My laptop is still dead. Still using the one with weird keyboard and as I type slowly, the story is harder to put „on the paper" ...sorry for the delay, and thank you for reading, and for adding my story to your story-alert, and favorite story and all.
I´m thinking about writing about this schol year and then take it more quickly and kind of go through the main events in each year, until Jade grows up, then we could see how she gets to fall in love/or not...and what she´ll do with her life...what do you think?
Thanks
I hope you will like this one.
Jade woke up early in the morning when Ginny jumped on her bed, screaming „Christmas is here!"
Sun was rising and everything outside was covered in ice.
They run downstairs where boys were already waiting around the tree, with Ron hopping from one foot to another, excited to open his present.
Soon Molly and Arthur came downstairs, which was a sign for the kids to start opening the gifts.
They didn´t dig in furiously, but carefully sorted out the gifts, reading tags and admiring the wrapping paper. When everyone had a gift in their arms, they unwrapped them in one short moment, filled with chaos, joyful exclamations and pieces of red and green paper flying through the air.
Molly and Arthur sat on the sofa, still holding their gifts, savouring the moment of pure happiness, watching their kids on Christmas morning.
Everyone´s gift included a famous christmas sweater, hand-knitted by Molly.
Jade got her first Weasley sweater knitted specialy for her. It was light grey, in a shade which almost resembled the lavender hue of twilight sky, with turquoise „J" on front.
Molly used a left over yarn which she found at the bottom of her knitting basket. She remembered knitting socks in turquoise for twins, couple of years ago, and now there was just enough yarn left to finish Jade´s sweater.
Each kid also got a box of their favourite candy or some baked goods from Molly and new quill for school.
„Go on dad! Look at your present now." Suggested Bill, looking at their dad as he carefully unwrapped the box containing all the car-related things his kids bought for him.
Arthur´s eyes were shining brightly when he looked up and smiled widely at all his kids.
„Awesome, more things to keep him busy with the car, I just hope it will keep him from repairing it soon." Said Molly half-joking.
„Mom, now it´s your turn." Said Ginny and sat down close to her mom, handing her a pile of small gifts wrapped in different kinds of paper.
Molly loved every single thing her children made for her, taking her time to admire every little detail of each creation and thanking everyone many times.
They spent next couple of hours sitting around the living-room, eating cinnamon swirls and drinking coffee or cocoa, looking over their gifts.
Jade was snuggled in the armchair, with her feet pulled under her, hugging the sweater close and watching her family enjoy christmas morning. Joyce was right, this was very different christmas than the ones she used to know before, and as far as she could say it was the best one.
Rest of the Christmas break was spent sledging and building snow forts outside or relaxing in front of the fire with nothing to do, but days were going by too quickly and way too soon, Jade was standing in her room, with a handful of clean schol uniforms which Molly sent upstairs for her to pack.
There was only one more day left, before they´d have to go back, and although Jade missed schol, she wasn´t too sure she wanted to go back.
She spent the last days as close to Molly or Arthur as she could, always staying behind, helping in the kitchen instead of sliding down the hill with the rest of the kids, sorting laundry or casting on new knitting project, just to have some reason to spend her time close to her new parents.
But she couldn´t stop time and the day came when she was leaning out from the train window, eyes filled with tears as she waved good-bye to Molly, Arthur, Ginny and Ron, who stood at the platform nine and three quarters.
„don´t worry, we´ll have lots of fun at schol, there´s that Christmas all year round project we have to plan..." reasured her George, pulling her suitcase inside the compartment, where they were sitting.
„... and we´ll get lots of exams and homework which will speed time up and soon it will be summer." Frowned Fred, when he remembered the essay he still had to finish.
Even after twins tried to cheer her up, Jade spent most of the train ride, sitting quietly by the window, hugging her knees and dreaming about the summer day, when the train will be going the other way and she´ll be getting closer to her home, instead of traveling north, like she did now.
The dinner was splendid and castle was still decorated with Christmas trees in the great hall and little wreaths of holly could be found in common room but the rest of the festive decorations was gone.
„we'll meet you down here in five minutes." George pulled Jade's school robe when she was about to climb up the staircase to the girls' part of the dorms.
She nodded, still feeling a little bit lost at the castle, somehow, she was more homesick now than before Christmas.
„so we want to start with our plan as soon as possible, you know, keep it low for a while..." started Fred as soon as Jade walked down the stairs and joined them in the common room, pulling her christmas sweater over the flannel PJs.
„...just small stuff to blend in, kind of." Continued George, handing Jade a piece of fudge they brought from home.
"And once professors try to put down the decorations, you know, they don´t do it all at once, but slowly…" interrupted Fred.
"we´ll just keep adding more and more to make their efforts useless. It will drive them crazy." Laughed George and they both looked at Jade for approval.
"Alright," she smiled, "but we can´t keep it up forever, I love Christmas, but still… it would be odd to have Christmas decorations up around the castle in May…" she explained looking at them.
"I´d say we need some final date when our prank would end, in some big exciting…" Jade didn´t know what exactly should end their plans, but she knew it has to be epic.
"Fireworks!" exclaimed twins at the same time.
They made plans and then went to bed.
The final date was set for the end of the February, because they agreed that there would be no Christmas at Hogwarts without snow, and it usually melted during the first week of March.
Jade woke up earlier than usually, turning off the alarm clock before it woke up the rest of her roommates.
She climbed down the stairs, crossing the common room which was still dark, the only light produced by fire in the fireplace.
She walked inside the Great Hall, closely followed by twins. George winked at her and sat down at the table, taking a toast from the plate.
Jade was tired, but she managed to hang one hundredth Christmas postcards around the corridors before breakfast and it was well worth the early wake up call.
Fred and George took some postcards from the decorations in common room and made copies of them. The magic would wear off after some time, even if professors didn´t take them down, so they´ll have to replace them every second day.
Together with post cards, they hang up Christmas decorations and had a couple of handfuls of tinsel in their bags, for "in between the classes decorating" as Fred called it.
First two weeks it was almost unnoticeable how Christmas decorations started to disappear.
But as the January got nearer to its end, the three new Marauders had more and more work to do every morning.
Soon, Jade was getting up at five in the morning, when it was still dark outside. George borrowed a couple more decorations before they disappeared completely, and now they had wide assortment of Christmas décor hidden in their school trunks.
Students loved the prolonged festivities, but it was slowly getting on professors´ nerves and Jade felt almost relieved when the weekend of Valentine´s day came.
"That means we only have two more weeks and we will be able to sleep until seven! Seven!" she exclaimed, throwing herself down on the armchair next to Fred.
"Ts, ts ts, as a marauder, you need to set your priorities. Do you want to sleep longer, or…" started George.
"…make this world a better, funnier, place?" finished Fred.
He bent down and pulled a box from under the sofa where he was sitting.
"What is that?" asked Jade cautiously.
Fred waved his wand and the box replicated almost immediately. They had all became experts on replicating charms, being able to perform them almost wordlessly.
„This, my dear sister is the mistletoe. It will go well, thematically, with all the kissing and lovey-dovey stuff which…" explained Fred, sounding exhausted.
"…which, as you will see, is gonna get intense, and pretty disgusting in the next two days." Finished George, grabbing a box.
"Let´s do this before breakfast starts, I would like to have the day off and catch up on some sleep."
They worked slowly, but effectively, hanging small bunch of mistletoe berries over every door which was likely to be used during the weekend.
When Jade passed around a group of sixth year girls after lunch, she was no longer sure it was such a good idea.
Together with Marauders´ effort to keep up the Christmas decorations, professors and Mr. Filch, placed some Valentine´s day cards and small red paper hearts around the castle. Mistletoe, however, seemed to be the most popular one, as groups of students were hanging around the doors, girls giggling uncontrollably every time they caught a boy.
"Bleh." Frowned Deric when they walked out of the castle with Jade, after meeting together in front of the great hall.
"I love the Christmas decorations, it´s nice to get some festive atmosphere now when the first round of exams starts." He smiled, holding the door open for Jade , letting her pass through, before he walked behind her, making sure they wouldn´t be under the huge mistletoe wreath at the same time.
"But this mistletoe thing… I don´t know, it´s getting out of hand." He shook his head and pulled the collar of his cloak closer as the wind blew down a handful of snowflakes from the roof.
"Yeah, that wasn´t the best idea at all." Agreed Jade blushing, and decided that no more mistletoe will be placed around the castle until next year.