and a quick, shy smile graced her features. She was a small girl, like Lily - but while Lily was a wildfire of restless, potentially-destructive energy, Sylvia was quiet, almost frail-looking and birdlike. "Hugo," she said. "I, er, didn't know you came up here."
"I was - yeah." He had initially wanted to say 'I was looking for you', but halfway through he had lost his courage, afraid that she would interpret that in the wrong way. "Er, I just wanted to say bye before the holidays. Since tomorrow'll be busy and all."
Sylvia nodded. "Happy early Christmas, Hugo."
"Happy early Christmas." Hugo smiled at her. "What are you doing for the holidays?"
She looked down, and for a moment Hugo worried he had said the wrong thing, but she just shrugged. "My parents - they're not big on celebrations. A couple of my relatives come over and we eat a bit of food on Christmas Day. My parents will buy me a couple gifts. That's about it. You?"
After that depressing tradition, Hugo hated to bring up the Weasley-Potter Christmas. All of them came, for one - until the house was crammed full of people. He had never known anyone - even Uncle Harry or Hugo's own father or Teddy, with their Auror schedules - to miss a Weasley-Potter Christmas. It was loud and boisterous as people exchanged presents, practically throwing them across the room at each other. Lily, Roxanne, and James had made a game of it - one point for each time you hit someone with a present, three points if it's a full-on hit, and five points if the victim swears. Dominique had always scorned them, but Hugo found it funny.
Almost always, there were other people over, as well - Luna and Rolf Scamander, sometimes with their twins; Neville and Hannah Longbottom; Lee and Alicia Jordan; Seamus and Parvati Finnegan, to name a few. Some Aurors had shown up occasionally, as well as Quidditch players - known by both Aunt Ginny and Freddie - and assorted Ministry people. The Weasley-Potters were popular, and it showed.
Hugo tried to tone it down as he explained to Sylvia what happened, but he could tell that it still sounded so much more exciting than hers, and that she seemed saddened to hear about it. "Sorry," he said at the end, and she waved it away.
"It's okay," she said quietly, sliding her pencil across the page and shading a dress.
"You know..." Hugo stared above her head, trying to will the courage to come to him. He pictured Lily, and James, and Roxanne, and how they were always confident - even far too confident, especially in the case of both Potter siblings. If only he could borrow just a little bit of that confidence. He tried to imagine it, a little bit of that confidence, and the words flowed from his mouth. "You could visit, if you'd like."
Technically speaking, Hugo's mum liked to have a little warning before Hugo or Rose invited people over, but Hugo had never broken that rule before, and he couldn't imagine his mum getting too angry with him. In fact, she'd probably be pleased that he had made a friend not in the family. Sylvia looked up at him, and he could see far more light in her eyes than he had before. "I'd love that," she said, and Hugo's face split into a wide grin.