Maybe I should leave this blank if I'm gonna keep doing this....

***

Chapter 13: Merry Christmas!

I awoke the next morning feeling completely refreshed. My nightmares hadn't haunted me. I had slept better than I had in the longest time. I felt arms around me and looked back to see Trunks behind me. Instead of panicking, I kissed his cheek, waking him up.

"Wha?" he murmured stupidly.

"Merry Christmas, Trunks," I whispered into his ear and he leaped up before I could pull away, knocking me in the chin.

"Sorry, Angel," he said sheepishly. His mouth captured mine quickly before I could chastise him and he kissed me passionately. I was so surprised that I just let my instincts go and reacted against him. He laughed breathlessly as we broke up for air. "See?" He huffed. "That wasn't...so bad...was it?"

"Nah," I grinned as a precious pink blush crept up my cheeks. "Let's take a look at our presents, shall we?" He nodded and crawled to the edge of his bed where a large stack of presents were stacked. I looked over to my own bed and saw that my pile was actually quite large.

I started in on the presents at once and found that I had a lot of friends almost immediately. I opened Hagrid's first, out of respect and random picking. It was wrapped in thick brown paper and it said my name in the top. I gasped in surprise when I saw that the inside contained a tiny little harmonica that he had obviously made himself. I played it softly and found that it sounded a bit like a cross between a flute and a violin, which was an astonishingly beautiful sound.

"Wow, Hagrid, this is cool," I said to myself as I set it gently on my made bed. I grabbed another present and found that it had no name written on top. In fact, all it had on it was a little a with a halo over it, signaling my name.

"Strange," I said. My fingers opened the pretty golden paper carefully and it revealed a silvery cloak. "Is this an Invisibility Cloak?!" I asked no one in particular. I threw it over my arm and gasped in surprise. "It is! Who sent this?" I looked at the note that had slipped out and read the loopy handwriting.

Angel-

Your mother left this in my possession before she died. I know you know that James Potter handed a cloak like this one to me before all this happened to give to Harry, and that he used the cloak often himself. Use this to your advantage against Dirken. A Merry Christmas to you and may your dreams be sweeter from now on.

"Even stranger. The lady we had be our mother left this to whoever was holding Harry's for him. Weird." I shook my head and set the cloak on the bed, careful of the silvery edges. I reached yet again for a gift and pulled up Trunks'. I opened it and found the most beautiful thing in the world.

A jewel-wood frame with a picture of Trunks in it and a bracelet. Both looked extremely expensive. I smiled and thanked Trunks a dozen times over before the day was out. I think he was quite pleased with his own present as well (A rather large set of Capsules from our old world, several boxes of Chocolate Frogs [his favorite wizard treat], and a wizard chess set of his own.)

I found lots of different things in the boxes at the base of my bed, all of which were laid with extreme care upon it, but when I came to the Weasleys' gifts, I was stumped. They had never been truly introduced to me, in fact, I'd never even seen Arthur Weasley, but they had sent me things, and a lot of them.

I had an aqua sweater, hand-knitted, with an A with a halo over it in bright yellow letters, which I promptly put on. I also saw that Trunks had received a black sweater (no markings) as well. Furthermore, I had gotten some homemade fudge and several mince pies.

"Wow, she's never even met us and she send us all this," I said, trying the fudge (it really was delicious!) and setting the wrapping to the side as I had the other stuff.

Hermione's present was a book and I found it quite a peculiar gift, because it was neither informational nor of Quidditch, which was what Hermione had always bought Harry in the novel. No, instead of either of these, it was a fictional novel that was quite popular in England at the time, called The Trench. I was surprised to recognize the author, Steve Alton, as the name of the man who wrote another novel among my three thousand back home. This one was actually the sequel to it and I quite looked forward to reading it despite my new life of dimensional travels. (Yes, it is a real book, but read only if you can handle adult situations [my mother suggested I read it, of all people]. It was an amazing book, I'm telling you!)

Bill and Charlie had both gotten together on their gift and I was quite happy to see that I had received a little moving model dragon that held Knuts (the smallest unit of wizard money) for you if you had loose ones, which I almost always did. I placed the ones that were still in my robes from the day we'd gone to Hogsmeade and watched the dragon grin evilly and flip over once, to my delight.

"Merry Christmas!" came the shout from outside the door as the portrait swung open to reveal Fred and George Weasley, followed by Ron, Hermione, and Harry, all wearing the sweaters Mrs. Weasley had knitted.

"Merry Christmas!" I returned happily.

"Wow, you got a lot of stuff, Angel," Fred said, looking at my bed. I had tucked my Invisibility cloak beneath the covers at the last minute, expecting them to do what they just had. My suspicions were confirmed as Fred and George surveyed the bed of all my presents, oohing and ahhing over whatever sparked their interests.

"And she sent you guys a Weasley sweater too!" George shouted, chortling as he surveyed Trunks and I. Harry and Hermione had also received the comfortable sweaters and I grinned at seeing Harry's emerald green sweater (which somehow matched his eyes perfectly) and Hermione's pretty deep purple one, which nearly matched her face.

"Heh heh, I think I like you guys' mom," I told them, feeling the warm sweater around me. It wasn't at all like the sweaters I'd received at home, which were always stiff and scratchy. It was quite comfortable and felt like I had powered up to Super Saiyan. "She's a good knitter and a great cook." I gestured to the fudge I'd received, and the mince pies.

"Yeah, I'd have to agree," Trunks grinned.

"Hey, where's Tom?" I asked, noticing the boy had not entered the room.

"He's still opening his presents, the last I saw," Ron told me with a laugh. "After all, it is his first Christmas."
"Yeah, that's true." I said. I felt out Tom's ki and saw that he was indeed still much in the same place as his bed. He came down the spiral stairs a few moments later, a broad grin on his face.

"Thanks, everybody," he said. I smiled at him and nodded as well. He was also wearing a Weasley sweater, this one a royal blue. It made him all the more dashing despite his misgivings as an adult.

"You're welcome, Tom," we echoed and continued going on about our gifts. We talked and played about, but finally headed toward the Great Hall.

The Christmas feast and party was a lot of fun and I saw that the crackers in the book were also there, and quite fun. Hagrid had drank of his wine as always and I giggled as he kissed Professor McGonagall, who simply blushed and gave an embarrassed laugh. Snape seemed like a more enjoyable person as he helped release several of the crackers.

We spent the afternoon playing in the snow and ate a late dinner of turkey sandwiches and Christmas cake. That night was spent basically breaking in our new chess sets and Trunks and I were still no good with our new sets shouting suggestions at us. Finally, the room had emptied of all but Hermione, Trunks, Harry, and Ron.

"Guys," I whispered to them, bringing their voices down and faces close. "I got something for Christmas that's really weird. Harry got one too, I think."
"You mean the Invisibility Cloak?" Harry asked, his voice hushed as well. I nodded and Hermione nearly fell out of her chair.

"Do you guys know just how valuable those things are? Who on Earth would send those kind of things to you guys?"

"I don't know, Hermione, it could be any number of people. Harry's godfather, who will remain nameless until third year," I looked sternly at Harry in particular. "Dumbledore. Another of Harry's dad's friends, Pettigrew, though I seriously doubt it. Hagrid, maybe, but I don't remember whether James trusted him or not." I pondered this a moment.

"The note said that it was left by your mother, Angel," Trunks told me gently.
"Wait." I stopped short. "Lily had another sister, but they didn't mention her until the third book, I think. Besides Petunia. You guys don't think..." I glanced around.

"That your mother was my mother's sister?" Harry asked, as shocked as I was.

"There's only one way to find out," I stated, standing abruptly. I took a piece of parchment in my hands, wrote down letter, and headed out the portrait hole.
"Where are you going?" Ron asked.

"The Owlery," I answered shortly.
"Wait, Angel!" Trunks shouted after me. "Let us see, even I can't figure out how you're gonna 'find out'."
"Simple," I answered coyly. "Ask Shin."

"Shin?" Trunks cocked his head to one side as I continued on briskly. "Angel, wait up!" He raced after me, followed closely by the others.

"Angel, we don't get it!" Hermione called behind me. I stopped abruptly and turned around, to find Trunks slamming into me, as he had been right behind me when I'd stopped. My inquisitional letter was torn was I toppled to the ground, Trunks beside me.

"Sorry," Trunks said sheepishly.

"That's okay," I told him with a smile as Harry handed me another sheet of parchment, as though he had anticipated Trunks tearing the one I'd written. "My proposition is simple: We send Shin a letter asking if the lady that he'd chosen for our mother was Harry's mother's sister. I do know that she did not marry in the book." (I made this 'other sister' business up, okay?)

"Oh, okay, but why don't you ask how Pan and Chee are while you're at it?" Trunks said as he looked at the blank sheet of parchment. "And how he is. Tell him what happened at the Quidditch match, you never did tell him." This was true, I hadn't told our formerly-purple-skinned friend about the match where Dirken had kept Harry and I on our broomsticks.

"I didn't want to worry him," I said, chagrinned. If this was anime, Trunks would have face-faulted, but instead, he threw him hand against his forehead (It's what I do when I get frustrated with people...so I made him do it. ;P) and sighed.

"Some things are important enough to worry about," he told me. "If you don't tell him in this letter, I'm going to tell him when Penny gets back."
"Fine, fine," I grumbled as I wrote the letter again against my arm (apologizing for the small holes I made with my pencil [yes, pencil...you don't think an artist won't have a pencil on her, do you?] and the rushed handwriting), this time including the formalities that Trunks had induced me to add.

I finally finished as we climbed the Tower to the Owlery and attached the letter to Penny's claw. She gave me a playful prick on my finger and left out the open windows.
"Why don't you write to your mum, Ron?" I asked him.

"Yeah, you can use Hedwig," Harry said, handing him a piece of parchment (he was thoroughly prepared this time, wasn't he?) and I handing him my pencil.

"Wow, what kind of quill is this one?" Ron asked as he wrote the letter. "You don't have to dip it in ink or anything! But it does get kind of dull..."
"It's called a 'pencil', Ron, and it's one of the few inventions Muggles have made that are better than wizard, if you asked me...of course, mechanical are better, but they didn't have any in England," I shrugged. (I'm sort of making this up. The one drawback of Miss Rowling's books is that she gives a little more credit to the wizards than she does us poor Muggles...come on, we've got a few inventions that are better too!)

"Wicked," Ron exclaimed as he studied the orangish-yellow piece of wood with interest. "Could I possibly-"
"Of course you can have it," I smiled, "Those things are pretty cheap and are very easy to come by. Just go into any convenience store with a couple of pounds and you can buy plenty."
"Pounds?" Ron asked curiously.

"Muggle money," I said. "Well, English, anyway. I'm more used to the dollar, quarter, dime, penny, along those lines. States' money." I grinned. "I am from the US of A, after all, for fifteen years."

"Don't even start on that, Angel, or we'll be here all night," Trunks told me and I laughed. What more could I do? He was right. If I started reminiscing the past, they really would be there all night. And they'd probably find out a little more than I wanted them to about me.

After all. It hadn't only been my brother who was out to rape me.

I followed the others to the Griffindor Tower quickly, as we didn't want to be caught out of bed at too late a time (it hadn't been after our curfew when we'd left, but we had been out a long time). We made it back with three minutes to spare.

Trunks and I said goodnight to the others and went into our room. Trunks pounced as soon as the door had closed, pulling me to the floor. He grinned evilly at me before giving me a small kiss. As soon as he stood up, I growled and pulled him back to the floor, pinning him down as he often did me. I smirked.

"Gotcha."

"Yeah, you got me," he licked the tip of my nose before standing up, pushing me to my feet with him still in front of me. He carried me to his bed and we went to sleep under the starry sky above our tent-like canopy bed.

***

Aw...Angel and Trunks are playing...nothing naughty though! I'm only fifteen, after all....and 16 on April 29!!! My birthday is getting nearer and nearer and I can't wait! My Sweet Sixteen...oi, I'm excited.