A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! Or, if you don't celebrate, I hope you're having a happy holiday!
I have literally spent almost every waking moment scribbling down this chapter or typing it up these last few days. Over half of it will have been written at obscene hours in the morning, I know I was up until 2 o'clock last night attempting to get it finished for you all. As a result, I'm not very happy with the quality of writing, it's a bit jerky, but at least it's written and up here! This is unbeta'd and probably riddled with typos and odd commas. My apologies.
Ironically, it's been two years today since I first updated this fic. I've taken my time, no wonder the beginning chapters of this are so bad!
I hope you all have a great day tomorrow and boxing day and that you appreciate this nightmare of a chapter as it's the last one in this part of the story (I will be putting a long note as a chapter 50 to explain what's going to happen next though, exciting things hopefully!). Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, (I couldn't believe it when I realised this story had over 200 reviews, I was so happy!) especially to all those who've pm'd me at some point, it's been really great talking to you all!
Enjoy.
24th Dec
Mistletoe
10:00pm
Everyone is drunk. See, when I say drunk, you might be thinking: had a few drinks. No. My whole family, with the exception of Marlene who is in bed, are DRUNK. Mum has stopped cooking and is waltzing around the room with my uncle while dad keeps changing the radio station between BWB1 and Non-Stop Weird Sisters. When Weird Sisters comes on all the older family members make a unanimous "Awwwwwww!" noise like a little child being told they can't have their way. It was only funny at first and I really wish dad would just leave Weird Sisters on. Sophie is taking Marlene to bed. Sophie has been taking Marlene to bed for approximately 2 hours which probably means she's passed out somewhere. I can't find it in me to care and everyone else is too drunk to notice. She's been the worst yet today, I haven't been able to explain properly to Lily how WRONG her behaviour towards Padfoot is by letter, even Uncle Articus (not her dad) picked up on it. He called her a cougar and she almost cried. I love my Uncle.
He's just been trying to get outside through the window to "sleep in the snow" and it was up to Sirius and I, being the least intoxicated there, to help him back into his chair.
"Let me out! I'm a Hippogriff!"
"No Uncle, you're drunk." He looked rather put out as I sat him back down.
"No, I'm drunk!"
But yes, Sophie. Every time I look in her direction she is staring at Sirius and attempting to undress him with her eyes. Or, if he says the slightest thing to anyone, especially me, she stares and them as if they need to apologise. She's nearly 20 and he's just turned 17, and he has the mental age of a 7 year old at the most inconvenient of times and he's stubborn and far too intelligent for his own good because really, shouldn't that grey matter have gone to someone who would use it wisely? She knows nothing about him except that she finds him attractive and that he's James' best friend. It's just not right.
I'm not sure why Sirius is as sober as he is tonight. He and James nicked a bottle of firewhiskey and Sirius had half a glass, I had one, before letting Sophie and James split the bottle. James is hammered. He is so lucky that mum and dad are just as bad so they haven't noticed. He keeps walking into the room and asking Sirius what he's done with the 'thing'. Padfoot says he has no idea what he's talking about but he's had James wandering all around the house looking for it before, with a grin, assuring James that "It's alright mate, I've got it." I don't know what's going on between them, but Sirius is being alright company tonight, like he is at Hogwarts. I think it's because Sophie's not present. I wish he was this happy and . . . nice . . . all the time. We've just been talking about when we apparated into Lily's living room to check she was alive. She nearly killed us all.
I tried to explain to her family that it was because Lily hadn't been replying but then that bitch Petunia started screaming and my Uncle Articus (because he insisted on coming) nearly set himself on fire by poking an electric socket. Mrs Evans was really nice about it all though, she made us all a cup of tea and I could see her eyeing up James and mouthing things over to Lily. As if she hasn't been told about this 'toe-rag' Potter at Hogwarts who fancies her daughter and has an amazing twin! I am a little worried though, Mr Evans, although he accepted my apologies about the car and invited me to go smell the lemon-y freshness now (it smelt great), I think he likes James more than me. Lily's face when James and her dad got talking. I never did find out when Lily hadn't really been replying, she just said she'd been out and about and hadn't got round to it. Her parents said nothing about this.
I'm going to do some washing up because I really cannot take anymore of this drunkenness. My grandfather is singing, well, he's trying to. I know mum's left all the plates and pans from dinner to soak before she dealt with them tomorrow.
Small favours, eh?
11:00pm
Oh bother. Bugger and bother. This is it, my life is over now. I cannot face my family, drunk or sober, again. Not when they seem intent on asking the most awkward and untimely questions imaginable!
Merlin! I was fine doing the washing up. Just fine. In fact, loathe as I am to admit it, I was actually enjoying myself. I like washing up, it makes your hands all warm and I was planning on leaving the drying and putting away to someone with a wand anyway. Then Sirius decided to join me.
I heard him coming, it's impossible to sneak up on anyone in this house, creaky floorboards will be creaky floorboards, and his reflection appeared in the window above my shoulder.
"Hey." Was all he said. I finished washing the final plate and wiped my hands.
"Hi." He was stood quite close to me. The distance between us was so little I was sure I would have been on the receiving end of one of Sophie's best glares had she been skulking about. Sirius jerked his head up a fraction of an inch and I looked up. He'd managed to levitate a sprig of mistletoe between us and the smirk said it all – Broom Cupboard flashbacks.
"No." I said. Honestly, I tried to shove him away and he moved back a bit before leaning in closer. "Merlin Sirius, no! Don't you dare kiss me." My threat didn't seem to deter him that much. We'd talked about this after his birthday, no more kissing.
"But you have to kiss under mistletoe – it's tradition."
"Take your sodding mistletoe off to Sophie then!" I felt all the more outraged as he laughed.
"I don't want to kiss Sophie, I want to kiss you." Whatever odd palpitations I was having were surely alcohol induced. The blushing, that too must be the firewhiskey's fault.
"Well," I tried to push him away again but he resisted. "It's not all about what you want is it?"
"No, not at all." He smirked and I tried to bite his hand as he steadied my head with it.
"Sirius." I warned him as he leant in.
"Shhh, it's Christmas." I opened my mouth to protest and he took advantage while he could.
It wasn't so bad, as kisses go. I couldn't help remembering how Freeth looked while she attacked him and kept my hands at my sides the whole time. It wasn't like the event in the Broom Cupboard, it was slow and gentle and I also couldn't help thinking of the unfinished letter to Gid that was in my beside drawer, hidden underneath last week's copy of Quidditch Weekly. Emphasis on the was. The git had to ruin it by breaking the kiss apart and staring at me with no joke in his grey eyes.
"Your letter had an accident." I blinked, he went on, "Er, with an incendio charm." I suddenly grasped what he was talking about and then he backed away. I was speechless. "I was just looking at the quidditch magazine and I saw it."
"So you burnt it?"
"I, what? Yes?"
"WHY?"
"Because, he's not . . ." He blanched as I pulled out my wand. "Come on Billie, if you wanted to talk to him that bad that letter would have already been sent." I lowered my wand, I had been putting off finishing the letter but surely it was my decision whether it ever got finished? Sirius had gotten ten times more confusing in the last ten minutes. "Don't be mad, please." I didn't assure him that I wouldn't be mad, I still feel angry just thinking about it. But, it's Christmas and I always let him get away with far more than I should. And I wasn't about to give Sophie the satisfaction of us falling out.
"Don't ever burn my letters again." I prodded him in the chest with my wand and he nodded. "And don't kiss me either!"
"No burning, no kissing."
"I swear you've promised me both of those things before." Sirius merely grinned as I pushed him back towards the living room. Probably well aware of how lightly he got off.
It was fine, it would have been fine. Maybe slightly awkward at times in the future when I hear people mention mistletoe or a fan club member decides to ravish him in the corridor, fine. But my family were so drunk. They seemed to awaken from a stupor when Sirius and I walked in (we couldn't go upstairs, you can't kiss your best friend and then just go upstairs because that would just be awkward and he's really done it now, as if the broom cupboard wasn't enough.) Mum and my uncle had stopped dancing, thank goodness, and my dad had turned the radio to a low buzz.
"Billie! Sirius! Sirius! Billie! Sillie – Billius!" He greeted and nine drunken faces smiled at us. It was creepy actually.
"Billie come here! Sit!" My granddad Charlus (Dad's dad – James is overjoyed he didn't get called Charlus too) ordered. I shared a glance with Sirius and after a silent battle of wills (we couldn't exactly go upstairs), he joined me by the fire. "Your mum tells me that you . . ." He paused to find the next word. "You . . . have NO BOYFRIEND!" The whole room was looking at me, Sirius was bloody smirking as if he was proud of the fact that he'd just kissed me for no real reason and made what would have been an awkward conversation cringe-worthy and my lips burnt, another firewhiskey side effect.
"Er, no I don't."
"Why not?" My grandmother asked, shocked. Because no doubt at my age she was either already married or engaged. I flushed and Sirius looked at me expectantly. I thought I could really stick the knife in about the letter burning.
"Well my boyfriend left school so we split up, I saw him a couple of days ago actually." Sirius stiffened next to me and the air around us grew tense.
"Why didn't you get a new boyfriend?" My grandad asked but he continued before I could answer, "Sirius! There's a good looking lad. Sirius, Billie wants to go out with you!" And how an 80 year old can cause so much awkwardness between two teenagers is beyond me. Sirius cleared his throat. Possibly in shock, probably in amusement.
"I'm not sure she does sir."
"She does! She told me!" My dad piped in with his LIES, slander and LIES.
"What? Dad!"
"She does." My dad repeated, sounding oddly mournful and far too sure of what he was accusing me of. I was blushing and a quick glance towards Sirius told me he was pretty red-faced too.
"Billie! You have to tell S-So-Sophie to stop flirting with your man!" My Uncle Articus began to squawk with laughter and the rest of the adults joined in. I buried my head in my hands.
"Really, she doesn't have to say anything-" Sirius began but I cut him off.
"-Because we're not going out and I don't fancy him!"
"She does!" My dad insisted and proceeded to ignore my protestations. "Hey Billie!" He continued the drunken lunacy, "I heard that Sirius likes you too!" Sirius is not react as smoothly as one might of expected. Instead, he turned a radishy colour and left me to defend our dignities. I growled.
"Dad, shut up. You're drunk It's not like you'd even let me go out with Sirius if I did like him, I had to keep Gid a secret for six months before I told you so you didn't completely ban me from seeing him!" My uncle started laughing again, it was so obvious he had never had children, and dad gulped like a fish. "I'm going to bed and I really would hope that you are too drunk to remember this in the morning!" I then did my absolute best teenage strop walk out of the room. Sirius mumbled some excuse and rushed out after me. He was caught between a hoard of drunken rocks and a very tired, hormonal hard place. He let out a clipped yelp as I grabbed his wrist in the dark and pulled him up the stairs.
"Well done you stupid idiot!" I dropped his wrist and hit him on the chest.
"What?"
"Making things awkward!" I hit him again in embarrassment and anger.
"How? By kissing you?" I shushed him violently and this time he grabbed my wrists to stop me from hitting him. I anybody decided to use the stairs we would be in a very compromising situation indeed.
"Shh! Yes by kissing me!"
"How did I know that the moment we entered the room they were going to start picking on us?"
"Well, if you hadn't of kissed me we could have gone upstairs!" I pointed out obviously and he chuckled.
"We couldn't go upstairs in case I had my wicked way with you?"
"Merlin forbid." I wasn't joking, but it felt like it. Sirius smirked and moved in closer like he had in the kitchen. I began to think that perhaps he'd had quite a bit more than that half a glass of firewhiskey, but I couldn't smell it on him. Maybe he just felt intent on ruining our friendship by treating me like he used to treat the girls he'd go out with for a week and then dump.
"If I push you you'll fall down the stairs and die."
"Don't push me then." I wondered if he'd used a charm to mask the smell of the alcohol but his eyes, they weren't bloodshot or blurred in the slightest.
"No kissing!" I reminded him of his promise and felt him pause a second before sighing and wrapping me in a hug. I breathed a sigh of relief and allowed myself to relax a bit. He still smelt like dog and those old cigarettes, just like Hogwarts-Sirius, who I have decided I like a lot more than home-Sirius.
"Sirius?" Somebody slurred at the top of the stairs and it was a good job we were hugging because otherwise he would have fallen down the stairs and died as he jumped. It was Sophie.
"Oh, hi Soph." Padfoot jumped back so there was about a metre's gap in between us. Nice, Padfoot, real nice. Also, I do not feel I will ever be able to explain how angry (betrayed) I feel when he calls her Soph. NONE OF US LIKE HER SIRIUS GET WITH IT, MERLIN. Her blurry eyes, she had been drinking, lots, rolled over us both and she frowned, her drunken brain trying to process what she was seeing.
"Where did you go?" She asked, deciding to ignore my presence completely. The bitch, I'm going to have to put a slug in her bed, or a rat, or a spider, or Snape.
"I've just been, erm, washing up." She grinned horribly and nearly fell down the stairs herself.
"You know what, Sirius? Siri? You are really hot! Like, really, really hot." I stifled a groan as she literally flung herself on to him. Ok, she tripped down the last step, but it had the same effect. Because she'd said it, I noticed Sirius didn't look too bad, not in the dark anyway.
"Oh yeah?" Sirius puffed out his chest a little, voice dropping by about an octave and Sophie giggled.
"Yeah . . ." I murmured a disbelieving curse as she turned her back on me fully. "Maybe we should go somewhere quiet." It was no more than a drunken whisper in his ear but it still made me want to scream and punch her. He's seventeen for Merlin's sake! And he belongs to the Marauders, not some stupid McKinnon haired (although why I could have had her and my mum's McKinnon hair instead of my dad's Potter hair is BEYOND ME), boring as they come, Arithmacer who works in Nepal!
I did it, I glared at him, properly glared, and I think he got the message.
"Look, Soph-ie, Sophie, I think you're a little too drunk to be making these decisions."
Rightly bloody so too.
Sophie is passed out on the bed next to me, snoring worse than Peter with a cold. Hopefully her Christmas will be ruined by the killer hangover she'll have tomorrow – I just don't like her, ok? Sirius has just disappeared off to his bedroom after a quiet goodnight and an exceedingly odd sort of arm tap. It's Christmas Day tomorrow and I am unsure if I can deal with this tense atmosphere, I wish I were at Hogwarts right now. I may be lonely but there's only so much a girl can take in a night. I mean, Sirius kissed me without good reason and under a debatably small alcohol influence, when he could have kissed the perfect and completely willing Sophie, I had to endure the family's idea of entertainment and then there was that thing on the stairs where I'm pretty sure Sirius would have tried to kiss me again had it not been for me telling him not to.
Why, Padfoot? Why are you being so strange?
I'm going to kip with James because I know I'll never get to sleep in here with Sophie snorting away like that and now I've wished Snape into her bed, I don't want to wake up with him there do I? Plus, I'm sure it's immoral to be thinking about your shared best mate kissing you when you're sharing a bed with your brother and after he unwraps his present tomorrow he's not going to let me anywhere near his bed – James is going to hate me for a while. Might as well make the most of it.
25th Dec
11:15am
Just and I really mean just, got a moment free to write. It's been manic this morning, everybody getting up, breakfasting, unwrapping presents at the slowest rate possible and then Mum had James and I straight in the kitchen and has spent nearly all morning grumbling about how he is refusing to talk to me and about why do I find it so funny?
See, it's James, Sirius and my tradition to buy each other the most impractical and stupid thing we can find to avoid any jealousy over gifts like there was first year when my quidditch book from Sirius was better than James'. I got Sirius a Celestina Warbeck, limited edition, singing bath mat that wails when you step it to get in the bath/shower and only stops when you get out. His hatred of his present was nothing compared to James' reaction when he saw his.
Everyone was opening their presents happily when James screamed. Mum and dad were embracing over the new necklace dad had bought her and there was a generally content atmosphere. Sophie was sat at the other end of the room to Sirius, James and I – that helped a great deal.
"Here, Jamesie, this is with love from me to you." I said as I passed over the oddly pointy package. He gave me a slightly nervous look but grinned as I pulled on my I LOVE JAMES POTTER T-shirt over my other top. He's told me to take it off four times since the present has been opened.
"Thanks Bills! This feels weird." Sirius quirked up an eyebrow at me but I ignored him in favour of watching James. Sirius hasn't said much to me this morning, choosing instead to clamber into James' bed with me and James and drive us to insanity with his 'original' Christmas carols. He tore off a corner of the wrapping and felt inside. "Huh," He smiled childishly, "It's furry."
"Get on with it Prongs." Sirius looked about as impatient as I felt. James withdrew his hand and ripped the wrapping paper off cleanly. There was a short pause as his eyes bugged behind his glasses and then he screamed. A real, girly, scream.
"James!" Mum leant over, obviously concerned, everyone in the room was watching and Sirius and I collapsed with laughter.
"AAHH! OH MY GOD! BILLIE, NO. OH MAN! GET IT AWAY FROM ME!" Sirius was now howling with mirth, banging his fists against the floor to express what he couldn't say with words. "BILLIE YOU ARE HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE!"
In the end, the rather handsome stuffed stag head had to be removed up to my room. Sirius was cackling all the way up as he gave me a hand and on the way back we had to take a break on the stairs to avoid being told off if we went back in the room still laughing. Sirius slung an arm around my shoulders and although I was a little unsure of what the hell he was going to do after last night, I managed not to tense up too much and he pretended not to notice, so I guess we're back to ignoring when not-strictly-platonic things happen as a result of Sirius. He confided in me that he's never had a Christmas like this one. I studied his face and saw he was, indeed, being serious. No decorations in every nook and cranny, the family round for more than just a few painful hours, presents – "meaningful presents, not just the best money can buy." I didn't know what to say so I wriggled in closer and let the loose arm on my shoulder squeeze me into a hug.
"Are you sure you want another one?" I joked as we pulled apart. He didn't really reply.
When we got back into the living room wrapping paper was being levitated into piles to be vanished and James nearly took me out with the large ball of his as he moved it to the pile. Mum commanded I take my pile of presents upstairs and then come back down to 'do the veg'. So I whipped my stuff upstairs and have been preparing vegetables (in between laughing at the pale, drawn face of my traumatised little stag) ever since.
"Take that T-Shirt off Billie, you don't love me."
My Uncle Articus has been making up for last night (which all the adults have either forgotten or are not mentioning, I'm leaning on forgotten, my Dad loves to annoy me) by winding James up, popping his head around the kitchen door and asking him if he needs someone else to baste the turkey for him. "We're not going to be hearing screams of terror once the turkey becomes stuffed are we?"
Once the vegetables were done I was told to scarper so dad could get to work on his profiteroles and, instead of going to find Sirius and Sophie, although Marlene did shout their location as I went passed the room she was playing in, I decided to come up here to write and inspect my presents.
I'm not going to be childish and compare what I got to what James got. No point. Mum and dad bought me some new film for my old wizarding camera and a really cool photo album, where the pictures appear in the book as soon as they're taken. It's great, now I can document the second half of my last year at Hogwarts in pictures as well as in my diary. My Uncle and Auntie McKinnon, on my mum's side, bought me a huge jar of Bertie Botts and an Arithmacy Higher Level textbook (funny), my grandparents gave me a new England Quidditch hoodie that was so obviously picked by my dad it's untrue. Uncle Articus gave me a selection of NEWT level books on all the subjects needed to become an auror and tips on how to prepare yourself for the training afterwards. "I know it's not very fun, but we need some new talent in the auror department, we're getting too old and too tired for that kind of work." I felt really proud that he thought I could be a "new talent".
Lily owled over her gift, "A Book of Spells and Potions for the Easily Bored" it was a slightly insulting present but some of the hexes look great! Remus bought me a pair of matching pyjamas and Pete's owl arrived quite early this morning bringing us each a mound a mound of Honeydukes' Best. I obviously got the T-shirt from James and, keeping tradition, Sirius gave me a jar, just a random apothecary jar. It's blue.
Hopefully mum will give me a few more minutes to scribble some thank you notes to my friends, but I'd best not push time and get started now.
11:00pm
Sirius has broken the tradition. Our tradition that we only buy each other crap? He's gone and thrown that right out of the metaphorical window. I was feeling a little cold downstairs so I decided to go up and get my jumper from under my quilt. As I lifted the quilt up, another present was revealed. Jumper forgotten, I sat down on my bed and carefully removed the scarlet wrapping paper to find out what it was and who it was from. There wasn't a tag, but it was in my bed, so that made it mine.
It was a book. Well, a diary to be exact. The cover was made of something I suspect to be dragon hide and it's a deep maroon colour that almost glimmers in the light. It puts this old thing to shame anyway – it's beautiful and it seems Padfoot does have taste.
I lifted open the cover and was about to have a long flick through the pages, (the paper is quality, the diary must have cost more than a few galleons!) when a long note on the first page caught my eye. I'd recognise Sirius' upper class handwriting anywhere.
Billie,
Merry Christmas. I hope you've had a great year and that next one is even better. I know I'm supposed to keep the tradition and only buy you something pointless lest either one of you Potter twins gets grumpy but I saw this and thought of you and I noticed you were running out of pages in your other diary. Please though, don't mention it to James, I haven't bought him anything nice and we both know he'll rage if he finds out.
I'm too proud to say it to your face but thank you for everything you've done for me this year, it hasn't always been an easy one but it's been great. Thank you. And, I guess I should apologise for the incident in the kitchen last night. Not that that there's anything to apologise for, really.
I hope you like the diary, have a great Christmas and I'll do my best to make sure next year is as great as this one has been. Remember, I'm always here when you need me, no matter how much of an 'idiot' I can be at times. Lots of love, Padfoot.
I couldn't help grinning. That made it two years that I got a better present than James – not that I can imagine James pouring his thoughts into a diary. I'd love to have access to it if he did! Not only that, but the message was nothing short of adorable and it's nice to know that he genuinely appreciates my company and help. I should really tell him that he's apologising for making things awkward, last night and however many times in the future, but I think the kiss has been put to bed. Hopefully.
I made my way back downstairs, still smiling, after concealing the diary in my school trunk. Sirius was the only one who looked up when I re-entered and I gave him the warmest grin I could muster before joining him and Sophie on the sofa.
"Thanks." I breathed, nudging him slightly with my leg. He just smiled.
A/N: Well there you go, that's all there is until possibly January time. I did try to warn you how bad I am at writing kiss scenes and there was almost two in that chapter! Please review and let me know what you think, this story has about as many words as the half blood prince so my hat goes off to all you who've read it all! Merry Christmas!
