The Clockwork Locket || SIRIUS BLACK

The Black Christmas

For the first time in sixteen years, Cassie did not look forward to Christmas morning.

There was a time long since past when she would have awakened before dawn and stolen downstairs to snuggle on the rug near the hearth, where she would have a perfect view of their extravagant tree, still lit during the night and casting shadows that danced patterns as she watched and waited. Of course, she never saw Father Christmas, no matter how much she struggled to stay awake, but it was still worth it to fall asleep and wake up to her brother curled up next to her, her body warm from his own and the fire at their backs.

This year, there would be none of that. Despite jolting awake at three o'clock in the morning after having some dream she couldn't remember, she still lay in her bed long after the sun had risen, only to be roused by a soft knock on her door around lunchtime.

She stayed on her side, facing the frosty afternoon outside her windows even after she heard the door open. She only stirred when her mattress dipped behind her from someone's weight, and she rolled over to see her mother smiling down at her.

"Happy Christmas, my love," Eleanor whispered. Cassie threw herself into her mother's arms; she had only seen her a handful of times since the holidays had begun, as she always seemed to be working, but the relief she felt when she entered her mother's embrace was almost enough to take a week's worth of tension from her shoulders.

"Happy Christmas, Mum," Cassie said, her voice raspy from its lack of use over the days, and Eleanor's arms tightened ever so slightly around her. They stayed like that for a long while until Eleanor sighed and pulled away, brushing back a loose strand of hair from Cassie's forehead.

"Come downstairs," she urged, giving her a faint smile. "You have presents, and I'll get Liddy to make us some tea."

Cassie's relief vanished, her anxiety rushing back at the thought of the other half of their family. "What about Father and Will?"

Eleanor gazed at her daughter, puzzled by the unhidden dread in her voice. "What about them?"

Cassie attempted to keep her composure, forcing her voice to be as nonchalant as possible. "Are they, er, here?"

"No, they had to return to the Ministry," she said, and Cassie didn't miss the tight lines around her mother's mouth before they were gone, to be replaced by another one of her dazzling smiles. "Come, dear; those presents aren't going to open themselves!"

Cassie let herself be pulled out of bed, schooling her expression into something more neutral as she followed her mother down the hall to the grand staircase. Why would her father and brother still be making visits to the Ministry, especially on Christmas morning? Wasn't Will's name already cleared? What more could they possibly be doing?

The unsettling feeling that had been sitting in Cassie's gut for the last week only seemed to intensify the longer she thought about it, but she tried to quash it down as she followed her mother into the drawing room, where a plethora of presents wrapped in shiny silver and gold paper gleamed out at her from beneath the tree.

Cassie sat in her customary spot next to the tree while Eleanor perched herself in one of the straight-backed armchairs that decorated the room, and she tried not to feel like something was missing as she reached for the first parcel that had her name on it at her mother's urging. She unwrapped the gift and found a new set of silky wizarding robes, as black as Peruvian ink. Despite her aversion to wizarding fashion, she couldn't help the small gasp of surprise that came out of her mouth when she unraveled them.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" Eleanor said, her eyes raking the robes with the eye of the wizarding world's most acclaimed fashion magazine editor. "I purchased them from a friend of mine all the way from China; he said the silk was woven a thousand years ago, made by some of the greatest magical Chinese seamstresses the wizarding world had ever seen."