Starry Nights

Home Sweet Home Pt.2

After we get home and give Joseph the grand tour, we have dinner. Papa surprises me with some of my favorite foods for dinner. His lasagne and garlic bread with raspberry cheesecake for dessert. After dinner we all settled around the telly and Joseph and I told stories about our first year at Hogwarts so far. Then Papa announced that we would be going to Diagon Alley to do some Christmas shopping tomorrow and that it was time for our traditional secret santa draw. It was really sweet how they even made an effort to include Joseph. We all put our names in the hat and pass it around. I smile when I get Harry’s name in his messy scrawl. Harry is always easy to buy for.

I look around trying to decipher who has who. Papa is frowning, which makes me think he has Joseph, or he’s trying to throw me off. Ariella has a devious little smile, but that isn’t new. Joseph looks worried, but that could mean anything. Harry looks right at Marcus when he pulls out a name. Marcus closes his eyes and looks directly at Dad, trying to copy his poker face. Marcus always makes a game of trying to keep his secret santa secret and I make sport of figuring it out.

We end up setting up a fort in the living room. Dad and Papa give us all a warning to not stay up too late and then retire to their room. Harry falls asleep first. Marcus and Ariella stay up a little more, asking us questions about school but eventually they fall asleep too. I lay my head down and look over at Joseph.

“Happy you came to spend the holiday here?”

“Yeah,” He nods, but I can see him frowning, something else is obviously on his mind.

“What’s wrong?”

“I dunno. I’m just a little jealous.” He admits in a whisper.

I lay my hand over his, “I’m sorry about your parents.”

He sighs and yawns slightly, “Don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault. I’m really happy to be here for Christmas. It’s just.. All the secrecy and the fact that I know when summer break comes I won’t be able to escape to here..well it’s a lot.”
I can’t help but pout slightly. Usually I feel like I have all the advice but right now, I’m at a loss for words. I lean over to give him a hug. “Fretting about the things we can’t control won’t do us any goo, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” He whispers, hugging me back tightly. We both pull back and settle into our spots to sleep. “I’ll try and focus on the now, usually I’m not so gloomy but seeing how good things can be just really puts it all into perspective.”

“I can imagine. You just have to look on the bright side. It’s like you said, live in the now. You have a whole group of amazing friends. And you only have to put up with your family for 3 months out of the year now, which is less than before you started Hogwarts.”

He huffs out a laugh, “That is true. Thanks Cath.”

A/N:
I thought I had abandoned this story, thought that fanfiction was a part of my childhood better left behind. But I’ve been trying and failing to write my own original stories. I have all the ideas but when I actually put them on paper, they seem almost, dry. Especially, the dialogue, it is nothing like what I’m able to cook up between characters I already know so well.

Soooo I’m coming back to my roots. I hope this fic can remind me why I love writing and help me work through my dry spell on my og work. To everyone who’s been waiting a year or 2 for this update…better late than never?