Disclaimer is in chapter 1.

The portkey to Romania left Xander in the dirt once again, dizzy as hell and trying to figure out why he couldn't keep his balance through a simple transport.

"Good lord, lad, what are you doing on the ground?" Gomez asked, leaning over slightly.

"He likes it down there." Wednesday said blankly before stepping over Xander to look at the castle.

"Really? How peculiar." Gomez shrugged, writing it off as a rather strange eccentricity, and moving on.

Xander sighed, closing his eyes and counting to three quickly before climbing to his feet.

He rose up, looking around, and swallowed hard as he turned rather pale. He supposed that he shouldn't be surprised, given what he knew of Wednesday's proclivities, but the castle was... well, creepy was simple the only way to say it. It rose up from bare stone, so black it seemed made of obsidian, and the spires were actually covered in dark clouds.

It simply had to be haunted, though that wasn't much of a deterrence any more now that he thought of it.

"Gomez! About time you got here!"

"Fester, dear boy, how is the place?"

"Fantastic!" The bald man said, grinning wide enough to split his face. "Gram-mama already setup the kitchen and is brewing the stew now."

"Ah, most excellent. Oh, I am forgetting my manners," Gomez clapped Fester on the back and turned around, "This strapping young lad is Alexander Harris, a school chum of Wednesday's."

Xander froze as the bald man grinned at him, the smile seriously freaky, and then walked over.

"Any friend of Wednesday's is a friend of mine, Alexander," The man said, clapping an arm around Xander's shoulders as he turned back to the castle. "Come on, come on, we have things to do, a holiday to plan. Say, do you like explosives?"

Narcissa Malfoy frowned slightly as she glanced at her bookshelf.

'Odd. That looks like...' She trailed off, reaching for the slightly glowing book and drawing it out.

Her copy of the old school grimoire had been activated. The Malfoy matriarch raised an eyebrow and flipped it open, scowling as the little fight between the title page and Sirius' additions played out. Honestly, Sirius had been such a child.

She settled down in the chair of her study and flipped the book open to the most recently accessed pages, smiling slightly as she noted the first year spells that had been displayed. 'Someone's looking for a little pranking payback. Against who, I wonder?'

She glanced over the notes and lessons carefully, noting that some of them were obsolete, and noted in the newer techniques. A sad feeling came over her as she did so, knowing that she was the only person currently alive who would, or could, do what she was doing. Poor Lily and Alice...

She forced away the raw feeling in her gut, knowing that it would be detrimental to her lifestyle, and perhaps life, to let it continue. That said, she found herself smiling again as she reviewed the notes and lesson answers the current owner of the school's copy of the grimoire had filled in.

'Not bad, whoever you are,' she thought, correcting the answers and making suggestions.

She didn't know who held the book, but they had a decent mind for a first year. Not brilliant, but imaginative and creative both, which would serve them well. It was beyond hope that it had been Draco who had inherited the book, unfortunately, as she knew that her son for all his talents was neither imaginative nor creative. He was a pale copy of his father, a fact that Narcissa hated but could see no way around.

'Hmmm... Draco will be home soon, I wonder how his school year has gone?' She thought to herself, closing the book but leaving it on her desk.

It was nice to have a connection to her old life again, even if it was a tenuous link to the past through an unknown member of the present.

The first meal of the holidays could have gone better.

He could have been able to eat it, for one thing.

Xander had sat down at the table as the stew was served, the eerie steam flowing from the bowls like some dry ice concoction on a bad TV series. He swallowed as a bowl was set in front of him, and dipped a spoon in, then nearly jumped out of his skin as something grabbed the spoon and yanked it out of his hand.

"Whoa!"

"Down! Down!" The old woman snarled, whipping a knife out of nowhere and stabbing it into his bowl. After a moment she stopped, sniffed the air lightly, and nodded. "Perfect."

"Indeed it is, Gram-mama!" Gomez grinned, smacking his lips. "You've outdone yourself again!"

Xander stared at his bowl with wide eyes, 'This was outdoing herself? What the hell does she usually make?'

He didn't say anything aloud, though, knowing from his time at Willow's that the guest should always be polite, and vice versa. That said, he didn't see any way out of a little rudeness here. There was no WAY he was eating something that had to be fought with while at the dinner table.

Unfortunately it didn't take long for someone to notice his lack of enthusiasm for the meal.

"Something wrong, Xander?' Fester asked, having taken a bit of a shine to the quiet young man who, like almost all young men, loved anything that went boom.

"Uh..." Xander trailed off, finding himself in a serious jam.

Should he keep quiet and look for something else to eat later? He wasn't sure how far they were from town, but if the castle was rented out to wizarding folk he might be able to find a Floo link, and hopefully work out how to use it. Buy that would really suck for the entire holidays, to say the least, since he had a sinking feeling that this was normal food for Wednesday's family.

A strange thought popped into his head then, and he looked over at Wednesday with wide eyes.

"How do you eat at school?"

Xander's eyes widened even more as everyone turned to look at him, and he wished he had his mouth stapled shut.

"Uh, I mean, if this is the kind of food you're used to then school food must be kinda weird, right?" Xander found himself babbling, "Cause I find this weird, I mean I don't eat food that fights back and if you do than the school feasts have to be strange cause they're all normal food..."

Xander paled, "I mean normal for us, not that this isn't normal... I... that is, ok I'm shutting up now."

Morticia and Gomez glanced at each other blankly, then Eudora Addams pouted.

"You don't like my cooking? But you haven't tried it."

"I... I..." Xander swallowed, then went for broke with the truth. "I don't think I can."

"Why ever not?" Gomez blurted, shocked.

Morticia sighed, "Gomez, love, it's poor conditioning."

"What? Absurd, who would condition a young lad to not eat good food!?"

Morticia smiled, caressing her husband's cheek. "Oh, mon coeur, you are so naive, but I love you for it."

"Tish! That's French!"

"Later, darling." Mortisha calmly dodged his attentions, then turned back to Xander. "We will see what we can do about meals, Alexander. I understand that something completely new is not easy to adjust to."

"Uh, thank you Ma'am."

She smiled briefly at him, then made a point of returning to her meal. Slowly the rest of the family followed suit.

Pugsley Addams shoveled food in for a few moments, then nudged his sister. "Your friend is weird."

She shot him a dark glance, but the one he received from his mother was far darker, and the chubby young boy paled and quickly ducked his head again as he began to eat furiously to hide from his mother's glare.

The uncomfortable silence stretched on for a few minutes, then finally Fester broke it, "So Gomez, did you get your trains set up?"

Narcissa watched as her son stepped off the train, feeling an odd combination of pride, chagrin, and shame. It was one she was familiar with, unfortunately.

Her son was in many ways the perfect epitome of a pureblood scion.

Unfortunately, he was also most of the things she had despised in her youth. Arrogant without cause, which was her and Lucius' fault, she knew. He knew what he had to know to navigate the treachery of high society, but his father's money and power had gone to the boy's head. He should know to be cautious, but the protection his family name gave him had given Draco some of the very worst attributes of a pureblooded Gryffindor.

She sighed and smiled wanly as he approached, strutting toward her with confidence she knew he had yet to earn the rights to.

"How was school, Draco?" She asked as she guided him away, eyes sweeping the platform for anything of interest, or any threats of note as he spoke.

There was precious little of interest, but Narcissa spotted three of Lucius' political rivals following them both with their eyes. She surreptitiously laid a hand on her wand and quickly guided Draco clear of the platform. Once they reached the apparition point she tightened her grip on him and with a crack they were gone.

The two appeared at Malfoy Manor instants later, and Draco immediately broke clear of his mother's grip.

"Is father home?"

"I believe he is in his study."

"Thank you, mother." Draco said before running off in that direction.

She sighed as he left, and once more thought about the book on the desk in her own study.

How very far she had come from the young woman who had a part in writing that little piece of magical history. So very far, and yet she felt as if she hadn't taken a single step forward.

Life enjoyed it's cruel jokes almost as much as the Marauders enjoyed theirs it seemed.

Life, however, didn't seem interested in making up for its cruelty. That was something even the Marauders had strove to do, in the end.

Xander sighed, fairly contended with his meal. They'd had to Floo in for takeout, but at least the food was cooked and didn't give off noxious vapors. He made his way through the old castle, more than a little disturbed by it but also incredibly interested. This was the second castle he'd ever seen, and was as unlike Hogwarts as Hogwarts was unlike his school back home.

The Addams, true to expectations, seemed to like things gloomy and more than a little on the spooky side. Not really Xander's taste, but he'd learned enough to be pretty sure that he was safe here, and so was doing his best not to let it get to him. Morticia and Gomez had made it clear that he had full run of the castle with none of the restrictions he'd come to expect, and that was more than a little liberating, almost a heady feel really.

He had moved from one of the wide halls to a new room when a swishing sound through the air caused him to half turn just in time to see a knife thunk solidly into the door he had just opened.

"Drat!" Fester yelled, "no fair, he opened the door!"

Xander crossed his eyes, looking at the knife, then slowly looked back to where Fester, Pugsley, and Wednesday were standing, more knives in hand.

"Uh..." He trailed off, really having nothing to say beyond that.

"Do close the door, Xander," Wednesday suggested, "We're playing a game."

Xander nodded slowly, and let the door close, only to jump again when he spotted a person trussed up against the wall behind the door, with blades jammed into the wall all around him. The man had wide eyes as he moaned against a gag that had been stuffed into his mouth.

"Move aside, Xander," Pugsley called, "it's my turn."

"Uh..." Xander blinked, looking at the guy who was shaking and screaming and obviously trying to get loose. "Who's the target?"

"Salesman." Wednesday said blandly.

"Oh," Xander said, stepping out of the way.

Another knife swished through the air, thunking into the wall between the guys legs. Xander shuddered, but didn't say anything else as he moved up beside the trio as Wednesday lined up for her shot.

"You're not actually going to hit him, are you?" Xander only half asked.

Truthfully, he already had a feel for Wednesday, and was pretty sure that she wouldn't be part of actually killing the poor bastard. Scaring him to death, followed by a resuscitation, that was possible. After he asked, she merely leveled a look at him that Xander interpreted as her 'of course not, you moron' look.

Xander just nodded, stepping away from her as she drew back and let fly. The blade spun through the air and thunked into the wall only a hairs' breadth from the salesman's head, actually slicing several strands of the man's hair from his skull and letting them float to the ground.

His eyes rolled up into his head, and he slumped in his bonds.

"Oh POO! He fainted. You win again, Wednesday." Fester pouted, tossing his remaining knives aside.

"Nuts." Pugsley grumbled, "I was sure the groin shot would do it."

"You guys do this often?"

"Only with salesmen and Jehovah's Witnesses," Fester said cheerfully. "They're the only two groups stupid enough not to take the hint."

"Indeed." Wednesday said in her bland tone, "We use less trying methods for other groups, otherwise we'd never have any visitors... or victims."

Xander walked over, eyeing the knives and their proximity to the body. "You ever miss?"

Fester bridled at the questions, "What? You take us for amateurs!?"

"Wednesday and I have been throwing knives since we were four," Pugsley said proudly, grinning wide. "We hardly ever miss... anymore."

Xander shuddered, but nodded. "What do you do with them now?"

Fester shrugged, "cut him down and leave him in Gomez' study. He'll wake up with a cigar in one hand, bourbon in the other, and a sales contract for everything he's selling."

Xander broke down laughing.

The Christmas vacation went along in a surprisingly normal manner after that, at least relative to Xander's recent experiences. It was surprising how much he found he could take in stride without totally freaking out now that he'd actually lived in a haunted castle for a few months. Honestly, he found that the Addamses weren't much weirder than, say, Headmaster Dumbledore or any of the other adults he'd recently dealt with.

They had strange ideas, true, but Xander quickly found that they were to not panic. Just take it in stride, because they seemed genuinely friendly and while they enjoyed things most would consider creepy at a minimum, or downright lethal, they never actually endangered themselves or anyone else.

It took him getting blown up by Fester to figure that one out, mind you.

Narcissa Malfoy frowned, genuinely puzzled as she read the notes in the Grimoire. The unknown student had taken it with him on vacation, and there was a rather bizarre change in his responses to the basic quizzes she had setup with Lily for Charms and Defence.

For some reason they had suddenly centered around some particularly violent scenarios, including being caught in the premature detonation of something called... dynamite.

The Lady Malfoy found herself furthering her own education as she researched just what this Dynamite was, and what it's effects were. The answer, to her chagrin, was located in A Wizard's Guide to Muggles.

Dynamite (Noun) - A Muggle contraption used in the place of Reductor Charms, primarily for construction or demolition purposes. Please note, while it may appear to be a slightly over thick wand it is NOT advised to attempt to use it as such. Magical conductance is minimal, however some magics have been known to prematurely detonate a wand of dynamite. Place appropriate shield charms on yourself and any nearby persons before playing with this muggle device. (See Appendix D, Safety Charms for Handling Explosives and Appendix X, Accidental Deaths due to misuse of Muggle Artifacts)

'Dear lord. What on Earth is a first year doing playing with muggle Reductor equivalents?' Narcissa shook her head, wondering if she was dealing with a Muggle-born, or perhaps a half blood? She shrugged it off and decided that it didn't matter. She, Lily, and Alice had their disagreements on the importance of blood, but they had all sworn to treat those who asked for aid from the Coven equally.

She drew out her master copy again and noted the shield charms from the book, copying them down into the answers and suggestions sections. Hopefully the child would at least get the idea that playing with such toys was dangerous until one could cast the appropriate charms.

"Are your family all wizards?" Xander asked, looking up from his book to where Wednesday was studying some of her own.

Wednesday looked up at him slowly, eyes coolly appraising him in that way she commonly did. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I don't see any wands, but I'm pretty sure that Fester used a basic concussion shield charm on us yesterday right before the dynamite blew up in our faces." Xander replied, twisting his book around to show her the section.

The dark girl leaned forward and examined the section carefully.

"Interesting." She said after a moment, "To answer your question, no. I'm the first Witch, but the definition of wizarding culture, in several generations. Addamses have a great deal of latent magical energy, however."

"I believe that." Xander replied dryly.

She cast him a cool glance, but didn't respond to the comment as she went on, "Addams Matriarchs have long been guiding the family bloodline, and the results are wide ranging. Some wandless magic has become quite common, mostly centering around defensive casting."

"Cool." Xander said, nodding.

"I believe Uncle Fester learned that charm from Great Aunt Milsol," Wednesday went on, "Who was a Witch. She married into the family in 1877 to Great Uncle Quirke. She was something more of a Potions Mistress, though. Gram-mama apprenticed under Milsol, actually."

"Your Gram-mama knows potions?" Xander looked up, interested.

Wednesday nodded, "Of course. Eudora Addams is one of the foremost Mistresses in the field, though she writes most of her articles under her maiden name."

"Oh? Why?" Xander asked, though he figured it out a moment later when he thought about how everyone seemed to react badly to the Addams name.

"Most of the Journals that deal in Potions theory only want to deal in..." The girl shuddered, "*light* potions. Gram-mama insists on protecting the Addams name from such perversions."

Xander was learning that he really shouldn't take anything on first impressions when it came to Wednesday or her family.

Christmas came quickly, and despite the increasingly gruesome atmosphere, Xander found himself enjoying himself. It was pretty strange to be seeing what he would consider Halloween being mixed with Christmas, but the more he was around the family the more he saw it as just who they were.

It was kind of fun too, he quickly found, in a novel way.

They never yelled, at least not in anger, and that alone made it one of the better holidays Xander had enjoyed. He and Fenrir found themselves thoroughly enjoying the castle, and the large grounds outside, often spending their days running with Wednesday and Pugsley, exploring the hills and the castle alike, and more often than not finding things that sent chills down Xander's spine.

It was only the total positive glee the other two took in locating dangerous snakes and spiders that kept Xander from bolting for his life half the time. It quickly became a point of pride that he could stand anywhere NEAR those two when their eyes shone with that unholy light that told him they'd located something really disturbing.

Christmas day came quickly and Xander found a pile of gifts under the tree with his name on them. Some gaily wrapped, much to the Addams clear disgust, and some more fitting with the local decor. Xander didn't have to guess which ones were from which parts of his life.

Wednesday got a whole slew of potions ingredients, including a few that Xander was pretty sure were so rare as to be nearly impossible to find. He was surprised when she, Pugsley, and himself all received brooms, American model Stratus Comfort Brooms.

"Wow..." Xander said, his quiet awe drowned out by Pugsley's yelp of glee. He looked up at the two Addams' whose names had been on the package. "I don't know, I mean... this is too much."

"Nonsense." Gomez said airily, waving his cigar around. "Top quality brooms are important in the magical culture. These are good training models, we'll get you all racing brooms next year if you learn to handle these well."

"We will, we promise!" Pugsley yelled, still grinning.

Xander smiled, "I... Well, I'm going to learn, for sure. I don't think we're allowed brooms at school this year, though."

"Bah, what are rules for if not to be broken," Gomez grinned, "The answer to that problem is simple, right Wednesday?"

The dark girl merely smiled *slightly*.

"Of course, Father." She said, running her hand over the dark wood of the broom, one finger lightly tracing the chrome plate on the forward edge, "Don't get caught."

"Precisely!"

Xander grinned, as weird as the Addamses were, they were fun to be around once you started to get used to their unique views of life.