Note: Here is another chapter with a very non-linear narrative.
Chapter 40: Twenty
"Kreacher."
Silence.
"Kreacher!"
Silence.
Kreacher was at home, there was no doubt about it. Harry had heard him rumble in his den not five minutes ago, but now that he had made a serious start on the list of pending chores, Kreacher pretended not to exist.
With a sigh, Harry followed a dust bunny with his gaze, as it rolled over magazines and newspapers strewn here and there on the floor. They had made an agreement—Harry would cook and Kreacher would clean. But the very idea of an agreement turned out to be an insult to Kreacher's elven pride. He had stopped having meals with Harry altogether, would always wait for the food Harry left for him to mildew and then counted his consumption of spoiled leftovers as cleaning. Harry had made more than one attempt to break down the concept of negotiation to the pig-headed old elf, but today he couldn't afford to wait any longer. Today, he had to put aside his own pride and deal with the mess himself.
It was the thirty-first of July, the year two thousand. The perfect roundness and beauty of the last number filled Harry with reverence. The three zeroes, clean and empty like a blank page at the beginning of a new story, stood above the picture of Ginny Weasley in The Rising Stars of Quidditch calendar hanging on the door. Her freckles pulled together in a determined frown as she took a swing and sent the quaffle towards the camera in an endless loop.
These days, Ginny was dating Arnim von Rhinow of the Falmouth Falcons, another rising star, whose picture Harry had ripped off and thrown in the bin back in March. Harry brushed away a shred of cobweb stuck to the edge of Ginny's picture and stared at the date again. Today, he was twenty—another round number. He had his N.E.W.T.s, a house, a job, and even if he still wasn't in a respectable relationship, the notches on his bedpost were slowly catching up to Ginny's tally. All in all he felt unconditionally and irrevocably adult, and today that meant that he had to clean and decorate all by himself for his birthday party.
The drawing room of number twelve Grimmauld Place looked only marginally better compared to when Harry had first set foot in it five years ago. The smell of dust dried the lungs. There were still stains of wine on the carpet from last month's all-boys rave-up with Ron, Neville, and a bunch of other former DA people.
"Scourgify!"
The stains disappeared under a cap of bubbling foam and a dark circle of soaked carpet began to grow around it.
There was a reason why Harry was so bad at cleaning. Proper cleaning required putting random stuff that was lying everywhere out of the way first. But Harry didn't have the heart to vanish the whole lot in one stroke of his wand. What if something valuable was stuck between the layers? Or useful? For instance, a garlic press?
Harry decided to attack the mountain of periodicals that had formed on the coffee table and had started to come down to the floor and under the sofa in regular slides. A dozen faces of Draco Malfoy stared at him from the old issues of the Daily Prophet. He could probably wallpaper the entire hallway only with Draco's pictures, and if he added Knox it would be enough for the kitchen too.
Harry made space for two piles, the keep pile and the vanish pile, and started sorting the mess. Dementors on the loose!, New Dementor attacks on Azkaban, Relocation overdue!, Families picketing the Auror Headquarters, and the rest of the last summer went straight to the vanish pile. A layer of May 1999 came free, and Harry's eye fell on the picture of a small wrinkled body of a woman in rags, dead on the stone floor of the Azkaban visiting room. It was so still one could think it was plain Muggle photography. And the secret of the whereabouts of the Marauders' Map had died with her.
As Wormtail's daughter, her claim to the map was as strong as his own, Harry reminded himself every now and again. But that didn't change the fact that he was an incompetent idiot for having let her steal it. Harry squashed the newspaper in his hands for a bit and sent the reminder of his shameful failure to the rubbish pile, only to find another painful reminder stuck underneath: Draco in prisoners' robes, terrified.
When Harry strode through the open door of the Divination classroom that evening, his heart shrank. Ewen was standing before his easel, his wand in one hand, a paintbrush in the other, fully absorbed in his work. His eyebrows arched slightly in peaceful concentration.
"Professor. Professor," Ewen pulled the brush from the canvas, "Please, don't move. If you keep shifting, your head will end up growing out of your shoulder."
"If you wanted to paint a still-life, you should have left the dead for dead," Snape in the picture grumbled back.
Ewen sighed. "Just a little longer, sir. We're almost done here. Just hold still. Just like at the hairdresser's, just like—"
Snape rolled his eyes.
"Oh, sorry, you don't have the experience." There was no shade of judgement in Ewen's voice. "Never mind. Your chin a little higher. Yes. And a bit more to the front. Very good, sir! Great, please hold it. Twenty minutes, hm?"
Harry didn't dare interrupt the intimate scene that was playing out before his eyes. Professor Snape's body stood at the front of the composition, all stiff and tense, Ewen's brush stroked his neck, the connection between the upper and the lower part grew more and more solid with every stroke.
"Hi, Harry," Ewen said without looking, his eyes fixed on Snape's collar. "Draco sold the portrait to the Slytherins for four hundred fifty Galleons. Four hundred fifty! I can't give them a nearly headless Professor Snape for that money." Ewen dipped the brush into a brown smudge on the pallet, and went back to repainting Snape's neck. "What's up?"
Harry hated it. He had to say it, and this peace would burst into pieces.
"Bad news."
Ewen turned around in a flash, his eyes serious and alert.
"Draco's in Azkaban. Imprisoned. I'm sorry." A lump sat in Harry's throat. "He went there to visit his parents, and then—"
"Oh no! He will miss his N.E.W.T.s! Again!"
Harry held his breath. There was comfort in Ewen's use of future tense. If that was the worst Ewen was worried about, then Draco's situation could not be all that bad.
"What do you know about it?" Harry's suspicions of a few hours ago surfaced again. "Did you help him?"
"Help him?! With what?" The shock sounded genuine.
"There was a break-out attempt." Some prisoners had even managed to escape, but Harry was strictly forbidden to tell anyone about it.
"Draco has nothing to do with that!"
"He cast a killing curse. Apparently. I didn't see it, but they say that his wand—"
"Never. Draco didn't do it." Ewen grabbed a cloth and wiped his brush in one forceful movement, as if pulling a dagger out of a sheath. "Draco didn't kill."
Damn. Ewen meant it. He dropped the brush and held his wand like he was about to jump into a battle, and Harry couldn't help but trust him. Draco hadn't killed. There was also comfort in Ewen's use of past tense.
Snape cleared his throat. "No need to stand at attention any more, I take it." He stretched and his head fell to one side, just like that of Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington. Snape's eyebrows jerked up. "Undeniable progress." He rolled his head back upright. "What are you waiting for? Mr Malfoy needs urgent legal assistance. Thorny!"
Harry sent prisoner Draco Malfoy to the vanish heap and up came a year-old issue of the Daily Prophet with a huge picture of Mr Knox preaching to the Wizengamot, brows furrowing, heads nodding, quills scratching at the parchment. At Knox's side stood Thorny, passing him notes scroll after scroll. Harry felt warm inside and a smile spread all over his face. Thorny was not wearing a scrap of newspaper around his waist. He was wearing a proper suit over a white shirt, not much different from Knox's. Dobby would be proud of his little brother.
Plop, crunch! Kreacher appeared right on top of the heap of newspapers on the floor.
"If Master keeps sitting around admiring the pictures, the house won't be ready until next week." He snapped his fingers and summoned a duster.
"Sweet of you to remember my birthday, Kreacher." Harry put the issue with Thorny's picture on top of the small pile to keep.
Kreacher went about the room, snapping his fingers at dirty glasses, sending books back to the shelves, and drying the wet disaster on the carpet caused by Harry's scourging charm. He glanced over Harry's knee in passing.
"Pfff. What a disgrace, a disgrace of a house-elf," Kreacher said venomously. "An elf dressed like a master. Lost all shame, this one."
"Nothing to be ashamed of. Thorny was giving his Master the help he needed most direly at that moment."
Kreacher pursed his lips with a sniff. "House-elves have always given their Masters help most needed," he opened the window, and began ostentatiously rubbing off traces of dried rain and splotches of dead flies. "Without making a spectacle of themselves."
"Was Thorny supposed to stand before the Wizengamot half-naked? I don't think so. There is this thing called a dress code, you know." Harry folded the picture and stuffed it into his pocket, before Kreacher sneaked it out and destroyed it out of sheer malice.
"A good house-elf does not flash his colours before wizards. A good house-elf's job is to help and stay invisible." Kreacher had finished one window and the room became sunnier.
In the meantime, the coffee table was completely unearthed and Harry moved on to the layers under the sofa. Dried bread crumbs rained from the thick stack of papers Harry pulled from under his feet and plopped onto the cleared table. He happily discarded the top inch of the stack, but halted at an issue dated the first of September 1999. He turned the first page showing platform nine and three-quarters filled with excited kids, and there it was—a huge article on page three Divination in the courtroom: Former Unspeakable breaks taboo, a picture of Ewen pointing his wand at a painting of an empty chair and a half-knit sock, and the surprised face of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore emerging on the canvas the next moment.
Harry had attended the historical hearing. In the first hour, Benveniste explained the difference between objective, subjective, and intersubjective knowledge, pacing between two paintings. One was Dumbledore's portrait from McGonagall's office, the other one was from Kingsley's, Dumbledore was absent from both.
"These two portraits were painted at different times and in different places by two different artists, who had very different experiences with the subject. Mr Cartwright," Benveniste pointed at a white-haired wizard in the first row looking very much like Dumbledore himself, except perhaps for the length of his beard, "spent many hours with the late Headmaster in his office perfecting the image and enchanting it in the process. Ms Hawksworth," a witch in her thirties, whose head was cleanly shaved on each side of a splendid blue Mohawk, shifted in her seat and sniffed, "painted Professor Dumbledore from sketches she had made at the sessions of the Wizengamot. She had never met him personally and finished the portrait after his death. While both artists did everything to capture Professor Dumbledore's appearance and personality as realistically as possible, they might have emphasised different facets of his character in their art."
The courtroom frowned in concentration. At the start of the meeting, Kingsley had walked in with a mug of tea, which he'd just managed to grab after the press conference on Dementors. The mug stood untouched in front of him and had long ceased to emit white trails of steam.
"In a minute, you will see two different seers summon Professor Dumbledore's spirit through either of the portraits. And Mr Knox will ask the same questions to each version of Professor Dumbledore. If the answers turn out to be the same, it is rather likely that they do not come forth from the artist's interpretation or the medium's style of communication with the spirit, but from the spirit himself."
"Mr Robards?" Ogden gestured towards the hand in the air.
"How likely is rather likely?"
Benveniste went on to explain probability theory. Robards and the rest of the Auror Office in the spectator rows sank into a silent stupor. By the end, only five Unspeakables and Hermione were still nodding.
"Of course, with each added medium the reliability of the procedure increases. We have only two today, and as I already said, seers trained in this method of mediumship are extremely rare. But with adequate funding and the support of the Ministry, more seers can be trained for this task in the future." Benveniste looked expectantly at Ogden.
The Wizengamot and the Aurors grilled her for another hour with questions. When they ran out of clever things to say, Ewen entered the courtroom.
He stood in front of the portrait, the one with the sock, his wand out and his eyes closed. A few seconds later, Dumbledore walked into the frame and sat in his chair surveying the assembly over the top of his half-moon spectacles.
"We are sorry to trouble you, Professor," Knox said after a round of greetings, apologies, and explanations, "but the well-being of some still living and the good name of one deceased depends on the truth about the circumstances of your tragic death."
Yes, his death had been imminent, Dumbledore confirmed, examining his perfectly intact right hand in the painting. Yes, Severus Snape had killed him. Yes, he had asked him to. When?
"Let's see," Dumbledore frowned, "It must have been about a week after the end of the term. I returned from Hogsmeade to my office. It was a busy Saturday night at the Hog's Head. Seeing so many faces of those I bonded with in my youth had me in a somewhat sentimental disposition. I was foolish enough to drop my guard and release a curse trapped in a dark artefact. The next day, Severus responded to my summons and did what was in his power to delay my shameful end. Then I asked him to be the one to finish what I inadvertently started, when the time was ripe. Reluctantly, he promised me to do so."
Knox glanced questioningly at Thorny.
"A Saturday one week after the end of the term at the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry fell on the sixth of July nineteen ninety-six," Thorny shot out in one breath, "The next day would be Sunday, the seventh of July nineteen ninety-six, Sir, Professor, Masters and Mistr—"
"For the record," Knox spoke to the Wizengamot, "the encounter in Cokeworth, where Severus Snape allegedly swore an Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa Malfoy to assassinate Professor Dumbledore took place on Friday, the twelfth of July. That was five days later. That is, Professor Snape's primary commitment was to Professor Dumbledore, not to Mrs Malfoy."
An amused smile played on Dumbledore's lips. "An Unbreakable Vow? What a chivalrous gesture to put the mind of a worried mother at rest."
The Wizengamot murmured with earnest faces.
"Professor," Knox spoke again, "if you allow me another question." The murmur stopped. "On the thirtieth of June the following year, when you were surrounded by the allies of Tom Riddle, you addressed Severus Snape with the words 'Severus, please', whereupon Professor Snape cast a killing curse, which to our deepest sorrow ended your life. What did you mean by this concise but admittedly ambiguous wording? What were you asking Professor Snape to do?"
"What he did immediately after. I asked him to kill me."
"Did you mean to ask him to kill you there and then?"
"Yes."
"For the record," Knox addressed the Wizengamot again, "this means that Professor Snape did not commit murder, but assisted Professor Dumbledore's suicide, which in turn means that if he had ever promised anyone to murder Professor Dumbledore, he did not follow through on that promise. Professor Dumbledore's death, however regrettable, was not caused directly or indirectly by the actions of third parties, such as Mrs Narcissa Malfoy, but by his own choice. Would you agree with this, Professor?"
"Yes," replied Dumbledore with a nod.
Then Ewen was escorted out, and Parvati was brought in. She made Dumbledore appear in the other portrait, and the whole interview started all over again. The other Dumbledore spoke in shorter sentences and never smiled, but yes, his death had been imminent. And yes, and yes, and yes.
"I am sure we could acquire another colleague from abroad," Kingsley gave Benveniste a long look when Knox had finished with Dumbledore and drawn conclusions, "and maybe even another portrait, for further confirmation. But if we continue hearing the same story, it is hard to deny its credibility. Then we'll have to agree," he ran his eye over the rows of the Wizengamot, "that Severus Snape did not murder Professor Dumbledore."
Thorny's quill stopped and he looked up hopefully at Knox. Knox gave a barely perceptible nod.
"It's amazing how the boy turned out," Kingsley was saying to Benveniste when Harry ran into them on his way to giving Ewen his congratulations after the hearing. Ewen was chatting away with Parvati and Dumbledore. Kingsley peered at him with an approving smile over the heads of hurrying Ministry folk. "I'm glad we could win him for the Department of Law Enforcement."
"Don't forget," Benveniste replied coldly, "he's mine, not yours."
Harry was left puzzled by this exchange, and promised himself to ask Ewen when the moment was right.
Almost a year had passed and the moment had never been right. The next weeks had been all about Narcissa. Harry grabbed a pile of newspapers with pictures of a frail, emaciated woman with a wrinkle under her nose and sent them to the rubbish heap one by one. Narcissa in prisoner's robes, Narcissa chained to the defendant's chair, Narcissa and Knox, Narcissa, Knox and Thorny, Narcissa and another Dumbledore. The title at the top of the page read Narcissa Malfoy's sentence revised: Dark witch to be freed in November. Harry vanished the heap.
That was when Ewen had become a regular sight at the Auror Headquarters, making educated guesses on every case that grew cold. The folks of level two took his hints gratefully, but whispered behind his back; he-who-sucks-Malfoy's-dick. But at the opening of the year two thousand, Malfoy's dick was still locked up in the Fortress of Azkaban, and the rings under Ewen's eyes were growing darker. Harry brought him coffee a few times to his cubicle, but left each time with an aftertaste of unsaid words and helplessness.
Draco's Unforgivable Curse was handled in a closed hearing. Harry was happy not to have heard what Draco had babbled, drugged with Veritaserum, but couldn't avoid overhearing the wild speculations his colleagues were coming up with.
"I can't believe his mummy wasn't summoned as a witness."
"She was summoned all right. She never showed up." Hugh Savage's voice sounded from the next cubicle.
"Really?"
"Last time, she was arrested the moment he came off the chair," a third person joined in. Dawlish?
"Superstitious bitch, ha!"
"Is she even in the country?"
"Probably not, in case he spills some more dirt by accident."
The only thing Harry knew for a fact at the end of the day was that Ewen had carried Draco out of the courtroom unescorted, and Draco's sentence went back to 'suspended'.
Kreacher had finished cleaning the windows and was vanishing the smears of soot in front of the fireplace when it suddenly went up in green flames.
"Harry?" The face of his case partner appeared in the fire. There was alarm in his voice.
"What's up?" Was Savage going to tell him that he was not coming to the party?
"Harry, sorry to bother you, I know you're off, happy birthday by the way," Savage rattled off without a break, "but this is sort of urgent."
Harry crouched before the fire.
"The last time you were on Azkaban duty was last Monday to Wednesday, right?"
"Right."
"Did you see Lucius Malfoy?"
"No. Why?"
"Someone obliviated him. Like, completely. Wiped him blank. Two weeks ago he was still totally himself, Pucey says, and last week—" Savage gave a defeated sigh. "Anyway, now they're checking the wands of all the Aurors who were there in the time window. And you are the only one missing."
"I'm off today."
"I know." Savage's face flickered in the fire. "Have you obliviated anyone in the last few days? Will they find anything suspicious?"
"The last time I obliviated anyone was when you taught me how to do it." And that was months ago. This was ridiculous, but on reflex, out of some old habit, Harry thought of Draco. "Did Lucius have any visitors?"
"No! Not since June. And even then, junior wouldn't have had his wand on him. I don't know." Savage shrugged. "Maybe one of the inmates had mastered wandless magic—just what we need now." He groaned. "Now the quill-mills of the Daily Prophet have been here and are already raving that we are trying to cover up another Dementor attack. As if Dementors have ever caused full amnesia." Savage swore under his breath. "Check out the papers tomorrow."
"Is anyone else under suspicion?"
"No, not yet." The green flames cracked. "Sorry, I didn't mean to spoil your birthday."
"No worries. Are you coming?"
"Absolutely!" Savage sounded relieved. "I'm glad I've got that out of the way. Or it would have weighed on my chest the whole day. See you later then?"
"Later!"
Savage's face disappeared with a puff, but Harry continued staring into the fireplace.
It couldn't have been Draco, right? No, it couldn't. Harry got back to his feet, opened the bookcase but stopped, staring at the wall of books. He still didn't know what Draco had been brewing in the room of Requirement last spring. A potion to keep Dementors out of his father's system? Could that potion have had an unusual side effect? He tried to imagine the obliviated Lucius's uncomprehending face, but the face that surfaced in his mind was Lockhart's. The two would keep each other good company at St Mungo's. Maybe it was better this way. Harry chuckled and grabbed a copy of Workaday Witchcraft from the shelf.
The drawing room was now sparkling clean but too small for the number of people who had accepted his invitation. Harry measured the distance between the outer and the inner wall with his steps and stretched it out in his mind to twice the size. He found 'room expansion charms' in the index and flipped to page 333. Lengthwise expansion, breadthwise expansion... He pointed his wand trying to keep a perfect right angle to the wall. "Ext—"
The doorbell chimed and Harry startled. Already? Ron and Hermione were coming to help around three. It was not even noon.
Harry trotted downstairs, past Kreacher, who stood in the middle of the first flight, surveying the entrance hall and not showing the slightest interest in answering the door. Walburga Black was pulling furious faces and stamping her feet in perfect Estonian Prolonged Silence. Harry straightened the runner with his foot as he reached for the door knob. When he opened it, in front of him stood Draco Malfoy. Harry squinted against the sun, which shone through Draco's hair, turning it into a blinding white halo.
"I'm a free man." Draco held out a piece of parchment in front of Harry, but no way he could read it in these lighting conditions.
"Wait a second." There was no need to read the parchment. It was the thirty-first of July two thousand, exactly two years since Draco's first trial. His suspended sentence... "It's over. Congratulations!"
"And I am not free any more." Ewen popped out from behind Draco and turned his head to the side, showing a golden earring with a tiny row of diamonds. The flex of muscles of his exposed neck awoke some delicate memory in Harry's spinal cord.
"Er. What?" Harry tried to catch up as the visitors walked past him up the hallway.
"I gave Ewen a ring, but he wanted it in his ear."
"So I don't make a mess of it while painting."
"Wait, what?" Harry moved to show them upstairs. Kreacher had promptly disapparated out of their way. "You're engaged to be married?"
Ewen nodded with a wink, treading up the stairs.
Harry took his gaze hastily off the back of Ewen's neck. "That was quick!"
"That was necessary," Draco said flatly, entering the drawing room. Ewen followed with an innocent shrug.
They sat on the sofas facing each other across the freshly cleaned coffee table.
"Er. Congratulations!"
"Thank you."
A bowl of fruit, three glasses, and a jug of water appeared on the table. Harry, Draco, and Ewen exchanged glances. Now Harry could finally see Draco's face properly. There was unblinking firmness in his eyes. He pulled another folded piece of parchment out of his breast pocket and Harry's breath hitched.
"Why do I keep finding this item again and again among my things, Potter?" He handed it to Harry. "I don't know if it counts as a birthday present—"
"It does!" Harry hadn't believed he would see it again. The map, still activated, showed the deserted hallways of Hogwarts dungeons. "Where did you find it?"
"In the house-elves' attic." Their eyes met. Harry had a hunch of how it must have got there. Draco didn't look unsuspecting either.
"Thank you." The parchment felt warm in Harry's fingers. His heart was going all soppy with relief.
Ewen fished an apple out of the bowl and leaned back comfortably on the sofa, crunching.
"You are slightly early, though. Everyone's coming at seven." Harry had invited both of them after going back and forth about it for a whole month. Now they were the last ones who had not replied to his invitation. "I still have to start cooking, but feel free to wait here if you—"
"No, thanks, we've just dropped by for a minute," Draco said.
"Are you coming later then?"
"I don't think it's a good idea."
"Come on, Draco. We haven't been among people for—" Ewen stopped, and Draco's deep sigh trailed off in silence. "It's Harry's party. It will be all right. Please!"
"Is Bell coming?" Draco asked Harry.
"Katie? No, she couldn't make it."
"What about Weasley?"
"Ron is coming, yes."
Rejection settled in Draco's face. Ewen sighed and sank deeper into the sofa.
"It's my birthday. My guests can tolerate each other once a year for my sake," Harry offered, with as much integrity as he could muster. In fact, he had asked Ron if he could stand it if he invited Malfoy. Harry probably wouldn't have risked inviting him if he hadn't sensed a certain nonchalance in Ron's reply.
Ewen chuckled. "Weasley said he's fine as long as you wriggle your arse on the dance floor and keep your trap shut."
"Ah, stop it!" Blood rushed to Harry's face. The fucking legilimens!
"We can give Weasley what he wants, can't we?" Ewen ran his finger from Draco's ear down to his neck. "Shut the fuck up and wriggle our arses?"
"There will be music, too," Harry added.
Draco glanced sceptically up and down the room. "Will there be a dance floor?"
"I was just going to expand it to double the size."
Ewen looked enthusiastically at Draco. Draco's gaze wandered aimlessly over the coffee table.
"We'll think about it."
They chatted about Draco's N.E.W.T.s for a while. Harry almost asked him about his father, but thought better of it. On his birthday, he could allow himself not to be an Auror for a change, and Draco not to be a suspect. Tomorrow was a whole different matter, but today... today he would just be Harry Potter.
"So, what are your plans?" Harry asked, when Ewen left for the bathroom. "Is it Draco Malfoy or Malcolm Drake?" Two years had passed. Draco was free to do whatever he wanted.
"Come on, I'm engaged to a Ministry employee." Draco averted his gaze, but Harry waited until he met his eye. "Don't stare at me like this! It's Draco Malfoy, Potter! It's Draco," his lips twitched with something unsaid, "Malfoy."
When Harry saw his guests out, Kreacher stood forlorn on the stairs. Two white sparkles flashed in his eyes in the beam of light from the door before it closed again, drowning the hallway into darkness.
"What had Kreacher done wrong? What had Kreacher done to earn such a Master?" Kreacher murmured to himself, as if Harry wasn't there. "Missed such a match! My poor mistress." He glanced at the portrait of the silenced Walburga. "My poor dear mistress, what would she say, what would she say?"
Note: It's done! OMG Thank you all for sticking around until the end. If you liked this fic, do recommend it on social media to people who you think might also like it.
I'm planning to translate this fic into Russian. Anyone who would like to collaborate on that please drop me a line.
I'm also planning a loose sequel to this fic, but I've only just started working on it, so it will be a while before it appears anywhere public.
Once again thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed. I keep responding to all the comments, so let me know what you think. And have a great holiday season.
