thankyou to all of my supporters with a special thank you to my awesome tear supporters: Antar Das, LegendaryWasabi, Oli Wieszun, Ibuki Mioda, SvenGTX, Optimum Prime and Jack Schriner you are all great people.
we are quickly approaching the £50 (there is always some loss at the end of the month so I wont say we are there yet) point where I said I would commotion art for my fics. however, the artist I was in talks with has received a lot of work over the last couple of weeks and she won't be able to do the commission. don't worry though I still plan to keep to the same secduale, but I now need to find a new artist. if any of you know of an artist who is accepting commissions who you think is a good fit for the work can you please send me their details or a link to their commission's page.
chapters 31 and 32 are already up so if you want to read them straight way go to pat re on /Lowtwn
Chapter 30 - Christmas Time
Knock knock knock. The sound of Harry's fist striking the wooden door echoed inside the building the door was attached to. A few seconds later the door swung open, revealing one of Harry's oldest friends.
"Hello Harry! I wasn't expecting to see you until Christmas Day. Professor McGonagall said you and Hermione had gone home for the holiday and that you'd be back for the ball. Why don't you come in?" A smiling Hagrid said as he saw Harry standing on his snow-covered door step.
Harry quickly accepted Hagrid's invitation and joined him inside the hut, moving over to the man's fire to warm up. "Well, home for the holidays is just in Hogsmeade, so it's not a long trip to come visit," he explained as he held his boot to the fire, melting off the last of the snow and warming up his toes.
"Well that explains how you'll be back for the ball, who are you staying with?" Hagrid questioned, and Harry explained to him about the house in the village that used to belong to his grandparents, and how he was staying there with Sirius, Remus, Hermione and her family. While Harry was talking, Hagrid poured him a cup of tea from the large copper kettle that the large man used as a teapot and offered Harry some of his infamous rock cakes. Harry, who was familiar with Hagrid's attempts at cooking, refused the offer.
"How is Sirius coping? Terrible things, those Dementors, and he was with them for so long." Hagrid asked, the shadow from his comparatively short stay in Azkaban visible on his face.
"Uncle Remus says he is making progress, but that it's a marathon and not a sprint. He is confident that Sirius will be fine in time, until then they are just taking everything one day at a time." Harry told Hagrid, who nodded, apparently understanding more from Harry repeating Remus's words than he had when he heard them.
"So what's the real reason you dragged yourself up to the castle? I doubt my tea is that good." Hagrid chuckled at his own joke.
Harry flashed a cheeky smile to the Care of Magical Creatures professor (or, as was more important to this visit, the groundskeeper of Hogwarts) before answering. "Well, my new house seems to have everything we need for a great Christmas: family, food and presents. But we are lacking something that's really putting a damper on the festive spirit. And when I tried to think of how I could get what I needed, the only one I could think of was you, Hagrid."
Hagrid laughed. "OK, consider me buttered up, if you laid it on any thicker you'll strain yourself," he said with a grin of own.
"Well, I was hoping you could help because we don't have a Christmas tree," Harry explained
A grin spread over Hagrid's face. "I can help you with tha'. Though I can't be doing it for free. Not that I want to charge you, mind you, but the forest is given under old laws, and if you want a tree you'll need to pay the school for the wood," he added.
Harry nodded; he hadn't expected to get the tree for free anyway, he had come here expecting Hagrid to tell him where he could buy a tree, and Harry didn't mind giving the school a few galleons for a tree. "That's not a problem, Hagrid."
The two of them sat there drinking their tea and discussing the latest developments of the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Harry had originally been all too happy to keep as much distance as he could from the monsters, but when his name came out of the goblet of fire he recalled what Hagrid had said when he asked the man about the strange creatures he was showing the class. 'The Ministry sent 'em to me for the tournament. Give the champions something they can't have read about. A test of the unknown, I think they called it.' Ever since then, both Harry and Hermione had paid attention to the evil things and had told Fleur everything they could about them.
"Their shells are becoming extremely spell resistant. I saw Malfoy try and hit one with a cutting curse when it had cornered him, but the spell bounced right off."
A flash of anger crossed Hagrid's face, but Harry knew it was aimed at Malfoy for attacking one of his creatures. Secretly, both Harry and Hermione had found something they agreed with Malfoy on, but then as Hermione had said, 'even a broken clock is right twice a day.' Hagrid quickly focused back on the conversation. "Yes their armour is quite impressive, but the flesh is vulnerable to spells, your Hermione got one with an impediment jinx last lesson on its underside, and it was frozen in place for a solid 5 minutes."
After a few more minutes, the two of them left Hagrid's hut and ventured into the forest looking for a suitable Christmas tree. It took them an hour, but eventually they were able to find one and Harry used a few spells that he had learnt in Herbology to dig up the tree. There was no need to cut the tree down when a few spells were enough, and this way they could probably use the tree for a few years until it got too big.
-ϟϟϟ-
Fleur was in the Potter house owlery, Hermione was busy giving Dobby a lesson on reading so she was up here alone. It was a little chilly, but not as much as you would expect given the number of glass free windows there were; she suspected that it was spelled to always be a comfortable temperature for the owls. Fleur was looking at the view and thinking about her family, this was going to be her first Christmas where she didn't spend it with them. At Beauxbatons, she always went home for Christmas. Maman would make hot chocolate, and Fleur and her sister would cuddle up to Maman on the sofa and listen as she told them stories of Christmas miracles and tales of what she got up to at Christmas when she was still a girl.
The sounds of footsteps coming up the stairs behind Fleur startled her out of her reverie. She looked up and saw Hermione's grand-mère coming up the stairs. The woman may not be as quick and sure footed as Fleur was on the stairs, but age hasn't slowed the woman much. Before Fleur could think of anything to say, Ms. Richards was standing next to her and leaning on the windowsill looking out the window towards the school.
"You know, it's weird. If I look at the school from any of the windows in the house pointed that way, I see a grand castle that looks like something from a fantasy. However, if I step outside the house and look all I see are a bunch of dangerous-looking ruins." Ms Richards said without any form of greeting.
"It's ward interactions. The ruins are a mental illusion created to get people without magic to stay away. But the house has wards to shield anyone inside from magical attacks, so it blocks the illusion." Fleur explained, as the woman looked at her as if studying her.
"So you have an arranged marriage to Harry," Ms. Richards said in a carefully neutral tone.
"Betrothal. We aren't married yet, but basically yes," Fleur lightly corrected the woman who was obviously trying to assess her.
"Seems a little outdated. I have met some people in arranged marriages who were happily married, but I also know some who came to this country to get away from arranged marriages. Wouldn't you prefer to have a choice in who you marry?" Ms Richards now sounded empathetic like she was gearing up to save Fleur from a bad situation.
"Not in my case, no. I'm a Veela. It's... different for us." Fleur was feeling a little awkward now and turned back to looking out the window.
"Hermione mentioned that, but she never explained what a Veela is. Is it some type of religious thing?"
Fleur didn't really want to explain, but the woman was important to Hermione. ""No, nothing like that, it's just that...Veela aren't human. Well, we are, but not fully human. Veela are always females of great beauty, and we have an aura that makes people who are attracted to women even more attracted to us. We have an avian hybrid form we can take if we are scared or angry enough, and we each have a perfect partner out there. I met Harry when he was only a few days old, and I reacted to him in a way that proved he was my perfect partner. I wouldn't want to be with anyone over Harry because of that. That's why our parents signed the betrothal."
"What about Hermione? She doesn't seem willing to let you take Harry." Ms Richards was making the same assumption that Harry and Hermione made.
"To understand this, there's something else you should understand first. People talk a lot about soulmates, and for most part it's just a bunch of romantic nonsense. But for magicals it's actually possible - not in a preordained from birth way, that's just romantic fiction. Even the Veela bond is more about who our magic resonates with. But, it is possible for two people who truly love each other to make a soul connection, to reach out and touch each other's soul and to leave a link between the two. If you develop such a bond you will never willingly break it. Harry and Hermione have a bond like that. We tested it at the bank."
"The bank?" Ms. Richards seemed confused as to why you test for something like that at a bank.
"Bonds affect a lot of financial things, so they have a way to check bonds. You can also get it checked at the Ministry, but we were already in the bank." Fleur explained
Ms Richards nodded as if she was just filing that information away for later, before returning to what they were discussing before. "Yet Harry also has to marry you by law. Sounds like a problem."
Fleur almost laughed at that. Not at the woman directly, but because of how similar she was to Hermione in her thinking. "The magical people live by different laws, considering betrothal contracts written by parents for newborns are legal, are you that surprised that polygamy is legal too?"
"I'm not sure I can approve of this," Ms Richards said, looking conflicted.
Fleur hesitated for a second before she decided that Harry and Hermione's way of charging forward was needed. "Ms. Richards, you are important to Hermione, and because of that I would love for us to get along. However, I don't really need your approval. As long as Harry and Hermione are happy, that's all I care about."
Ms Richards looked at her as though she had grown a second head. "You have only known them a few months, you can't possibly know them well enough that they are all you care about yet!"
"My English is not perfect. I mean all I care about in the relationship, not all of my life," Fleur hastened to add.
Ms Richards nodded in understanding. "Be that as it is, I lived through the 60's and 70's, and I have seen relationships like this before; they don't work, not in the long run. Eventually one person is pushed to the side or someone gets jealous and the whole thing explodes."
Fleur understood where Ms. Richards was coming from. "There are times it has worked, though, and we will have our bonds helping us. Don't think I think it will be easy: a relationship with one other person is hard, and so with two partners it will be at least twice as hard. But I have faith in the bonds between us."
Ms. Richards now looked resigned to the inevitable. "Just promise me one thing… try not to hurt Hermione, or Harry, too much." She added Harry's name a little later as an afterthought. "They are good kids and don't deserve to be toyed with."
There was nothing Fleur could really say to that so she just gave the older woman a nod of understanding.
-ϟϟϟ-
Harry had some trouble getting the tree in the door, at least until Dan and Sirius came to give him a hand. The problem wasn't how heavy the tree was (Harry had taken care of that while he was at the school by hitting it with a feather light charm), but that the tree was about three times Harry's size and the spells to shrink a living thing were complicated. Eventually, they managed to get the tree up the stairs to the family room, with Dan and Harry having fun by confusing Sirius with a Chuckle Brothers routine of 'To me', 'To you', which Sirius didn't understand. Hermione laughed a little when she heard the two of them, so both Harry and Dan counted it as a win. Once they had the tree in the family room it was supposed to be simple, but then everyone had a different opinion on where it should be set (besides Harry who was just happy to have a tree). After a bit of debate they put it between the two fireplaces.
Sirius and Remus wanted to just wave their wands to decorate the tree, but Hermione and Jean insisted they do it by hand. "If you just magic up the decorations, then they don't mean anything. But if you have a set you use every year, then they remind you of the Christmas you had before." Harry didn't have a set of baubles to use, of course, so a trip to London was needed. Dan and Emma took Harry, Hermione, and Fleur to Harrods to buy a set of tree decorations. Floo powder made travelling to London a lot more convenient, and the underground took them from Charing Cross Road to a location close enough to the huge store that they could easily walk the rest of the way.
Fleur wasn't a fan of the underground and complained about being in such a cramped space. Not that any of them could blame her, the number of strange men that were eyeing her like a piece of meat was genuinely disturbing. She had been OK with the men in Harry's house; Remus didn't seem affected by her at all, Sirius was almost as unaffected as Remus, and Dan was affected but he kept it silent and shook himself out of it, apologising whenever he caught himself staring. Plus, the more time he spent with Fleur the better he was getting. The people on the train, though, didn't look as if they even cared that they were perving over a teenager. Fleur's opinion of Harrods, though, was the exact opposite. The French woman looked around in awe; by the look on her face you would think she had found her own personal paradise. When Fleur half-begged Harry and Hermione to bring her here again, Hermione immediately agreed and Harry started to have flashbacks to being dragged around the streets of Paris looking for clothes, his legs starting to have phantom aches from the memories.
With four Gryffindors in the house, Harry decided to stick with a traditional red and gold for the decorations, though in the reverse of their school house Harry went with gold with red highlights. They bought baubles (nicer glass ones rather than the cheaper plastic ones that had become more common in recent years) and tinsel. Despite the looks and the tuts that Harry got from Dan and Emma, he also got a few packets of chocolates to hang on the tree and a package of candy canes. All that was left was to find their Christmas tree topper. They discounted an angel straight away, none of them were particularly religious; to them, Christmas was more about family. A star didn't feel right either, though. In the end Harry didn't find anything he thought would fit and thought he would see what he could transfigure back home.
The trip back to the Leaky Cauldron was only a little harder than the trip to Harrods, and most of that extra difficulty was from the bags of shopping (though they were slowed down a few minutes by a man who kept trying to chat up Fleur). This led to Fleur telling the group that she was looking forward to her birthday in a few months, when she would be allowed to do magic anywhere she liked, as she knew a few spells to help make people like the man not notice her. Once they Floo'ed back to the house, they found both Sassy and Sirius waiting for them. Sassy had mulled wine to warm them all back up after their venture out into the cold December air. The amazing little elf had also set out a platter of cheese, deli meats, and crackers to tide them over until dinner time. Sirius, however, had been at work the entire time trying to prove that magic could be just as thoughtful as having something with memories already attached. While they were out, he had used his skills at Transfiguration to create some tree ornaments of his own. He had created one for each of them to add to the tree, but insisted that they wait until the end to add them.
They started decorating the tree in earnest while sipping mulled wine and listening to the selection of Christmas music they had. They hung the baubles and sweets and threaded the tinsel around and had a laugh while doing it. Sirius started to hand out the baubles he had made for them. Dan and Emma had a matching pair of toy dentures that, as soon as they opened the boxes, leapt out and started to fly around the tree trying to playfully nip at each other. To Harry's surprise, Ms. Richards had a violin that set itself on a branch of the tree and would play from a limited number of Christmas songs that it had available. When he asked, she told him that she learned to play the instrument as a girl, and while she was never going to join an orchestra she was a decent player. Sirius and Remus both had plushie dogs that settled under the tree and were spelled to bark at anyone who tried to peek at their presents early. Fleur had a croissant that constantly emitted the smell of fresh baked pastry as it floated lazily around the tree. This predictably caused everyone to feel hungry, and Sassy provided a second cheese board. Hermione had a tiny book that flapped around like a small bird, and Harry had a miniature broomstick that went zipping and diving around the tree.
Harry explained how he hadn't been able to find a tree topper that fit the group. Everyone started having ideas: an eight pointed star where each point represented one of them, a few magical animals such as hipogriffs and dragons, a wizard's hat, and even an ornamental topper that had no meaning whatsoever; it just looked pretty and bypassed the problem of something not fitting. Harry almost went with that meaningless ornament until Fleur had an idea that everyone loved: a snow globe that had the eight of them standing together. Sirius was able to put it together pretty quickly; while Harry and Hermione's fine detail work in Transfiguration was rapidly improving the more they studied for their animagus transformation, they still didn't have the focus for the detail needed for a copy of them all. Once Sirius was finished making the ball, Harry took it and with a few runes was able to get realistic looking snow to constantly swirl around the inside before he topped the tree with the new ornament.
The tree looked amazing to them, but there was still something missing. Harry was about to mention it when Sassy popped in with a surprise: a family of fairies. One of the folk flew up and started hovering in front of Harry's face, saying something in a language Harry didn't understand. Sassy seemed to understand, though, as she said, "I and my family thank you for your offer of shelter during the darkest of days and coldest of nights. Your hospitality is most generous."
Harry and Hermione, who had seen fairies living in the Christmas trees at Hogwarts both had an idea of what was going on. Harry replied, "Be welcome, friends. I hope you find your time here comfortable." Evidently the fairy didn't have the problems with English that Harry had with their language, as they nodded and flew into the tree, followed by the rest of their family. Almost instantly the tree started to glow with shining lights inside that looked amazing. Sassy set a fray of some simple food stuffs at the base of the tree for the fairies, and Harry wasn't surprised to see a selection of dried fruits and nuts, along with bread, milk, and honey for their tiny guests. They all stood around admiring the tree for a while, and a smile came to everyone as they realised that at least some of the fairies were humming along to Dan's Christmas music.
-ϟϟϟ-
Christmas morning for Harry started with a jolt, as apparently both Fleur and Hermione had decided to work together to wake him. Instead of just shaking his shoulder or calling his name, the two of them thought sneaking into his room and each jumping onto the bed, one on each side of him, was a good way to wake him up. Of course, being suddenly jerked awake by what Harry could only imagine was some type of giant or troll trying to smash up his bed was a bit of a surprise. It took Harry almost a minute to realise he wasn't under attack and was instead being hugged by two very beautiful girls. When he did realise what was going on he collapsed back into his pillow and groaned at them before saying. "It's too early for this shit."
Hermione huffed and Fleur giggled at Harry, but neither of them disagreed. It seemed that the two girls had decided to set aside any awkwardness, at least for now, and enjoy the day. The two women had different approaches to laying next to him. Fleur was careful and only touched his arm with hers, the physical distance a good signifier of just how much they still needed before they were in a full relationship. Hermione, however, was laying half on top of Harry, her chest pressed into him and her leg snuggled between his.
They stayed there for a good half an hour before they decided to get up and venture downstairs, where they found Sirius looking at the wrapped gifts under the tree, the two plushie dogs that were based on his animagus form and Remus's wolf form growling at him.
"Morning Sirius. You try opening a present early or something?" Harry asked the man.
"It's not early, it's Christmas day." Sirius said, looking a little put out.
"Yeah, but not everyone is here yet and we open them together."
Sirius had apparently decided to act like a kid. "Well go wake everyone up! It's time for presents!"
Harry shook his head. He liked the way it had been at the Grangers last year, where they would wait until everyone was up and eat breakfast together, and only then would they open presents. Harry told this to Sirius, whose face fell as if Harry had kicked the man's puppy.
"But Harry, it's Christmas, the most important thing is the presents."
"Nope, Christmas is about family."
"Quite right, it was no different when Sirius spent Christmas here back when we were alive." The voice of Harry's grandmother came from her portrait over the fire. Most of the time she and her husband spent their time in the paintings outside the library, where one was of an open field and gave them somewhere nicer to relax as well as a few others to talk to.
"Merry Christmas, grandmother." Harry grinned up at the portrait.
"And good Yule tidings to you young Harry," The woman smiled.
Even though they were waiting for everyone to come down, Sassy served tea to those who were up and provided an espresso for Fleur. Considering that Harry didn't think the elf had an espresso machine hidden away in the kitchen (that he wasn't allowed to enter), Harry wondered how the elf had made the coffee, but in the end had just accepted it. Soon everyone was down and breakfast was served by the two rather excited elves. Breakfast was kept pretty light, as they would be having dinner pretty early today, what with supper being provided early at the ball and the three teenagers wanted some time between meals.
After breakfast, it was time to exchange gifts, and as it was their first Christmas in Harry's house the duty of passing out the presents fell on him. Harry grabbed the first one and checked the label; for Dan, Emma and Ms. Richards, from Fleur. Harry handed the package to Emma, who was seated between the other two, and watched as they opened their gift. Inside the box were three rather plain looking bracelets, and Fleur spoke up to explain.
"They are enchanted to let mundane persons who wear them get past charms that repel those without magic. The wearer needs to put a drop of blood on the bracelet, and once you do the bracelet will only work for you and no one else." Fleur explained. "I had to order them from France as for some reason they aren't sold in the UK." The Grangers and Ms Richards were all really happy with the gift and thanked Fleur for making it a little easier for them to stay in Hermione's life.
Dan, Sirius and Remus all seemed to have had the same idea and got the outer two each a bottle of whisky though Dan got each of them a muggle brand while the other two bought magical whisky. Harry had gotten Dan, Emma and Ms. Richards some edition cotton bed sheets that were enchanted to remain clean and to always stay at a comfortable temperature. He had made Sirius and Remus each a full illustrated guide to the hair prank he had pulled on the whole school last year. From Fleur, each man had received a bottle of cologne, and Hermione gave them muggle books she thought they would like.
Fleur had received a nice warm jumper from Ms. Richards, a pair of boots from Dan and Emma that were both stylish and practical, and a gift certificate to a spa from Sirius and Remus. From Hermione she had gotten a large box of Honeydukes' finest chocolates, and Harry had made the French witch a warming plate that she could stick in her bed when she was cold, as the French witch always seemed to be at the moment. She had also received a number of presents from her family that contained the normal clothes and things most parents get their children for Christmas.
Hermione's pile of presents included clothes from her parents, though Fleur had also given Hermione some clothing items that Hermione didn't let anyone see. It was obvious that Remus was in charge of getting Hermione a gift from him and Sirius because it was a book that could only bring a smile to someone like Hermione. The book was two inches thick and looked about as interesting as watching paint dry to Harry, but Hermione was excited about it. Fleur also got her a set of blue robes in the modern French style. Harry had wanted to get her some jewellery, but he couldn't with Fleur around now without doing the same for her, and Harry and Fleur just went close enough yet, so he had gotten her a purse with the same expansion and feather light charms as her book bag (as carrying her book bag would be weird in more formal situations).
What shocked Harry, though, was the massive pile of gifts he had. He received a bottle of cologne from Ms. Richards, some clothes from the Grangers, a book on defensive magic from Remus, a set of photos of his house in France and a book on learning French from Fleur, a scarf from Hermione that she admitted to knitting herself. That Hermione was knitting surprised Harry, as she didn't strike him as the type to knit, but she had apparently been doing it in the girls dorm so he had never seen her doing it. He loved the scarf, and it was also charmed to stay warm as long as it was being worn.
Then there was the excessive pile of gifts from Sirius. The man had claimed that he had thirteen years of being Harry's godfather to make up for and was doing just that. The gifts from Sirius were: a set of gobstones, a full set of Quidditch armour, a pack of exploding snap cards, a deluxe wizarding chess set, a TV, a super Nintendo, a set of games for a Sega, a set of business formal robes, a mirror that used to belong to Harry's dad that paired with a mirror Sirius had that let them talk to each other whenever they wanted, and lastly, on top of the pile was Harry's brand new Firebolt broomstick. Harry loved his gifts, but didn't have the heart to tell Sirius that the Sega games wouldn't work on super Nintendo.
A/n
Chuckle brothers. - The Chuckle brothers were British children's entertainers who performed skits for children's TV. The basic premise is that they do a job badly in a humorous way; a recurring joke was if they were carrying something one would say 'to me' and they would reply 'to you'. If you haven't heard of them I recommend looking them up. Just remember it was aimed at kids and most of the reason Brits find it funny involves nostalgia. I originally wanted Dan to make a Friends "Pivot!" reference but when I looked it up that episode of friends was at least four years away.
A bit of googling said that what we Brits call tinsel Americans call a garland. So by tinsel I mean a long rope of shiny stuff not little strings
Chat up - British slang term for flirting
Yes Fleur bought Hermione something that is classified as underwear for Christmas. No it's nowhere near as dirty as you are thinking. She got Hermione stockings because they would be easier on Hermione than tights/hose. It's a practical thing that is also a little sexy. Hermione wouldn't have a problem showing it to Harry, it's the three other men in the room (one of which is her father) that's making her modest.