Harry woke up on Christmas morning to find a pile of presents at the foot of his bed. He'd risen early despite the fact that he'd been up late looking at pictures of his parents. Ron had a similar pile at the end of his bed.
"Happy Christmas, Harry."
"Happy Christmas, Ron." They began to open their presents.
Most years, they had the room to themselves on the holidays, not this year. Anthony was staying, too; but as per his usual pattern, he was still asleep.
Harry picked up his presents. "Come on. Let's go see the girls. We don't want them here if he wakes up."
Ron nodded, and grabbed his presents. They slipped out and went down the stairs, then up the girls' stairs. They stopped at the door that said SIXTH YEAR. Hermione and Renata had the room to themselves during the break.
"Happy Christmas!"
"Happy Christmas!"
"Happy Christmas!"
"Merry Christmas!"
They all sat on separate beds and opened their presents. Ron looked around distractedly. "I don't think we've been in here before."
Hermione laughed, "Of course not. You're not allowed in here. We're not allowed in your room either. We only go in to visit you on Christmas."
Harry started opening his presents. As usual he received meat pies and a new handmade sweater from Mrs. Weasly. This year's was green with a red and gold lion on it; Mrs. Weasly liked green on him because she said it brought out his eyes. From Ron Harry got a box Filbusters No-Heat, Wet- Start Fireworks. Hermione had given him a box of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, and some more enchanted paper that worked with the Live-Write Spell. When they say every flavor, they meant every flavor. Renata gave him a book about magical medicine. When he held it up she grinned and said it was exactly what he needed; it might prevent at least some of his time in the hospital.
Renata looked down at Harry's gift to her, "Flowers! How sweet. Thank you." She looked like she meant it.
Harry found a note that said Don't pull another stunt this summer. They were referring to his little prank against Dudley the summer before. Harry noticed one present that was usually in his pile was missing: nothing from Sirius. Harry quickly realized why this was.
"Ron. I think we'd better be getting back."
"Why?"
"Because, I think Sirius was going to come see me this morning!"
"Sirius? See you.? Oh! We've got to get back to our room."
Harry got up and was about to open the door when Renata came and hurled herself at it. "Are you crazy? Step away from door. Back." She stuck her head out the door. "See? Three girls walking down the stairs. What if they saw you?" She kept the lookout. "Doesn't look like anyone will see you. Both of you, quick, back to your room." She practically pushed them out the door. "We'll see you, later."
Harry and Ron ran down the stairs and back up the stairs to their room. They had just sat down on their beds as Anthony woke up.
"Good morning." He yawned. "Joyeux Noël."
"Happy Christmas."
"Happy Christmas."
Anthony then diverted his attention to his presents. Three minutes later Sirius came in.
"Happy Christmas, boys."
"Happy Christmas, Sirius."
Sirius looked over at Anthony and lowered his voice as he spoke to Harry and Ron, "I came in about twenty minutes ago and you weren't here."
"Er- bathroom."
"Yeah, we wanted to brush our teeth before you came in."
Sirius raised his eyebrow. His voice got quieter still. "Brushing your teeth? I waited in here for ten minutes. I saw you come down the other staircase."
There were no excuses left. "We had to say good morning to Hermione and Renata."
"We always see them Christmas morning and they couldn't come see us here because of him." Harry inclined his head slightly in Anthony's direction.
"I understand that. I know you wanted to see your friends but next time, a little more caution. I'll see you boys later. Have a good morning. And don't go back in there. And don't lie to me like that, tell me the truth the first time I ask, not when you run out of possible truths."
"Okay. Bye, Sirius. I'll see you later."
"Alright, Harry, Ron."
As soon as Sirius was out of the room, Anthony asked, "What was that about?"
"Nothing," Ron answered hastily.
"That's not true."
Harry thought fast. "You caught us. We were planning to play a prank on Dumbledore, today. Sirius found out and said he'd give us detention if we went through with it."
"What was it?"
"Er-"
Ron answered, "We learned this great mind trick. You can make people think things, er, hypnosis. We were going to hypnotize him and make him think he came out to the Christmas Feast in is underwear."
"Oh. That seems very childish."
"I thought it was funny," Ron told him.
"So did I," Harry added.
"I'm leaving. I've got to go wish Hermione a Joyeux Noël." Anthony got dressed, combed his hair and made sure every strand was in place, and went downstairs.
As soon as he was gone, Harry and Ron started laughing.
"Nice thinking."
"I was going to say the same to you."
"How'd you come up with it?" asked Harry.
"What you said made me remember a book George read-"
"George read a book? One he didn't have to read?"
"Yeah, I know. Fred, too. It was called The Greatest Pranks in Hogwarts History."
They got dressed and went to the common room. Hermione and Renata were waiting.
"Sirius knows we were there."
"Doesn't matter," Renata said.
"Let's get some breakfast and then we can go have a snowball fight," Ron said.
"It'll be weird without your brothers, Ron."
"Yeah, don't tell them this the next time you see them, but I sort of almost miss them."
They met Ginny down in the Great Hall.
"Hi, Ginny."
"Hello, Hermione. Hi, Harry. Are-" She was distracted by someone behind them. "I've got to go. Collin wants to talk to me. I'll see you all later." She hurried to the other end of the table.
Ron looked at Harry. "Obviously you've been replaced."
Later they had a great time at their annual snowball fight. Ron and Harry were against Hermione and Renata. Things were going great for the boys until Renata put a magic created body double in her place and snuck around and came up behind Harry and Ron, dropping snow down the collar of their shirts.
The boys gave slight screams
Renata and Hermione laughed then and laughed again later that day and any other time they thought about the fight. ************************************************
The Christmas Feast was a blast. There were crackers and food and fun. When you pulled a cracker it went off with a blast like a cannon. Harry opened three and found a new set of Gobstones, a box of Honeydukes chocolate, and a little wind up toy drummer boy that walked around the table in circles tapping out well known Christmas carols.
Suddenly sleepy from too much food, Harry excused himself from the table. He wandered off into the corridor and was about to start up the staircase when he suddenly found Renata behind him.
"Merry Christmas, Harry."
"Happy Christmas, Renata." He noticed she had turned her eyes to the ceiling and followed her gaze. Mistletoe was floating in the air about six inches above his head. How had that gotten there? It was revolving too. How odd. "Er.about your terms for letting me back on the Quiditch team. About that one part.to apologize or." He didn't know how to continue. He slowly leaned forward, and blushing with embarrassment, he kissed her. It was his first real kiss-though Hermione had kissed his cheek once at the end of their fourth year-and he later realized it wasn't really all that bad, in fact he rather enjoyed it. He didn't say anything after though and he just backed away, he didn't know what to say or if he should say anything, but he waited only a few seconds before he decided to quickly continued up the stairs. Not looking back. He reached the Tower quickly but the Fat Lady in the portrait wasn't there. He thought about going back downstairs and thought better of it. He was surprised that Renata hadn't followed him up the rest of the way. He wondered briefly about what he'd done just done. Nothing wrong, he'd just kissed her. But he'd liked it. He wanted to kiss her again. But they were just friends. That would never change; he didn't want it to change. Harry waited perhaps twenty minutes before the Fat Lady came back and he was able to say the password for her to open the way into the Tower.
Harry sat in the chair by the fire and began to doze. When his friends came in he was just waking up from his nap. Ron, Renata, and Hermione came in together.
"Hullo, Ron," Harry yawned. "I dunno about you but I'm tired." He kept his eyes away from Renata, focusing only on Hermione and Ron.
"You look tired, Harry. Did you get enough rest last night?" asked Hermione.
"Not really. I was looking at my photo album. I was up for a long time. Nobody else is tired?"
"No."
"I'm not."
"Not me."
"Well I am, so I'll see you in the morning." He made his way to the dorm.
Renata called to him, "See you in the morning!"
His cheeks had turned red again and he was glad no one could see them. *********************************************8
Harry spent the next few days hiding from Renata, not exactly hiding, but rather avoiding her. The last night before school was going to resume Ron finally asked him about his avoiding Renata.
"Harry, what's wrong?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb, Harry. You were never very good at it anyway. Ever since Christmas you've been treating Renata as if she's poison or something. You won't even stay in the same room as her for long. What's the matter? Did the two of you have a fight or something and not tell us?"
"No, that's not it." The truth was Harry never talked Renata about the fact that he'd just kissed her without warning, without even asking. He was worried that she'd be mad at him. But soon he'd have to face the music because they'd be in class together.
"Then what is it?" he seemed completely puzzled.
Harry waited a while before answering. He listened carefully to his friends' breathing to make sure the rest of them were asleep before he answered. "D'you remember when we got in that big fight after the Quiditch game Gryffindor lost?"
"Yeah."
"You swear you won't repeat this?"
"What's the deal here, Harry?"
"Ron."
"Oh, okay. I won't."
"Now, you remember the terms of agreement for me to rejoin the team?"
"Yeah.?"
"One of them was that I either had to make a public apology, or take the alternative choice."
"And the other choice was that you had to kiss a girl over Christmas break." His eyes widened. "Did you kiss my sister? You did! And Renata saw you! Didn't she? That's what this is about. Isn't it?"
"No! Keep it down, will you?" He glanced around nervously at the other beds. "Don't wake them."
"Okay so tell me what happened. I'm sure it's no big deal."
"I kissed her."
"Her?" He said, not comprehending. "Oh! You mean.not.Renata? Renata?"
Harry nodded weakly.
"Really? I can't believe you did that. I wish I coulda seen her reaction. She hit you, didn't she? That's why you've been avoiding her."
"No. I kinda just ran off."
"Why?"
"I dunno. I guess I thought she would hit me, or curse me."
"If I was you I'd be scare right about now. So what happened?"
"Well, I left the table early on Christmas day, and Renata caught up with me at the stairs. There was mistletoe floating over my head, not really sure how it got there, and I figured it was sort of a now or never kind of thing." I think I may have actually wanted to kiss her. No!
The last thing that Harry heard before falling asleep was Ron telling him, "You've got guts, Harry. I don't want to be in your shoes come class time tomorrow."
To Harry's surprise, Renata acted as though nothing had happened. She didn't bring it up and acted as though everything were perfectly normal. A small part of Harry's mind was disappointed at this but he quickly dismissed this thought with the relief that no revenge would be coming his way from her.
There was only one result of what had happened. After Charms on Tuesday Renata asked Harry if he would walk in the hall with her. He was a little nervous, now she was going to explode. He knew it. They walked in silence for a few minutes, until Harry thought his nerves would burst. He'd never been the most patient of people.
"Whatever you want just say it and get it over with!"
"Well, I just wanted to let you know that I think you are a jerk too stupid to know when you are wrong and when you do know you're too arrogant to apologize."
Not what he was expecting. "If you're mad about Christmas, I-"
She rounded on him, stopping dead in her tracks, inches from his face, and glaring at him. "Don't flatter yourself, Harry, why would I care about that? My point is that you would rather do something you really don't want to do, rather than admit to people that you were wrong. Pig." She spat on his shoe before turning to go. About 3 yards away she shouted back to him, "Probation is over. Full team rights. And Captain rights as long as you don't mess up again."
Only when Renata was out of earshot did Harry speak again. "But I did want to do that."
No more was said by either of them on the subject.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Told you he didn't hate her!