Welcome to Hogwarts

Stress

It was an eventful couple weeks for everyone during their break and when Christmas came, the children were always excited.

The Whittles had family over at their house and that included Alexia's grandparents, Winifred and Killian Whittle. It was a nice, simple tradition to have family come over and celebrate together.

Alexia received a few gifts from her friends and family, including a nice Christmas letter from Neville that flew in that morning. Elizabeth got some presents from her family and caught her parents up on their time at Hogwarts.

She even got a couple gifts from Hermione too and when she saw a bag full of candy, she made a note to hide them from her family.

At the Llewellyn Cabin, they don't celebrate Christmas very often but if they did it'd be very small and simple. Lavinia took Kieran out and had him decorate a large pine tree outside. Teely offered to help them put ornaments up to avoid Lavinia breaking the no magic rule.

Kieran received a present from Lavinia and got a yoyo she found around Diagon Alley during the week. He got excited and immediately played with it. The thing that caught Lavinia off guard was a rather expensive looking package addressed to Kieran from Draco. It was a box full of valuable sweets. How Malfoy knew Kieran's sweet tooth was a mystery.

With the Tonks' residence, Calista got a knitted, yellow jumper with an orange 'C' on it and knew straight away it was from Molly Weasley. She didn't need to read who it was from since the wrapping was always lumpy. "Time to add it to my Weasley collection."

Later on, Callie got a letter from both Fred and George then got pelted by snow from their post. She would've been furious if she didn't blame herself for being more cautious. It wasn't the first time they tricked her like that.

They updated her about what happened during their stay at Hogwarts in the letter and, of course, Fred's section of the letter was more seductive and teasing than George's playful message.

~*~

The Holiday was over quickly, the students and some teachers returned to Hogwarts the day before the term started. Most were looking forward to learning new spells while others just wished school would end already.

Harry and Ron couldn't find anything on Flamel over the holiday. They informed Alexia and Hermione what happened, including the invisibility cloak, the mirror, and Snape confronting Quirrell one night.

Alex decided to help the trio with their research whenever she could and visited the library more often with them, even in her free periods. She hadn't been talking to Elizabeth while she was helping them since her own heart is set on Snape's side, Alex had warned Lizzie in the past but it looked like her views weren't changing.

Harry, Ron and Hermione fully convinced Alex about Snape and it wasn't just their words, she always had a bad feeling about him.

Calista had been visiting Hagrid since the day she returned and helped him tend to some magical creatures. She assisted in some of his groundskeeping work in the process, like defrosting brooms for example, and looking after the gardens.

Lizzie got a lot of visits from students since she'd returned and most of them complained about what happened over the break, while some others vented. Whenever people came in, they noticed her office got decorated a lot more with different types of pictures on the walls and shelves, including family portraits which caught Snape off guard when he came to see her.

Lavinia kept to herself as she walked beside Draco once they left their Common Room together.

She remembered approaching him on the Hogwarts Express to question him about his gift to Kieran, and he told her he kept an eye on how she had been storing many sweets for Kieran. It was pretty obvious he had a sweet tooth. She didn't say anything more after that, and she silently agreed to sit with him during the ride.