What If? Year 1

Chapter 26

After a game of Monopoly, which Remus won and Sirius was in dead last, all of the boys were talking in the living room, and the girls were starting to make some cookies and a cake. 
"Should we make chocolate chip or sugar cookies?" Mum asks, as she pull out the mixer. 
"Sugar!" Evie says, "we can decorate sugar cookies." 
"Is that alright, Ara, Goldie?" Ara and I nod. I help Mum get out all of the ingredients.  Ara and Evie wash their hands. 
"I've never made cookies before," Ara says, "our house elves always did it." Mum nods and Evie looks at me confused. 
"You never even made them with your mum, or something?" she asks, and Ara nods. 
"My mom was to occupied with getting me to act like a pure-blood lady," she snickers, turning her hair bright green, "it was terrible." Evie giggles and I smile. 
"We'll teach you!" I say, "It isn't to hard.. as long as you don't burn yourself while getting the cookies out of the oven.. or eat all the cookie dough."  Mum laughs. 
"Sounds like you have some experience in the department, Goldie," she says, making Ara laugh. I measure some flower and some other dry ingrediencies and put them into a bowl. I mix them up some, while Mum and Ara put together the wet ingrediencies.  I set the oven to a temperature, as Evie mixes the dry mixture with the wet mixture. 
"So, Evie," Ara says, "When are you going to start Hogwarts?" Evie smiles sadly. 
"The year after next," she says, sadly, "I'm excited to start.. but I have to wait." Mum smiles. 
"What house do you want to be in?" Ara asks, "I think I know, but you might want something different." 
"Gryffindor, of course!" Evie exclaims, as she finishes mixing, "I can't imagine being in a different house!" I look at Mum. 
"But, there is nothing wrong with the other houses right, Everlyn?" she asks, getting out a tray. I scatter flour onto the counter and grab a chunk of cookie dough. I put it into the middle of the flour. Evie rolls out the dough and I hand Ara a cookie cutter. 
"W-what am I supposed to do?" she asks, quietly. I take another cookie cutter and set it in the flour before cutting it into the dough. Ara does the same and Mum puts the cut cookies onto the tray. We cut out all the cookies and put them in the oven. 
"So what do we do now?" Ara asks, as Mum set a tray of cookies on the counter. 
"We wait till the cookies cool and then we can decorate them." 
"Cool, cool," Ara says, leading me out to the living room to wait.  All of the boys were sitting around the table, playing another round of Monopoly. 
"Who's winning?" I ask, sitting down in between Harry and Remus. 
"I have the most money," Remus says, "Harry has the most properties.  Sirius has is down to only two properties..." Ara and I both laugh and Sirius smacks my shoulder.
"Oh shove off," he grumbles. We watch the boys play Monopoly, which Remus won. Ara and I head back into the kitchen and the cookies were ready to be iced. 

After we finished icing cookies, Mum offers to take us shopping. 
"We could buy Christmas presents, while we're out," Mum says, "We're going to the Burrow on Christmas Eve."  A smile breaks open onto my face.  
"Okay," I say, "I'll go get my purse." Ara and I go upstairs and we get out our purses. 
"Let's go!"  We get to the mall and we all get out.  We walk around for a while and I found quiet a few things for my family. I could not seem to find anything for Ginny, Ara, Heather, or Cedric.  We walk into a candy store and I finally find something for Ginny. 
"Ginny would like these," I say to Ara, "Don't you think?"  Ara nods and takes a different candy off the shelf. 
"She'd like this one too.. I think," she mumbles, looking at it.  I read the label.  Junior Mints  
"Those are amazing," I tell her, "they're so minty." Ara laughs and we take our candy for Ginny to the counter to pay.  We walk to another store and Ara rushes off to a clothing rack. 
"This skirt is so cute!" She looks for her size and a different skirt catches my eye. The skirt would probably go to my knees and it was yellow and black. 
"Hey, what do you think?" Ara asks, showing my the skirt she found.  I smile. 
"It's cute," I say, smiling, "do you wanna try it on?" Ara nods, ecstatically. I lead her to the changing room. I make sure to grab the skirt I like and try it on. We go into our separate changing rooms.  The shirt fits me perfectly, and was a little shorter than I originally thought it was. 
"Goldie, Ara, are you in here?" my dad's voice rings. 
"Yeah," I say, "we're trying something on." I walk out in the skirt and show him. 
"Wow," he says, "That looks nice." I smile and Ara walks out of hers. Her shirt came to her mid-thighs.  
"That looks so cute," I tell her, smiling. 
"Thanks, you look amazing too," she replies. We go back into the changing rooms and change back into our original clothes. We walk out and Dad holds out his arms.  Ara and I both look at him confused. 
"Give me the skirts," he says, "I'll pay for them." I slowly hand my skirt to him, knowing that there is no way to let him buy it for myself.  Ara follows my lead. Mum takes Ara to find something for me and Dad takes me to find something for Ara. I find a leather jacket with the constellation, Ara, on the back. Then I found a jumper with marigolds on the sleeves, for Cedric. I grab both of them and quickly pay for them. We meet up back at the car. Mum and Ara were carrying a lot of the bags. We get back to our house and unload the stuff. Remus and Sirius were making us dinner. 
"Good job, guys," Mum says, "you didn't burn the house down." Sirius glares at her.