Disclaimer: I don't quite know what happened, but somehow I wrote another Janey story, so there we go. Um, this is mostly taken up by OC’s of my own creation, but anything else you recognise definitely belongs to JKR. I promise. You can probably read it alone, but it might make more sense if you've read the first, uh, five. But, you know, it's up to you. And I hope you enjoy this final chapter in the Janey Weasley series. And this time when I say final, I mean it.


Living In The Weasley-Springs Family ... Merlin Help Me


“Da-ay!” coos my mother’s voice. “We have visitors!”

Well, this can’t be good. I contemplate getting out of bed for a moment, but when I look out of the window, I see that it has snowed �“ reason enough not to bother. I can’t stand the cold. I pull my familiar covers over my head and pretend not to have heard.

“It’s your favourite uncles!” calls a new male voice. I have hundreds of uncles (although most of them are actually Great-Uncles) so this statement could mean anybody. However, not many of them would call in on the first real day of the Christmas holidays. And the use of plural indicates my twin uncles, Fred and George, Mum’s business partners. If I ever get out of bed, this should be interesting to the say the least. Too bad that I don’t think that will ever happen.

I hear a scampering up the stairs and wonder whether it is brother or sister come to rouse me from my “slumber”.

The door opens cautiously and a small, dark blonde head pokes around it. Brother then, it seems.

“Day!” he hisses. “Are you awake?”

I sigh. “That would certainly explain my eyes being open, Nicky,” I say sarcastically, but he is not offended �“ the family knows after seventeen years that they should ignore the cruel, insolent things I say. They are, of course, neither cruel nor insolent, they are just the truth.

“Uncles Fred and George are here,” he says, the picture of innocence. Not bleeding likely. That ten year old is the devil incarnate. Ever since Tillie (now fourteen) left for Hogwarts, his true colours have really shown. Free from sisterly protection at the Muggle school, he turned to practical jokes to beat any bullies, which he practises at home; especially during the holidays.

Oh yes. Another generation has come, much to Mum’s secret delight.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” I say. “And put that knut back on my desk, you thieving urchin.”

“What knut, Daisy?” he asks, eyes wide and innocent. I narrow my own. That’s just taking it way too far. I leap out of bed and tear after him, screeching blue murder while he screams piercingly at the top of his voice. We eventually reach the living room, where Mum, Dad, Tillie and my twin uncles are sitting, eyebrows raised.

“Good morning, Day,” Dad says, folding his arms and looking disapproving. Or at least he’s trying too. My Dad is so soft he couldn’t look disapproving if I told him that I thought education was for losers, and I was planning on shaving off my hair and joining a cult which worships toads. Not that I would, of course, because Tillie’s stupid female man-frog Lionel is bad enough as it is.

“He called me Daisy,” I say in my defence to the room at large. I mean, it’s one thing to have such an atrocity on my birth certificate, but to be reminded of it when I least expect it? Torture! Okay, Daisy is a perfectly good name for a five-year-old girl with blonde pigtails and little pink dresses. But a seventeen-year-old with dark red hair and kick-ass dress sense? Not likely.

Still. At least my name isn’t Matilda like someone I could mention. Sweet Merlin.

“There’s some breakfast in the kitchen,” Mum says, sighing and rolling her eyes.

A couple of minutes later, while I am pouring milk onto my bowl of cereal, a few owls fly in through the open window. No wonder it’s so cold in here. I take the letters from each, and all but one fly out again. The remaining one hops onto my shoulder and stays there. I shrug it off, but it just takes a tour around the room and lands on the same spot. Great. Now I have a stalker owl to deal with.

I flick through the post, sighing as loudly as I can, even though no one is here to notice. Something for Mum, something for Dad, a couple more for Mum ... and an envelope addressed purely with Day Springs in a handwriting I don’t recognise. I raise my eyebrows and pocket it, then glare at the little owl on my shoulder and head through to the living room again, leaving my cereal to congeal. I’m not that hungry anyway. I hand out the post to my parents.

“Made a friend?” asks Uncle George (at least, I think it’s Uncle George).

“He won’t go away,” I explain, glaring at the owl once more.

“Ah, that old trick,” Fred says. Trick? What trick? “Who sent you the letter?”

“What letter?” I demand, growing defensive for come reason. “What old trick?”

“Whoever sent you the letter you claim to know nothing about has obviously ordered it not to go away until you reply.”

What madness is this? What kind of lunatic does that? And to me? That may sound conceited, but it’s not. It’s just that everyone perceives me to be this hard as nails ice queen who’ll break your fingers off if you annoy her, but it’s not true really. Just because I say what’s on my mind and don’t have a problem with speaking the cold hard truth, or voicing what everybody else is thinking. Just because I don’t bend to people’s wishes or expectations if I don’t want to. Just because I’m not afraid of dumping a guy I don’t like after one measly date. Just because I happened to punch some other guys in the face a couple of times (they deserved it). It doesn’t make me a bad person.

Although being the (perceived) most feared and esteemed girl in the school has it’s advantages, whether the title is deserved or not. For example, people don’t annoy me with overly persistent owls and things.

Or so I thought.

“... So if I were you, I would just reply to the letter,” Uncle Fred concludes �“ not that I heard the main part of his detailed explanation.

“I don’t have a letter,” I insist again, although I don’t know why. Something about the lack of real address, the sheer mystery emanating from it, the way it was so ... perfumed. Yes. When I took the letter, I was hit with a strong sense of roses. Really. It just seems like it’s private.

It cannot be good.

I sit around the room for a while, as Fred, George and Mum talk about their latest products (Nicky is listening way too closely for it to be innocent) and Dad and Tillie go through the essay she has to write for school. I decide to take my leave subtly, the damned letter burning a hole in my pocket. Besides, I’m not even dressed properly yet, what with Nicky luring me downstairs earlier.

“Have fun with your letter,” Mum chirps, as I slip out. Damn! I thought no one had seen me. The small owl on my shoulder hoots. Stupid, ridiculous little thing. I try and remember if I’ve seen it around Hogwarts, but I haven’t �“ or, as far as I remember I haven’t.

“Who are you?” I ask, as I head up the staircase. Tillie’s stupid female man-frog Lionel hops down the stairs and croaks at the owl.

When I reach my room, I manage to shake it off while I get dressed, but it is hard work and the little thing lands again as soon as I am done.

I take out the envelope and am hit with another waft of roses. What is with that? And how come the perfume has a kind of ... sarcastic feel to it?


Day Springs,

I know you are not as cold as you act, so I thought I would make a bold statement and send you a letter of Christmas cheer.

I’m sure you would appreciate someone bold enough to say something like this, I know you value speaking your mind, so I will say it. I quite like you, Day Springs. Meet me outside the post office in Diagon Alley at noon tomorrow, and we could maybe talk for a bit.

x

PS: Keep the owl. She is unnamed yet, but female. Call it a Christmas present.


What? What was that? What was that? A stalker, I’m sure. A pervert, obviously. An absolutely ridiculously deluded fool, to think that that would do anything for me at all. What a nutter! I screw up the parchment and throw it at my bin. I miss. No surprises there then. And what do I want with an owl? I can’t keep pets. I’m not Tillie. I don’t remember to feed these things or clean out their cages or anything like that. The sender of the letter clearly doesn’t know me very well or he wouldn’t have sent me an owl as some sort of offering of love.

“Go home,” I tell it. “Go to your master. Go to the person who sent you. Go! Stop looking at me, I don’t want you!”

“Don’t say that, she’s sweet,” comes my sister’s voice from behind, not at all creepily.

“It’s a curse and we’ll do each other no good,” I reply, not bothering to turn around and face her.

“Do you know who it’s from now?”

“Not a clue, Till’. Said he likes me, wants to meet up tomorrow.”

“Will you?” she asks, sounding curious.

“Course not!” I cry, finally whipping around to look at her. “Do you think I’m insane? What kind of maniac sends people cryptic messages, then asks them to meet up and then just gives them the owl in the post script, like an afterthought?”

“One who likes you?” Tillie suggests infuriatingly.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Go on, scram, what are you doing here anyway?”

“Everyone was curious about your admirer,” she says, shrugging. “And they sent me to investigate.”

I roll my eyes. Can’t they make their own entertainment? “If you ever want to be a spy, Till’, don’t bother,” I say. “And tell them the letter was from Santa, I’ve been extra good this year, so I deserve three white ponies. Scram!”

She scuttles away. I ask you. Sending spies and all sorts of nonsense all for a stupid letter. A stupid letter which has had no effect on me whatsoever. None. And the owl will leave as soon as it realises that I am a danger to all living beings, especially the ones which depend on me.

My eyes flick towards the dustbin. They flick back. I can see the crumpled, desolate thing out of the corner of my eye. This is madness. I will not pick it up. No. That parchment will remain crumpled forevermore. I will never, under any circumstances pick it off the ground. Unless it is to destroy it. Anything else is absolutely, positively, most certainly, almost definitely forbidden. No question.

“Oh ruddy hell,” I mutter and go over to pick it up. The second reading is just as confusing as the first and manages to come off sounding ironic and sarcastic, like the sender is both serious and making fun of me. Meet up indeed.

I throw it onto my desk and storm downstairs. I am met with knowing smiles and raised eyebrows. Curse them all!

*~*~*

Much to my annoyance, the stupid owl stays exactly where it bloody is for the rest of the day. Stupid owl. I really think that having it on my shoulder through meals and everything is some sort of hygiene hazard. Especially considering the fact that it keeps stealing the food off my fork every time I try to eat something.

“For Merlin’s sake!” I burst out at dinner, after I lose a potato to the thing for the third time.

“I think it’s hungry,” Nicky says helpfully. I flick a pea at his head and am immediately told off by Mum. Like she didn’t terrorise her little brother when she was my age.

“Maybe you should give it a name,” Tillie suggests.

“No. It’ll be going soon anyway.” After all, it can’t stay here. I’ll probably go insane. And that’s saying a lot, because I live in the Weasley-Springs household, and hanging onto your sanity is like a daily crusade, so I’m pretty good at it by now.

“I’ll name it!” Tillie decides, as if she’s completely deaf. “It’s a girl, right? How about Ricardo?”

Merlin’s boxers. “You’re not calling my thieving stalker owl Ricardo, Tillie,” I insist, trying to put another potato into my mouth at lightning speed to avoid it being stolen. No such luck.

“I just did,” Tillie insists. This time, it’s her on the end of one of my pea-flickings.

“Day, stop flicking peas at people,” Dad says. I flick a pea at him. I mean, honestly, I don't know how my parents can pretend to be all responsible the way they do when I know they were even worse than me when they were teenagers. Luckily, they seem to realise this too, and soon peas are flying all over the place. At least the thieving stalker owl (which I categorically refuse to call Ricardo) is having a good time.

During pudding, which happily remains in the bowls and not flying through the air (and which I actually get to eat, because Ricar �“ the thieving stalker owl doesn’t appear to like something as cold as ice cream), Mum says, “So, Day, are you meeting the boy who sent you Ricardo?” Which proves that my sister Tillie is a massive traitor and should never be trusted ever again.

“Absolutely not,” I say firmly. “There’s no way. Not a single person or creature on this planet can convince me to meet that psycho. In fact, I’d rather chop my own head off and eat it. Which, anatomically speaking, would be difficult, but I’d still rather find a way than hear this idiot out.”

*~*~*

“I can’t believe you convinced me to hear this idiot out,” I mutter to Tillie as we tramp through the snow of Diagon Alley.

“I can,” Tillie says happily. “I’ve come to realise that you’re not nearly as terrifying as you act. You’re just misunderstood.”

While this is undeniably true, I still don’t like people knowing it. After all, being perceived as an evil ice queen who’ll scratch your face off as soon as looking at you has its perks. For one thing, you never have to worry about finding a spare seat, or getting the leftover pudding. And it’s not like I don’t have any friends. In fact, I have several, it’s just sometimes I’m not always sure whether they’re my friend because they like me or because they’re too scared not to like me.

Okay, fine. Maybe it would be nice to have someone I know I could absolutely trust. Who I could be sure likes me because I’m a fun, fiery person who would be fiercely loyal if someone gave her the chance. And not because they think I’ll break their fingers if they don’t. Which is partly why Tillie managed to get me to come and meet this idiotic post office boy.

But it also has something to do with Nicky, who was painting the walls purple and orange and singing “When The Saints Came Marching In” at the time. I decided anything was better than staying in the same house as that.

“There’s the post office,” Tillie says, pointing like I’ve never seen it before. “Who do you think it is? That seven year old? That old guy who looks like he hasn’t moved for ten years? Wait, I think that might be a woman. Hey, maybe it’s that guy!”

And I know exactly who she means. Probably because the guy she’s referring to is the only person waiting outside the post office even close to our age.

I can’t help but noticing how ridiculously good looking he is. In a tall, dark, poser-ish kind of way. He’s actually quite skinny if you look at him, but he’s wearing kind of a bulky leather jacket to disguise this. His hair is black and extremely shiny. Presumably because it’s been greased back, which sounds awful looking but bizarrely manages to seem okay. He is also wearing faded jeans and big, heavy boots. He looks good. I can’t deny it.

The worst part, however, is that I know him.

“Benjamin Thorn!” I yell, storming across the street towards him as Tillie hurries to keep up.

“Day Springs!” he exclaims, grinning extremely widely so that his bad boy image is either completely destroyed or considerably heightened. “So nice of you to make it! Oh, I see you still haven’t accepted my Christmas present.”

“You!” I screech. “It was you! I can’t believe you! Who gave you the right to stalk me? Huh? You think because we’re Potions partners it gives you some sort of right to talk to me? What’s with that? Don’t you know who I am?”

He just carries on grinning. I feel like throttling something. “If you just accept that she’s yours, she’ll stop following you,” he says.

“That’s clever,” Tillie pipes up. “The only way to stop her being annoyed all the time is to accept the gift you sent her, and that means that she has to at least be civil to you.”

I glare at her.

“Matilda Springs, you can call me Tillie,” she says, extending her hand towards him.

“Benjamin Thorn, and you definitely cannot call me Ben, Benny, Benjie, or anything else that’s short for Benjamin,” he replies, taking her hand and shaking it. I feel like calling him all three of these and more. “You’re Day’s sister?”

She nods. “I shouldn’t like you though, because I’m in Gryffindor and you’re in Slytherin.”

He smiles sexily. No, not sexily. Irritatingly. “That’s probably true, but I like your sister and she’s in Ravenclaw. Though I don’t know why, because she’s terrible at Potions.”

“I am not terrible at Potions!” I splutter indignantly. “I’ve saved your ass countless times and you know it! You know, I can totally see why you’re in Slytherin, you slimy, sneaky, smarmy, snake of a boy. Stop befriending my sister to get in my good books! It won’t work!”

“Charming,” mutters Tillie.

“Isn’t she?” Benjamin says, still grinning like a lunatic.

“Come on, Tillie, we’re leaving,” I mutter, grabbing her shoulder and pulling her with me, while Ricardo falls off my shoulder at the sudden movement and has to flutter madly to catch up. “I don’t like the company anymore.”

“Accept the owls, Day Springs!” he calls after me, while Tillie seems disappointed to be leaving so soon. “It’s the only way!”

Madman.

*~*~*

I wake up on Christmas morning to the sound of hooting and tapping. As bloody usual.

I force myself out of bed and over to the window to let the latest addition to my stalker owl club into my bedroom. This one is jet black and has a small parcel attached to its leg as well as the usual letter. When I remove them both, it joins the other seven which are perched at various points around my room (Ricardo, however, seeing that I’m not lying down any more, immediately takes up her usual position on my shoulder).


Day Springs,

I see you still haven’t accepted the owls. Stubborn, aren’t we?

Well, I hope you enjoy the company. You must have quite the Owlery in your bedroom by now, though I imagine the first is still more permanent company, is she not?

At any rate, have a very merry Christmas, and I hope you enjoy the gift I sent you (if the owl doesn’t drop it on his way over that is �“ this one’s a he, by the way). I saw it and thought of you. Sweet, eh?

x

PS: You might want to take larger portions than you usually would during Christmas dinner.


As infuriating as ever, of course. How can he even make a kiss at the end of a letter look sarcastic? How does he do that? I mean, I thought I was the Sarcasm Ruler Supreme. But even I can’t do that. How can one person claim to “like” me the way he does, and at the same time be so bloody maddening? Does he really think this crazy scheme of his will work?

Before I find out what made him “think of me”, I store this latest letter in my bedside drawer along with the others. Not that I’m keeping them for sentimental value or anything. It’s just that I realised I’d need them if I want to present my case to the Wizengamot. Hopefully if I can prove how much of a stalker he is, they’ll ban him from coming within five miles of me or something. That’d be good.

Or maybe they could just throw him in a cell for the next decade or two. That would be just as acceptable.

And what’s with the PS? Does he know that Ricardo steals most of my meals? Has he known that all along? Was that just yet another ploy to drive me round the bend? I wouldn’t be surprised.

I open the neatly wrapped present. There is a box which looks the same as the ones the post office use, only there’s no label or official delivery stamp. However, I don’t think about this too hard because despite myself, I’m curious to see what’s inside. I open the small box and shake whatever’s inside onto my hand.

I don’t know whether to burst out laughing or throw it against a wall. Sitting innocently there is a small figurine of �“ you guessed it �“ a tiny owl, hooting softly and looking up at me with large blinking cartoon eyes. To my own horror, I realise that I find it incredibly cute. Even more horrifically, I find myself stifling a giggle. It only lasts a second however, before I wrench open the drawer and throw the thing inside, then close it with a bang and take a couple of deep breaths.

But then I feel guilty and have to open the drawer carefully and sit it on my bedside table. It flaps its wings and does a tiny circuit of the table before settling down and hooting again sweetly.

My door bursts open. “Merry Christmas!” Tillie says excitedly. “A boy or a girl owl today?”

“Boy,” I say begrudgingly. My family find my reluctant menagerie hilarious, which only serves to irritate me more (stupid Benjamin Thorn probably knows that too) and they laugh uproariously every time I make a comment about how infuriating the whole thing is. Mum keeps saying that she wants to meet Benjamin, Slytherin or not, and congratulate him on being one of the first people ever to dare to defy me.

“I’ll call him Alice,” Tillie decides, and for once I don’t bother arguing with her. “Are you and Ricardo coming downstairs? Nicky will explode if he has to wait a moment longer to open his presents.”

I nod distractedly and make to follow her out, but at the last moment I turn my head sharply (causing Ricardo to flutter her wings very indignantly) and take one last look at the little owl with its impossibly large and endearing eyes. Then I shake my head to clear it (more indignant fluttering) and close the door behind me.

*~*~*

By the time we have to leave for King’s Cross at the end of the holiday, I have completely ran out of steam. I can’t even be bothered to be annoyed by all the owls any more. I still haven’t “accepted them” as the letters keep insisting I do, because who could accept nearly twenty owls as gifts? I mean, what am I supposed to do with them? Not only do I get woken up every morning by incessant hooting (I had one lie-in this entire holiday, and that was on the first day. Just one! It’s criminal I tell you) but my bedroom is permanently freezing, because I have to leave the window open all the time in order to let the birds out to hunt or do their business (thankfully Benjamin does appear to have some moral limits, and has only sent me owls which are almost religiously house-trained. I haven’t had to wipe up a single mess and they haven’t even brought back anything they catch on their hunts into my room). And a freezing bedroom is no fun when you hate the cold as much as I do.

The owl for today (Tillie called him Melissa) came with a note which said simply:


Day Springs,

See you at 11, lover. Bring your new friends.

x


I know. He actually called me “lover”. Which is almost what I call him in my head, apart from one subtle difference (I put an ‘s’ where his ‘v’ is). However, rather predictably, I don’t have to “bring” my new friends at all, because they follow me, even onto the Knight Bus. We all get a lot of very strange looks and, try as I might, I can’t even glare at the people to make them stop staring, because it’s very hard to look menacing with that many birds perching on all the nearest spaces to you. As always, my family seem to think it’s the funniest thing since Nicky’s last “egg, flour and great heights” experiment.

Although, come to think of it, that wasn’t very funny either.

It has to be said though, trying to blend in with the Muggles with twenty odd owls taking up almost an entire trolley thing on their own (they share it with my trunk) is extremely difficult. I am getting so many stares, from the bewildered to the disapproving, that eventually Nicky has to make a diversion and ride a trolley into the food and drinks stall whilst whooping loudly so that I can slip through the barrier unnoticed. He may be extremely annoying most of the time, but I guess having a brother with such a talent for trouble can also be very useful.

Unfortunately, I was so distracted by trying to get onto the platform without breaking every Secrecy rule in the book, that I completely forgot that Benjamin would undoubtedly be waiting for me.

Which he is.

“Wow, Day Springs” he says, appearing rather creepily at my side and running a hand over his already shiny-smooth hair and grinning in that sexy �“ I mean, extremely annoying �“ way of his. “There sure does look a lot of them all grouped together like that.”

“That’s because there is a lot of them,” I growl through gritted teeth and then glare at a staring second year until she runs away.

“You know, if you’d just accepted the first one, you wouldn’t have had to put up with this lot at all. They’d have just left you alone. And she wouldn’t have been quite so clingy, either.”

This is news to me. “I thought you wanted me to accept all of them!” I burst out angrily.

“That would be ridiculous,” he says. “How could one person realistically live with nearly twenty different owls?”

“With extreme discomfort, believe me,” I say, shooting him yet another icy glare. Which he merely grins at. Again.

“Was it really so bad?” he asks, raising an eyebrow (don’t tell me he can do that too. How can one guy be that annoying and attractive at the same time? HOW IS IT POSSIBLE?).

I think of the small figurine owl wrapped carefully in some tissues in my trunk, and her huge adorable eyes which had prompted me to call her Inez (get it? Inez? Eye-nez? Who says ice queens don’t have funny bones?). “Not so bad eventually,” I admit. “But that doesn’t stop me considering you the scum that the scum of the earth wouldn’t want on the bottom of its shoe. It would have been much easier and less stressful if you hadn’t bothered at all.”

He carries on smiling in that way of his. “I thought you’d soften in the end. See, I know you aren’t as hard-faced as you make out. I might be the only one who knows it, but it’s always been pretty obvious to me. Now do you think you might be able to find it in your heart to accept the first one? Because I don’t think you’re allowed more than one pet, and I’d hate to get you into trouble.”

“Right,” I say sarcastically. “Yet you have no qualms at all about annoying the hell out of me all Christmas.”

He shrugs. “Not really, no. Besides, you could have got rid of them quite easily. What did you decide to call the first one, anyway?”

I sigh. “Ricardo. But I swear that wasn’t me, it was Tillie. She has a thing about naming pets names from the opposite gender. She has this stupid female man-frog called Lionel. But ... I guess I won’t mind accepting her. But only her, you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

There is an awkward pause. At least, it’s awkward for me. Benjamin just carries on grinning.

“Well?” I eventually say. “Why are they still here?”

He rolls his eyes. “Saying it is different to actually doing it, Day Springs. Am I right in thinking you haven’t once given poor Ricardo a stoke on her back?”

“Um,” I say rather stupidly. “Yes. But the rest of my family did.”

“Well she wasn’t told to stay with the rest of your family. Go on, then. Give her some love. I know you’re Day Springs and everything, but it can’t be that hard.”

I bite my lip. He’s right. I am Day Springs. Giving love is something I pretty much never do. I mean, I have love. As mad as they make me, I love my family. I’m just not very good at showing it. It’s so much easier to be angry and sarcastic about things all the time.

Merlin. I really am an ice queen. Maybe it’s time I start working on that. You can only be a moody teenager for so long, right? And let’s be honest, at nearly eighteen I am sort of taking it too far. Even Tillie acts more mature than me.

Tentatively, I reach out an stroke Ricardo on the back. She hoots softly. I stoke her again, and she lets out a coo-ing noise which I take to be the owl species’ answer to purring. I smile.

“That’s it,” Benjamin says, for once not sounding sarcastic or ironic or even that annoying.

“Okay,” I say to Ricardo, continuing to stroke her back. “For the second time, and there won’t be a third, so listen up: I accept you.”

I jump as all the extra birds �“ Alice and Melissa and the rest �“ take flight from my trolley and circle our heads majestically before disappearing into the smoky platform and presumably going home.

Then I hear the sound of clapping above all the other noise, and turn to see my family having a little round of applause.

I stick my tongue out at them. “Scram,” I say, but I can’t help but grinning at them instead of glaring. This defrosting thing is easier than I thought.

“Naturally I’m a Slytherin and therefore allergic to finding anything cute, but that was kind of cute,” Benjamin says as they do as they’re told for once. I give him a sarcastic look (maybe it’s not that easy to defrost after all). But secretly, I don’t want to murder him quite so much as I did before. I mean, why waste such natural beauty? Merlin really outdid himself when he made Benjamin.

“My family are anything but cute,” I insist. “I have been wondering, though. Where did you manage to find all those owls?”

He looks down at me, ever-present grin still fixed in place. “My Dad owns the post office,” he says.

Which certainly explains a lot. The highly-trained owls, for a start, but also the packaging Inez came in, and Benjamin’s obvious enthusiasm for the art of letter writing. I think for the first time with some amusement over the sarcastic kisses at the end of each note.

And suddenly I want to return every single one, only for real. So I calmly take Ricardo onto my finger and let her perch on top of my trunk instead of my shoulder, which feels odd without the weight of a small owl permanently resting on it any more. She stays where she is for the first time ever, presumably because I’ve “accepted” her now and she doesn’t need to annoy me to death any more.

Then I place my hands on each well defined cheek, and kiss his stupid grin straight off his face.

Come on. I’m Day Springs, ice queen of Hogwarts. I once made our Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher cry (he deserved it though). You didn’t think I’d be afraid of making a bold statement in public, did you?

“Hell no,” I murmur against his lips.

“What?” he asks, breaking away for a moment and looking confused.

“Nothing,” I say, reaching up and running my hand through his hair so that instead of being slicked back, it sticks up in random directions and softens his appearance somewhat. As I thought, messy hair changes him from looking incredibly good to looking nigh-on perfectly gorgeous. “That’s better.”

And I tighten my arms around his neck and kiss him again.

If this is what it’s like to defrost and start showing some love, I don’t ever, ever want to stop.

*~*~*

AN: Well ... I hope you liked it! I know I said this was over, but I guess I spoke too soon, huh? I am, however, 99.999% sure that this really is the end for this series now. I mean, how many generations do you want? =D Please let me know what you thought of Day. Personally, I rather liked her, but feel free to tell me what you really think!