The Queen of Vipers || Fred Weasley

III.XVII

Electra always thought turkey at Christmas was odd. At Our Fair Lady they had the feast of seven fishes on Christmas Eve and ham on Christmas day. Turkey was reserved for Thanksgiving only.

Though, seeing as they didn't celebrate Thanksgiving anywhere but in the States, Electra had to settle with Christmas to replace her favorite holiday. Lucky for her though, Mrs Diggory took Christmas dinner very seriously. Dinner wasn't the proper word for it, feast was far closer. For two days she and Electra spent every waking minute in the kitchen baking, cooking and preparing a whole host of foods. By Christmas day they had enough food to feed an army, or at least two or three very hungry teenage boys.

But as Electra freshened up before their late dinner, that was the very thing this house lacked.

Electra gripped the edge of the sink as she fought the burning of tears in the back of her eyes. She could cry herself to sleep again tonight. She just needed to get through dinner.

Biting her lip, she looked into the mirror. Electra had put effort into how she looked this evening, just for Mrs Diggory's sake. Her curls were pinned back in a half updo, except for two strands in front of her face that she could easily tuck behind her ears while she ate. She even added blush and her favorite dark cherry lip gloss —that she fully expected to eat off— along with her usual mascara.

It was the first time in a long time that she recognized herself in her own reflection. She just wished she felt the same way. Electra looked up at the ceiling, blinking away the moisture that was gathering in the corner of her eyes.

Do it for Mrs Diggory, she thought to herself. She needs you.

She looked in the mirror one last time, shaking her hands and breathing deep, picked a pill out of her knit dress, and ventured into the hallway.

Just as she reached the bottom of the stairs, the doorbell rang. For a split second she thought she'd imagined it, but then Ludwig started barking and Electra looked towards the front of the house in confusion. No one was supposed to be coming for dinner...

"Electra, darling," she heard Mrs Diggory call from the kitchen in the east of the manor. "Do you mind heading off whoever's at the door for me? I need to get this turkey out of the oven."

"Of course," Electra called back over Ludwig's barking as she crossed the hall.

Electra's heels clicked against the decorative tile in the vestibule as she approached the door, shushing Ludwig. As Electra took the doorknob in her hand, she got that gut-flipping sense of déjà vu.

Her lips parted in surprise as she swung open the door to peer up at the faces she was sure she'd Seen wrong.

But there they were. Identical crooked smiles and all.

"Happy Christmas, Lex."

Electra's heart stumbled. Her eyes ping-ponged between the twins, trying to figure out if she was seeing things. Then she felt Ludwig sneak past her legs, shifting the skirt of her dress, and looked down to watch the crup sniff their legs. Guess she wasn't seeing things after all.

"Blimey," exclaimed George excitedly. "You never mentioned the Diggorys had a crup."

Fred knelt down and offered his hand for Ludwig to sniff. "We've always wanted one, but instead of a crup we got Ron and Ginny."

"And Ron's got an extra stomach, so we had more than enough mouths to feed." Ludwig took a long minute to sniff out Fred's extended hand, and then George's ankles.

His two tails wagged happily as he jumped onto Fred's knee, his long tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth. Fred took Ludwig's head in his gloved hands and rubbed it vigorously. Ludwig's tails wagged faster. "Who's a good boy?" he cooed. Ludwig snuck in a lick to Fred's exposed wrist, his cloak's sleeves a bit too small on him.