In preparation for Mr. and Mrs. Granger’s arrival Hermione had moved back into the room she used to share with Ginny, in order to free up a bedroom for her parents. Ron became considerably more nervous as the days rolled past and by the night before their arrival was practically in pieces. He couldn’t even form proper words and his mumbling became more pronounced. On the morning of Christmas Eve he was to be found pacing his bedroom floor in his smartest robes, he had been in the shower, brushed his teeth and done something a little bit odd with his hair. He looked so apprehensive that not even Fred and George had the heart to tease him; they merely shook their heads sadly as he stalked past them on the stairs.
The surest sign that the nerves were getting the better of him came at breakfast, when he didn’t touch a single thing. Harry found his friend’s situation mildly amusing, he wasn’t sure why, he probably would have been the same if he’d had to meet Ginny’s parents without actually knowing them first. He wanted to say something comforting, something that would clear the look of overwhelming terror that adorned his friend’s face but he couldn’t think of anything that would prove useful. Ginny and Hermione’s reassuring looks only seemed to make Ron worse. When the sounds of the front door opening reached them at five minutes past twelve Ron sat bolt upright in his seat and looked as if he’d just been told he had to go and ask Aragog if he was hungry. He and Hermione rushed out into the hall to greet them.
When Mr. and Mrs. Granger, Hermione and Ron came back in to the kitchen a little bit of colour had seeped back in to the poor boy’s pale features. Ellie was the first to rise from the table and greet their new houseguests. “You remember Professor Potter, Elizabeth,” Hermione motioned her mother towards Ellie.
“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Granger. Welcome to Grimmauld Place.” She heartily shook both their hands and smiled at them, a warm welcome on her face.
“Thank you; please call us Jane and Colin. It’s very good of you to have us over Christmas, I hope we’re not putting you to too much trouble,” Mrs. Granger replied in soft, educated tones.
“Not at all, we operate a strict ‘the more the merrier’ policy in this house, as you can probably tell.” She indicated the nearly full kitchen. “Besides the world is a dangerous place just now and as my grandfather said at the Christmas Ball, it’s a time for family and it’s probably for the best that we’re all here.”
“Hermione has told us all about you of course; we were hoping that you might be able to tell us a bit more about this… what’s his name again, Hermione?” Colin Granger asked.
“Lord Voldemort,” Hermione answered, with her voice wavering slightly.
“This Voldemort, Hermione was a little bit vague with what she told us.” He looked at Hermione reproachfully; she immediately glanced at the floor, somewhat ashamed that her parents had been able to tell she was lying.
“I’d be more than willing to tell you what I can, although I warn you that it won’t be pleasant to hear… Have you had anything to eat?” Ellie changed the subject rather briskly.
“Not yet, no, we were busy packing this morning,” Jane Granger answered.
“Well, we can’t have you going hungry. Dobby?” she called. With a small pop the elf appeared at her side. Hermione’s parents took a small, frightened step backwards.
“Mistress called for Dobby?” he asked her squeakily.
“Yes I did. Dobby, this is Mr. and Mrs. Granger, they’re Hermione’s parents.” She gestured to the couple, who looked as though they had recovered to some extent.
“Dobby is honoured to meet the parents of Ms. Hermione, she is a gentle witch who is always telling Dobby that he is worthy of feelings and respect.” Dobby bowed steeply at Mr. Granger’s shoes. Hermione’s cheeks burned a feverish shade of red at the compliments.
“Dobby helps us with the running of the house; he’s been our saviour these past few days.” Ellie patted Dobby on the shoulder gently. “Dobby, could you possibly get some lunch on the go? Mr. and Mrs. Granger haven’t eaten yet.”
“Of course, Miss. Will everyone be eating?”
“Not everyone, but I daresay that some people will be hungry.” She eyed Ron carefully as she spoke, she was fully aware that he hadn’t eaten yet. Dobby then set about making lunch while Hermione re-introduced her parents to everyone else.
The rest of the day was a fairly quiet affair. The four teenagers gave Hermione’s parents a guided tour of the house and then Ron talked Mr. Granger through wizard’s chess. It turned out that he had quite a talent for Muggle chess and so found that, although the wizard version was a little bit violent for his taste, he was rather good at it. Harry had lent his set of chessmen to the older man and watched dismayed as they praised his efforts, they usually just shouted abuse at him. After dinner Ellie, Remus, Jane and Colin all retreated to the sitting room to talk about Voldemort. It was nearly two hours later when they returned. Hermione’s mum looked as though she had been crying and her dad looked very pale. The second they saw Hermione they pulled her in to a hug and held her for a very long time. “Why didn’t you tell us?” Jane Granger asked in a voice thick with emotion.
“I was worried that you would panic and take me away from Hogwarts,” Hermione replied. She had worried terribly that her parents would remove her from the world she loved so much, several of her peers had been threatened with such action, in fact Mr. and Mrs. Patil had marched up to the castle’s front doors and demanded that their daughters be handed over immediately, but after a long discussion with Professor Dumbledore they had left somewhat mollified.
“From what young Elizabeth tells us, you three are more than capable of handling yourselves but we would liked to have known all the same. Don’t keep anything like this from us again, Hermione,” her father said firmly.
Just before bedtime everyone retreated to the sitting room with mugs of hot chocolate. Arthur extinguished the candles that were providing the majority of the light in the room, instead allowing the fairies in the tree to gently glow different colours. A warm fire roared in the grate, basking everything in a flickering golden light. Everyone chatted merrily and the last thing they did was sing some Muggle Christmas carols, there was a wonderful atmosphere of geniality accompanied by love. Everyone went to bed with a feeling of contentment and an eagerness for the next day to arrive.
Harry was woken suddenly at half past five on Christmas morning by Ron barging through his bedroom door in a state of panic. “Where are our presents?”
“Merry Christmas to you too,” he mumbled sleepily.
“Yeah, Merry Christmas, d’you think the twins are playing a trick on us?” He paced the floor making Harry feel slightly dizzy.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe we aren’t getting any this year…” he trailed away with disappointment.
“Do you honestly think that your mum wouldn’t get you anything at all for Christmas?”
“I suppose you’ve got a point. So where are they then?”
“Ron, why don’t you go and bother Hermione?” Harry rolled over and snuggled further down into his bed sheets.
“Hermione doesn’t care about presents, besides I don’t think that she’s awake yet.” Ron plonked himself down in the chair at Harry’s desk.
“It didn’t bother you when you decided to burst in here,” Harry snapped, desperate to get back to his peaceful sleep.
“Merry Christmas, you two.” Ellie’s head appeared in the doorway.
“Merry Christmaaaaaaaaaas,” Harry yawned, resigning himself to getting up.
“Ellie, where are our presents?” Ron snapped his attention to her.
“They’re downstairs in the sitting room, we decided that we would open them together this year,” she laughed at Harry’s sleepiness and Ron’s distress. Ron jumped from the chair, raced past her and shot down the stairs. “Are you coming, Harry?”
“I’ll just be a minute.” His hand was searching his bedside cabinet for his glasses. He pulled a jumper on over his pyjamas and followed his cousin down the stairs to the sitting room.
Ron had been wrong about Hermione; she was indeed up. Both she and Ginny were already there when Harry entered the sitting room. Ginny immediately rose to greet him with a kiss. “Happy Christmas, Harry.”
“You too,” he blushed.
“Is it normal for couples to wear cheeks and hair in matching colours?” George asked Charlie mockingly.
“I wouldn’t know, it’s been a long time since I’ve blushed,” Charlie answered him as he eyed Harry’s glowing red cheeks. Harry sat on the floor next to Ginny; the other teens were also sitting on the floor around the tree. Remus, who was grinning from ear to ear as he tugged Tonks along behind him, shortly joined them; she was yawning widely and watching the group with dismay.
“Why are you lot up so early?” she muttered, putting her hand over her mouth to stifle yet another yawn.
“It isn’t that early Tonks,” Remus informed her.
“Really?” She pulled the wrist bearing his watch towards her. “Look at that, what time did I go to bed at?” she asked him. Remus coloured ever so slightly.
“Around three.”
“No wonder I’m so tired.” She huffed, throwing herself backwards so violently the cushions behind her shot out in all directions, one knocked over the light that was sat on the table beside her. “Oops,” she cringed.
“Right, since we’re all here everyone can open their presents,” Molly said from a couch near the window.
There was a lot of confusion as thirty arms reached for the mountain of presents stacked neatly under the tree. For several minutes nothing could be heard over the rampant tearing of wrapping paper and then there was a chorus of oohs, awws and wows. The increase of galleons in the Weasley vault had not stopped Mrs. Weasley from knitting them all jumpers and providing her usual supply of mince pies. Ron complained but Harry was more than happy with that, as far as he was concerned nothing said I love you quite like a tenderly knitted jumper and a batch of mince pies that had been slaved over for hours. His new jumper was forest green with an oversized snitch emblazoned on the front in gold and the mince pies smelled more delicious than ever.
Ellie had bought him a new cage for Hedwig, she commented that his current one was looking rather battered and when he thought about the things that his cage had been through, often with poor Hedwig in it, he realised that she was right. Hermione had given everyone a set of sugar-free sweets, much to her parents delight, and Ron’s disgust. Ron had given him a book called ‘The Best Quidditch Plays of All Time’ and reminded him that they needed to discuss the upcoming match with Hufflepuff. Remus also gave him a book, this one was entitled ‘Animagi: The Animal Within’ Harry was eager to start reading but his guardian mysteriously encouraged him to put the book down and continue opening his presents.
Ellie had bought Hermione a book about house-elves called ‘A Life of Enslavement’ Hermione was absolutely delighted. She was left speechless by the gold bracelet that Ron had bought her; it had her name intricately carved into a small plate in the middle. Ginny was equally impressed by the locket that Harry had purchased for her, Ron had provided him with a picture of the family which Harry had then shrunk to the right size and inserted into the locket. Harry had then stolen one of Hermione’s ideas and bought Ron a new broom servicing kit. For Ron, Ellie had bought a new set of Quidditch gloves that were not dissimilar to the ones that Harry had.
By the time there was only one present left the living room was filled with remnants of the wrapping paper, the pieces were littering the floor like dead soldiers after a fierce battle. The last present was for Dobby. “Dobby, could you come here for a second?” Ellie called down the hallway to where the elf was presumably in the kitchen. Seconds later he came rushing through the doorway, he took one look at the room and snapped his fingers, the discarded paper immediately disappeared.
“Is there anything else that Miss needs done?” he asked her with eyes as wide as saucers.
“Just the one thing, could you hand out the last present for me?”
“Certainly, Miss.” He dashed over to the tree, picking the large package up he read the name tag attached to it. “To Dobby, thank you for your help. Merry Christmas.” Each of them had then signed the little tag. Dobby’s enormous eyes filled with tears. “The Masters and Misses have bought Dobby a present. Thank you,” he whimpered.
“Don’t thank us; you haven’t seen what’s in it yet.” Ellie was sat on the arm of Remus’s couch, bouncing slightly in the excitement. Dobby began to pull the wrapping paper tentatively, a small pile of clothing fell on to his lap. There were little robes of varying colours, t-shirts, trousers and an impressive number of socks, none which matched. Dobby then began to sob quietly, which panicked Ellie “What’s the matter, Dobby? Don’t you like them?” the deep concern was evident in her voice as she sat down opposite him.
“Dobby has never been so happy; Miss. Dobby has never had such fine clothes and has never been given such a wonderful present before. Dobby likes working for the Potters and the Wheezy’s more than any others. Thank you, Miss.” The small elf then launched himself on her for a hug. Harry was sure that when she pulled away she was batting tears out of her eyes. “Breakfast is ready,” Dobby announced before he disappeared from the room.
All they did for the rest of the day was eat and play, Harry took his new possessions up to his room after breakfast and sat down for a second to look at the book Remus had given him. He flicked to the first page where he found a hand written note.
‘James would be thoroughly disappointed if I didn’t at least point you in the right direction. I would insist that you to share this book with Ron. Have fun finding the animal within and perhaps one day you, Ron and I can have the kind of adventures that your dad, Sirius and I used to have. Happy Reading, Moony.’
He smiled to himself as he flipped each page, there was a step-by-step guide to becoming an animagus, he couldn’t wait to start practicing and go on a nighttime stroll of the Hogwarts grounds like his dad once had.
That night their Christmas dinner was more sumptuous than any other, Dobby, still overcome with emotion, had completely outdone himself. By the time he had finished dessert, Harry thought that he might explode and Ron had a fetching shade of green in his cheeks. Hermione and Ginny had the good sense to stop eating when they were full and spent the rest of dinner watching everyone else eat. Hermione looked close to vomiting as she watched Ron piling plate after plate of food in to his mouth, Ellie just watched him with amazement as he helped himself to third and fourth helpings of everything. Halfway through the meal Fawkes materialized out of the thin air in front of Charlie; he deposited a letter on to Charlie’s Yorkshire puddings and disappeared in flash of fire. “What was that all about?” Ellie questioned him.
“Nothing, your granddad wants me to do some stuff for the Order,” he replied.
When, a couple of hours later, Molly sent them to bed nobody complained - a first in Harry's memory. He managed to grab Ellie just before she made her way up the next staircase, “It was a great day, the perfect first Potter family Christmas,” he whispered to her. He saw her eyes light up in delight.
“I’m so glad; I wanted everything to be just right.”
“I just wish that Sirius was here,” he said rather glumly.
“He is, Harry, he’s right here.” She placed one hand above his heart and the other above hers. “All of them are and always will be. Goodnight, Harry, sleep well.” She kissed him on the top of the head tenderly and climbed the staircase to bed. He found himself surprised by her sudden affection until he remembered seeing her fawning over a secret bottle of Firewhiskey with Fred and George. He snuggled down in to his covers and let sleep drift over him.
If only he had slept well.
A/N: Duh, duh, duh! Sorry for the evil cliffy…actually that’s a lie I’m not sorry at all, hehe!
Once again the world’s biggest thank you goes to my oh-so-wonderful betas Magical Maeve and Ashley, you really are fantastic!
The next chapter for your reading pleasure will be…Surprises.