PRAETERITUS - 𝕊𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕦𝕤 𝔹𝕝𝕒𝕔𝕜𝕤 𝔻𝕒𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕖𝕣

19 - Festivities and Finds

꧁•⊹٭𝟷𝟿 𝙵𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙵𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜٭⊹•꧂

It was another day at Grimmauld Place, and like many others, they were all sat around the table joking with each other. It was like one huge family, she had realised, with a keen sense of disappointment that she wasn't raised alongside them.

"And then she threw a snowball at me and I fell." James pointed an accusatory finger at Lily.

He had been regaling a story of a past Christmas, in their last year of Hogwarts when he had decided to ice skate on the Black lake. Without any skates on, of course.

"He'd had one too many shots of fire whiskey." She looked at the kids conspiratorially.

"No!" He rebuked offended, "I was skating along all gracefully and then she messed it up."

"Pftt, that's not how I remember it mate. You were slipping and sliding everywhere." Sirius laughed at him.

"You weren't much better Sirius. I seem to remember you skating as well." Remus rose an eyebrow at him, a smirk lighting his face.

"At least I didn't fall over. James bruised up the whole side of his face."

"That was a fun one to explain to my parents." He muttered sarcastically.

A soft smile stuck to Olivia's face, the vision of the past giving her a weird sense of nostalgia. She could imagine a deep midnight blue, scattered with stars that glinted in their eyes, as younger versions of the men messed about drunkenly on the lake, joy illuminating their faces.

Fred's leg brushed against hers as he shifted in his seat. She stilled, his warmth sending a shiver down her spine.

"James has just given us such a good idea. We should go skating as soon as we go back." He whispered to her.

"Did you not hear the moral of the story? He got hurt." She murmured back.

He shrugged his shoulders back at her, his thigh still pressed to hers. How could he not notice it? It felt so out of place to her, so foreign that she felt she ought to tell him.

"What are we going to do this Christmas?" Harry piped up.

"We're going to have a big roast dinner, and presents I imagine." Molly smiled, Christmas clearly being her favourite time of the year.

"Ooo can we make a Christmas pudding? The muggles do it as a tradition and put a pound coin in it." Arthur enthused.

"Why would they put a coin in it?" Harry said, seemingly disgusted.

"If you get the slice with the pound it's supposed to mean you have good luck for a year." Olivia hadn't realised she had spoken until the words had floated out of her mouth, absentmindedly contributing to the conversation.

A chorus of beams followed her input.

"Yes, we must do that then." Sirius affirmed.

All of a sudden, Lily gasped.

"Oh my gosh! We have to have a Christmas tree!" She gushed, the realisation only just coming to her.

Olivia lit up at that. She'd never had one before, despite being one of the only ones raised by muggles. Her mum had said they were a waste of money and made the house look trashy, as though a tree could make it look any worse than it already did.

"I think we'd better go shopping then," Sirius went to stand up, "Where do we get this tree from?"

And like that, they were all squished into the car, thankfully made slightly bigger by magic. Though that didn't stop Ron and Harry being forced to sit in the boot. They sped along the roads to a tree shop that Lily had found on her phone, making it there in under 10 minutes.