It's Christmas Time Again: A Time-Traveling TMS Holiday Extravaganza

Christmas Eve 2005 (Part One)

Now I guess you're probably screaming for me to explain myself.

So yes. My name is Teddy Lupin. I'm a metamorphmagus, as you already know, and I also sometimes go by the name Declan Alectric.

To explain that, I have to tell you about something that happened quite a few Christmases ago, when I was a kid, which is utterly humiliating but I guess that's fiiiiiine. Just don't go, like, publishing this or whatever.

I don't need anyone thinking I'm ✨cute✨ or anything like that.

[Author's Note: Oopsie?]

CHRISTMAS EVE 2005

My godmother, Ginny, was going to score the winning goal.

I was standing on my seat, leaning over the wall of the box, looking down at the pitch. Beside me, Uncle Ron was hollering something I would not have been allowed to repeat at that age (being only seven). My godfather, Harry, was laughing at Uncle Ron and shouting, too, punching the air in excitement as he watched his wife, star chaser for the Holyhead Harpies, shot across the pitch with the quaffle under her arm, red hair streaming behind her. As she sank it past the ring, the crowd absolutely erupted, green and gold confetti bursting from wands all over the stadium.

The Christmas quidditch match was a full family outing we did every year. Everyone we called family - blood or distant relative - gathered to attend the games, and Ginny always made sure we had the best box in the stadium to watch from. I suppose there were Christmases before Ginny got famous that this didn't happen in, but I don't remember them. She signed when I was too small to remember, really, and it's been every year since then that we've all been in that box seat in Holyhead, followed by a rollicking after party in Godric's Hollow.

This was the first time though that I'd gone without my Gran. Gran was at the house in Godric's Hollow watching James-Sirius, Harry and Ginny's baby, who was less than a year old at the time. It was a small miracle Gran let me go without her - she'd argued pretty hard for me to stay home and help her with the baby, but Harry had insisted I be allowed to the game. And I was glad for it.

Ginny swept across the pitch to the box, arms in the air, and twisted mid-flight so she was hanging upside down over Harry as they kissed - the image of her magnified on the Harpie's stadium screen for everyone to see and cheer about as Ginny's cheeks turned nearly as red as her hair and Harry laughed, his glasses knocked askew as he whispered something in her ear.

Uncle Ron scooped me up and hoisted me onto his shoulders. "What a game, hey lil guy?"

"Yeah!" I shouted, grinning and stretching hard against Ron's grasp to hold out a palm for Ginny to high-five. "Brilliant job, Ginny!" I shouted.

"Here you go, Teddy!" said Ginny's team mate, the Keeper, Declan O'Brien, flying up and holding out the game-winning Quaffle.

"Thanks!" I grabbed onto it and hugged it to my chest as Uncle Ron reeled me back in to his chest.

"Great play idea, Potter," Declan O'Brien said.

Ginny said, "Worked it out while mercilessly besting my brothers at a bit of backyard scramble." She winked at Uncle Ron. "Me and Harry against these two tossers!"

"Oi, I held my own, it was that one's become slow on 'is broom!" Uncle George thumbed at Uncle Ron.

"Ah you must hate it, never standin' a chance at winnin', ey?" He smirked. "Gin's brilliant at calling the shots!" Declan declared, giving Ginny a fist bump before flying off.

Ginny smirked at Uncle Ron, "What'd you think of that, huh? Told you that play would work."

"Don't grow up to be like your godmum, Teddy," Uncle Ron said, raising an eyebrow at Ginny, "She's a show off and a know it all." But he said it in the same tone he would have said I love you in, so I laughed and so did Ginny.