Chapter Forty: Boughs of Holly

The Great Hall always looked fabulous, but decorated for Christmas it was something to behold. Julie had never seen ornaments so shining and beautiful outside of Harrod's department store, and certainly never Christmas trees quite so tall. On closer inspection of the golden balls and silver garlands, however, it appeared that these were as magical as anything she'd seen at school. High above her head, she noticed Professor Flitwick levitating to put the star on the highest tree; curious, until she realized her parents both had their wands pointed at him, looks of intense concentration on their faces.

Rather than distract them and risk killing her professor, Julie took a seat at the Gryffindor table and reversed her chair to watch. Hannah Stern appeared a few moments later.

"Pretty good, isn't it?" she inquired.

"Does all of this Christmas stuff bother you?" Julie asked, knowing Hannah was one of perhaps five Jewish students at Hogwarts.

"Hey, it's a holiday same as any other one. I just don't happen to go in for the religious bit. It's not like there aren't plenty agnostics here who celebrate it just for kicks."

Julie looked a little confused by this. Broughton had been a fairly parochial orphanage, funded by the local Anglican church in addition to the government, and consequently, none of the 'foundlings' had the chance to grow up Jewish. If there had been four Jews there, it was because they had no living family, and most often they tended to remain in  a small group apart to themselves.

"Look, you respect Hanukkah, don't you, Jules? I respect Christmas the same way as that. It's not my religious cup of tea, but far be it for me to disrespect those for whom it is."

"I can understand that."

"It was nice of you to get my work while I left, by the way. Now Mama and Papa have gone on their second honeymoon, I'm stayin' here for winter holidays."

Hannah had missed eight days of school to observe Hannukah with her family, and a simple duplication charm on Tom, Tim and Julie's notes had provided an excellent guide to everything any professor taught. Mitchie and Lucy had offered theirs as well, but Lucy's were in indefinable shorthand and Mitchie's were positively illegible.

"I'll be here until the day after Christmas, then Mum an' Dad an' I are going home for awhile."

"Will you be here for New Year's?"

"I think."

"That's always been the answer in my family to the Christmas-card controversy."

"Controversy? Which-?"

"Well, my Christian relatives are never sure whether to send us Christmas cards or Hanukkah ones, and we were never sure which to send to them. Now we just do New Year's ones on both sides."

"Hmm. That sounds like my Slytherin/Gryffindor problem."

"Yeah, you should just stick to the Hogwarts crest."

"Good idea."

At that moment, a loud bang interrupted everything going on. Professor Flitwick fell forty feet or so through the open air into Hagrid's arms, and Julie's Mum nearly fainted from the shock of it. Professor Snape was hugging her in seconds, though, as if tuned like a radio to any small thing wrong with his family. Julie knew what was going on, of course, but nobody else in the room was aware of the Granger-Snapes' announcement, as they weren't planning to tell anyone until Christmas Day.

Noone could tell what had made the loud noise to distract everyone.

The situation was soon righted, however, and Hannah and Julie went up to the Christmas trees to see their professors.

"Are you alright, Mum?" Julie asked a little quietly.

"Yes, dear. Just a little shock from the noise, you know."

"What was that?"

"I think I have an idea," Professor Snape observed grimly, stalking out of the Great Hall as if there might be some threat to his wife and child.

Hermione and Julie talked absently about the decorations and how they had gotten there with Hannah for awhile until Severus returned with a house-elf literally in his hand as he held it up by the scruff of it's neck.

"Apologize!" he commanded it.

"I- I-" the creature stuttered.

"Oh, give it up!" Ignoring his wife's horrified stare, Severus pulled his wand from his robes and pointed it at the house-elf. "Finite Incantatem!"

The elf transformed immediately into Lyff Grudgett.

"Detention, and ninety points from Slytherin."

The entire Hall went silent, staring in shock at Professor Snape. He had never taken that many house points from anyone at once, least to say one of his Slytherins. Professor Potter's jaw looked entirely detached by this and Hagrid's beard had suddenly gotten much closer to the ground as well.

Finally, someone had the good sense to react properly:

"Well said, sir," Hannah observed with a cheery grin.

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Mitchie staggered into the Great Hall with one foot still feeling a little odd. She had indeed splintered one tarsus minor, or as Madam Pomfrey called it, a not-very-important bone. With it newly mended, though, Mitchie's left foot suddenly felt a little bit on the cheerful side, double-stepping and tingling a bit more than she could hide easily.

Dinner had already been served to the few students who were staying over Christmas holidays, and instead of the four House tables, there was now one big one with all present faculty and students eating together. Mitchie felt a small sting to see the three Snapes chatting with Julie's extended 'honorary family.' It was immediately followed by guilt for all of her jealousy of her new friend.

'Besides,' the sensibly irrational part of her mind announced, 'she can't play the guitar and you can.'

"Mitch!" Julie called, brightening at the sight of her friend the Yank. "Come sit with us!"

It was remarkable how thirty minutes could make one feel like an installed fixture in someone's family. Mitchie figured her friend might do something of this sort, and while part of her resented being made a charity case for some showoff Dark Lady; another part was very relieved not to be spending Christmas Eve by herself yet again.

And Donaghan was being so tactful around them both, treating Julie as a Chaser would a good Seeker and Mitchie as a Gryffindor would his girlfriend around teachers. True, that was pretty much the same way, except one did not seem physically attached to a Seeker's hand under the table as one did to one's girlfriend and one did not defend a Seeker as instantly as one did one's girlfriend when Professor Snape made cracks about both girls' classroom attributes.

"Really, if I could understand three words of what Miss Tyler says when I call on her in class," Snape joked laconically, "I might not have to give her such abysmal marks."

"Isn' it true tha' Mitch's 'ad full marks since she showed up, sir?" Donaghan inquired rather pointedly. Julie sprang up as well to defend her classmate.

"Yes, and we can understand her perfectly. Perhaps you should ask Madam Pomfrey to check you for senile deafness, sir."

"I hardly think," Snape observed with a glare, "someone who failed to alarm her spider when she tested the Tarantallegra Curse would have any room to talk whatsoever about people with bad accents. If you didn't sound so strongly like a refugee from bloody Cornwall I might have a better time understanding you."

"Perhaps having a voice with entirely variable pitch is a genetic thing," Julie replied just a bit acidly. "After all, one can hardly fault a girl whose father sounds like a football referee when a Gryffindor screws somethin' up and bleedin'Saint Francis when the Slytherins bodge it worse. It may be just my natural bias against over-posh people that makes me talk like a Cockney snipe."

"Talkin' 'bout bias," Mitchie chipped in. "Have you ever seen a more two-ended class roster? An' I thought the rednecks back 'ome were bad."

"I find it astonishing, Miss Tyler, that you would even refer to your clearly detested nation as 'back home.' It seems to me that you are the stiffest Tory since Benedict Arnold."

"Damn straight," Mitchie said.

It was such a novelty for anyone to agree with Professor Snape during an insult contest that everyone who had been following the spat cracked up, including Matius Flint, who suddenly grew a weird half-smile. Professor Snape looked fairly well amused by this and shook hands with the American in truce. Julie grinned. Everything was going perfectly.

"Would anyone care for some more capon?" Professor McGonagall inquired. Several people indicated they would, and Lyfften, dressed in what looked like an overgrown oven mitt, walked around, glumly working off his detention as a human elf. To make matters worse for him, the real house-elves felt threatened by his presence, and many kicked him in the shins or tried to trip him as he did his job. If not for the fact that Grudgett was about as liked as Draco Malfoy had been at school by the non-Slytherins, noone would have let Professor Snape impose such a harsh, if not dead bizarre, punishment. This became a very enjoyed topic of conversation, with references to the Magna Carta provided by Hermione and the American Bill of Rights by Mitchie as the entire table referred to Lyff as if he were a an object and not a human being at all. Finally Julie rationalized it with a somewhat off-color remark about Grudgett's oven mitt entertaining the females there, and the poor Slytherin left with his cheeks flaming.

"Dear, just what did Lyfften Grudgett do to tick you off?" Hermione inquired. "Genetics are not an excuse for being cruel, you know."

"I'll bet this is," Malfoy said, tossing Hermione the tabloid written by the Blodgetts and Grudgett weeks ago. "I've already put a good amount of fear into them, but if you feel they could use more, then, by all means, have at it."

"What the bugger-?" Professor Granger exclaimed, reading over the ludicrous tripe stories. "I'd have punished them for their punctuation alone, Draco! And the spelling, Merlin's ears, this is terrible."

"Let me see," Severus asked, taking a look at the work of the Slytherins. To the chagrin of nearly everyone else present, he began first to smile, then to giggle, and then finally to laugh out loud as he read over the articles. Julie leaned on her elbow and sighed.

"Which is it, Dad?"

"Oh, it's the inept innuendoes they keep sadly miswielding, dear. I don't think it's altogether likely you fancy Hagrid, now, though I may be wrong." Both Julie's Defense Against The Dark Arts and Care of Magical Creatures teachers began to laugh, so she gave Hagrid a very Mae West-ish look.

"Oh, I d'know, Dad, I'd never considered it. Always been partial to taller guys, 'ent that right, Mitch?"

Hagrid blushed furiously red and Professor Snape's jaw almost detached, but Professor Malfoy found that the funniest thing all night.

"Considering the persistent rumors about you liking Flitwick, though, I don't think that'd be much in character for you, Jules," the arrogant blond said a bit too gallantly. Julie's cheeks burned.

"Must you call me that? My name's not that hard, you know."

"Ah, the blush of the guilty, eh, Beatrice?"

"Well, better a gentleman like Professor Flitwick than a stuffed-shirt, overbearing, ultra-snobbish, pureblood like you, Malfoy!" Julie raked, looking progressively more like her dad as she got angrier.

"Astounding you can call me 'pureblood,' Jules, considering your parents are both wizards, you've been told that, right?"

"Better an ignorant Muggle-raised than a upper-class product of the Serpents' Den."

"Better a rich wizard than a poor gutter-snipe."

"Better a penniless Muggle than a bourgeois narcissist."

"Better a bourgeois than an untrained, uncouth, unladylike, unlikeable, unbearable, and entirely overgrown little Gryffindor with more vocabulary than she's got brains."

"Amazing, the ferret can alliterate."

"Astounding, the baggage knows her ancient history."

"Why didn't I start an insulting club?" Judy asked hypothetically, watching Draco and Julie sting with unabashed delight. "This is better than a play, do go on, you two."

"I think not," Professor Snape said, a moderately displeased grin on his face. "The table isn't that wide and I fear Draco may find his face scratched and Julia find herself shoved should we permit this little fight to go on unhindered. Would both of you kindly sit down and try to get through the meal in peace?"

"Yes, professor," the two miscreants mumbled in unison like two little first-years who had gotten caught arguing. Kenny and his father were both developing fairly strong fits of the giggles over this.

"Has anyone heard what's become of Peter Pettigrew?" Mitchie asked, trying not to burst into laughter at Julie and her 'snoggie's charade as well.

"He is in custody at Gringott's, of all places," Professor Snape announced with a sordid look. "The goblins have him in a reasonably large and particularly secure converted vault, with bars installed on the door so that the rat can breathe."

"Y'mean they've put him in a bank vault, sir?" Donaghan asked.

"Yes, a very smelly one with no compound interest," the harsh Professor jested rather cheerfully. "I'm told he has a bed and a chair, and- well, facilities, and I have it on good authority they remember to feed him every so often."

"Then he's been found guilty?" Julie asked.

"Not yet, his trial's in January," her father said. "He'll probably be living there for life, though, now, as some people are opposed to the death penalty."

"I find that the death penalty tends to create rather bitter ghosts," Nearly Headless Nick observed, floating through the wall and startling everyone. He was resplendent in a black and white striped doublet and grinning so brightly one might not realize he was dead. "Ah, just the students I was hoping to see tonight!" The present Gryffindor Quidditch boys looked awfully confused as the ghost made the effort to shake their hands. Julie shot them the eyebrow, though, and they didn't let on they didn't know what was going on. "Refereeing the Headless Hunt will be so perfectly wonderful, I can't tell you enough what your recommendation means!"

The identical minute the cheery House ghost was gone, the two Beaters, and two of the Chasers gave Julie an inquisitive look. Professor McGonagall noticed this and made a note with her quill on some parchment.

"Twenty-three counts of forgery, Miss Starcatcher," she announced calmly with a sort of severe smile. "In the future, please try to calm that clever pen."

"They were at Hogsmeade!" Julie protested.

"There's no punishment. If anything this resembles one or more of the times your mother broke the rules for purely benevolent reasons."

Mitchie had not worn glasses all her life for nothing, it was clear that Julie was blinking for a reason, now. Inwardly she smiled at how the headmistress had praised her friend, and reflected that perhaps it might be a good idea to ask Minister Dumbledore what her parents had been like. If only she had had just a year with them, or a day more, or an hour she could perhaps recall…

She was so absorbed in her thoughts of what might-have-been that she barely noticed when dinner ended. As it was Christmas Eve, the entire crowd of teachers and students who were staying over break gathered around the tree by the big fireplace.

There was an abundance of large, overstuffed furniture, very similar to the kind in the Gryffindor Common Room, only instead of red chairs there were big blue ones and huge couches, even a particularly large chair with a back about level with Mitchie's head; most likely Professor Hagrid's, she surmised. Kenny Longbottom climbed on his father's lap and the two little Potter twins fell asleep on their mum and dad. Mitchie liked Mrs. Potter a lot so far, and her Flying professor was one of her three favorites. Professor Hagrid was about to sit down when he realized there was a big orange cat on his chair.

"Aw, come now, Crookshanks, there's a good kitty," he coaxed, but the cat just gave him a rather offended look. "Please?"

"'Allo, Crookie," Julie said, patting the orange cat on the head. "Come sit wi' me awhile," she offered.

Crookshanks purred and leapt from the chair and then onto Professor Granger's lap.

"I didn't know y' had a cat, Julie," Mitchie said.

"Crookshanks is Mum's, my big brother happens to be a cat."

"That's right, Julie," Professor Snape said, "Crookshanks is older than you are."

"But he's not gray or stiff at all," Mitchie observed.

"Youth potion to fix his arthritis, dear. Physically he's about nine, but chronologically he's much older than Julie, I'd say about twenty-three." Professor Granger stroked the large cat from his head to his bushy tail. "You know, with the dogs and the rodents and Crookshanks, Sev, we've got more pets than people in this family."

"Excuse me, but ferrets are not rodents," Malfoy protested. "They are noble and elegant carnivores, prized for their intelligence and beauty in all circles."

"If not for the fact tht I'm a ferret enthusiast, you would be heartily laughed at, you know, Draco." Julie stretched her arm and patted him condescendingly on the head, the effect sadly marred by the fact that he was about half a foot taller than she was. Still, short as she was, Mitchie knew she was the only Hogwarts student who could get away with calling a professor by his first name.

"If not for the fact that you are my friends' daughter, you would be smirked at and called undergrown, you know." Draco observed fairly nastily.

"This from the fellow who called her overgrown at dinnertime! Heavens, but the race must be improving fast!" Mitchie couldn't help chipping in.

"This from the Yank who doesn't know her own race!"

"This from th' ferret wi' straighter teeth n' thoughts!"

"This from the Scot we can barely understand!"

"This from the rich boy with more money than God and absolutely perfect hair!"

Everyone was stunned as the three Gryffindors turned on their professor, but Julie's last insult went a little bit awry:

"Why, thank you, Julie," Malfoy answered, kissing her.

Mitchie and Donaghan cracked up entirely.

"We were wonderin' which of y'd notice first!"

The wolves had been deftly maneuvering the Seekers under the mistletoe. The look of utter shock from Julie sent them into literal howls of laughter.

"Puppies, Mitch," she said smoothly, in a steely imitation of her father's angry tone. "Leashes and chew toys and milk-bones and kibble!"

"My, but somebody's angry," Professor Snape observed.

"And Donaghan, surely you know who Baldur is?" Julie inquired rather acidly, indicating the mistletoe. The Scotwolf shrugged.

"Naw, he's not got a drop of Norse blood in him, poor Scot," Draco said. "Baldur was an immortal killed with an arrow of mistletoe."

"Yes, Gildy, and you'll be next," Julie said, flipping Draco's blond ponytail as she tried to get away. Professor Granger gasped in amazement at her daughter's choice of insult.

Professor Malfoy caught Julie by the wrist and pulled her back.

"What did you call me?"

"You heard me."

"Well, seeing as you've come back, then," he said, kissing her again.

Even Professor McGonagall was having a high old time watching the two of them square off, especially as a calm, suave Malfoy was taking out a very temperamental Granger-Snape. It finally occurred to Julie that this was what was amusing them, and so she abruptly changed horses in midriver:

"Hmm, you really are a rich dessert," she observed in her best salacious Dark Lady voice before kissing Draco to within an inch of his life. Every jaw in the room –besides, well, her Draco's, dropped.

For a second the entire castle was silent in abject shock, until the ever-loyal Mitchie burst into hysterical laughter. A few Professors, not including Julie's parents or honorary uncles, joined in as well, and finally everyone but Severus was cracking up.

"I win," Julie said cheerfully.

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The cloaked figure on the black horse rode up to the cave shrine and dismounted. Despite having followers and loyal peasants enough to pave a road, he had elected to spend los noctes de vigilia alone. He had been born Josè Garcia y Rodriguez in 1985, but in two thousand eighteen he had the name of Santa Anna de Diablo.

Privately he didn't like his new name much. De diablo –the devil, seemed just a little inappropriate for what he had in mind. Santa Anna was perfectly alright, after the general who had been victorious leading the armies of los mestizos and la españards until those cursed Americans cornered him.

Now there was a wrong name, Americans. It was named for Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian of all things, who had never even visited the New World. Better to call the new land by real names like Mexico and Tenochtitlàn. And those Anglo bastards weren't real Americans, the Sioux, Inca and Aztecs they slaughtered were Americans. Josè despised Anglo-Americans. He hated Germans, too, and English, and Danes, and Belgians, but none more than the Anglo-Americans.

Once inside the cave, he drew two long black tapers from his vest and lit them. With an ornate obsidian knife he slit his own thumbs and let the blood of his heart drip into the stained clay pot below. When it had enough, he tore some of his own straight black hair out and bound it to a short stick –his wand.

Using this as a brush and his own blood as ink, Josè painted his ambitions on the flattest part of the cave wall:

'Muertè à Blancos, muertè à Nazis. Muertè à Blancos, muertè à Nazis…'

After writing his dream in Spanish exactly thirteen times, he drew a swastika below him between his feet. Rising from his crouch, the wizard shook his hair from his wand and incinerated the despised symbol of death and hate and worthless Anglos' supremacy with a single word.

It was vengeance he craved, above all things.

The arcane part of his Christmas worship done, Josè went outside and selected a small pine tree. He couldn't bear to sever such a perfect thing from its stump, so he decorated it with his wand outdoors in the rain. He went then to his horse and took the four packages from his saddlebags, perfectly wrapped, slightly dingy and aged Christmas parcels. Josè placed them tenderly beneath the tree, whispering the name of their long-dead recipients in the childish hope that one day they'd open them:

"Mami, Papi, Juan, Esperanza." Over and over he whispered the names, until he eventually fell asleep next to the little tree. By morning he would be the enemy of the Estados Unidos again, but for tonight he was just an orphaned little boy.

Across the sea his greatest nemesis slept as well.

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A/N: Well, how's that, everyone? Is everything coming together well? By the way, I suggest you remember everything Draco researched at the library, plus everything he got at Borgin & Burkes afterward. Also, one must never forget the suspenders, O Best Beloved. (Sorry! Had to babysit again and OD'd on Kipling!) If anyone can tell me where Donaghan and Mitchie's song came from, who wrote it, who performed it, what album it is from, I will personally submit to their command on any plot issue. (So if seeing Sevvie and Draco tap-dance is your cup of tea, I suggest you research your old rock lyrics.) There! Now I have an in-story challenge, just like Ms. Hilt does.

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-Jan McNeville