Vesta wakes up and, with a shout of joy, tears into the stocking full of presents at the end of her bed. Waking up in a second bed, Murph studies Vesta for a moment then looks at her own small pile of presents. Coming to a decision, she goes in invisible and pops into Bubona and Dennis' room where they're both still blissfully asleep. Though without any presents at the end of their bed. There's a flash of fire in the room, and neither of them stir.
A few minutes later there's another flash of fire and Murph reappears with two bright orange boxes that have had the locks broken. Crudely scratched into the top of the larger box is Mvm, and the second box has DLN. Downstairs a box appears underneath the tree with VLZTA scratched in it. From this box comes the sounds of several things scrabbling inside.
Murph reappears back in the bedroom and tears into her own stack of presents, trying to be careful when her claw goes through the paper like it's not even there. Her tongue sticks out the corner of her mouth as she concentrates.
"Hey Murph, did you get anything good?"
Murph holds up a Harry Potter plushy, "Soft!"
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Bubona wakes up with a yawn and blinks as she registers the lack of weight on her chest from Vesta jumping up and down on them. Blearily she looks around trying to find what woke her up, only to stub her toe for a second time. Grasping blindly for her wand, she casts a light spell and sees the orange box at the end of the bed. With a yawn she levitates it off the other side of the bed and rolls over back to sleep.
It's starting to get light next time she's woken up, this time by Dennis' yelp of pain as he stubs his toe on the box she left on the floor.
"M'ning hon'y, sl'ep well?"
Dennis swears under his breath, "Yes dear, it was surprisingly peaceful until I got up."
"Che'k on t'a child'n."
Bubona drifts back off as the slight weight of the box being put on the bed rocks the bed slightly. The smell of the chamber pot being used, and then cleaned, followed by a cup of tea provided by their house elf.
Now more awake, Bubona calls out, "Thank you Sailly."
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T'o-Ba'sall looks around the ship in despair, as the entire place is spotless, and everything seems to be in perfect repair. Which would be great, except some enterprising elf has decided to clean the lubricant off of all the exposed parts, and now the doors are grinding slightly as they open. With a thought, all of the house elves appear before her with a series of pops or bursts of fire.
"Which one of you thought it would be a good idea to clean up all the lubricant on the doors?"
There's a general shuffling from the assembled elves until one of them puts their hand up, "Ooopsi did it."
T'o-Ba'sall sighs, then catches herself at the human gesture, then sighs again, before throwing a tablet at Ooopsi, "Read that until you understand it. Then you will properly lubricate each and every thing that you cleaned, correctly, and by hand. Do you understand? If you don't, then you will be banned from working for a week."
Ooopsi quails at the threat, "Ooopsi will read and lubricate."
T'o-Ba'sall look at the other elves, who have shied away from her at the threat of withholding work, "This applies to all of you too, if any of you clean something that shouldn't be cleaned you will be banned from working for a week." Her mind thinks back to the Dark Blade Clan, "Though, if you are ever at a loss for work, there is somewhere you can go to clean with no fear of punishment if you clean the wrong thing. Here's my memory of the place."
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Arry looks at the brightly wrapped parcels, arrayed around her ovipositor, with confusion. Crouching down, she pokes one with a massive claw, only for it to crumple with no resistance. From inside comes the smell of chocolate. Shifting into her more human form, she realises that the wrappings are paper and there are labels with writing on them. Pulling them open as carefully as she can, she's surprised to find an awful lot of sweets, one pack of jerky that she starts munching on immediately, and some books on a variety of topics, the strangest of which is titled 'How to make friends, a guide to social cues and interactions for children with learning difficulties'.
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Amelia looks in on her niece and shudders as she sees that Susan has turned into a xenomorph yet again in her sleep, and is sleeping next to Sally-Anne. As Susan lifts her head up and looks over at her, Amelia freezes once more as the memory of what happened in the DMLE hits her yet again. Carefully, she closes the door and stalks down the hall before she leans against a wall and tries to get her heart rate under control. It's not helped by the fact that her mind keeps going back to the implications of what being part of the hive actually means. Not just for Susan, but also for Russia.
Amelia stifles a scream as T'o-Ba'sall appears in a flash of fire, her wand left at her bedside in order to not accidentally hex Susan or Sally-Anne if they surprised her.
"S'san ask if check on you. Say you smell of fear."
Amelia nods, "I'm sorry."
"You fear what you not understand. Do you wish to understand them and hive?"
As she stares up at T'o-Ba'sall, Amelia feels for her wand, even knowing it's not there. With no weapons, and a fully armed and armoured Yautja in front of her, she gives the only sane answer in a squeaking voice, "Yes?"
T'o-Ba'sall's mandibles open in her version of a smile as she reaches out with one hand and grasps Amelia's shoulder, "Well said warrior."
Amelia yelps as they disappear in a column of fire and reappear in a pitch black room. T'o-Ba'sall then says, using her translator, "'m'lia, if you relax, then this will mildly uncomfortable for a moment and then you can return home with the face hugger. If you struggle, it will knock you out for a few hours."
Amelia opens her mouth to ask for clarification when something lands on her face and pushes something down her throat. Her hands come up to try and pull it off, only for something to tighten around her throat and the world pitches sideways.
Amelia starts to come around, in a pitch black room, to the sound of an argument, "T'o-Ba'sall, what did I say about not adopting people without getting their permission."
"My Queen, 'm'lia gave her permission."
"T'o-Ba'sall… No, you know what? You are no longer allowed to bring anyone to the egg chamber. If you've found someone that wants to be part of our hive, either talk to me, Minva, or Priya. We will then talk to the person you want to bring in, do you understand?"
T'o-Ba'sall sounds dejected, "Yes my Queen."
"Amelia, I'm so sorry that this was just pushed on you, how are you feeling?"
Amelia starts to talk, and then coughs before rasping, "Sore throat."
"Well, I'm Arry, and you've just joined my hive. Let's get you home, then we can talk about it."
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Lucius smiles as he walks out of the Records office a few Galleons lighter, and holding a piece of paper with the address of a Muggleborn class mate of the half-breed witch that cost him Draco. Nobody crosses a Malfoy without being paid back in kind, nobody. Taking the Floo to a well known location in the Home Counties, Lucius apperates closer, and closer to the address until he can start to use a 'point me' spell to narrow down the boy's location.
Once he arrives at a well appointed home that is somewhere between a large cottage and a manor, on a reasonably large amount of land, he stops to erect a muggle repelling charm around the entire house, along with an anti-portkey hex he learnt as a death eater. That done he places a notice-me-not spell on himself and opens the front door with a flick of his wand. As he's about to step in, he spots a statue of a lion sitting on the veranda, and turns to face it with an evil smile.
A few minutes later, a fair facsimile of that blasted half-breed, though the face is just a set of eyes, stalks through the door ahead of him and attack any muggles with it's talons and tail, much like the photo of Arry taking the arm off of that wizard did. Finally, he comes to a large dining room where there seems to be a large family gathering to celebrate Christmas. With a sneer, he sends the transfigured statue into the room to slaughter as many of them as possible.
As the statue takes a swipe at the nearest muggle, the boy turns into one of those monsters from the school, and launches himself at the statue. Lucius fires a stunning spell at the thing only to be momentarily surprised when it corkscrews around the spell before focusing on him. Lucius barely has time to fire another couple of darker spells at the monster before it's tail catches him across the leg. As he falls to one side, he catches it with a piercing hex, and then his screams join everyone else's, as it's blood splashes over him. A moment later, it's mouth breaks through his skull, and he falls to the floor, lifeless. The statue follows mere moments afterward before Justin starts to munch on the dead body of Lucius.
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"Bones! Bones! Answer damn you."
Amelia's head turns towards her floo as Arry flames her back into the main hall of the Bones Manor. Swiftly stepping over to the Floo, she touches the activation rune, "Moody, what's so urgent you're disturbing me at Christmas?"
"We've got a situation at Finch-Fletchley's home. Stevens is in St Mungo's with a stab wound to the gut and the obliviators with him is refusing to return to the property. We've got a couple of Auror's making their way there now, but making a portkey didn't work. Apparently, they found a trail of dead bodies, and they were attacked by a Raka."
"Morgana, can this day get any worse? What's the address?"
Moody rattles off an address, and Amelia nods, "I… I'm going to try and get there more directly. If I do, I'll message you some portkey coordinates."
As she deactivates the Floo, she turns back to Arry, "Arry, do you think you could get me to that address?"
Arry looks at her distractedly as her senses have been cast out, "No, but I think I've found Justin, one moment."
"Wait, I need my… wand." Amelia stops to take in the carnage in the room, along with the screaming muggles, huddled at one end of the room. Arry has turned to the Xenomorph, who's wounds have already started to heal over, and is talking urgently to them. A moment later, Susan appears beside her and drops her wand from her mouth before disappearing again.
Amelia blinks as she picks up her wand, before she casts a wide area calming charm at all the muggles. As she sees it take effect, she walks over to them confidently, "Is anyone here injured?"
Everyone shakes their head, even though she can now see people holding various wounds, and blood staining clothing, "I'm Amelia Bones with the DMLE, magical police, I'm just going to cast a spell that will let my men know where we are. There will be some trained mediwitches with them, and we'll see to your wounds."
When nobody reacts, she casts a specific Auror spell that will ensure that the detection grid flags her position. It's harder than just tapping her badge, but beggars can't be choosers.
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An hour later, Amelia is standing outside watching over Justin as he drinks a hot chocolate on the steps of his family's home. Around her there's a bustle of activity as a combination of mundane police and Auror's are looking over the place. With a sigh, she walks over to the young man and sits down, "Are you doing ok?"
Justin shakes his head, "Not really. I ate a man today, how is that ok?"
"Justin, did you do it deliberately?"
"No, I… When I got hit with the last spell, I just couldn't think anymore, it hurt so much. Why did he attack us? Especially at Christmas?"
"He was Draco's father."
Justin just looks blank, "Who?"
"Draco Malfoy, he was on the train with you in September, but he gave grievous insult to Arry, so she exiled him rather than kill him or allow one of her hive to kill him. For what it's worth, you don't have to worry about any charges, mundane or magical, as it's a clear case of self defence and defence of others. None of your family or guests are going to remember your change either, as the obliviators are modifying their memories so that he was a deranged killer with a trained tiger, and a large dagger."
"Why? Why do that?"
"Two reasons, the first is that the Statute of Secrecy needs to be maintained. Each of these police officers is either a squib, or a muggleborn who left the magical world after they graduated. The second is that, horrific as it sounds, it's less traumatic to believe that story than it is to believe the truth. It's also why I'm recommending that you allow yourself to be obliviated of the traumatic memories."
Justin laughs, "I feel bad for not feeling bad, how screwed up is that? I'm disgusted at myself for eating him, but all I remember feeling at the time is excitement. Even when I got hit, it was just…" He waves his hands as if he doesn't have the language needed to explain it.
"I still recommend the obliviation. Such things can still be traumatic, even if the event wasn't traumatic. The longer you wait to have the obliviation done, the harder it is to do it and get all of your trauma as well."
"I think I want to talk to Arry, Wayne joined her hive without needing an egg. So I think I should too. If I had already joined, I could have called for help."