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

Hpov

"Good work on the decorations boys." Our father said in approval as he passed Sampson, Kohl, Mason, Sirius, and I in the living room on his way to greet the new arrivals. It was about seven o'clock and the party was just starting to pick up. Most of the guests had shown up by now. "I've had about five people compliment me on the lights so far."

"You do realize they made Sirius do everything right?" I asked him and he frowned.

"You did all that?" he asked looking at Sirius who nodded. "Huh, well good work." He finished shrugging and continued walking towards the front door.

"Thank you Judas." Kohl said glaring at me.

"Yeah Kate, way to throw us under the bus." Sampson agreed.

"You didn't DO anything." I said indignantly.

"Yeah but he didn't know that!" Kohl insisted.

"Honestly, sometimes I'm ashamed to call you our sister." Sampson said dramatically and I felt my eyebrows rise.

"Aren't those the twins you invited?" Mason asked looking towards the door which our father had just opened for two very pretty and identical girls with long dark hair and bright green eyes.

"Ah yes!" Sampson said happily.

"Excuse us while we escort our two lovely ladies to the kitchen for refreshments." Kohl said in an exaggeratedly refined voice.

"Yes it was lovely talking to you." Sampson continued in a similar tone and nodding to each of us in turn. "Mason, Sirius, Judas."

I rolled my eyes.

"And they say I overreact." I muttered.

"I'm going to get another drink." Mason said and then looked at me. "Do you want anything?"

I shook my head.

"Oh that's right, no alcohol, I forgot. What about you Sirius?"

"I'm fine." He said.

"Alright I'll see you two later then." He said for some reason giving me a significant look before walking to the kitchen. I frowned and wondered what he meant by it when Sirius's voice broke me from my thoughts.

"Is that what I look like during parties?" he asked looking a little taken a back and I turned to see what he was staring at. Already Kohl was snogging with one of the girls who'd just walked in, and it was obvious that Sampson and his 'date' weren't far behind.

"Yeah actually." I said in amusement.

"Well that's just unpleasant." He said looking troubled.

"Now you know how it feels for the rest of us." I said grinning.

He looked as if he wanted to say something, but was cut off by a young, high pitched voice that yelled.

"SIWIUS!"

We both looked towards the open front door to see Adam and Alyssa outside on the porch, while a tiny blonde haired, blue eyed figure ran down the entrance hallway towards Sirius and hugged his legs when she reached him.

"Hey Junior." Sirius said laughing and picking her up.

She giggled delightedly and began playing with his hair.

"Oh my gosh Sirius I'm so sorry." Alyssa said quickly, clearly embarrassed as she caught up to Junior. Like her daughter, she had wavy blonde hair and a petite frame. I always thought it was funny when she stood next to my brother. He was so much taller than her. "I really don't know what's gotten into her, usually she's so shy."

"It's fine." Sirius said grinning. "I can take her for a while, if you two want to catch up."

"Would you?" Alyssa asked smiling. "That's so sweet."

"Sure no problem." He said then looked at Junior. "Junior do you want to go find a game to play?"

"Yes." She said excitedly.

"Alright then." He said carrying her towards the cabinet where we kept all our board games and a few of Junior's toys for whenever she came to visit.

They continued to talk and their voices started to blend into the crowd as they got farther away, but not before we heard her ask.

"Siwius, do you think aunt Katie is pretty?"

I felt myself blush though I wasn't sure why. I hadn't even heard his answer.

"You're going to be the one explaining to her that he has to leave when break is over." Alyssa said amused. "You should have heard her in the car on the way here, she was so excited."

"I guess all girls love Sirius." I said without thinking really.

"It's hard to see why they wouldn't. He's smart, funny, attractive, and he seems very sweet." She gave me the same sort of significant look Mason had earlier. "Does he have a girlfriend?"

"No." I said then mentally added. 'He has many.'

"Well then what are you waiting for?" she asked me with raised eyebrows. "He obviously fancies you."

"I wouldn't say it's obvious." I said trying to avoid the question.

"Katie…" she said in a 'don't give me that,' sort of tone. "We all see the way he looks at you."

"And?"

"And boys like that don't stay single for long." She said urgently. "Don't you like him?"

"I'm not sure." I said honestly. It was that very question which I'd been thinking about for what felt like weeks now, but what I hadn't considered was that there might be a dead line to make that decision. While he might have been dating half the school, Sirius had always been around, even when I didn't want him to be. But these days I wanted to be around him all the time. We were getting along better than ever and he seemed different… But it was easy to say that here, away from everyone at Hogwarts. I wondered how I would feel if I saw him with other girls when we got back to school.

Did I fancy Sirius?

Sure he was handsome, and funny, and what most girls considered to be perfect all around, but he was also arrogant, a huge player, and he had secrets, dangerous secrets that I wasn't sure if I wanted to get myself involved with. At the same time though, he really did seemed to be changing. In this past week especially he hadn't seemed self centered at all and while there were plenty of girls at this party, he seemed perfectly content to entertain Junior as a favor to Alyssa and me. However, this did not address the secrets. "It's complicated." I finished.

"Well you'd better figure it out." Alyssa said warningly. "Because if you let a guy like that slip between your fingers, you'd better believe there's a line of girls just waiting to snag him."

She had no idea.

Just then, a grumpy looking Junior came wandering back to us through the party.

"Junior." I said in surprised. "Why aren't you with Sirius?"

"Daddy told me to go back to Mommy." She said sounding disappointed that her time with Sirius had been cut short. "He said he wanted to talk to him."

"Even your brothers like him Katie." Alyssa said picking up Junior. "Adam told me that himself. When has that ever happened before?"

I didn't answer. I was trying to think of anything else to change the topic too when Junior suddenly said.

"Aunt Katie?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you going to marry Siwius?"

"What?" I asked in shock.

"Why would you ask that sweetie?" Alyssa asked while she was plainly trying not to laugh.

"Because he said he thought Aunt Katie was beautiful." She said rubbing her eyes and I realized that it must be close to her bedtime. "And Daddy says that Mommy is beautiful all the time." She yawned and leaned her head against her mothers shoulder as I felt my face burn.

"Ok I think it's time we took you to the room." Alyssa said smiling. If she and Adam were planning on spending the night, they would stay in his old room, which now contained a kid sized bed for Junior.

"I hope they get married." Junior mumbled already half asleep. "Because then he would be around forever, and we could keep playing hide and seek."

By the time eleven o'clock rolled around, people were very intoxicated. Someone had apparently decided that right now was the perfect time to start a football game, and of course seeing as it was snowing and everybody was drunk, it became a mixture of street rules football and an all out snow ball war in our small space of back yard before the woods.

"This is getting out of hand." I said ducking a snowball and watching as Kohl slide tackled a random forward, the snow causing him to slide at least six feet. In the dim light from the porch I'd completely lost the ball, and I was wondering how any of them could know where anyone was, let alone if they were on their team.

"Relax." Sirius said grinning. He'd been playing keeper for a while, being a chaser had made him good at catching and it was the position he could most easily relate to quidditch. "This is fun."

"This is chaos." I said stepping back as two boys ran past us, apparently having spotted the ball. "I'm going inside."

"Oh c'mon Hallie." He said walking after me as I made my way to the back door. "It's not that bad."

I was spared the task of thinking an excuse better than 'It's cold' to go back inside when someone shouted walked out into the deck and shouted.

"Everyone come inside! It's five minutes til Christmas and Adam and Alyssa say they have an announcement for everybody!"

"An announcement?" I said frowning. "The last time they made one of those was when she was pregnant…" I felt my eyes go wide. "Do you think?" I started looking at Sirius.

"I dunno, I didn't see her drink anything all night."

"Neither did I." I said.

"It's possible."

"Let's go find out." I said grinning and we joined the mad rush towards the door.

Everyone filed into the living room where Adam and Alyssa were standing together, his arm around her waist as people all found seats on the couch or took a space on the wall. We were all whispering excitedly, but when Adam cleared his throat a hush fell over the crowd.

"As many of you know." Adam said smiling at the now silent room. "Alyssa and I both come from big families, and we've always wanted a big family of our own."

I couldn't help but smile when Alyssa caught my eye and beamed at me.

"We were going to wait until after the holidays to tell everyone, we only found out just last week." she said. "But we couldn't have thought of a better time than right now when we were surrounded by our friends and family to announce that we're expecting another family member."

The room burst into cheers and applause. Someone had popped a bottle of champagne and was offering it around which both Alyssa and I refused.

"We should go congratulate them." I said grabbing Sirius and pushing my way through the crowd of people.

"Alyssa this is wonderful!" I said happily and she pulled me into a hug. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"I wanted to but Adam thought we should wait." She said letting me go as people swarmed around her and my brother, occasionally bumping into me as they shouted their congratulations.

"Have you decided on any names yet?"

"Only if it's a boy." She said. "We're going to name him John like your father."

I wanted to talk more but I was bumped by a very tipsy friend of Adam's and nearly fell. Luckily, I'd stumbled back into Sirius who caught me.

"Uh oh." He said.

"What?" I asked turning to face him. I followed his gaze up to the ceiling and felt a shock go through me. "Oh." I said quietly.

When I'd tripped, I'd knocked both Sirius and I right underneath the mistletoe that was dangling from the light fixture.

The room fell silent, and several people wolf whistled.

I tried to step back but I seemed rooted to the spot. I glanced at Sirius, who looked just as shocked as I felt, and again I realized that no matter how urgently my brain was screaming at my body to move, it just wouldn't.

"Do it!" someone shouted.

His eyes met mine. I could see his thoughts were racing nearly as fast as my heart was beating. Was this really about to happen?

"Kiss her!" another voice yelled.

Sirius glanced somewhere over my shoulder and I turned to see his gaze had found my father's.

"Well." He said looking amused. "It is a tradition after all."

I looked back at Sirius and while it could only have been a few seconds, it felt like several very intense hours as his eyes met mine. This was happening way too fast, I wasn't ready for this. But I didn't stop him as he put an arm around my waist and with his free hand gently lifted my chin. The next thing I knew his lips were on mine and suddenly the world seemed to vanish.

Catcalls and wolf whistles filled the room again but I barely heard them as he pulled me closer. My entire body felt as if I'd just been shocked and electricity ran through me growing stronger the longer his lips kissed mine. My heart was slamming against my chest, I felt dizzy, dizzy as if my whole body had suddenly gone light.

And then it was over.

Sirius let go of me and I could tell from his expression that he had felt everything that I had with the same intensity, if not more.

The clock began to chime and I realized it was midnight on Christmas morning.

"Happy Christmas." I said quietly, my voice breathless.

"Yeah, you too."

I remembered what Alyssa had said about my family liking Sirius and how he probably wouldn't be single for long.

"Sirius?" I asked.

"Yeah Hal?"

"I think we need to talk."