Brontide

Chapter Nine

Had to get my car towed today, so editing this chapter was a nice distraction :'(

Enjoy my loves!

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The next week was a week well spent, in my humble opinion. It was sweater season, for one; anyone who had sweaters hand-knit by Mrs. Weasley was wearing them proudly. Members of the Order were constantly in and out of Sirius' house, eating dinner with everyone and sharing stories over mugs of eggnog. Mrs. Weasley cooked so much food that I'd wondered whether or not she had an army of house elves to help her. I'd eaten so much that gaining weight was almost inevitable. Rather blissfully, I was surrounded by some of the people who I cared about most in this world, and we spent the week leading up to Christmas finding ways to entertain ourselves, even practicing some of the spells that Harry had taught us. 

The day after Rae's mental breakdown she'd gone back to her normal self, feeling ashamed and vowing to stay away from Firewhiskey for awhile. I'd tried comforting her but she said she didn't want any pity, just for things to go back to how they were before she went "mental". I didn't think she was mental, just confused and very nervous, but she wasn't hearing any of it. She just wanted to enjoy her winter holidays, and I agreed because I did too.

I'd woken up the morning of Christmas Eve to see snow falling steadily outside my window. It'd barely snowed since our arrival at Grimmauld Place, so I immediately sat up and opened the window, sticking my head outside to look up at the falling snowflakes. Fresh air filled my lungs, snow crystals landed on my tangled blond hair and eyelashes, and I loved it. Buildings and lampposts down the road were coated with ice and snow, and over a foot of it was on the ground already. I knew what I wanted to do that day.

I pulled my head back inside and closed the window, turning to the bed where Rae was still fast asleep. Hermione and Ginny were absent from the room, most likely having already gone down to breakfast. I put on a pair of fuzzy red slippers and shook her shoulders.

"Rae, wake up. It's snowing." She answered me with a grunt, not budging an inch. I frowned. "Rae, I'm serious. Come down to breakfast with me so we can eat, I wanna go outside." She grumbled louder this time, one of her eyes opening slightly.

"Wha...?"

I rolled my eyes, about to shake her some more when Fred and George shambled into the room, their lanky arms and legs hanging almost limp. They were still in their pajamas, rubbing their eyes tiredly with their red hair sticking up all over the place.

"G'morning," George yawned, stretching his arms over his head.

I mumbled my greetings and pointed to the window. "We're going outside today. Come with me to get breakfast first."

They were barely coherent until they looked to where I was pointing, noticeably waking up a bit more. Rae had gone back to sleep, letting out a light snore.

I glared at her even though she couldn't see it and hopped onto her bed, jumping up and down. I usually took a while to fully wake up in the mornings but this was a different circumstance.

"GET. UP. GET. UP. GET. UP." I said a word with each jump, waking up not only Rae but Nestor as well, who was looking at me quite unhappily from his cage.

"Alright, alright, I'm up!" she said grouchily, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and glancing at the twins. I hopped off, going through my luggage and pulling out a brush, attempting to tame my hair. I was excited.

The table was covered with biscuits, piles of eggs, sausages and bacon and pitchers of orange juice and milk. We quickly wolfed down our breakfasts, hurrying upstairs to change into clothes fit for the snow. We'd barely gotten back downstairs, still wrapping scarves around our necks and pulling gloves over our hands when Mrs. Weasley blocked the front door, her arms folded over her chest.