Author's Note: It's the holidays! I remember it taking forever to come up with Christmas gifts for people (just like real life), and there's so many characters, which means so many Christmas gifts. I also had to write the Potter-Weasley family in, which is a lot of characters. So many that some of them had to sleep in a tent. Whatever did happen to that tent in the fourth book anyway, why didn't the Weasleys keep that for family gatherings? Their house wasn't big enough for that many family members. Anyway, I'm still touring Europe, my first stops were Scotland and England, and while we were in London (the very day I visited Buckingham Palace for the first time) they announced that the Queen of England had died in Scotland, so it was kind of crazy timing for my first Europe trip! Then I caught a train at King's Cross station and now I'm in France struggling to figure out a gas stove.

Content Warning: Strong language, alcohol.

Chapter 10

A Watched Fireplace

(June)

"Oh dear," I mumbled through yet another yawn. It was around noon, and I had been trying to get some sleep while we rode on the Hogwarts Express back to London where I would meet Rose's famous family for the first time. I hadn't counted on the people I would be sharing the compartment with though, obviously. Another yawn. Well, I suppose it's nice to get away from that school.

"And that, my friends, is how the biscuit crumbles all over the floor," James said very triumphantly as he did a double jump over two of Riley's Checkers pieces and won the game.

"Oh, all right, but why don't you try playing Chess with Luke, huh?" Riley muttered grumpily.

"You just don't want to admit that I am the King of Checkers, now do you?"

"No, but I will admit that you are lousy at anything involving the tiniest bit of thinking."

"Have you got any Umbrella Birds?" Rose was asking Seth as they sat across from each other, each holding a handful of children's Go Fish cards. The cards ranged from A to Z, a muggle animal for each letter.

"No, go fish," he muttered. "Do you have a Narwhal?" Rose scowled and handed him a card.

"...And anyway, it's not like he ever mentioned it to me, so how should I know?" Lacey was saying to Aura as they too were in the compartment. It was quite packed. No room to swing a cat, I might go as far as saying. Definitely no room for me to lie down and get some shut eye. No way. Especially not after Scorpius and Albus decided to show up and shoulder their way in to perch on the edge of one of the seats (in Al's case) and lean against the window (Scorpius). And then, as if it wasn't full enough, Dima and Aminta barged in to stand in the very center of the compartment and gossip about the fourth years they just saw going through some seventh year's bags.

"Baahh, why so many people in here?" I cried in dismay. They all ceased their different conversations and looked at me.

"I was here first," was James's excuse.

"I'm your boyfriend," was Riley's.

"I'm your best mate," was what Rose claimed.

"I'm her boyfriend," Seth said, nodding to Rose.

"I'm your boyfriend's best mate," Aura said.

"I'm best mates with him," Lacey pointed at James. "And him, technically," pointing to Scorpius.

"I'm sharing my house with you for the holidays," Albus said with a shrug.

"I got kicked out of my compartment," Scorpius said. I noticed Rose distinctly guffawing at this.

"I maintain the cleanliness of our dorm," Dima said.

"I shared my jumper with you once," Aminta said.

"Oh my god," I growled, burying my head in my sweater and pulling my knees up to my chest as I got comfy on the seat. "So tired." Yawn. Sleep? Sleep? Beautiful sleep? Where have you gone my friend? Oh, there you are...no, never mind, false alarm. I almost drifted off once, and that was the moment that that darling sweetheart James chose to goddamn sit on me. "I'm going to kill you, James Potter!" I shrieked as I felt him playing with my hair. I sat up and shoved him off of me so violently that he fell backwards onto the floor, bumping into Minty and Dima's legs which knocked them off balance and caused them to lurch into Albus and Scorpius and they all fell into a big heap in the middle of the compartment.

"Uugh, nice one June, you walking disaster area," James grumbled as he sat up, rubbing his head and extracting most of his limbs from underneath the tangle that was Dima and Albus.

"It's your fault!" I accused, glowering at him.

"Oh yeeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Oh yeeeah?"

"Yes, James. It is."

"You never did learn to take responsibility for your actions, did you?" he asked as the heap of people began to sort themselves out. "What a shame. You see, I've grown up, but you, you're still such a child. Such a shame. Tut tut." He shook his head, still making tutting sounds.

"Oh, dear lord, why did I ever agree to spend my holidays with you? Seriously, I am going to go mad!" I moaned desperately, turning my face skyward as though, perhaps, some great deity up there would take pity on my poor soul and send me back to Hogwarts. Or perhaps send a lightning bolt down to fry James. But neither happened. Note to self: get on better terms with the big guys up there. Obi-Wan and Mufasa and so on.

"Pssshh," James snorted. "Yeah right. I know this is exactly what you've been hoping for! Hell, this is the entire reason you came to Hogwarts."

"What is?"

"Well, isn't it obvious?" he asked, and I just gave him a bemused look. "It's okay, I get it all the time. You're just dying to be sleeping in the same house as me. You're going to sneak into my room or catch me walking out of the shower or just hop into bed with me. Don't worry, though, I'm used to this kind of reaction. I'm kind of irresistible. It's a curse, really..."

"Oh, my fucking god," I groaned again, and this time I think I might have died a little inside. "In your goddamn dreams, James. God, I don't even want to think about those things! If I did want any of that, I probably would have gone for it already. We are in the same house, you know."

"Yes, but you've just always been intimidated by my, well, let's face it; my godly looks and my beautifully toned body," he went on, beginning to get a little carried away with praising himself. "...and the hordes of female admirers that seems to follow me everywhere. Ah, the life of an incredibly good-looking, talented, intelligent, charming..."

"Holy...blibbering...mushrooms, James! How many times do I have to tell you: YOU. ARE. NOT. AS. SEXY. AS. YOU. THINK. YOU. ARE." I stated it as loudly and clearly as I could, while feeling like I wanted to claw his eyes out, but he was just giving me a one-eyebrow-raised, pitying kind of look.

"I feel sorry for you, June," he said in a sort of saintly voice, "I truly do. You are just so in denial of your true feelings for me. I mean, it's so obvious that no one could ever resist James Sirius Potter in the least, not even Lezzie here." He turned around to wink at Lacey who gave him a vicious look. "Anyway, I think you should just be honest with yourself, and everyone else. Hey, you should make it an official announcement with all these people here to witness it, that you, June Slippery Slag Lorrison, are really really into me and that your life goal is actually to have sex with me. So... go on then." He gave me an encouraging smile.

Everyone in the room was watching the two of us, most intently the look of absolutely, bottomless, all-consuming, fiery, passionate rage that was on my steadily reddening face at that moment. And my only reply was a strangled sort of Hippogriff war cry as I jumped forward and pounced on James, not, and let me repeat that, NOT in a sexual way. More in the "I'm-going-to-throttle-you-to-death-and-then-pommel-you-to-death-and-then-kill-you-fifteen-more-times-and-scream-at-you-for-awhile-and-then-spit-on-your-body-at-the-funeral" kind of way.

"I can't believe you hit me!" I whined a little while later as I peered into a pocket mirror at the black eye that was growing.

"You were hitting me, what was I supposed to do?" he asked, throwing his arms out to the sides. "It's not like it actually hurt though, it was more like little, tiny bug bites." He held his forefinger and thumb about an inch apart while giving me a teasing look. I glared at him.

"Deep breaths, June, deep breaths," Rose said helpfully in my ear.

The train was just pulling into the station right now. Most of the others had already vacated the compartment. Now it was just me, James, Rose, Albus and Riley. The train lurched to a stop.

"There you are, my dear; your first glimpse of our family," Rose said as she nudged me. She was looking out the window of our compartment. I followed her gaze to see a group of adults, hair colour, oddly enough, ranging from red to blonde to dark brown. I believe I have been misled. They were now glancing at the train every now and then, though still carrying on their conversation.

"Are you ready for a very Weasley Christmas?" Albus asked to which his brother responded by punching him in the arm. Al winced and rubbed the sore spot. I rolled my eyes and stood up. Glancing out the window of our compartment door into the hall, I saw Professor Longbottom, the Herbology teacher walking past while Teagan's friend Amelia gazed cross-eyed at a piece of hair that seemed to have a wad of gum stuck in it.

"Oh...are they related?" I asked.

"Yeah, father and daughter," Riley said as he followed my gaze. "Really, June? They have the same last name."

"Oh. Hm, makes sense. She's got his...teeth."

James snickered, then we all began to squeeze out into the halls. I got quite lost for a bit, totally swallowed up in the horde of littler students, and I couldn't seem to find the Weasley-Potter clan with which I was supposed to be sticking to. Then I suddenly found myself launched out the doors of the train and onto the bustling platform. A little dazed, I seemed to stand in the way of the flow of students eagerly pouring out of the train, then I realized this and took quite a few steps forward, so that I almost joined some happy family reunion. The wrong one.

"Oi, June you dozy Sasquatch, get over here!" James's voice could be heard calling through the clamor of the station and I turned my head in the direction of it. He was motioning me over to the steadily growing group.

As I made in their direction, I could see James, Albus, Rose, Hugo, Lily, as well as a couple that consisted of a familiarly-lightning-bolted man with an also quite familiar messy head of dark hair with a stylishly dressed red haired woman. Another couple with them consisted of a brown-haired woman who was in the middle of kissing Rose on the cheek, and a rather goofy-looking redheaded man. The third couple that was in their midst was a blonde woman with spacey blue eyes and a man with mousy brown hair.

The last person with them was a blonde woman with a somewhat familiar chin. I soon found out why this chin was familiar as Amelia Longbottom ran over to her and gave her a hug. Professor Longbottom was quick to join the two- supposedly his wife and daughter- and give the woman a kiss on the cheek. I was just arriving on the outskirts of the party when I was shoved aside by two identical little first year blonde twins as they hurtled straight into the arms of the blonde woman who received them just as enthusiastically.

"June," Rose said, holding my arm and guiding me forward. I was suddenly nervous. Meeting well, pretty much all of Rose's and James's family. Heavy stuff. "This is my mum and my dad," she introduced, nodding to the brunette and the red-haired man.

"Hermione," the woman said with a friendly wave, "and Ron." The man said something like "Hi-yo!" with a hand flail.

"And this is Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny," she continued, moving onto the bespectacled Harry Potter as he draped an arm around his daughter's shoulder and his wife.

"It's nice to meet you, we've heard so much about you," Ginny said with a charming smile.

"This is Luna and Rolf Scamander," Rose then said as she turned me in the direction of the twin-parents, and they also greeted me. Each of the twins was standing in the shadow of their parents, one of them with his chin tucked into his neck and his eyes averted while he gripped his mother's hands. The other one stepped forward instantly and stuck his small arm out to shake with me.

"I'm Lorcan!" he announced with a confident smile, "and that's my brother Lysander. I'm the oldest." He puffed out his chest importantly.

"Gee, son, you remind me of someone named James," I said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, we always tried to keep James away from the twins, but his personality seemed to rub off on Lorcan somehow," Hermione said as she raised an eyebrow.

"I'd try to lock him in a closet, but chances are he'd charm the doorknob into letting him out," Ginny mused, ruffling James's hair until he made angry cat sounds and scuttled out of the way.

"Or he'd annoy the door to splinters," I said to receive knowing chuckles from those around me. James took a bow.

"Hello Professor Longbottom, have you met June?" Rose asked as she drew the next family into our circle of introductions.

"Not officially, but I did happen to witness that infamous 'Slime Fight'," he said as he shook my hand. "I'm Neville, outside of school."

"Nice to meet you," I said. I met his wife, named Hannah, then I saw Amelia exchanging a last-minute hug with an excited Teagan. I caught the glimpse of part of Riley's face through the crowds and we exchanged something of a goodbye, consisting of head bobbing and a bit of waving. How's that for girlfriend-boyfriend behavior? "Well, we've got to get going now," Professor Longbottom said as he began to lead his family away. Many goodbyes were exchanged, and then the Scamanders left too.

"Right, let's get out of this din, shall we?" Ron suggested to instant agreement. We collected all our trunks and hauled them through the barrier and out to the parking lot. I expected there to be, like, a bus just especially for Potter-Weasleys, but there wasn't. There were two plain-looking cars. One of them was sleek black and the other was deep blue. The trunks of the cars- oh, sorry, the "boots"- seemed to be bottomless, and they easily accommodated our baggage. We piled into the cars, five to each, and they rode serenely through the heavy traffic, squeezing in between other cars effortlessly.

The house we arrived at was a fair enough size, and very nice-looking, but I wasn't sure it would be able to contain the amount of people I assumed there would be.

"Come on, June, we'll be in the tent!" Rose declared excitedly as she pulled our stuff out of the car and hurried me through the front door.

"'We'll be in the tent', gee, that's exactly what I love hearing, especially when there's icky-horrible-awful-disgusting snow up to my knees," I groaned as I trudged through the lumpy snow, slipping quite a lot.

"Oh relax, it's a deluxe tent! It's warm," Rose assured me. "And big, and there are beds." She led me through the house, past a kitchen full of people that I was sure I was supposed to meet, and outside into the backyard. There was a small silver tent set up in the middle of the snowy yard.

"Ick-ick-ew-ew-eeewww," I grumbled as we stomped through the white powdered evil. Then Rose shoved her trunk through the opening, then followed it. I stuck my head in, then grinned. It was a deluxe tent. Any tent I'd ever been in before, muggle or magical, was like a shoebox compared to this. "Oooh la laa," I breathed.

"Exactly!" Rose beamed at me as she hauled our luggage into a corner and gave me a grand tour of the place. I counted seven beds. There was a sitting room with comfy-looking couches as well as a kitchen with a kettle, of course, and a fridge and counters and cupboards and such. There was also a bathroom. This was deluxe for sure.

"How many other people are going to-" I started but then a large trunk flew through the opening in the tent, did a couple loop-de-loops in the air and then plunged forward on an imminent collision course with mine and Rose's heads. I let out an unattractive "eeeek!" and then flopped down onto the floor, squeezing my eyes shut. I opened them again when I heard laughter. You know the laughter, the evil, ridiculous sound in that one terrible voice that I seem to hear way too often. Yeah, the laughter of James Sirius Potter. I wish there were a spell to permanently end his laughter forever.

He was stepping through the door into the tent, wand held aloft as it kept his trunk suspended in the air, just two inches from Rose's wide eyes. I stood up. He was still chuckling softly as he lowered the trunk, whisking it off to clunk against mine and Rose's.

"I really hate you; you know that?" I growled at him, and he smiled.

"Come on, now, we're going to be living in very close quarters for the next two weeks," he said with a sly wink. "Perhaps you should learn to get used to me."

"Ugh," I breathed, rolling my eyes. "Who else is sleeping here?"

"Hmmm, there's you, me, Ginger-knickers, Elbows, Leaky, Huge-o and Loser," he replied.

"Who?"

"He means Al, Lily, Hugo and Louis," Rose explained.

"Yeah, that's what I said. The folks want to lock all the young 'uns away," James remarked, nodding. "Out of sight. So's we don't spoil their lovely party."

"Come on, let's go inside then, June," Rose suggested and we strode past James.

Back in the house I met Rose's grandfather, Arthur, who had just popped into the house to grab Hugo to help him with his wonderful new discovery. The discovery being IKEA build-it-yourself furniture, which he insisted on doing the muggle way. Molly, his wife, would just roll her eyes at his enthusiasm and the way he would wave the various screws and nails around.

Next there was Audrey and Percy, the posh, stiff parents of Molly Weasley- a bit of a nutter at first glance. She did have the same kind of crazy look about her that Rose had- and Lucy. Then there was Fleur, a very glamorous woman with a thick French accent, and her husband Bill. Their kids were Victoire, a gorgeous prim lady with nice hair, and Dominique and Louis, who was only a year older than James, apparently, thus qualifying him for the "Kiddy Tent" as James called it.

Angelina and George were another couple, and, horrifyingly, George was missing an ear. They had two kids, Fred, a tall skinny boy with cream-and-coffee skin and faint freckles, and Roxanne, curvier and shorter, but with the same skin and freckles. And there was Charlie, seeming to be the only single adult there.

And the rest I had met. So, I counted there to be twenty-five of the Weasley clan, plus Teddy Lupin, who was Victoire's fiancé and apparently pretty much part of the family anyway.

Later that night, the seven of us kids were sitting on the couches in the tent together. Before us was a spread of bottles; butterbeer, Firewhiskey, tequila, soda. James, Al, Hugo and Louis had dived into a rendition of the old wizard classic, "Bertha My Warty Tart."

"Ooooooh, Bertha down by the wa-HA-ter,

Bertha in the mooooorning.

Ba-HER-thaaa witchy, warty, tart,

Warty witch with magic taaaarts."

"Again! Come on everrr-body!" James jumped around, waving his wand about and directing tiny figures of unicorns floating through the air above him.

"You sound like a ten-year-old girl when you sing, Jims," Louis chortled at James who responded with a strange throaty noise. Lily was giggling on the couch beside me, her face turning increasingly red. Al had disappeared somewhere into another part of the tent a while ago and now he came racing into the room where he tripped over his own feet and flew right into me.

"Oh shit, so-sorry-so!" he babbled as he attempted to pull himself to his feet, which only resulted in him elbowing me in the face and then sliding onto the floor.

"Aagh, now I know why they called you 'Elbows'," I grimaced, rubbing my head.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry! It-was-an-accident-are-you-okay?" He jumped up and waved his hands around in front of my face, as if it would fix everything.

"Calm down!" I cried through laughter at his strange antics.

A couple hours later, James had run off to throw up in the toilet after drinking too much Trollquila. Hugo and Rose were lying on the floor each with a butterbeer chatting about something in overly loud voices. Lily had run around the tent for a while, then ran around in the snow and made snow angels, then she threw up and we put her to bed. Al was supposedly taking care of James, though every now and then I could hear him walking into things and falling over and cursing loudly and hardly legibly.

As the last two men standing- or rather, the last men partially upright- Louis and I sat on one of the counters in the kitchen, finishing up the Firewhiskey.

"Take no prisoners!" I called out in a bit of a growl as I raised the bottle and downed a bit.

"Ah-ha-haa," Louis laughed as I passed him the bottle, making a face. He drank a bit, also making a face. "So, you're-"

"June? A Sagittarius? Err, a genius? Half-blood?" I attempted to finish for him.

"Sixteen?" he continued with a grin.

"Oh. Yes, I am," I replied, "As of...last Thursday."

"Happy birthday then," he said.

"I'll drink to that!" I drank to that. So did he.

"Get any good presents?" he asked, and I twisted my mouth in thought.

"Mmmm not really," I shrugged, "my parents sent me some candy and a book as a Christmas and birthday present. Baahh."

"It sucks having a birthday close to Christmas, huh?"

"Oooh yeah. It just gives people an excuse to be lazy and cheap about presents."

"Well, Al's birthday is the 30th."

"Oh really? Interesting."

"And we've got a family friend whose birthday is Christmas Eve," he told me. "Her name's December, actually. December Jordan."

"Woww, I'd hate to be named December," I said, raising my eyebrows at him.

"Nice one, June," he laughed. There was a silence where we finished off the contents of the Firewhiskey bottle. Everything was warm and fuzzy at the moment and my whole body was like jelly. I was most definitely drunk. I actually felt like taking all my clothes off and running around in the snow...but I resisted the urge. That's really just the thing to do when visiting a friend's house for the holidays when their whole family is there. I settled on lying back on the counter, my legs still crossed and smiling gaily at the ceiling of the tent.

In the silence, we could hear the gagging sounds of James while Al made a disgusted sound, then seemed to knock a bunch of things over, swore and proceeded to pick things up. Louis and I laughed together at the noises.

"So, do you fancy either of those idiots?" Louis asked me and I let out a snort of laughter.

"God no," I told him, shaking my head on the counter. "Why?"

"Oh, just 'cause, I don't know if you noticed, but you're the only girl here who's not related to any of us," he said casually and I sat up, raising my eyebrows at him. "And, well, you know how it's like when people get drunk...and I know they've been thinking about that too."

"Fwooo, I'm hot, let's go outside," I suggested, leaping awkwardly off the counter and hurrying to the opening of the tent. I heard Louis following me and when he stuck his head out of the door, I threw a snowball at him. Well, I missed, of course, but it started off the snowball fight. We kept letting out laughs and shrieks and yells, then having to remember that it was about two in the morning, and we shushed each other a lot. Eventually it ended with the two of us just collapsing in the snow, breathing heavily, with red faces. We looked up at the stars. They were very bright and clear, not a cloud in the sky. "Are you still hot?" he asked.

"Yeees," I replied. "Why, you cold?" He nodded. "Psshhh," I scoffed. I looked over at him. He looked over at me. He was looking at my lips, not my eyes, and it occurred to me that he wanted to kiss me. There was a part of me that saw no problem with that, it was the same part that had forgotten I was supposed to be pretending to be in a relationship with Riley. But there was another part that felt deeply uncomfortable with it happening so close to James.

I was somewhat frozen with indecision as I watched Louis's face begin to move closer, a mounting panic pounding in my chest. I was just about to jerk back and sit up, when we heard a commotion from behind us.

Louis and I sat up a little to look over our shoulders to where James was karate-kicking his way out of the tent. Albus stumbled after him. They joined us in the snow as soon as they saw us.

"Ah, well if it isn't the slag of the year," James greeted, sitting down behind me and grabbing a fistful of my hair.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"Braiding your hair, dummy." He began to tangle my hair up into an unbelievable mess.

"You're such a freak," I grumbled, whacking him until he let go of my hair, then I turned around so that the four of us were all in a circle.

"Ouch, that hurt!"

"Well, how did the throwing up go?" I asked after making a face at him.

"It was fantastic, actually," he replied cheerfully. "It reminded me a lot of you. You know, the way I feel every time I look at your hideous little face."

"Prick!" I spat, shoving him by the shoulders.

"Now that's special," Louis said fondly, nudging Albus who looked a tad confused.

"What's special?" James and I seemed to ask at the same time. Louis just laughed at us.

"Nothing, nothing," he said, shaking his head.

"Oh, you're so funny," James said, flashing me a weird smile, then he picked up a load of snow and shoved it in Louis's face. "Funny-looking! Haa-ha-ha!"

"Baahh," Louis grumbled as he spluttered and flicked bits of snow off his face, then he grabbed some snow and reached for James to return the favor, but James had already jumped up. Louis got to his feet unsteadily, then commenced a strange, drunken wobbly chase, involving quite of a bit of falling down and slipping and hitting and cursing. From the ground, Al and I started hurling snowballs at them, and then it became a team snowball fight.

It all ended when James grabbed me by the hands and started spinning me around, no matter how much I yelled at him to let me go. The world was like a whirlwind, all a blur of black and white. I was getting very dizzy, and I could feel my stomach crawling up into my throat, then he let me go and I crashed into Albus. We fell onto the ground where I apparently grumbled something about "ducks flying in from Albania," threw up and then passed out. That bastard, James.

A couple days later, Rose, James, Albus, Hugo, Lily and I took a trip to Diagon Alley to buy Christmas presents. We all went our separate ways for a while, due to the fact that most of them were buying presents for each other. Albus decided to follow me around, saying that he didn't quite like shopping by himself, and I agreed. We weren't buying each other presents anyway.

"So, what are you getting for Rose?" he asked.

"I have no idea," I muttered, picking up a pair of flashing socks from a shelf.

"Yeah," he mumbled. "Man, I'm shit at presents."

"Mmm same," I replied. We wandered through the store for a while longer, leaving with only two purchased items, both of them Albus's. We passed Hugo on the street who wrapped his arms around the translucent bag he was holding in order to hide the insides. We went into Flourish & Blotts, where I picked up a picture book that had me in stitches because it was so outrageous and hilarious, with very strange, vivacious pictures. It reminded me so much of Rose that I had to buy it for her. It even had useful life tips that seemed quite ridiculous at first glance, then as you thought about them a bit more, really seemed to make sense. Rose is kind of like that too.

In Quality Quidditch Supplies, Al had quite a large armful of things that he just knew Kari would love, or something would be just perfect for Tristen or Myles. Since my finances were not quite as abundant as the Potter-Weasleys', I had decided that I would buy presents for Rose, Minty, Dima, Lacey, Aura, Riley and James. I never used to buy presents for friends, only family. Mostly because I didn't even have any money. But I was also just horrible at picking presents. But I felt that, since I lived with them, and was pretty close to all of them (even James), I was obligated to.

I asked Al what he thought James would like. His answer was pretty much "anything under the sun." That really narrowed it down.

On Christmas Eve we sat at a large wooden table, each of the adults with their choice of wine or beer, while us young 'uns drank water or cola or juice. We all laughed and joked together, every member of the family having something clever and witty to add to the conversation, even the youngest ones. The topics of discussion were extremely varied, ranging from the latest story in the Daily Prophet to, well, at one point, the newly-family-created legend of the drug dealer-circus-performer-housepainter down the street.

It was strange how much good cheer this family could inject in stories of say, murder by bubble gum, or psychopaths. And no matter how dirty the discussion got, even Hugo and Lily kept up with it. It was funny to see Percy's face turning redder and redder as the conversation went on, then how he attempted to steer the discussion in a different direction, only to have it veer off into an even dirtier, darker story than before.

At many points throughout the dinner, different members of the family would turn to me and assure me that they really weren't as strange as they might appear. And under no circumstances had any of them actually, for example, hidden dead people in their Christmas tree. By the time Molly (the first) had begun to serve dessert, I was red-faced and wiping tears of laughter from my cheeks.

I'd never really thought about it much, but if I had to say what makes a happy family, I guess I'd say this; a good sense of humor, everyone poking fun at everyone else, especially themselves, and all of them taking it in good stride. Hell, their family cheer was rubbing off on me and I felt like inviting them all to a good old-fashioned arm wrestle championship. Not sure why. It just seemed like the thing for happy families to do.

After dinner we all sat out in the living room, drinking brandy eggnog. Harry and Ron, when handing cups out to everyone had put their fingers to their lips and shushed us all, telling us that if anyone outside the family asked, none of the underage kids had had a drop of alcohol. Percy seemed very opposed to this, though everyone else just laughed it off.

So, we spent Christmas Eve getting tipsy, then Arthur read us all "The Night Before Christmas" and he sent everyone off to bed because, of course, Father Christmas wouldn't come if we were all up. After all, "a watched fireplace never delivers."