Torn Between Three Me's

24 - Christmas

Ced didn't wake up for Christmas the next morning. Dad and I sat very quietly in the living room of the Burrow all morning waiting for him to wake up. Eventually, dad left to feed the animals at the zoo back home, leaving me to watch Ced. He was still in the same position dad had laid him in last night. But he was warm, breathing, and his pulse was steady. His body was probably just recovering from all the blood he lost and the size changes he'd experienced. But Molly'd been around last night and said he was doing alright. We had no reason to believe otherwise.

Dad came back an hour after he left with my knitting supplies and mum's book, giving me something to do, while he went outside to the Weasley's farm animals and started to feed them, even though Molly'd already set up an automatic feeding schedule. Dad always felt animals should have regular human interaction. He also degnomed the garden while he was out there, and I could see him through the window wincing every time he had to swing and chuck the gnomes over the hedge.

Looking up at Ced from my place on the floor, my heart hurt a little for him. Christmas had always been his favorite holiday since we'd been small, and he was missing it. Getting up before the sunrise, jumping on mum and dad's bed to wake them up, one of us playing Santa and passing out presents, and then spending the rest of the day as a family. It hadn't been that way since mum. We hadn't gotten any of her handmade gifts for 5 years. We hadn't done any of our usual Christmas traditions since then. We'd open presents and then act as if it were a normal day, going off on our own.

I set my needles to the side and let them weave in and out of the strands of yarn on their own, working on Harry's quilt. I dug through the box a little more and found a second set of needles and some yellow yarn. I held a strand up to Ced, measuring the length of the side of his head. 'How about a nice hat, huh?' I asked him, knowing he wasn't going to respond. 'Give you a little padding in case you should need it again? Which hopefully you won't?'

I pinched his chin very gently with two fingers and made his already open mouth move ever so slightly. 'Yes, Addy. Thank you for thinking of me,' I said in a deep voice. With a sigh, I sat back down against the edge of the couch. 'I need something to do anyway.'

I started weaving the yellow yarn through the needles to begin the stitch as I heard dad talking outside. I craned my neck to see, but I couldn't find anyone else besides him until there was a knock on the door. It felt weird answering the front door to a house that wasn't my own, but I made my way over and opened it up. There stood Luna Lovegood, with the same dreamy smile from last night, now with a touch of concern.

'Hi Addy, how's Cedric?' She asked, standing on her toes and craning her neck to peak behind me.

'Uh, he's better, but he's still sleeping,' I told her. I gave her a thin smile. 'Would you like to come in?'

She nodded and I led her over to Cedric in the living room. 'He looks a lot better than he did last night. And a lot bigger!'

'Yeah!' I chuckled lightly.

Luna gazed around the house. 'You live here?'

'No, no. I wish I did! This is the Weasley's house. We live close by though. We're just staying here while Cedric recovers. What about you?'

'Yeah, us too. Ten minutes that way,' she said, pointing off past the kitchen window, the opposite direction of our house.

'Did you and your dad stay much longer after we left?' I asked.

'Oh! Actually,' she exclaimed. 'We did. But there was something I wanted to tell you! I saw Spencer watching you walk away from the village, and as I started to go up to him, he ran off. I saw him again a little while later, building those...whatever they're called, in the snow. Snow pals? So I went up to him, wanting to ask how much he'd seen and heard, because you know, wizard exposure. And he started to cry again, screaming for his mum. He had no idea who I was. I tried to ask him about the car and he said he didn't know what I was talking about. And then his mum took him away.'