Aria: Hello Everyone! Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I did plan to update more regularly recently but things didn't go to plan (literally nothing went to plan) I ended up having writer's block for at least a week or two and life decided to get in the way too so yeah. (I also had to restart this chapter 3 times before I got it the way I wanted it). But here we are now finally with the 14 chapter. Thank you to all who have read, reviewed, favourited and followed this story. The support helps. Do comment if you want to ask or tell me anything (or just PM me) :). I love this story so much and I hope you like it too.

I don't own HP.

Enjoy!

CHAPTER 14 - Christmas Part 1

- 17th of December -

It's about mid-morning as Rose received Dominique. The letter had read:

Dear Rose,

I hope you have been enjoying your holidays so far. I just acquired some rather interesting information that I had to share with you and the girls. As it turns out The Snake (you know who I mean) returned home soon after our revenge prank and her mother doesn't plan on letting her go back to Hogwarts until March (probably because she looks horribly orange at the moment). I just thought you'd like to know.

Also, as you will be arriving at The Burrow first, I expect that as a Prefect you will keep James from tapering with the food or the decorations or the brooms or the furniture or…well you get the idea. I will ask you about it when I arrive so don't forget.

Thanks, Love from

Dominique

Still as studious as ever I see, Rose thought, not that I'm going to be able to do anything to stop James.

- 18th December -

Rose and her immediate family pulled up to the Burrow in their car. Hugo was the first to jump – literally – out of the car to get his bag. Hugo in particular was always hyper-active and excited about going to the Burrow at Christmas time. Who could blame him, it was one of the merriest times in the Weasley clan – firstly because the entire Weasley-Potter clan gathered to this family reunion of sorts; secondly, the atmosphere that the house embodied at Christmas is certainly a magical one. Due to the fact that the house is not big enough to have everyone stay for a week, only the children would stay and the adults would apparate in and out – also meaning that the parents didn't have to constantly be there with the kids. Anyhow, Rose's favourite season is Christmas for a very good reason. Nana Molly makes the best food for Christmas, especially the pudding and custard – one of Rose's favourites.

By the time Rose had grabbed her luggage, Hugo was already inside scavenging for food – lately he's constantly been asking about some food related things, maybe he's going through a growing stage.

Rose walked inside and was immediately greeted by a cheery Granddad Arthur, "Rosie my dear, how are you?"

"Good Granddad, how are you?" Rose replied with a smile and a hug.

"Oh same old, I did recently find more of those muggle rubber duck though I am yet to understand what they are used for," Granddad Arthur said. He's saying that after Mya tried 4 times to explain the functions of a rubber duck – she said "it floats on the water in a bath and the kids have fun splashing it around".

Rose thought that to a kid a rubber duck would be kind of boring – if you go by Mya's explanation anyway.

Rose walked past the kitchen to greet Nana Molly – who was cooking.

"Rose dear, how have you been?" she asked while stirring a bowl full of ingredients.

"Good," Rose replied.

"I hear we're going to have a few extra guests staying over, are we?" Nana Molly asked knowingly.

"Yes, Mya and Fie are coming here the day before Christmas Eve," Rose excitedly replied. She was excited because usually Mya and Fie only dropped in on Christmas day but this year they will be staying over for three days – from the day before Christmas Eve until Christmas day.

"Oh yes and Albus is also bringing Scorpius isn't he, I haven't seen that boy in ages," Nana Molly cheerfully replied. It's funny how the Weasley-Potter clan have pretty much adopted Mya, Fie and Scorpius into the family.

Rose, however, had gladly forgotten the fact that Scorpius was coming tomorrow with the Potters – or rather she was in denial of the fact until Nana Molly reminded her. Rose thought, Oh great, I had happily forgotten he was coming, that completely ruined my mood. The only thing I can't understand is that I'm nervous, so nervous I feel sick, shouldn't I be feeling annoyed not nervous?

"Dear, why don't you put your bags upstairs and get settled it but don't take too long dinner is almost ready," Nana Molly suggested.

"Ok Nana," Rose replied and made her way upstairs to her father's old room. The walls were still covered in the Chudley Cannons posters on the walls. For the time being Rose would be in the room by herself until Mya and Fie came and the three would be sharing the room.

As far as the sleeping arrangements this is what Rose assumed: James, Fred and Louis would be sleeping in George (and Fred)'s old room; Dominique and Roxanne would be in Bill's old room; Molly, Lucy and Lily would be in Percy's old room; Albus, Hugo and Scorpius would be in Charlie's old room; Victorie and maybe one or two of her friends in Ginny's old room; which left Rose, Mya and Fie in Ron's old room.

Rose choose one of the beds in the room and left her luggage on it. She then headed down to dinner.

- After dinner -

It was dark as Rose stared up at the ceiling. Her mind was restless hence she couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep.

Oh yeah decorating will be fan-flippin-tastic as the chaos unfolds and creates the epic show down in a family Quidditch match that will involve lots of yelling and shouting. The Potters will turn up in the morning, I'd better make an attempt to foil James' plans or else Dom's going to be mad at me. Scorpius…I haven't seen him since the start of the holidays and suddenly he'll be here tomorrow…I can't sleep in or else I might forget while being half asleep, that they're here and walk around in my pajama's….I would die from embarrassment if Scorpius actually saw me in my pajama's. Wait, wait, wait….wow where was my brain going with that? And why and I thinking about that annoying, arrogant Slytherin anyway? Ugh just stop and go to sleep already. Rose thought and then finally fell asleep.

- 19th December -

Rose miraculously managed to be half awake while eating breakfast, however, a problem presented itself.

What was she going to wear? Why am I even worried about how I look? Rose thought.

Rose spent the next few minutes thinking of different clothes to wear. Idiot just wear your normal casual clothes, Rose angrily scolded herself.

She grabbed a long sleeve green top with her dark blue Weasley jumper and her black sweatpants. Rose then brushed all of the knots out of her hair and tied it back in a braid. It's about mid-morning now and they should be arriving any minute. Rose left the room and went down stairs. She had perfect timing because just when she got to the bottom of the stairs, the Potters flooed through the fire place.

First one through was Lily.

"Hey Lil," Rose greeted with a hug.

"Hey Rose," Lily said returning the hug.

"Hello Nana, Granddad, Uncle Ron, Auntie Hermione and Hugo," Lily went around greeting the present family members respectively.

Next James came through and loudly announced his presence.

"Hello Everyone!" James practically yelled.

"James why do you have to be so loud?" Lily asked rhetorically.

Albus appeared and said, "Hey guys, what ya been up to?"

"Just the usual, telling James to shut up," Lily informed her brother about her other brother.

It was then that Scorpius appeared.

"Hello everyone, thanks for inviting me," Scorpius greeted with a smile.

"Any time dear," Nana Molly replied.

The second Rose saw Scorpius she froze. He was wearing a nice red and green jumper with black trousers. Rose had to – begrudgingly – admit he looked quite charming. Lily was dragging Rose upstairs before she even said a word to Scorpius.

"Wow, Lil what's the rush?" Rose a bit out of breathe from running up the stairs.

"I have something to tell you," Lily said looking around to check that they were alone. They then went into Percy's old room and closed the door behind them.

Lily cast a charm and continued, "Ok, so you know Lysander?"

"Yeah, obviously," Rose said sarcastically.

"Well, when we were on the train coming home, he asked me to go out with him," Lily excitedly explained at a million-miles-an-hour.

"Really? What did you say?" Rose asked also getting excited.

"Yes, obviously," Lily said blushing a little.

"Oh my gosh! I happy for you," Rose replied and gave Lily a hug.

"Thanks," Lily said beaming. Funnily enough, Lily has had a secret crush on Lysander for a while but considering he was pretty popular with the fourth and third year girls – compared to his twin brother Locan who is a bit weird sometimes, not a bad weird, just weird – so Lily had slowly given up on ever dating him. By the look of things she's happy and everything is going well. Luckily the Scamander twins – Locan and Lysander – are in different houses or else there would be only a few people who could tell them apart. Locan was sorted into Ravenclaw and Lysander was sorted into Hufflepuff and neither of these were surprising results.

"We should probably head down to help now, before they send someone to find us," Lily stated. Rose nodded and Lily released the charm. Hermione had come up with an idea one year: "let's decorate for Christmas the muggle way," she said and of course Granddad Arthur was fascinated with the idea. That was last year and now we are decorating in the muggle way this year too.

Lily opened the door to find James trying to set up a prank.

"Busted," Lily stated with an amused grin.

"You'd better get rid of that before Dom comes or else I'll have to tell her where it is," Rose informed James.

"Come on Rose, don't be such a spoil sport," James whined as he moved the things back into George's old room.

He was probably setting up a Christmas themed glitter bomb over this door, fortunately James will live longer because if I hadn't intervened that glitter bomb would have exploded over either Lil's or Dom's head. The glitter in a glitter bomb will cover anything it lands on and it doesn't come off for at least 2 months. If Dom had gotten that in her hair, she would have been out to murder James. And I would like all of my cousins to survive Christmas for at least the next couple of years. Is that too much to ask? Rose thought as she and Lily walked down to the Living room where the Christmas tree is being assembled.

It was a comical and entertaining scene where Albus and Scorpius had been tasked with putting up the Christmas lights as Hugo was checking that the tree was ready to decorate. All the while Ron and Harry supervised the impending mess of lights, tinsel, glitter and bauble balls. Ginny and Hermione were secretly sorting out the wrapped presents elsewhere.

"Look who decided to join us, seriously I thought it would be next Christmas by the time you two came down," Albus said half-jokingly while untangling a string of light to hand to Scorpius who was putting them up – and with his height it wasn't a problem to set them up.

"Oh haha," Lily replied back with a sassy attitude.

"What can we do?" Rose asked looking around.

"Well, I need a little help, if you don't mind," Hugo replied.

"Ok," Rose said and picked up a box of bauble balls. Lily followed Rose over to the tree and the three of them spent the next half an hour debating which bauble balls should go where as well as how the tinsel should be placed.

"That bauble ball can go there, there is another one identical right beside it," Rose protested against one of her pet-hates.

"But doing your way will take forever Rose, and besides that takes all of the fun out of the chaos," Hugo argued.

With the reason that it was Christmas, Rose begrudgingly agreed to let the chaos unfold.

- 15 minutes later -

"Finished," Scorpius said triumphantly. Albus agreed with a nod looked at their hard work.

Rose was nearby and looked over to where Albus and Scorpius stood. When she looked at Scorpius she saw the genuine grin on his face and she felt her heart beat speed up. She shook her head in hopes of eliminating Scorpius from her thoughts. Rose then goaded, "That sure took some time didn't? I didn't think it took that long to put up lights, Malfoy."

Scorpius caught Rose's tone and looked to see her teasing smirk and he replied calmly, "It's not like your any faster, Weasley."

"Actually we're almost finished, this is takes time you know," Rose countered.

"And you're suggesting that putting up lights isn't hard work or time consuming?" Scorpius commented. Rose knew that everything from the lights to decorating the tree took time but she let her stubbornness take over.

"Don't twist my words, I said nothing of the sort," Rose stated. Now she was just being difficult.

But this stubbornness from both Scorpius and Rose didn't end at the end of that day. In fact it continued for the next few days. The odd thing about it was that usually when Scorpius and Rose fought at Christmas time in the past you could tell they probably meant most of what they said to each other. Now however, they only seemed to annoy each other and use half-hearted insults and jabs.

- 20th December -

"No, Weasley, you're supposed to put toad slime on sprained joints. How did someone like you even get to be in the top range of students," Scorpius jabbed.

"No, you're mistaken Malfoy it's a mixture of weeds and tree sap that make a cream, that's what you're supposed to use for sprained joints. And just what do you mean someone like me? Are you insinuating that I, Rose Weasley top student, am an idiot?" Rose retort with her voice getting higher in pitch the longer she spoke.

"You said it not me," Scorpius said.

"Ugh," Rose huffed.

- 21st December -

"Carefully Malfoy, you'll blend into the snow and be lost in this field for eternity," Rose stated.

"At least I'd survive, with hair like yours you'd just be a target for hunting or they'd think you're a dead zombie," Scorpius retort.

"You moron zombies are already dead and at least I'd have a physical presence, unlike you who would be the ghost no one could see. I can't believe I never noticed how much of a dim-witted twit you are until now," Rose agrued back.

- 22nd December -

By this time they had run out of insults or other creative ways to annoy each other. Thus they resorted to calling each other names.

"Mountain top," Rose said.

"Red chili pepper," Scorpius replied.

"Ghosty," Rose retort.

"Tomato head," Scorpius countered.

Yes, it got this bad – and lame.

Until…

"Stop already!" Lily shouted having lost her temper.

Both Rose and Scorpius when quiet immediately.

"Seriously you've been at this for four days now. Whenever you two are in the same room as each other you argue and frankly I don't think I've hear lamer insults in my entire life," Lily continued.

"You're right Lil, all of your insults have been half-hearted and lame, seriously guys if you're going to argue make it a good argument," Albus commented with a great deal of sarcasm – after which he received a glare from Lily.

"Not helping Al," Lily warned him. Albus raised his hands in surrender.

"Anyway, please don't argue it's almost Christmas," Lily pleaded seeming to have calmed down.

"Fine," Rose replied.

"Ok," Scorpius said.

Thus started the Glaring Wars between Rose and Scorpius.

Aria: Please stay tuned for chapter 15 :) :) thanks again for reading.