"No one as smart as him could have not been in Ravenclaw!" Hugo waved his arm, sloshing his mug of hot chocolate.
"All of the grown-ups in our family were Gryffindors! Are you saying your mum isn't smart?"
"She'd be smarter if she was in Ravenclaw! Then she could have built her own Time-Turner too!"
Lily rolled her eyes as Albus stuck his head into the Burrow's kitchen. He stared at the two of them, sitting at opposite ends of the table with a half-finished gingerbread house sitting forgotten between them.
"What are you two arguing about in here?!"
Hugo spun toward him. "Al! Do you know which Hogwarts House Father Christmas was in?"
Albus blinked, easing himself into the kitchen.
"Er?" he said, after a moment of thought.
"It would be Gryffindor, obviously," said Lily, who by sheer coincidence had been Sorted into that House herself a few months back. "Because he braves icy storms and attack dogs and all that stuff. Don't give me that look!" she added, because Albus' face was skeptical. "It's the most heroic thing anyone's ever done, flying around the whole world to deliver presents to the needy! Why, it's brash to the point of madness. Also, he wears red," she added, with a decisive nod.
Hugo jumped from his seat, hands pressed down on the tabletop. "But not gold!"
"Nor blue or bronze!" Lily retorted, likewise jumping up with her hands balled into fists.
"I gotta agree with Hugh on this one, Lil. That's kind of a stretch, don't you think?"
She gave her brother a look. After a few seconds, Albus realized that her glare was actually directed at the jumper that he was wearing. It was the one Grandma Weasley had made him the previous Christmas, with alternating zigzags of yellow and black.
Albus felt his face heat up a few degrees. "Right, then. Hugo, I take it that you think Father Christmas was a Ravenclaw?"
Hugo sat down again. "Obviously. To do the stuff he does, he must be the most genius wizard ever! So far," he added, taking a sip of his cocoa. "So he must have been in Ravenclaw! Right?"
Albus frowned. "I mean, maybe." And then, "Do we even know that Father Christmas is a wizard?"
"Of COURSE Father Christmas is a wizard!" Hugo said, throwing up his hands and giving a small "dah!" as he spilled his cocoa again.
"He can't be a Muggle," Lily agreed, crossing her arms. "He uses flying reindeer, not a helicopter or a—spaceboat."
Albus shrugged, looking sheepish. "I kind of thought Father Christmas was a different sort of person entirely. With Christmas Magic, as opposed to the regular kind. I mean, the greatest Apparator in the world couldn't visit every house in one night."
"He's got Time-Turners," Hugo said wisely. "Probably makes a thousand time-clones of himself every Christmas Eve, to get it all done. That's dedication."
"Alright," Albus said slowly. "But he wouldn't have gone to Hogwarts, would he?"
"Why?" asked Lily. "Isn't he British?"
"Of COURSE Father Christmas is British!" Hugo screamed, as though he couldn't believe this was open for debate.
"No, he was Turkish or something, wasn't he? And he was born hundreds of years before Hogwarts was founded!"
"That's Saint Nicholas, not Father Christmas! Common mistake. Father Christmas was presumably born sometime close to, but before, 1510, when the Ritson Manuscript was published. Presuming, of course, that he's the eponymous subject of the carol 'Sir Christèmas.'" Hugo took another sip of hot chocolate.
Albus crossed his arms and said, "Fine. But I can't help but notice that both of you just want him to be in your House."
Lily gave him another look. "And what House do you think he was in?"
Albus eyes wandered toward the ceiling. "Well...I mean. He's very kind, obviously. Good-natured. Clearly hard-working, all of which are attributes associated with—"
"Hypocrite!"
"Find me someone more obviously Hufflepuff than Father Christmas, huh?! Giving away toys is a lot more kind than it is brave!"
"But he couldn't do any of that unless he was smart, like a Ravenclaw!"
"You are both failing to see the inherent chivalry of—"
The three began to argue over each other for about twenty seconds, at which point their younger cousin Freddy wandered into the kitchen. He was wearing a floppy green hat with a bell on the end, looking like Father Christmas' least jolly house-elf.
Albus, Lily and Hugo fell silent, and the latter said "Nice hat!" in a voice that belied the previous arguing.
"It's from the joke shop." As usual, Freddy's face and tone were void of emotion. "Roxanne tricked me into putting it on and it won't come off. Is Uncle Ron around?"
"No, he dropped me off. Also, he and your dad decided not to sell those in the joke shop because they couldn't figure out how to get them off either."
"Of course."
"Uncle George wanted to sell them anyway."
"That tracks. Maybe Uncle Percy can help me."
He turned to leave, but Hugo was suddenly at his side, holding him by the shoulders and leading him back into the kitchen.
"No, wait! You haven't started Hogwarts yet, so you can be our unbiased judge! Which House do you think Father Christmas was in?"
Freddy blinked slowly.
"Do we even—"
"Taking for granted that he's a wizard who went to Hogwarts," Albus interrupted.
"Oh." Freddy's face remained blank. "That's easy. Slytherin."
"WHAT?!"
"He can't be in Slytherin! That's for evil people!"
Albus frowned. "Lily! Slytherins aren't evil."
"Dominique is in Slytherin," Hugo observed.
"Yes, but she's not—well—'evil' is kind of a strong word..."
"Slytherins don't have to be evil, but they're the sort of people who don't care about rules, aren't they? Well, Father Christmas breaks into about a billion homes every year. And Grandpa Weasley agreed that flying sleighs definitely count as illegal artifacts."
Lily was indignant. "He does all that to deliver presents!"
"Any means to achieve his end, no matter how ambitious. That's also why green is a Christmas color," Freddy added.
"He wears red!"
"Yeah, Slytherins are sneaky that way. You gonna finish that?"
Without waiting for an answer, he leaned over the table, broke off a piece of the gingerbread house, and popped it into his mouth as he walked out of the kitchen.