Faery Heroes

Chapter 40: Deck the Halls

Disclaimer: Did the Weasleys open their Christmas presents individually in both book 5 and book 6, despite constantly being depicted as family-oriented? If so, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.
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"You know we're going to Wizarding Hell for this, right?"

"You suggested we do it," Harry reminded Hermione absentmindedly as his wand danced. The Nott family had ten living members, three elves, and a number of particularly bad-tempered attack dogs; hitting them when they were all absent was impossible, and breaking in while they were awake and aware was suicide. Rather than pass up such a magnificent target, however, they were using the same strategy as when they ransacked the Fudges and draping a sleeping charm over the entire estate.

Having his core nonupled in size due to their little oversight on Luna's birthday was now showing itself to be quite a happy accident.

The two girls scurried around him, taking turns to break down the wards since he was too occupied with chanting to power the wardtap. After nearly an hour, a far cry from their average time, the blue-masked blonde nodded to him. "Okay, that should be it on our end. We're ready to go as soon as you're sure they won't wake up."

"I've been done," he replied, shaking his arms to force some feeling back into them. "I kept reinforcing it in case the wards were connected to an alarm of some kind, but otherwise, they should be down for the count."

"Good."

The trio sprinted across the yard, vanishing the front door rather than slow their steps. As was their custom, they split apart, each having already claimed a section of the house to pilfer. Tonight, however, they were going to be a little more… thorough.

He surveyed the kitchen and shook his head as the full scope of the situation became clear. "Yellow, how did you even come up with this idea?"

"Did you ever read any Dr. Seuss stories when you were little?"

"Who is Dr. Zoo?"

Hermione's sigh was eloquent. "Seuss, Blue, Seuss. Muggle author of silly children's books."

"Petunia probably read them to Dudley, but I can't say I know any more about them than Blue does," he replied as he summoned an entire cooked goose into one space-extended pouch, chasing it down with a bowl full of cranberry sauce – he hit that with a stasis charm on its way over to prevent spillage – and three loaves of bread. Apparently the elves here had decided to get back at their masters by making the next day's dinner the night before and were just going to leave it out overnight; it was the same kind of passive-aggressive retaliation Dobby had said was customary for them when they disliked or even outright hated their masters. They might not be able to get even directly, but twisting their orders as much as possible? That they could do.

"Well, arguably his most famous book was titled The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. I'll read it to you two some time, but for now just know that we're emulating it. I thought it appropriate since we're robbing them on Christmas Eve."

"If you say so." Shrugging, he preceded to vacuum up the wreathes hanging outside the windows before repairing the glass they had shattered as they flew inside. Stealing away all the Notts' Christmas decorations in addition to items of actual value seemed a bit petty to him, but his lover was dead set on doing it, and it was only a little extra effort on his part.