Disclaimer is in chapter 1.

Gringotts was certainly not what Xander had come to expect, though in fairness he really had no idea what a wizarding bank would look like. The little Goblins running around sneering at people didn't really fit any of the images he'd come up with.

Mr. Addams led them up to a teller and glanced at the name plate idly as the Goblin finished scratching out something or other on parchment.

"Yes?"

"Yes, Gilfarb," Gomez said airily, "be a good fellow and see to this document for the young man."

The Goblin, Gilfarb, scowled at Gomez and took the papers from Xander's hand. He glanced through them quickly and scowled again. "This is a draft on a different bank."

"Is that an issue?"

"There are transferal fees."

"Of course." Gomez said dryly, "You are bankers."

"Will the young man be wanting to open a vault?"

Gomez glanced at Xander, who just looked confused. "No. I believe a transfer of, we'll say five hundred galleons will be sufficient."

"Very well."

The Goblin scratched out the paperwork in record time, then handed it and a quill over to Xander. "Sign this."

Xander reached for the paper, but was blocked by Gomez who scanned the paper quickly.

"Now see here, Goblin." The normally jovial man snarled, his face suddenly very much a mirror of the goblin he was facing, "Transaction fees are one thing, but they don't give you the right to fleece the boy!"

"I assure you, that is our standard..."

"Twenty five percent!?" Gomez cut him off, "You'll take two POINT five and be happy with it."

"Or what, Wizard?" Gilfarb challenged.

"Don't insult me, Goblin. I'm no Wizard, I'm an Addams."

Gilfarb paled to an almost pastel orange at that and his mouth shut instantly, his teeth vanishing from sight. After a moment he spoke again, hesitantly, "A... Addams? Which family are you...?"

"I'm the American Patriarch, Gomez Addams. And if you like our accounts as they are, you'll take two point five and not try to cheat a friend of the family." Gomez replied, his tone suddenly dead even.

"Yes Sir. Two point five will do nicely." Gilfarb said, hastily scrawling out a new paper and pushing it across.

Xander slid it to Gomez this time, who nodded, then Xander signed. He received his money directly and the three made their way out of the bank.

"Are Goblins always like that?" Xander asked hesitantly when they were clear.

"Bankers are always like that," Gomez responded, his tone again jovial. "You just need to know how to handle them. Goblins are a little different, though."

"How?"

"Well, lad, you know the expression humans like to bandy around, Respect is earned?" Gomez asked.

Xander just nodded.

"Well, humans don't really believe that. For humans, respect is lost." Gomez said with a grin, "We tend to give people we don't know a certain level of respect until they've earned more, or lost what they started with. Goblins, though, don't work that way. With a Goblin you always start at zero, so mark that boy, if you have to deal with them in the future."

"Oh." Xander said, feeling a little at sea.

He understood the meaning, he supposed, but it was a weird way of looking at things. "That kinda sucks."

"Maybe, but earn a Goblin's respect and they'll never cheat you, they'll never stab you in the back, and they will never betray your trust. Still, never give a goblin any respect he hasn't earned," Gomez finished, "That's a mark of weakness to them. And they'll mark it, and you, for an easy target."

Xander swallowed, but nodded, "Alright. I'll try and remember that."

"Good lad," Gomez grinned, "Now, on to some shopping, shall we?"

Shopping took the rest of the day, but it whizzed by like lighting until they were back in the tower. Xander once more found himself creeped out, yet occasionally awed by the Addams as they went about the preparations for their yuletide celebrations.

He found himself wondering what the Addamses really celebrated, however. They weren't remotely Christian, that was certain, yet they bedecked themselves in all the trappings of the holiday with vigor and joy. They even went so far as to put a Santa hat on Lurch, or someone did. Xander privately wondered if the big guy had noticed it yet sometimes, but didn't want to be rude by asking.

From Mr. Addams' comments earlier, Xander thought that they might actually be celebrating the winter solstice, but at the same time that didn't seem quite right either.

It was only a few days to Christmas when he finally broke down and asked them.

Gomez had looked at him queerly, surprised by the question, but it was Mortisha who spoke up.

"Why Alexander, we're celebrating family of course."

Xander just stared blankly.

Fester looked at him oddly, then grinned, "You didn't think we were celebrating a religious holiday did you? Please. Christmas isn't about religion. How many folk worship Sandy Claws anyway?"

"Precisely, Fester old chum," Gomez broke with a wide grin, "Jesus of Nazareth wasn't even born in December, lad. Christmas is as much a Christian holiday as Halloween, which is to say... not at all. This is a time for friends and family, Alexander."

Xander didn't really have a response to that, so he just nodded quietly.

Sometime later, Wednesday moved over beside him and spoke softly as she watched the decorations across the room.

"Do you miss your family?"

Xander had to consider it, "A little. But things were always tense around the holidays."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Not for sure," Xander admitted, "But I think it had a lot to do with my family being from magical families, and maybe they were missing their families."

Wednesday just nodded and fell silent.

The two sat together for the rest of the night, just quietly thinking about the past, the present, and the future.

Christmas day came quickly after that, and like the year before it was one of the more pleasant ones in Xander's memory.

Since neither he nor Wednesday had shown any interest in high performance brooms, their gifts this year had been new school trunks with four compartments each. One bookshelf, two normal trunk sections, and one room sized section Xander found absolutely incredible.

"How do they make it so much bigger inside than out?" He blurted, not for the first time, as he withdrew his head from the room sized compartment.

"Arithmancy." Wednesday replied calmly.

"Huh?" Xander blinked.

"It's all math, Alexander." She said simply with a shrug.

"Oh." Xander pouted, sighing. "I suck at math."

"How do you know, I doubt you've ever tried this."

"They did the tests at school and everything." Xander shrugged, "I'm not, you know 'special' or anything, but I'm not so good with math or spacial whatsit."

Wednesday regarded him stonily for a long moment, "I think you would learn to trust yourself over some test given to you by people you neither know, nor have any reason to believe in."

"Why would they lie?" Xander blinked.

"I did not say they did. However, were it me, I would do my best to prove the matter to myself."

"Yeah, maybe." Xander replied, trying not to feel down.

"Enough of that for today, children." Mortisha came to his rescue. "Let's finish with the presents."

Holidays with the Addamses were creepy, but surprisingly enlightening.

With Christmas past the rest of the holidays swept by in a blur, leaving the second part of the school year upon them before they really knew it. Xander didn't know about Wednesday, but he had far more mixed feelings concerning the return to school that he normally had.

On the one hand, it was still school.

No matter what else was going on, it was school and school was, by definition, boring.

Still, it was MAGIC school.

Xander had to admit, short of having classes on The Enterprise or something, that was about as cool as you could make school.

But damn it, it was still SCHOOL.

This cycle of thought was playing through his mind the entire time he and Wednesday were waiting for the Express to leave and return them to Hogwarts, the slightly geeky goofball in him railing against the bizarre new love of learning Xander had picked up since being introduced to magic.

He really had no idea where it came from, he had after all spent a good many year making sure that he didn't catch it from Willow.

"Jessie would be so disappointed in me." He murmured softly.

"Excuse me?"

Xander looked sideways at Wednesday, surprised that he had spoken aloud, then grinned. "My pal back home, he'd be horribly disappointed in me for looking forward to school. We were dedicated underachievers together."

She raised an eyebrow, "And were you good at it?"

Xander blinked, "Uh, I suppose so."

"No you weren't."

Xander blinked. "Huh?"

"If you were dedicated to underachieving, and were also good at it, then you were achieving what you set out to do. So you weren't very good at underachieving."

"Uh..." Xander stared for a long moment, then finally blinked. "Brain... hurts."

Wednesday just shrugged as the train lurched on the tracks and they were once more heading for school. "At least that's evidence of having one."

Once more, Xander found himself swearing that the girl beside him was having a good laugh at his expense, even though she was physically doing nothing of the sort.