8
The first weekend after Thanksgiving, Hagrid entered the Dark Forest looking for the right tree to be the Hogwarts Christmas tree. The centaurs in the forest showed him which tree to take that would work the best, and the resident faeries blessed it to honor Gaea the Earth Mother for the Winter Solstice. He then cut it down with the ritual permission from the spirits of Earth to use it to celebrate the traditions of another religion. He dragged it the mile to the castle and then through the Great Hall and through the way into the assembly hall during study period where it stood bare one night until the next morning when it and much of the castle suddenly appeared decorated for the holidays. Professor Flitwick and many of the older Third and Fourth Years got to decorate it. Gabrielle had joined Chad, Troy and many of her Gryffindor residents to decorate their own tree in their common room just the week before to get ahead of everyone else. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw then rushed to get theirs up as Slitherin defied tradition and zapped up a tree from an old photo in a book. Most of the presents that came to put under them arrived in the mail. Chad's mother sent sweaters for him and Troy to wear as they returned home to Alaska. William's mother sent him a box of chocolate cherry mint cookies from Maine, which he shared with many of his Gryffindor classmates, and Troy got a leather-bound notebook with a mystical latch to keep his schoolwork straight. Kelsey was told in a letter that she'd get her gift upon joining her parents for a trip to Australia, but upon hearing about Gabrielle's home family traditions, she followed Gabrielle home instead to Waverly Place to see the Christmas decorations in New York City from Rockefeller Center to Times Square. The hardest thing was coming home again as a fully-fledged Hogwarts student.
"My baby girl!!!" Theresa saw Gabrielle entering and rushed to hug her. Carrying one bag and Maddie in her cage, the brunette sorceress was not expecting to be mobbed just inside the front door. Garbed in his white and dark blue Christmas sweater, Jerry Russo looked up to his niece from baking cookies, and Justin glanced over from sipping eggnog. On the sofa, Alex and her best friend, Harper Finkle, were reading fashion catalogs; Alex suddenly looking annoyed and turning her head away disgusted. Max sat at the kitchen table wearing fake reindeer antlers.
"I missed my baby girl so much!!!" Theresa squeezed Gabrielle tightly as Jerry tried to get in to hug her. Her niece just giggled warmly smiling ear-to-ear from the love and warmth of her loving family.
"Mom, I'm right here!!!" Alex reacted out of jealousy and shook her head in disbelief.
"Okay, Theresa, let her breathe." Jerry came over to hug his niece.
"And Gabrielle's friend, Chelsea!!!" Theresa moved to hug and squeeze Kelsey.
"Kelsey…" The Boston native corrected her and reacted from being hugged by Gabrielle's aunt. "Wow, your aunt is REALLY friendly!" She looked over after being rocked and hugged on her feet.
"I know…" Gabrielle hadn't stopped smiling. She hugged her Uncle Jerry and Cousin Justin, trying to introduce everyone as they came up to her. Harper even came over to give her a hug and kiss to the cheek, but Alex just wandered over and acknowledged her blandly before pretending to be distracted by the peanuts on the table. Max, meanwhile, noticed Maddie in the cage and lit up excitedly.
"You got me an owl?" He grinned excitedly. "You got me an owl?!!! Yes!" He lifted the cage to look at her. "I'll call him Hugo!"
"Her name is Maddie, and she's mine." Gabrielle hated to bust her cousin's bubble, but she loved Maddie too much to let her go.
"Why would you call Hugo Maddie?" Max reacted confused, but Gabrielle amusingly shook her head while hanging her jacket and Kelsey's coat and hat on the pegs behind the front door.
"Max, I did get you a gift, but I'll pull it out later, meanwhile..." She lifted her bag to unzip and pull it something out of it. "Uncle Jerry, I got this for you." She pulled out a tin of Hughley's Exploding Licorice Pops all the way from Honeyduke's Candy Shop in Hogsmeade. "Is this what you wanted?"
"That's them!" Jerry lit up like a kid. "That's them!! Honeydukes just doesn't deliver to the states." He hurriedly ripped off the plastic seal, twisted off the metal cap and popped one of the soft licorice pops to his mouth. His eyes closed happily as he chewed and chewed and chewed and chewed. "They're just like I remember! Twizzlers doesn't even come close."
"Why are they called exploding pops?" Theresa tried one as a loud pop in Jerry's mouth produced smoked rolling from his lips with the scent of sweet licorice. Not interesting in magic candy exploding in her mouth, Theresa quickly spit her sample out into Kleenex to get rid of it.
"So…" Justin stood handsome and dashing in his green and white Xmas sweater then gestured Kelsey to sit with him and Gabrielle on the sofa. "How's Hogwarts? Does Gabrielle mention me at all?"
"She mentions you a lot!" Kelsey adjusted her eyeglasses as Gabrielle grinned back to her. "Especially a lot of the spells you two made together." Theresa gave the girls eggnog in clear plastic cups to drink and reconnect on the sofa.
"Really?"
"Does she mention me?" Alex sat grinning and adjusting her hair on the other side of Kelsey as Harper sat on the arm of the sofa.
"Uh, yeah…" Kelsey reacted nervously to actually meet her. "Boy, does she talk about you!" Alex felt as if she was offended and gestured as if she couldn't catch a break. She looked away as Max just shined with a bit of a crush on their guest. Kelsey looked at him and back to Gabrielle.
"How about me?" Harper asked.
"Uh, well…" Kelsey did not recall ever hearing about Harper. If Gabrielle had mentioned her at all, she didn't recall it.
"I'm sorry, Harper," Gabrielle looked her aunt and uncle in the decorated loft getting ready for Christmas Eve dinner. "But we talk a lot about magic up there, and well…."
"Oh, I completely understand." Harper was wearing a red dress with a green belt and long sleeves and a barrette holding back her cascading brown hair. "You know, one of my ancestors was tried for witchcraft in England in the Sixteenth Century." She nodded with a proud grin. "I got just a little magic blood myself… but apparently not enough to attend Wiz-Tech or Hogwarts!!!" She sounded a little annoyed.
"Speaking of school…" Justin immediately changed the subject. "I am turning out to be a very good Beater in Quidditch." He nodded proudly. "Gryffindor is going to have a hard time beating Tanglewood in the up-coming Inter-School Quidditch Match this January."
"Yeah," Alex sipped her eggnog with a wry grin. "That's if he can stay on his broom without it tossing him off!" She beamed with an evil little grin and lifted herself up with a vicious little smirk and giggle to get more eggnog. Kelsey watched her heading into the kitchen to get more drink as Max got bored and decided to check out Gabrielle's owl in the cage.
"Wow…" Kelsey realized what Alex was all about and turned back to Gabrielle. "No wonder you saw her in the wardrobe…"
"Yeah…"
"Don't mind Alex…" Justin tried to apologize. "She's dangerously close to getting expelled from Wiz-Tech. She skipped five days of classes the first week of October, turned Mandy DeVasquez into a guy, flooded the third floor boy's bathroom with Jello, sent a letter to Jack Trueblood making him believe that Matthew Zeroni was in love with him and devastated Darkwind Hall with an explosion from a spell she shouldn't have tried. They had to restore a whole section of the basement to house the Darkwind students."
"What's this about a wardrobe?" Harper leaned in after accidentally over-hearing.
"A boggart appeared to me as Alex in my Defense Against The Dark Arts class." Gabrielle confessed to her and her favorite cousin.
"She did?" Justin looked over his shoulder to Alex sitting and brooding on the bottom steps of the staircase and sulking in her white blouse and black jeans. "In my Defense Class at Wiz-Tech, it took the form of Deadhead Fred."
"Who's that?" Kelsey asked.
"A boogeyman from Justin's youth." Gabrielle revealed for Justin. "Uh, Justin… Can you tell me about Professor Danvers?" She was curious about his connections to the funny stuff happening at Hogwarts.
"He's like one of the best teachers at Wiz-Tech!" Justin unabashedly revealed. "He's great. Alex isn't crazy about him though because he makes the lessons cheat-proof."
"We kind of heard about him at Hogwarts." Kelsey looked up as Harper went to snack on chips and cookies then join Alex on the stairs. Freed from her cage by Max, Maddie fluttered over to perch on Gabrielle's shoulder for attention. She stroked her feathers lovingly as he rested.
"I know he used to teach at Hogwarts before the war." Justin dipped some chips at the table next to him to eat. "Anything in particular?"
"Well…" Gabrielle and Kelsey looked nervously to each other. "We think he's having Professor Dumbledore hold something for him at Hogwarts, and that one of the students could be trying to get it, but we're not sure what it could be."
"Professor Danvers is a lot more than a wizard." Justin confessed. "He practices sorcery and doesn't use a wand. He's been taught by Tibetan mystics, Chinese priests, Celtic magicians, African shamans, Native American medicine men, Hindu priests… He's credited in the Who's Who in the Magic World as one of the top twenty most powerful magicians in the world behind Merlin, Professor Crumbs, Professor Dumbledore, Baron Worth and Lord Maple."
"What specifically…" Glancing briefly to Kelsey, Gabrielle tried to lead Justin to a certain direction. "…is he known for?"
"Well," Justin sipped the last of his eggnog and thumbed his cup wanting more. "He wrote the Atlas of Mystical Dimensions, abridged the laws against wizards traveling through time and created the Crystal Key."
"The Crystal Key?" Gabrielle and Kelsey chorused together.
"Yeah…" Justin reacted as if it was no big deal. "It's just some mystical key for opening mystical gateways. Last I heard… it was locked away in a bank in London…." He rose to get more eggnog. "But the one thing he's known about is something he calls the Great Mystery, a riddle which he says explains why so many lives parallel each other…" He turned toward the kitchen area.
"Oh my god…" Gabrielle turned round and whispered to Kelsey. "That's what Muffin must be guarding on the third floor! That's what Hagrid moved to Hogwarts!"
"But why would Sharpay want a key for other dimensions?" Kelsey thought about it. "It doesn't exactly make sense!"
"Maybe…" Gabrielle started flashing on her old fairy tales. "To steal something that would make her a much more powerful wizard. There are several dimensions in the Atlas of Magic: Olympus, Asgard, Narnia, Oz or even Avalon where she steal an object of power. She could become unstoppable. We're talking… potential godhood." Kelsey made a face as if she was shocked into silence.
"Dinner's up…" Jerry spoke and set the plates out. Looking up once, Gabrielle stroked Mimi on her shoulder and rose to eat leading the way for Kelsey. Theresa came over from setting the dinner table, and Max tried to rush ahead to get a good chunk of ham. Justin looked the meal over and tried to honor his vegetation tastes. Alex looked at the owl on her cousin's shoulder and narrowed her eyes at it.
"Couldn't get a parrot, huh…" She cracked.
"I try to have Maddie with me at all times." Gabrielle mentioned. "What kind of familiar do you have at Wiz-Tech?"
"A snake." Alex commented. "My familiar ate Justin's familiar." She bobbed her head giggling hysterically amused by the incident.
"Clarence…" Justin choked back the emotions. "Alex, you still owe me one frog!!!"
"Don't worry, Justin…" Jerry stood serving everyone before himself. "I'll get you a nice big toad from Fanny's Familiars from Crooked Street before you return to school." Crooked Street was the leading magic community for magicians in the United States and Canada. It wasn't as notable as Diagon Alley in London or Mary Jane's Closet in Edinburgh, but it was much more accessible than Mansfield Tunnel hidden away under Los Angeles, California.
"Now, Kelsey…" Jerry tried to make Gabrielle's guest feel welcome. "Usually on Christmas, my brother and sister show up with their families, we have dinner and then we open the gifts, but they both joined their in-laws this year so this year it's just us. Feel free to help yourself to as much as you want."
"Uncle Kelbo has a big appetite." Max remarked. "This is the first year we may actually have leftovers."
"Thank you, Mister Russo."
"Gabrielle," Jerry turned to his other brother's daughter. "Honey, did you get the gift I sent you at Hogwarts?"
"Gift?" Gabrielle looked confused and looked to him as Kelsey turned to sit at the table. "You mean the cloak? You sent it to me, Uncle Jerry?"
"Well, yeah…" Jerry lit up with a smile as if she was his own daughter. "I mean, your dad left it to me before he died, and… Well, I just thought he'd want you to have it."
"You forgot to sign the note."
"I'm sorry, honey… but I was in a hurry to get it to you at school. Besides, I knew if Alex or Max saw you with it that they'd want one too, and… I'm not getting into that trouble." He paused a moment and leaned in to her. "No one at Hogwarts saw you with it, did they?"
"Just my friends, Uncle Jerry…" She hugged and kissed him to the cheek. "Thank you so much!"
"Oh, sweet heart…" Jerry hugged her and kissed her cheek back. "Merry Christmas!"
"Merry Christmas!"
Over at the table, Alex watched her father hugging her cousin and rolled her eyes as she ate her carrots. She could not recall her father ever bonding with her like that!