Hogwarts Nights

Chapter Thirty-Four

Albus POV:

On the next morning, the 23rd of December, I woke up quite late. It was already bright outside and neither Fred nor Louis were still in the room when I woke up. The air already smelled of bacon and scrambled eggs, so I supposed that the others were probably already having breakfast. I didn't even bother to take a shower or change my clothes and ran down the stairs as fast as I could. When I arrived in the kitchen, pretty much everyone was already there. I was glad to see that I wasn't the only one still in their pyjamas. "You just arrived at the right time", James greeted, "we have already helped preparing the breakfast and now there's nothing else to do than eating it." He was already sat down in a chair with Jessica sitting on his lap. "Perfect timing, then", I said and sat down next to them. I looked around and didn't see Lily anywhere. So I asked: "Is our sister still sick?" They nodded. Because I didn't see Mum anywhere, I felt safe to admit: "I feel pretty bad. I kind of neglected Lily during the past half year. Did you talk a lot to her, James?"

"Well, not really", he answered, "but Jessica did, didn't you?"

She nodded: "Yes, I like her. She's a funny young girl and to be honest, I think she was doing perfectly fine during the past few months, at least as far as I can tell. You don't need to worry, Albus."

"Thank you", I said. Jessica suddenly seemed a lot nicer to me than she did before.

After breakfast, our grandmother told each of us what we had to do to prepare for tomorrow evening: Rose, Dominique and I had to decorate the Christmas tree. "That's an enjoyable task, I guess", Rose told me when we headed upstairs together. "Yes, and not only that", I answered, "Dominique told me yesterday that she works for the administration of the Wizengamot and had a lot to do because of the attacks in Manchester and Leeds. Maybe she can tell us something interesting." Rose smiled and nodded. I took a shower and then I met with Rose and Dominique in the living room. "I already brought the decoration downstairs", Dominique said and pointed at three large boxes next to the Christmas tree. "Okay, let's get started", I said and opened the first box, "wow, that's a lot of things in there. I think we have to select the prettiest items and only put them on the tree, otherwise you won't be able to see the tree behind the decorations anymore." Dominique laughed: "You're right. I propose we go for a red and gold theme, since those are the Gryffindor colours. Maybe you'll miss Hogwarts a little less, then." I smiled.

While we were decorating the tree (it wasn't a very simple task, because the tree was at least three metres high!) Rose started asking Dominique about her work. Rose and I had silently agreed that she would take this part, because she was way more diplomatic than me. "So, you had a lot of work because of the attacks?", she asked.

Dominique nodded: "Yes, work was quite tough sometimes."

"What did you have to do?", Rose asked.

"Basically, the members of the Wizengamot had to do a lot of hearings with countless suspects."

"What kind of people were the suspects?"

"You know, the usual. People who are believed to be Neo Death Eaters or people who are members of other organisations that are known to commit crimes against Muggles."

"But no one was put into Azkaban yet, right?"

"No, they couldn't find any proof against any of the suspects. It's very likely that none of those who were actually responsible for the attacks in Manchester and Leeds have actually been found by the aurors yet."

"That's bad...", Rose said.

"Yes, but the aurors are trying their best."

"Of course."

"The scariest thing", Dominique sighed, "is that we don't know whether it was just a few crazy people who did these attacks – maybe there wasn't even a connection between Manchester and Leeds, who knows – or whether there is a whole organisation behind it. Of course there are some candidates, like Neo Death Eaters or Pure Blood Pride, not sure if you've heard about that one."

Rose nodded: "But if you consider how close Manchester and Leeds are, don't you think there must have been a connection between these two attacks?"

"I don't know, I'm just doing the paperwork", Dominique said. She laughed, but the way she looked at us signalised that she didn't want to talk about it anymore. After a few rather awkward moments of silence, she changed the subject: "Do we want to hang some candy on the Christmas tree as well?"

Cadence POV:

On December 24th, I woke up at 8am. Ever since I was a little child, I woke up this early on Christmas Eve and then went to my sister's room to wake her up as well, and that's what I did today. Emma loved sleeping in, but on Christmas Eve, she was too excited to do that. "Let's go to Brighton for a last-minute Christmas shopping!", I said during breakfast. My father still had to work that day, but my Mum and Emma agreed to join me. We first went into the centre with the bus (Brighton was filled with Muggles – even our neighbours were Muggles – and we tried to fit in as hard as we could). We went to some boutiques, bought some more Christmas decoration and then we went into a little side road. Every normal person that walked by thought that only homeless people lived there, but that wasn't true: Although Brighton only had a very small Wizard community, they managed to have some shops, and they were exactly in that street. It was not nearly as big and fancy as Diagon Alley, but at least there was a bookshop, a shop where you could buy potions & other useful things and a pretty little café. We first went into the bookshop, then we sat down in the café and had some hot chocolate and croissants.

After that, we went home and decorated our Christmas tree. At 5pm, my aunt with her two little kids and my grandparents came over (they all lived in Brighton as well). Even though my Mum always told her not to do it, my grandmother always wore wizard's clothes. We felt like most people already knew her and thought she was a crazy old woman or something. My Dad always said: "As long as she doesn't take out her wand in the middle of the street and starts performing magic." He was probably right. It was nice seeing all my family members again and spending some time with time. My Mum cooked dinner (it was delicious!) and after dinner we gave each other some gifts. I had brought candy and other nice things from Hogsmeade for everyone. My parents had bought me a book about Quidditch, my sister gave me some drawings that she had made, my aunt gave me some things from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes because she knew I loved that store and my grandparents gave me some chocolate they had bought in Belgium (even though they were almost 80 years old, they still travelled a lot!). After all the presents were unpacked, we played some games. First we played the wizards version of Monopoly and then played a game where one had to describe or draw something and the others had to guess. Playing games like these was our Christmas tradition. At about midnight, they all travelled home by floo powder and I went to bed, happy but sad at the same time: When tomorrow was over, I would have to wait another 365 days until next Christmas.