Jupiter | Harry James Potter

lxxxv ; under the mistletoe

    December arrived, bringing with it more snow and a positive avalanche of homework for the fifth years. Ron and Hermione's pre- fect duties also became more and more onerous as Christmas approached.

They were called upon to supervise the decoration of the castle ("You try putting up tinsel when Peeves has got the other end and is trying to strangle you with it," Ron grumbled), to watch over first and second years spending their break times inside because of the bitter cold ("And they're cheeky little snotrags, you know, we definitely weren't that rude when we were in first year," Ron continued to grumble), and to patrol the corridors in shifts with Argus Filch, who suspected that the holiday spirit might show itself in an outbreak of wizard duels ("He's got dung for brains, that one," Ron grumbled again, even more furiously).

They were so busy that Hermione had stopped knitting elf hats and was fretting that she was down to her last three.

"All those poor elves I haven't set free yet, having to stay over during Christmas because there aren't enough hats!"

Harry, who had not had the heart to tell her that Dobby was taking everything she made, bent lower over his History of Magic essay.

While Jupiter didn't care whatsoever, and said in a similar manner to Ron, "Hermione, all of the elves hate it! Dobby just takes all of them for himself!"

Hermione, being as stubborn as usual, didn't believe her in the slightest and continued to knit. Jupiter could've swarm she saw her start to knit faster out of spite.

Now, the only thing she really looked forward to were the D.A. meetings, and they would have to stop over the holidays, as nearly everybody in the D.A. would be spending the time with their families.

Hermione was doing something called 'skiing' with her parents, which was apparently 'sliding down ice for fun.'

Ron, meanwhile, was going home to the Burrow, and Jupiter was going back to Grimmauld Place with her dad and Remus.

Jupiter had spent several days assuming that Harry would be joining her, making her extremely excited about the fact that they would finally have their own space again like the beginning of the year, until Ron said, in response to Harry asking how Ron was going to get home for Christmas, "But you're coming too! Didn't I say? Mum wrote and told me to invite you weeks ago!"

"Oh!" Harry said, his mouth falling open as he looked over to Jupiter. "I figured I would be at Sirius'. With Jo."

"Er- yeah, I did too until she owled me," Ron shrugged. "She invited you too, Jove, but Sirius overruled her. Apparently he 'didn't get a say' in Harry's placement."

"I was looking forward to us spending Christmas together," Jupiter said with a pout.

Before Harry could agree with her, Ron rolled his eyes and interrupted. "Oh, come on, you lot can last a week without snogging." His words earned him a nice, clean slap on the back of the head from Hermione.

-

Harry and Jupiter arrived early in the Room of Requirement for the last D.A. meeting before the holidays and they were both very glad that they had, because when the lamps burst into light they saw that Dobby had taken it upon himself to decorate the place for Christmas.

They could tell the elf had done it, because nobody else would have strung a hundred golden baubles from the ceiling, each showing a picture of Harry's face and bearing the legend 'HAVE A VERY HARRY CHRISTMAS!'

"This is bloody brilliant," Jupiter laughed, staring at the decorations in awe.

Harry, on the other hand, was looking at the photos in terror. "Absolutely not," he said, his nose scrunching up. "You're going to help me take them down."