Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Harry Potter series and any of the characters. All credit goes to my hero, the wonderful J.K. Rowling! :D
Spov
Super sledding was a lot light riding a broom, if that broom had been jinxed and you'd lost all control.
"WE LOST MASON!" Sampson shouted and I redoubled my grip on the sled as Mason's figure tumbled off into the snow and the jeep took a sharp left turn causing the sled to slingshot forward for a couple seconds, then yank after the car. Hallie shouted and I felt her slip next to me.
"Hold on!" I shouted putting an arm around her, catching her before she slid off, but then Kohl fell as well.
We were in the clearing Sampson had been talking about earlier, and even though it was well past midnight, the floodlights he'd mentioned were so powerful, they lit the entire clearing which was now covered in snow.
Mr. Benson, who was surprisingly cool for an almost fifty year old, was driving the jeep and doing his absolute best to throw us off. The engine of the jeep roared thunderously as he sped up, and I felt my stomach drop as the sled caught air over a small mound of snow. We were granted a few moments of weightlessness before we hit the ground with unforgiving force and I lost my grip. Both Hallie and I were thrown off the sled and sent sprawling as the jeep sped away from us, it's tail lights glowing smugly at us.
"YEEEAAAAAHHHHH!" Sampson shouted in victory. He was the last one on the sled, which meant he'd won, but his celebration was cut short when Mr. Benson took another sharp turn and he was thrown face first into the snow.
"That was brilliant." I said laughing and pushing myself up out of the freezing snow.
"Glad you enjoyed it." Hallie said rubbing the back of her head.
"Are you alright?" I asked in concern and she nodded also sitting up.
"Yeah, I just forgot how hard you land sometimes." Her breath clouded in front of her as she spoke and her cheeks were pink from the cold. Despite the fact she was wearing bulky snow clothes, and her hair was wet and tangled under her hat I couldn't help but think she still somehow managed looked cute.
"I still can't believe you came up with this. This is genius." I said smiling.
"Why can't you believe I came up with this?" she asked curiously.
"Well Hal, you're not exactly like this at school."
"Like what?"
"Well…" I hesitated before saying the only word I could think to describe it. "Fun."
"I'm plenty of fun Sirius." She said shrugging. "Maybe you just weren't paying attention."
"Or maybe you just didn't want to show me."
She grinned and when I continued to stare at her eyebrows rose.
"What?" she asked curiously.
"Nothing, it's just, usually you're always so busy at the castle you never have time for anything like this." I said thoughtfully. "I like seeing this side of you."
She smiled and I felt my heart falter slightly. With a shock I realized it was the same exact smile her mother had had in the picture on the staircase, and I was unable to keep myself from smiling back with a huge, almost idiotic grin.
"Katie! Sirius! Are you two alright?"
We both jumped and saw that the Jeep had stopped and her brothers were all clambering back onto the sled. It was Mr. Benson who'd shouted, his head leaning out the open car window.
"We're fine!" she said looking away from me and shouting back.
"Alright we're going have one more go around before we head back! Winner of this round gets to pick the movie for next family movie night!"
I had no idea what a movie was, but apparently whatever it was caused Hallie great distress.
"I might have to cheat on this one." She muttered darkly while getting to her feet. "I'll definitely have to push Sam and Kohl off."
"Why?"
"Because if they get to choose they're going to make us watch all of my baby videos, just to humiliate me in front of you."
Spov
The next morning I woke up early, though I wasn't sure why. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, confused for a moment as to where I was, but slowly recollections from last night came back to me and I smiled. A year ago if someone had told me that Hallie Benson had invited me to stay at her house over the break, I would have thought they were confunded, but here I was in her guest room, having survived the first night with her brothers.
I grabbed my wand off the nightstand, got dressed, then made my way towards the hall.
The second I opened my door I had to duck.
"What the-?" I said looking back at the wall behind me to see it had been splattered with paint.
I cautiously stuck my head out into the hall again and saw a thin wire had been attached to my door handle. It connected to a series of pulleys that pulled the trigger of what I realized to be a muggle paintball gun the second I opened the door.
"Good reflexes." Someone said amused and I looked up to see Mason had just entered the hall.
I shrugged. "That wasn't nearly as bad as dodging a bludger."
"Sorry?" he asked confused.
"You know, a bludger in quidditch. Err, never mind." I said shaking my head when he continued to look confused. "But she warned me something like this might happen."
"Yeah." He agreed. "Sampson and Kohl might like you but old habits die hard. I guess that had to get one prank out of their system. You're lucky though, the last boy they did that to got it straight in the face, he couldn't see for two days. Although with you it looks like they were aiming for more of the chest area. Even if it hit you wouldn't have had anything worse than a bruise."
"Good to know." I said looking back at the wall, which was covered in green and blue paint.
I turned to continue talking to Mason, but saw he'd already walked down the hall and I frowned.
While I'd gotten along well with the rest of the family, even Sampson and Kohl despite the fact they'd just tried to shoot me, Mason had been a bit distant. I didn't think it was because he didn't like me, but he was very much like Hallie in the sense that it was hard to know with absolute certainty what he was thinking and I thought he preferred it that way. In fact, with how different he was from the rest of his brothers, I had a feeling she was the only one he could relate to, she was certainly the one he talked to the most.
I followed him down stairs.
Staying in a muggle house was without a doubt the strangest thing I'd ever done. At first I couldn't understand how muggles lived without magic, but I started to realize, they had their own sort of version of it, only it didn't work through spells. It was something Hallie called 'electricity,' and from what I could tell, it all operated off a series of buttons.
These buttons were everywhere, on the door, on the stove, to turn on the light all you had to do was flip something called a switch. It was fascinating to me, but a little overwhelming.
I walked into the kitchen to see that Mr. Benson was already awake cooking breakfast.
"Good to see you're paint free." He said grinning. While Mason opened what Hallie had told me was a refrigerator and took out the milk.
"Over the years I've developed a good sense of when to duck." I said and he laughed.
"You're going to need that around here. You know most lads I'd be worried about, having to spend two weeks with those two, but not you." He said in approval. "I have the feeling you can handle them. Kate says you're a bit of a mischief maker yourself."
"On occasion." I said grinning.
"Well you have my full permission to get them at back any time."
Suddenly, the kitchen door burst open again.
"Where is he?" Sampson said excitedly as he was quickly followed by Kohl "We heard the guns go off!"
"We missed!" Kohl said in exasperation.
Both boys were looking at me in shock and I grinned at them.
"Maybe next time lads."
"There won't be a next time until you clean up the mess you've made in the guest room." Their father said taking the pan of bacon off the stove and putting it on the counter as Hallie's brothers began to help themselves. "You should probably go do that now by the way."
"Why?" they asked in unsion.
"'Cuz we're not going to stand in Katie's way when she sees it." Mason said and their eyes went wide.
All of the sudden, we heard a door slam and a voice yell. "SAMPSON AND KOHL BENSON!"
"Too late." Mr. Benson said amused as Hallie thundered down the stairs and threw open the kitchen door. She was still in her pajamas, shorts and one of her father's old football jerseys but despite the over sized shirt and fact that she was at least a foot shorter than her brothers, she looked positively alarming.
"'Morning princess." Mason said folding his arms over his chest and grinning as she raged at her brothers.
"Did you seriously try and shoot him with your paint ball guns!" she asked furiously and both Sampson and Kohl backed away.
"Get back!" Kohl said grabbing a stool from under the counter and holding it out towards her like a lion tamer.
"Appease the tiny terror!" Sampson said throwing bacon at her. "Eat, eat little monster! Take our sacrifices and be gone!"
"Permission to turn the dimwitted duo into dung beetles?" she asked looking at her father.
"Hey you can't use magic," Sampson yelled. "That's not fair!"
"Denied." Mr. Benson agreed and Hallie looked irritated.
"Then can I throw paint all over THEIR room?" she asked.
"That seems fair."
"WHAT?" the twins shouted in unison.
"You tried to shoot him at point blank range with a rifle." Mr. Benson said incredulously. "I think Katie wins this one. Unless you can stop her."
Hallie cackled evilly and made a break for the stairs with her brothers close behind her. They tackled her to the floor and as the three continued to wrestle in the hall, I helped myself to some bacon and looked around the kitchen and the dining room.
The house was very different from the Potters, but not just because it was a muggle residence. James had been an only child, so most everything in his house was neat and ordered, as if an interior designer had personally worked in every room. It was the kind of place with stylish pillows and antique furniture that you had to be careful with or else it would get ruined. There was no rough housing in the Potter home. I had a feeling that was why James acted out so much at school, he'd had no where to be wild, or anyone to be wild with growing up so at school he got his fill.
The Benson household couldn't have been more different. With so many people living here, the rules were sort of be made up as they went along. Mr. Benson was a very relaxed parent, letting the kids settle their own disputes and only intervening if things had been take too far. This meant that the house was generally in a perpetual state of chaotic activity. There was always someone shouting, playing music or getting up to some sort of trouble. Instead of expensive paintings, pictures lined the walls of the kids growing up, along with art projects and awards. I grinned when I saw a picture of Hallie when she couldn't have been more than ten years old, wearing a badge that said Hallway Patrol.
"Somebody grab her!" Kohl shouted desperately as Hallie managed to break free and sprinted up the stairs.
I looked away from the picture to find that Mason had been staring at me, a calculated expression on his features.
"She's going to destroy that room." Mr. Benson said with a sigh and shook his head. "So Sirius." He said looking at me. "Where are you from?"
"I grew up in London." Figuring that was honest enough.
"You don't live there anymore?" he asked looking confused and I felt a sudden surge of gratitude towards Hallie when I realized that she hadn't told her family about my relationship with mine.
"I do, I've just got my own place now."
"Eager to move out?" he asked frowning.
"My family and I don't really get along." I said neutrally.
"Really?" He said looking surprised and I nodded.
"What happened?" Mason asked ignoring the look his father shot him.
"Mason." He said sharply, but strangely I didn't mind. Less than twenty four hours in this home made me feel more accepted than fifteen years in my own.
"It's fine." I said shrugging and turning to look at Hallie's brother. "I'm sure by now Hal-Katie," I corrected feeling safe knowing there was no way she could hear me. "Has told you about the wizarding families who don't like muggle born witches and wizards."
They nodded.
"My parents are those people."
"Well that's a shame." Mr. Benson said eventually, and it looked like he meant it. "You seem like a nice kid. I'm sorry things had to turn out that way."
I shrugged.
"It's alright." I said. "Anyways I stayed with a mate of mine for a while and when I was of age, I got my own place."
"God I don't even want to think of Katie living alone at your age." He said shaking his head again. "Well you're welcome here anytime." He said and I smiled.
"Thanks."
"DAD SHE'S USING MAGIC TO TURN THE WALLS PINK!" either Sampson or Kohl shouted down the stairs.
"It's your own fault!" he shouted back then chuckled as he made his way to the sink. "You know I'm glad you've come to stay over break. I don't think Katie has had the nerve to put them in their place in about ten years."