Door 21
The books were wrapped in Christmas paper, a decorated fire branch on top of each one; they were lying on the table in Angelina's room, waiting to be given to Samuel and Emily.
Those two were right now sitting at the dining table together with Angelina and Montague and ate their dinner. For the first time Angelina didn't speak at all and the siblings had never eaten less than they did today.
"We have something for you. Presents." Samuel said when they had finished dinner. He arose from his seat and went around it to hand a package to Angelina, the other one to Montague.
"But you can't open them before Christmas morning!" Emily reminded them and smiled weakly. She was about to rise from her chair when Angelina held her back.
"Wait a moment. We have something for you, too." She left the dining room and headed for her room to get the two presents for Samuel and Emily.
"Don't open before Christmas." She said when she came back into the dining room and handed the presents to the children.
They sat silently at the table for some moments before Angelina decided it was time for the siblings to go to bed. They said good night to Montague and left with Angelina.
Angelina closed the door to her room behind her and sighed heavily. She hadn't thought it would be so hard to bring them to bed the last time. She had read them a last story, this time Samuel didn't want to read himself and had instead listened to her as well as Emily was doing.
Emily had asked for the longest story Angelina could find in the books they had been reading so far and so Angelina had sat for thirty minutes at the edge of the bed and had read to them before she had turned off the light and wished them a good night.
Now, in her own room she let herself fall back on the bed. Tomorrow everything would change.
"Or rather everything will go back to normal tomorrow." She said into the darkness.
"Sam and Emmy will be in the orphanage again, I will go back to my parents and Montague… he will be the same self-absorbed, arrogant, bad-tempered Slytherin-bastard again. No more Christmas shopping trips, baking biscuits, buying angels for the tree," a sad smile covered her face.
"No more mistletoe…" she whispered and turned her head to the window. The moon lightened the snow outside and Angelina remembered the day they had searched for the Christmas tree.
'I better start packing my belongings.' She thought and swallowed the lump in her throat. She arose from the bed and opened the wardrobe, started to put her clothes back into the bag it had been in when she had moved it from her home.
Upstairs in his bedroom Montague was standing in front of the window, looking out into the night. Tomorrow he would have his house back to himself – until his parents would return in January. He should be happy about this.
Why then wasn't he happy? Why couldn't he help but think of a young, dark skinned woman with dark brown eyes and lips that tasted like chocolate biscuits.
This night before Christmas Eve Alexander Tybalt Montague didn't close his eyes at all. For the first time in years he didn't want to be alone the next night. But he was used to this by now.
His parents had spent most of the Christmases away from home already when he had been a child and then Father Christmas, whom he had believed in, had also disappointed him. He had years of unfulfilled wishes and he was used to it. He never got what he wanted.
So why should it be different this year?