Christmas, as always, was my favourite time of year and when we woke up one morning to find snow up to our waists, I wasted no time in using the entire weekend to thoroughly enjoy it. Fred and George thought it was hilarious to bewitch snowballs to follow Quirrell around and attack the back of his head. The poor bloke was jumpy at the best of times, and this really didn't help a lot, but it was funny, though we got into trouble for it. "But I didn't do it!"
"But you didn't discourage it either, Miss Black. Detention, for all three of you." I groaned but accepted it, throwing a dark look at the boys before sending a couple of enchanted snowmen to race after them and attack them, see how they liked it. After the initial fright, they of course found it hilarious, and we spent the rest of the day skating on the frozen Black Lake. Since Mr and Mrs Weasley were going to Romania to visit Charlie for Christmas this year, all the boys were staying at Hogwarts so after receiving permission from my parents, I decided to stay too in order to keep them company, and I was curious to see what Christmas at Hogwarts was like.
Of course there were all the usual decorations with the twelve Christmas trees, the floating lights, holly and mistletoe everywhere and tiny icicles glinted as they caught the light, always making me smile whenever I entered the Great Hall. Deciding it was time for a festive prank, I set up traps all over the castle with the Night Owl symbol to stamp my work after I was done. One of my favourites was setting up a charm where you could only pass under a certain doorway into a classroom if two people kissed underneath the mistletoe, which of course embarrassed a lot of people but it was entertaining to watch their faces turn red as two people always had to pluck up the courage to do so. What was even better was the fact that Flitwick actually struggled to get rid of this charm, so it stuck for a while. Another one was where I transfigured a bunch of robins to fly around the castle and chirp the tunes to Christmas carols loudly in someone's ear and they wouldn't leave until the student or teacher sang with them.
Dumbledore was always happy to join in the birds, laughing softly as several perched on his shoulders, hands, fingers as well as his hat, singing along with him which earned a cheery applause from the students in the middle of one of our last dinners together as a school before the holidays. The best, however, was when a flock of robins attached themselves to Professor Snape, singing at him and the longer he ignored them, the louder they got. He tried to vanish them but that only made them multiply until eventually they were screaming 'God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs' at the top of their lungs and he begrudgingly sang a few words with them which made them all them quieten down. They refused to relent until he'd gotten through an entire verse, whereby Dumbledore then politely clapped his hands together as most of the rest of the students sniggered at Snape's clear dissatisfaction. "Seriously, how do you do all that?" Fred whispered to me quietly under the murmur of the crowds who were now fixated on the fact that they'd heard Snape singing, so I shrugged.
"I get bored." Christmas morning I woke up early, yawning sleepily then went all jittery as I eagerly sat up to see all the presents wrapped in a multitude of different colours and patterns of wrapping paper stacked neatly at the end of my bed. Leaping up I grabbed them all carefully, making those I couldn't carry float along behind me as I dashed in my pyjamas and dressing gown across to the boy's dormitories where I raced up the stairs then burst into Fred and George's room, singing at the top of my lungs. "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" Waking them up properly with a magic snowball to each of their faces, making them yelp from the cold and for a few moments, there was a general confusion of fighting and tumbling together as we all wrestled until finally, we decided that presents were more important.
Mum and dad had sent their usual school supplies to top up those that might be running low, then added a twinkly new witch's hat of dark blue dotted with bright stars that actually showed the real star formations, so useful for Astronomy classes. They'd also stocked me up on my favourite sweets and chocolates, some new advanced books full of spells I couldn't wait to try out, and a charm bracelet that would also tell me the time and remind me of things coming up that day. Brilliant.
Mrs Weasley had also sent her usual hand knitted jumper of sapphire blue, because she says it brings out my eyes, with a silver 'E' knitted boldly on the front and I immediately pulled it on, amazed that she always managed to make it fit without ever even measuring me. There was also fudge and gingerbread this year, carefully iced by hand. I'll have to thank her again, she's outdone herself once more. I hope she likes her present I sent to her, the newest book in the Lockhart series. I wasn't all that interested in his works but Mrs Weasley adored him, so I know the book would be well given.
In any case, happily munching on biscuits I moved onto my other presents. One was from Ginny, who had rather sweetly sent me flowers that she must have picked and woven into a crown herself then asked her mum to preserve with magic, so giving the daisies a quick sniff I then put the crown on top of my new hat so that they nestled neatly around the brim and ignored Fred and George's teasing. They were wearing their own jumpers too, a pile of presents now unwrapped around them though it seems they had saved mine for last, which of course was a bunch of joke supplies. "Brilliant Mia, you always know the way to our hearts."
"Yeah, either through your stomach or through your sense of humour. I thought we'd shake things up a bit this year with the fireworks, think this will push Filch over the edge?" I asked as I tapped the firecrackers I'd purchased, intending them for new year's eve. "Maybe we'll be lucky and this time he'll just up and quit."
"Nah, I reckon he'd haunt this place as a ghost, we'll never be rid of him." George disagreed, grinning as he rifled through his supplies. "You opened our present yet?"
"It's not going to explode on me is it?"
"Now, would we ever do such a thing to our dearest, most darling and specialist friend?" Feigning innocence and grinning despite himself, I rolled my eyes and eyeballed the last present I had, which was misshapen with wrapping paper which seemed to have been glued together for lack of tape. I wouldn't put it past Fred and George to make a joke out of this, in fact in first year they did. The moment I'd opened up the present and lifted the box, it had exploded in my face with a purple powder that stained everything. I was purple for a week before it finally faded away as I was too embarrassed to go to Madame Pomfrey, or worse, Snape, for a potion to get rid of it. A cleansing potion should have cleared it up, but there was no way I was going to show up on his doorstep whilst I was purple.
Gingerly opening it up, I tilted the top towards the twins so that if they had set up a joke, they would get the full weight of it but thankfully, when I pulled off the last layer of paper, all I held in my hands was a book. "Oh thank Merlin, because if you'd turned me blue or some other colour this year, I would have wrung your necks." I breathed with relief then looked at the book in question. It was a thick leather bound photo book, and on the front was my symbol of the Night Owl, making me arch an eyebrow curiously.
Opening up the pages, I then found photos of all my mischief, from the very first day until the most recent, with handwritten comments and scrawls from numerous different Gryffindors who signed their names at the bottom, mostly saying how much they look forward to a Night Owl prank and wish there were more. "You guys did this for me?"
"Lee chipped in. We thought that if we left that in the common room and people can add to it, it'll be a true memoir by the end of our school career. Great idea, right?" Smiling brightly I launched myself at the two of them and tackled them with a hug, already having decided this was my favourite Christmas present of them all. "Alright, alright, none of this mushy girly nonsense, I thought you were better than that." Although trying to push me off, the both of them were smiling happily and Fred's ears had turned a little pinker than usual, making me grin again.
"Come on, let's go pester Ron and see Harry. I bet our baby brother would love to see our Mia."
"Oh yes, forget us. He's really developed a strong crush for our dearest Mia. Snotty nosed brat should learn she's off limits." Rolling my eyes I berated them for being mean and said that Ron would grow out of it, but seeing as I was the only non-Weasley girl he'd come across since he was nine, it was understandable he'd developed a sort of infatuation. To further my point, I reminded George that his first crush had been a sixth year whilst we were just first years, and that Fred's had been a random witch we'd seen in Diagon Alley last summer who had asked him for directions and he'd become so flustered and red, he couldn't talk.
So all of us in our Weasley jumpers headed to Ron and Harry's room, bursting in unceremoniously and called out our 'merry Christmas' as loudly and obnoxiously as we could. "Hey look, Harry's got a Weasley jumper." And so he had, a handsome emerald green one which complimented him rather well. Fred and George had blue like me, only theirs was lighter than mine and as I stood in the middle, we all scrutinised the jumper as Harry blushed slightly.
"Harry's is better than ours, though. She obviously makes more of an effort if you're not family." To that end, Fred pointedly looked at mine as I grinned. George demanded to know why Ron wasn't wearing his as I encouraged Harry to put his on whilst Ron mumbled about hating the colour maroon.
"You haven't got a letter on yours." George noted with a quirk of his eyebrow as he stood on my right and Fred on my left, the both of them now a good several inches taller than me. "I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name, but we're not stupid. We know we're called Gred and Forge."
"Don't be ridiculous Forge," Fred immediately answered, putting his hand firmly on my shoulder as I rolled my eyes. "Mum gave Mia a letter too and we're always together, so clearly she wants to remind us that our collective name is 'Gef'." He insisted, gesturing the letters on our jumpers and the three of us grinned. These idiots are adorable sometimes. At that point Percy came down to demand what all the noise was all about and the moment the boys saw his jumper strewn over his arm, they lunged for him and demanded he wore it.
"If you boys are done unwrapping presents, it's time for breakfast!" Reaching out to pull both Ron and Harry from their beds, we went down to the common room where breakfast had already been served. Since it was pretty much only us in Gryffindor tower, we had the place to ourselves. "Now don't eat too much or you won't want dinner later, and trust me you do not want to be overly full for a Christmas feast, I imagine it's even better than every other feast we've had combined." I chattered away excitedly, smiling broadly as I popped another present each into Harry and Ron's hands then called over my shoulder to ask Percy if he'd opened mine yet as he was still struggling with the twins hanging off him.
"O-Oh yes, thank you Euphemia it was just what I needed. Sorry I didn't get you anything…I'll be sure to return to gesture." He said to me as he fixed his glasses properly in place but I waved it off, assuring him that it was no trouble and looked back to Ron and Harry. Ron had already ripped off his wrapping paper to reveal a collection of Chudley Cannons memorabilia, his favourite quidditch team and he was grinning from ear to ear, no long red faced from embarrassment but rather pink from excitement.
"Thanks Mia! You're the best!"
"Of course I am. Harry? You can open yours now if you like, no need to stand on ceremony." I encouraged as he looked down at his own gift, seemingly surprised that I would even think of him until he then looked up at me with those pretty green eyes of his behind the rounded glasses that looked as if they'd seen better days.
"Is this really for me?" For a moment I was confused, but then Ron tugged on my sleeve and pulled me down to whisper in my ear that Harry hadn't expected any Christmas presents at all because his family, the Dursleys, never got him anything. Horrified at the thought of waking up on Christmas morning to no presents or seasonal joy at all, I insisted that Harry open up his present as Ron then told me more about his strict aunt, bossy uncle and horrible cousin who generally made Harry's life miserable. Listening to some of the stories Ron had heard from Harry, I already decided that these muggles sounded like the worst sort there was. I mean, who could treat Harry so poorly when he was such a sweet, nice boy? Perhaps I'll have to show up one day and give them all a fright to temper their manners, or at least send my parents to do it. They can be quite forceful when they wanted.
"Wow!" Harry's eyes widened as he looked at his own quidditch set, a foldable model of a quidditch pitch with flying players similar to the one Wood used during practice to show us tactics and manoeuvres. In addition, I'd also given Harry a book on quidditch which had a brilliant section on famous seekers, as well as a new pair of goggles which I had charmed to help him see perfectly whilst out on the pitch no matter the weather, and a flying snitch of his own which fluttered around his head.
"It's not a real snitch, so it won't fly off on you. It won't go more than ten feet away." I promised him as he beamed, looking exceedingly happy and I felt rather proud of myself. The boy could barely get a word out he was so overwhelmed, trying to thank me and apologising that he hadn't gotten me anything and offered all kinds of things from his own presents such as chocolate frogs, but I insisted it was my pleasure. "Come on, let's eat! Fred, George, leave Percy alone or I'll shove these sausages up your noses." Everyone thoroughly enjoyed breakfast and we spent the morning going over our presents and playing games, until finally the feast we had all been waiting for arrived.
There were more students staying from the other houses, but not enough to warrant four long tables so we had just the one, but it was laden with all the food you could ever want to eat. The hall was as spectacular as usual, however I had made a surprise for everyone and with a discreet wave of my wand, numerous ice sculptures burst into the hall and skated around for everyone to enjoy, dancing prettily and the teachers, particularly Dumbledore, clapped in appreciation. There were skating couples, a few angels, unicorns, cherubs and a few other ice statues and they all moved fluidly, making me smile.
The teachers asked if McGonagall or Flitwick were responsible for the display of the moving statues, but neither of them had a clue what was going on. The food was delicious and the crackers were the most fun. When I pulled one with George it exploded, showering us both with a glittery pink puff of cloud before our presents and hats popped out. Oddly, I received an electric blue wig and a Christmas firework, so I let it off towards the ceiling and it exploded with a golden shower over us all as we eagerly enjoyed the festivities. After pudding, I flicked my wand behind my back and the ice sculptures all burst into silvery white snow and an illuminated owl flew circles over our heads which made the other students all chatter excitedly, though Filch didn't seem happy at the prospect of cleaning it up afterwards.
After dinner, we proceeded with a snowball fight of epic proportions were I taught Harry and Ron how to charm their snowballs to chase after Fred and George, though they struggled with it and chose to simply stay close to me as I provided the best cover with my effortless flicks and twirls of my wand. It ended when it became too dark to see and we all dragged ourselves back to the common room, exhausted and hungry once more for supper, where I then played a game of wizard's chess with Harry on his new board after Ron defeated him, and this time he did much better as Percy wasn't trying to offer him advice.
He was too busy chasing his twin brothers around the common room since they'd stolen his prefect badge, and I laughed at the scene before me. Christmas at Hogwarts was definitely magical, and as I pulled myself up to bed I fell asleep feeling very full and contented, planning another snowball showdown tomorrow.