Ch 56 Another Christmas (Twenty-Twenty-Five)
At least Sammy Sun's house was above freezing, acceptable if you wore heavy clothes. It was high enough in the mountains to cause you to be a little short of breath. One of the disadvantages of living most of your life close to sea level was not being used to working in the mountains.
Harry looked around at the large living room. The building was made of stone, which didn't seem to provide much insulation, but there were heavy carpets on the floor and all of the walls, and behind the carpets the room was lined with wood. There was a magical fire in a fireplace in the room, but if you were furthest away from the fireplace the room was still cold, and unless you were right next to the fire the room was cool.
Everybody in the family wore heavy clothing year round, because if it was warmer this close to K2 in the summer it was never really warm. December it was cold.
Harry, Sammy, and several other Aurors looked over the reports on the latest Honor Guard practice early in December. He fixed several maps that Albus had charmed so they could record and play back what they did. Somehow only Albus and Cleo could make the memory maps.
There were a couple of excellent Chinese map makers, but one of them told Harry, when he asked, that, "When Cleo tried to describe what she did to make the memory maps I had a headache. She is a very strange person sometimes. Very powerful but strange."
Harry had to admit that the Magi map maker was right. Cleo could be uncommonly strange.
"It is not just the Honor Guard that has to Portkey or Apparate or somehow find their way to where Albus and Cleo are," Harry noted as he looked at the results of the latest practice session. They were doing these six times a year, once only three weeks apart but other times as much as three or three and a half months apart. Half of them involved Apparating to the area around K2, the others involved Apparating to other places.
Sammy Sun agreed. "It is getting better, but it is not good." He looked over the reports they were writing. "I don't want to have these exercises more than six times a year, but I am as worried as you are. I'm just not sure any amount of training will prepare us for what we will face."
"I'm glad we called on some of the other people that we are going to be able to call on if things get bad," Harry added. "I know on my side Kingsley and Minerva have been glad to be involved. Not everyone is, however."
"I've problems with Chinese and Indian Magi as well," Sammy reflected. "Less being unwilling and more not wanting to acknowledge that the chance of them being needed are real."
"Too blasted cold up here," Harry shivered.
"Just not dressed well enough for it," Sammy countered. "Brush up on personal warming spells."
Harry used a warming spell, and it was better, but he could still see his breath. And he had to use the oxygen concentrator. It was not a comfortable place to be. Sammy had spent enough years up near K2 that he was accumulated to the low pressure and cold, but Harry was not.
And if Albus and Cleo ended up here they may need the oxygen concentrators too. How would Harry and the team arrange that? Yet most of the prophesies pointed to K2 being where Albus and Cleo would be taken if they were captured. It was a difficult situation to plan for. Difficult, and terrifying.
Just about every major religion was represented among the Magi in Switzerland, although more than half were 'none of the above.' More were Christian than any other type, however, and more were joining because Albus and Cleo were Christian.
Rich and Molly Hudson and their two children, Kyle, six, and Scarlet, four, climbed the stairs into the choir loft, and then walked along the side of the church at the mezzanine level to the front most seats. That way she could look down at the front of the church, the altar, the stable with the baby Jesus and all the other figures, and the other Christmas decorations. They were early, but Rich and Molly were going to be writing Christmas articles.
About half an hour before the service was scheduled to begin, a children's choir took their place at the front of the church and began to sing. Molly had a list of all the children, and of the music teachers. Cleo had observed at least one practice, but she was way too busy to direct this children's choir. Molly had become the chronicler of the Preverell family, and especially of Cleo's activities, and Rich was more involved in other news, including some of the governmental issues.
The church was almost half full when the children's choir started to sing, and by the time church was ready to start it was overfull, with some people standing. Two clergy went to the back of the church and removed the walls that separated the narthex from the rest of the church, and chairs began to magically appear, to give more people the chance to attend. At the same time the mezzanine grew out to give it two more rows. People were still taking their seats when a procession started, and the clergy and others marched into the church.
After some brief housekeeping announcements, Albus and Cleo walked out, and took up their places at the front of the choir.
Albus started with a solo "Silent Night," on the guitar, with one high solo by one of the choir children singing. They sang all the verses in English and German, with more voices and instruments for each verse.
Albus left, and Molly noted that he had taken his place up in the mezzanine at the place reserved for the rulers of the valley, along with his children, their nanny, and Jesus and Ginny Wang Rios with their son.
Cleo left the front of the church, but took her place at the organ, adding a very light accompaniment until the last, rousing, rendition of Joy to The World.
That evening Rich Hudson stayed with their two children as Molly left to report on the late evening adult Christmas Eve service. For this there was a full, adult, choir, and the normal choir director and organist directed the rather large group while Cleo played the organ.
Again there was music for about half an hour before the service, and although they didn't need the narthex for this service they did need the expanded mezzanine.
Harry was able to attend the late Christmas Eve services at St. Mungo's and Merlin's in London. As usual for the Christmas Eve services, Ginny was with him, along with Monica and Gregory. James Sr. and Jr. attended, along with Erica. Erica was thinking of joining the church, just because James was, although James was not all that faithful in attending.
Lily had felt guilty enough about getting pregnant that she had started to attend as well, and Billy encouraged it. As Billy told Harry, "Anything that can encourage Lily to be good, to think about her actions, is a good thing." Billy was planning on being baptized and having Will baptized on Easter.
"Is Lily really serious about living a Christian life?" Harry had asked Billy a couple of weeks before Christmas, when it was just the two of them at the New Burrow on Sunday. Lily, Billy and Will had attended with Harry and Minerva that Saturday night.
"Sometimes I'm not sure what she is serious about," Billy grinned. "She has a hard time staying focused on any one thing. I do think she is reasonably serious about joining the church, and having us attend. We've been meeting with some other young couples from the church, and that is good. Having friends outside of family and Quidditch."
"I'm glad for you," Harry replied. Lily seemed to be growing up, not easily and not without a fair amount of complaining and "woe is me," but she was growing up.
To his credit, Billy seemed more amused by Lily's antics than bothered.
Rose and Scorpius, the two toddlers and their new baby accompanied her mother Hermione, Hermione's mother to church most Sundays, and Christmas Eve even Ron, Narcissa and Arthur Baker attended.
Seven o'clock Christmas morning, twenty-twenty-five, Harry and Ginny gathered in the drawing room with their family. James Sr. and Jr. and Erica had come over Christmas Eve, sharing one bedroom, as had Lily with Billy and Will sharing another. By this time Lily was very pregnant, and knew they were having a girl.
Ivana and Hudson Jordan had arrived late the previous afternoon, from spending some time with Hudson's parents and brother, when Harry was working, and were sharing her bedroom. Then you had Minerva and Gregory.
"Is school in San Francisco still good?" Harry wondered as Ivana and Hudson came down stairs into the drawing room, the last to arrive.
"We are learning. It is very different than Hogwarts, much more integrated with the Muggle, they call them No-Maj there, world," Ivana replied.
"We are just very grateful for you paying for our education and living expenses," Hudson added. "My father has helped a little, but we could not do it without your help."
"I'm glad to help," Harry beamed. "Your adopted fathers had modest estates, Ivana, but I didn't think it was fair to drain them to put you through school."
"I would have thought that all the care Charlie needed all those years would have drained the estates," Ivana thought.
Harry and Ginny looked at each other. They had paid for Charlie's care, not from the Harry and Ginny Potter Foundation but from family funds. There had been some support from the Dragon Sanctuary in Romania, but most of the extraordinary care Charlie had received was paid for by the Potters'.
"His care was taken care of," Harry volunteered.
"Thank you," she said, guessing who had paid for the extraordinary care her adopted father had received.
"You are welcome," Harry replied, having long ago realized that a simple 'you are welcome' was often the proper response to gratitude.
Ivana looked at Lily, who by this time was wearing maternity clothes and looked very pregnant. "Lily, you are having another one!" she squealed. "I didn't know you were planning on having another one."
Ginny laughed, Harry smiled, and James and Erica both rolled their eyes up and shook their heads, indicating that this pregnancy was not exactly planned. Lily looked a little awkward. She finally admitted, "It was not exactly planned. I didn't obtain the birth control potions soon enough.
"I wanted to be grown up, so I shouldn't complain."
"But you do complain, often enough," Ginny responded, smiling.
Lily took a deep breath and frowned. "It's hard being a grown up," Lily admitted. "I wouldn't want to go back, not really, and I love Will and being with Billy, but it is just a whole lot harder and more complicated that I thought."
Stockings were taken down and modest presents were exchanged. The family ate breakfast, and then talked until about eleven, when they took the Closet to the New Burrow.
Ginny thought that this might be their Christmas routine for a few years. Albus and Cleo coming from Switzerland right to the New Burrow, but the others coming to Grimmauld Place the night before.
The New Burrow was reasonably large, but the only way everyone would fit into the living room was having it opened into the hallway and library, removing walls being something you could only do with magic. Right after breakfast Christmas morning Molly and Victoire went into the living room area to make sure they were ready for the crowd that would soon appear.
"Seventy-one jumpers!" Victoire exclaimed as she looked at the large pile she and Molly had knitted that year. "Three more than last year. And there will be more next year. There would be one more except Fernando is not with us, and I don't expect him to ever live with us again."
"Thank you for making one for me," Molly told her granddaughter. "I appreciate all your help."
"A number of other beings have helped with the dinner, and the Elves have gatherings planned as well," Victoire reflected. "Plus the Magi guards will eat over in Potter's New Burrow. It is good we do not have to do all of this ourselves."
Molly and Victoire went back into the kitchen and dining room area of the New Burrow. Molly looked at a seating chart. Fernando, Juana's half-brother, was in an institution, which was tragic but a relief. But you had four new babies. The three tables were too big.
"I liked it when the children had their own table," Victoire thought. "We had two tables, then three, but the families were mixed up with people the same ages at the same table."
"Then your parents and aunts and uncles started having babies again," Molly grinned, a face and bearing somewhere between pleased and frustrated.
"We could put you and grandfather, Andromeda, Arthur Baker and Narcissa at one table," Victoire thought. "That is only five. Well, and Jean Granger, she is your age, so that is six. Who else, or should we have some little tables?"
"We have the older children," Molly thought. "Barack and Minerva are eight, Juana is seven, Wilkie and Kyle are six. That is five of the older children. I hate to have any younger children at that table."
"They would feel very grown up sitting at their own table," Victoire thought. "I think Minerva should be able to handle that table, as the oldest of that group. Minerva will probably be head of a cousin's group at Hogwarts, just like I was."
"I don't want to add the four year olds to that table," Molly suggested. "Minerva and Barack will have enough trouble managing the younger three."
"Except that the four year olds are four nice little girls, Maria Lupin, Issa Weasley, Scarlet Hudson, and Irma Longbottom," Victoire thought. "We can try it. The table still only has nine children."
Molly looked at her granddaughter, and indicated by her posture that she would go along with nine of the older children at that table.
"So that reduces the table with my mother and father to them, Jean-Paul, Louis, Teddy and me, Josefina, Javier and Rosario, Venus and Saturn, Dominique and Francois with Pierre. That's fourteen."
Molly thought, "The next table has George and Angelina with their Sally and Richard, Fred and Miriam with Joshua, Frank and Roxanne with Benjamin, that's George's family. Then you have Percy and Audrey with Arthur the second and Grace, Molly and Rich, both of their children are at the big children's table, and Lucy with Bob Hudson. That is still eighteen. Two more grandchildren, two more babies.
"Then you have Ron and Hermione with Hugo, Rose and Scorpius with Elanor, Bella, and baby Gardner, Ginny and Harry with Gregory, James and Erica with little James, Albus and Cleo with Adam, Morgana and Eve, Lily and Bill with Will, Ivana and Hudson Jordan. That's twenty-four people, even without the older generation."
"Let's try it," Victoire suggested. "Over the next few years more of the children will graduate to the table for the big kids."
Molly put her hands on her hips. "And to make up for it you and Cleo and who knows who else is going to keep having children."
"Guilty as charged," Victoire beamed. "Although hopefully we will not have any more craziness like Teddy's children, or like Morgana and Bella."
Molly and Victoire waved their wands a few times to rearrange the tables. When the Potters' arrived Victoire approached Minerva and told her, "We are going to have the big kids sit at their own table. Can you be in charge of this table?" She pointed to a table with the names of all nine children on it.
"We get our own table?" she beamed.
"We think you and Barack can take care of nine of you," Victoire replied. "We are not putting the babies at your table."
Fred Weasley's family was already there, and Minerva yelled, "Barack, come here!"
Barack came over to where Minerva was standing. She was almost jumping up and down with joy, and Minerva told Barack, "We get our own table for the big kids and you and I are the oldest and are in charge!"
"Well, I guess," Barack responded, not quite as sure and excited as Minerva. "I'm used to being the oldest." He read the names on the table. "They have me next to my sister Issa, plus Scarlet, and you next to Maria and Irma." Barack grinned.
"You are growing up!" Victoire beamed at the two oldest of that group. She then announced to the group, "We have rearranged the tables to give our senior citizensmembers their own table, and to give the big children their own table. I remember how proud I was when my siblings and cousins were given our own table. Molly and I decided it was time for the nine oldest of the next batch of children to have their own table."
"It is time to sit down to eat," grandmother Molly announced, and the group found their places.
Minerva was quite successful in managing the children's table, despite one spilled drink and a little general messiness when everyone was finished.
"Thank you for letting us have our own table," Minerva told Molly and Victoire after the meal. "I was the youngest, the baby, for so long, and even now I'm not the oldest or anything close in my family, but I feel so grown up at our own table!"
"I remember when the twelve original cousins were able to eat at their own table," Victoire told Minerva. "It made me feel very grown up, not all grown up but getting there."
"Yes, that's it!" Minerva exclaimed. "Not too grown up, but getting there."
Molly and Victoire considered the experiment with a children's table a success. And Victoire was even more sure that Minerva would be in charge of the next generation of youngsters.
As had become their custom, the noon meal was the only one eaten together. The crowd cleaned up the dishes, and set up a buffet so the family who was staying could graze that afternoon and evening. They all moved into the expanded living room for the handing out of jumpers and the giving of presents to the younger generation. And slowly members of the family left.
Later in the day Albus told Molly, "I'm sorry we only come for your Sunday brunches about once a month. We are very busy in Switzerland, and that is as often as we can arrange to come."
"You are welcome to come as often as you can," Molly replied. "I am just happy to see my grandchildren and great-grandchildren as often as I can."
"For years you helped teach most of first your children, then your grandchildren, and now some of the great-grandchildren," Albus admitted. "I'm sorry you don't see our children more often. The schooling in Switzerland is very good, though. They do use some of the material that your home schooling group has produced."
"Audrey has been responsible for some of it," Molly responded. "It is funny, in a way. Victoire is partners in the cooking and managing the household, but she works part time and is not that active in the teaching. Audrey is not very creative as a cook, and at times she just takes home some of what Victoire and I, or the Elves and I, make, but she is fully involved in all the teaching. Josefina is too."
"Josefina seems to have found herself as one of the teachers, as well as child care help for Victoire," Albus observed.
"Most of the youngsters are being taught here," Molly told Albus, "but there is a good group of witches at the Cannons taking care of children, and James Jr. and Will have been taken care of by that group. I think Rose is going to try and do as much of the schooling of her children herself, although they are over here every week, actually most days' part time."
"Roxanne is not happy that Frank is in the Honor Guard," Angelina confided to Ginny when the two of them sat down next to each other Christmas afternoon. The family had scattered into small groupings, and the two were sitting in a corner of the living room. "She is really worried that it is too dangerous."
"Harry is worried too," Ginny agreed. "It is just that Frank is the only Auror in the British Auror department in the Honor Guard, and Harry doesn't feel he can have no representative from his department."
"Roxanne has three young children!" Angelina emphasized.
"Harry says quite a number of the Honor Guard are young parents," Ginny noted. "It worries him, especially after we have had the experience of Teddy Lupin.
"You have had your two pair. Any more babies in your future?"
"NO!" Angelina exclaimed. "What about Audrey?"
"I wouldn't bet against Audrey having one more," Ginny thought.
Harry walked over to the buffet table with Gregory and filled a plate with finger food for the little boy and another plate for himself, levitating the plates along. He spotted Scorpius also getting food, wearing his and Rose's new baby on his front. The two went to a table, and Harry helped Gregory into a high chair. Scorpius took the baby out of the carrier and held him.
"We've given you another boy so you can continue to play with the little boys," Scorpius told Harry as the two of them talked, Scorpius holding his youngest, forty-day old Frodo Gardner. "Gardner will be playing in the sandbox at the pond in a couple of years."
"Along with George's son Richard," Harry noted. "I thought they were going to name him George Jr., but Angelina really didn't want a junior."
"If they both worked at the store it would get confusing," Scorpius admitted. "I'm not naming any son of ours after me or my father, that is certain."
"Are there more on the way?" Harry wondered.
"Not right now, but eventually," Scorpius reflected. "Rose wants at least four, and she wants to home school them all. Oh, they will go over to the New Burrow at times, but she wants to be their primary teacher. Grandmother Granger is really too old to help teach. She is over once in a while, but she is a Muggle, and they age much sooner than Magi.
"I think it is a little bit of rebellion against her mother being such a career witch, but she enjoys it. She has really withdrawn from as much of the managing of the estate as she can, leaving those things to my grandmother and me.
"I'm trying to do as much managing by wandering around as I can, visiting all of the farms and the other properties we own often, partly to keep exercising. I still have to be somewhat careful, but my insides are getting better."
"I cannot see Ginny being a housewitch," Harry thought, looking over at Ginny. Ginny was sitting at another table with a couple of her sisters-in-law. "She is a great mother and grandmother, but she's not very domestic. It is a good thing we have household help."
"Lily doesn't strike me as much of a housewitch either," Scorpius suggested, looking over at Lily, who was telling some sort of story to witches in her generation, waving her arms and obviously enjoying telling the tale.
"She does get along with most of the players and their significant others, wives or boy or girlfriends," Harry responded. "Most of the children like her. It is just that a little chaos seems to follow her around, chaos that she is mostly responsible for. She is nice enough, and apologizes dramatically enough, that people put up with it.
"We have helped her by paying for the rent on their apartment, and they have used some of the extra funds that has freed up to hire a half-time Elf to clean and wash clothes and cook dinner at times."
"She was never mean at school," Scorpius told Harry. "Just scatterbrained, and prone to ignore not only the rules but also common sense."
"I hate to think that having Monica Jane was a good thing," Harry pondered, "but Lily was forced to take over from Ginny when Ginny had to focus on our poor sick baby, and Lily really did a good job. Oh, there was a fair amount of complaining, and plenty of the Lily chaos, but when she saw what her mother was going through she did come through in the end."
"How does she feel about being pregnant again?" Scorpius wondered.
"It depends on when you ask her," Harry laughed. "She is really disgusted with herself for forgetting the birth control potions, but she doesn't really mind being pregnant. She is frustrated that she looks like a mother and not like her adolescent self, but she is not about to do what she would need to do to get back to being that thin. She would rather be a grown up, despite complaining how much harder it is to be a grown up."
"Typical Lily," Scorpius agreed. "If you ask her how she is, you will eventually receive seven different, contradictory answers.
"Rose is much more disciplined. The household doesn't have the deathly quiet decorum I grew up with, though. Rose has others over often enough, and I know she spends some time with the witches who work on the farms, and their children. We have set up a school for not only the little children but also for anyone, no matter how old, who wants to catch up on their education, and Rose spends a little time with the very little ones, and has them over at the Manor occasionally. Rose really loves to entertain."
"Is that a new Christmas outfit?" Harry wondered, looking at Rose who, like Scorpius, was always well dressed.
"Rose has clothes and jewelry for every season," Scorpius admitted. "I'm afraid to try and find out how big our clothing budget is. We have had to expand the already large walk in closet. I cannot really complain. I'm proud of how she looks. I'm proud of how she dresses the children, although she doesn't have Fleur and Dominique's ability to keep the children neat even when they are feeding themselves."
"It is a good thing we do not have carpet on the floor where the children's table was," Harry reflected. "Parents did a fair amount of cleaning of their four-year-olds."
"Two more years and our two oldest will be four years old," Scorpius thought.
"And another year and Minerva will go to Hogwarts, along with Barack, and Minerva McGonagall will have quite a group of our children the next few years," Harry told Scorpius. "Unless she retires. She is thinking of at least partly retiring soon, giving the job of head to Neville."
"Is there anything planned for today?" Ivana asked at breakfast on Boxing day, as the same people who were at breakfast Christmas morning were there a day later, eating at Grimmauld Place. The family was, as usual, eating breakfast in the large modern kitchen at twelve Grimmauld Place.
"I think today is going to be dedicated to recovering from the chaos that is the Weasley family Christmas," Harry answered.
"I love the chaos of Christmas!" Lily eagerly volunteered.
"I just think you just like chaos," James replied. "At least at school chaos seemed to follow you everywhere, mostly at your instigation."
"School was FUN!" Lily beamed.
"If your new daughter is like you plan on being a grandmother before you are thirty-five, a great-grandmother in your early fifties, a great-great grandmother when you are starting your seventies, a great-great-great grandmother before you hit ninety," James suggested. "CHAOS!"
Lily stuck her tongue out at her brother. "I hope not," she muttered.
"Will has been a reasonably good child so far," Lily acknowledged. "I think I maybe don't want a daughter that gets into quite as much trouble as I did."
"The innocence of children is due more to the weakness of their limbs than the purity of their hearts," Harry volunteered. "Saint Augustine, an early Christian bishop."
"I'm not sure I'd wish that you have a child like you were, Lily," Ginny told her. "Grandmother Molly says that you were worse than I ever was, and I wasn't an easy child to raise."
"You are a better writer and reporter than you were a player," James volunteered. "You were good, really good, but not quite professional good."
"I think she was good enough to play with the old Cannons," Ginny laughed.
"That's not saying much," Harry replied. "Despite your brother's loyalty, there was not a single member of the old team playing for the new Cannons. They were horrible."
"Uncle Ron loves it that we are winning," James beamed. "He is willing to let me recruit any player if it will help us win, but then Uncle Bill and Jake wave spreadsheets with budget figures on them."
"May I invite my brother over here this afternoon?" Hudson asked. "My father is working at the store, since the day after Christmas, despite it being a holiday, is going to be open this afternoon."
"Ron wanted the store open this afternoon, and all Saturday," Harry let the group know. "Plenty of customers with gold to spend, he says."
Harry looked at Ginny, who nodded, and then told Hudson, "Sure, any time."
"That is why I don't want anything to do with the retail business," Hudson said. "Late hours, weekends, holidays. Not my idea of a life."
2023