Author's Note: November was NaNoWriMo and crazy, and December is Christmas and traveling and crazy. I'm sorry! I thought I'd have a chapter a week for you but everything got so busy.
So when I ought to be sleeping on Christmas Eve, I wrote this to try to make up for it. I'll have more time to write in January (hopefully), but I wanted to make sure you guys got something this month.
Merry Christmas! Here's a short Christmas-y filler chapter that was totally unplanned. Hopefully you'll enjoy it!
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on our troubles will be out of sight
- Meet Me in St. Louis
Ginny woke with a fuzzy memory and a pounding head. She wasn't sure how long she'd been asleep, or even if she had been asleep. She could see light shining just past her eyelids and refused to open her eyes, fearful that the light would add to the pain in her head. But as she shifted she felt something heavy on her, and she had to open her eyes to see what weight held her body down.
It was a large, heavy faux mink red blanket with white fur trimming. Ginny pushed it off herself, expecting to feel the chill of the room, only to discover a new fireplace against her wall, with a cheery, roaring fire cracking away, heating the small room thoroughly. It was then she noticed the large golden vases on either side of the fireplace, filled with holly. Atop of the fireplace mantle – Tom had magicked in a fireplace large enough to have a mantle! – was a large wreath of holly and golden bells, with a big red bow. As she looked about the room, she noticed other odd things: the light in front of her eyes had been red fairy lights, the walls held poinsettia garlands lit with white fairy lights, the bottom of the mantle held white icicles charmed to never melt.
Her room was filled with Christmas decorations. How was this possible? Had she really been with Tom for that long? Or had she slept for weeks and weeks? She only remembered a little from before she'd woken up…sitting in a chair in the sitting area while Tom flipped through his papers in the dining room. She stood to walk to the kitchen to make tea, and then…everything had blurred together. Had she collapsed from exhaustion? That seemed entirely possible.
Ginny slipped out of bed and rushed forward to her door, and threw it open to look around the rest of the flat.
Everything else was decorated just as extravagantly as her room had been. The whole flat smelled like pine due to the giant tree that took up a large amount of space in the sitting room, and it was decked out with garlands of white pearls and red poinsettias, gold ribbons and glittering tinsil, white fairy lights, red and gold glass ornaments with intricate designs in glitter, magic snow that fell from the ceilings and rest on the branches without touching the floor, and icicles made of crystal. There were wreaths of golden pinecones, wreaths of poinsettias, garlands of pine and holly, gold and red vases of giant winter blossoms, dark wood figurines of St. Nicholas and reindeer, tall white candles in large golden candelabras, red stockings hanging over the fireplace filled with chestnuts and oranges, and even some mistletoe hung in the hall. The white couches has golden throws and red silken pillows thrown on them. Everywhere she looked was some new, bright Christmas wonder. It was almost too much lavishness, like Tom was trying too hard.
So it was really Christmas, wasn't it?
As she turned away from the decorations and headed back to her room, she reflected on the fact that it seemed like it was both an eternity and a minute that she'd been trapped with Tom Riddle. She felt like her body was shutting down, and that she was ancient, but at the same time it was too short a time for so much tragedy. She was sick, at this point she may even be dying. The Burrow was nothing but ash. Harry was a mutilated corpse in the ground. Tom Riddle was returned, and obsessed with possessing her love.
With everything that had happened, it felt like it was all really just a second in time. It shouldn't be Christmas, it should be summer, summer years and years from now.
As she stepped back inside her room, she noticed that in the corner was a grand, golden perch for Shikoba, and he was nestled atop it, sleeping happily. Confused, she went to lie down again, but her foot kicked something. She looked down, and spotted a few brightly-wrapped packages. Slowly, out of breath, Ginny picked them up and crawled back into bed with them. They were presents addressed to her in Tom's formal writing – where was Tom? – and wrapped in red paper with gold ribbon.
She took a seat on the bed and carefully opened the first one. Inside was a heavy sweater made of blue wool. As she picked it up, she smelled mothballs and cinnamon. She turned it over, and gasped softly when she saw the 'G' stitched in white. Her sweater. It was her sweater, the one her mother had made for her last year. Desperately, she held it tight to her chest, and then took deep breaths of the fabric. She'd stashed it at the shack, hiding it with other gifts she didn't want people to know she didn't use.
After a moment of joy and homesickness, she slipped the sweater on over her head, and missed her mother, and reached for the next box. Inside this one was another sweater, this one dark blue with a gold 'H'. H for Harry. Harry. She held this one to her face and breathed in deep the scent of him, the shack and the age of the wool. It was a beautiful smell, a smell of home and happiness and contentment and safety. It was the best smell in all the world.
There was one other gift left, which she hesitantly set Harry's sweater aside for. This box was much smaller than the other two. She tore the paper from the box, and found it to be a velvet-covered one. She opened it, and found inside a necklace she'd seen her mother wear quite often. A lion on a gold chain, whose eyes once held rubies but they had long since been sold.
Tom must have dug through the ashes of the Burrow to find this, or at least stood in them. Her throat tight with tears, she slipped it on over her head, and hugged Harry's sweater tight as she laid back to stare at the flickering flames of the fire.
At first, Ginny wanted to dismiss this thoughtfulness of Tom's as yet another attempt to seduce her. And this was likely right; he'd never done anything without a selfish motive. He had nothing to gain by bringing her these things, so he probably thought that they would warm her up to him and somehow make her feel comfortable enough to begin to want to be near him.
But something else nagged at her. How could he possibly understand what these things meant to her, without having some form of empathy? To him, they ought to be old, raggedy, unimportant things that she'd discarded. If he was incapable of thinking about her feelings, her homesickness, her grief, her desperation for things from home now that she no longer had a home…then these things wouldn't be here. He'd have showered her with other gifts, with diamonds and magical sweets and fine clothes. Instead, he'd brought her the things she ached for most, things with sentimental value. Her sweater, Harry's sweater…she wasn't even sure how Tom had known to look for the necklace.
At his perch, Shikoba gave a soft cry. Ginny blinked and looked at him through eyes filled with tears, warm tears, bittersweet tears of the grief of things she'd lost and the joy of things she'd recovered.
It didn't matter what Tom's motives were, if he felt empathy or not. She had Harry's sweater close to her heart and her mother's necklace around her neck, the chain like two arms hugging her close. That was all that mattered. This brief, fleeting happiness was all that mattered.
"Happy Christmas," she mumbled to her pet, and slowly her heavy lids shut, causing one last tear of happiness to roll down her pale cheek.
She didn't hear the voice in the hall softly reply, "Happy Christmas."
Artificial: Sorry if I got anything wrong about Christmas in the UK, I did some quick research and this was the best I could do in time. Also, I had zero time to reread this and my focus was everywhere writing it, so I hope it makes sense! Eek. Anyway, please review, and Merry Christmas! Or Happy Holidays! Or have a great Wednesday! …Or you know. Just be happy, haha. Merry Christmas!