Delicate - eng version

A Blue Christmas and a Random New Year

On Christmas morning, I'm shaken awake by none other than Hugo. I momentarily forget what day it is, but when I see him holding a small box wrapped in golden paper, it all comes rushing back to me. It's Christmas Day and absolutely nothing is as it should be. Dad hates me, Mum and Dad hate each other and I hate pretty much everyone – except for Hugo. That's a quite a turn around when you think about it.

Hugo looks sort of distressed, almost like he's feeling severely sorry for me. I wish he wouldn't, it's just weird to have him act like he cares about anything other than his favourite heavy metal band "The Death Metal Eaters".

"Happy Christmas," he says and hands me the small package.

"Thanks, Hugh," I smile and open it up. It's a beautiful charm bracelet, silver, with lots of little charms hanging off it including a dog, a stag and a werewolf – the three Marauders we've been told so much about over the years. I hug Hugo tightly.

"It's meant to be lucky," says Hugo, his voice muffled by my tight embrace.

"It's beautiful, thank you."

Hugo pushes me off and tells me to get up and come downstairs. I decide that I can't exactly hide out in my room all day, that life goes on and no matter what happens I'm going to be forced to go to The Burrow and face my entire family and Scorpius Malfoy.

Mum and Dad are both up when I go downstairs, though neither are speaking. Hugo sits by the Christmas tree, opening presents. Even he feels like he doesn't have the right to be in a strop today. I join him by the tree and open some of my own presents, but my heart's not in it and neither is Hugo's. Usually we do this as a family, but Mum and Dad don't seem too interested. They're in the kitchen, while we're in the sitting room, trying to avoid the awkward topic of my pregnancy.

I can't take much more of this. I go into the kitchen and Mum and Dad stop fighting under their breaths when I arrive. Mum smiles weakly at me (very weakly) while Dad doesn't even acknowledge me.

"Can we just act normal for today?" I ask, "It's Christmas."

Mum nods, but Dad says nothing.

"Ron," Mum warns, "she's right."

"Whatever," he says, strongly resembling Hugo when he's in a mood.

"Let's just try to have a nice Christmas," says Mum, "we can deal with this another time."

Again, Dad says nothing.

"Ronald!"

"FINE!" he shouts and storms out of the kitchen.

"And a Happy Christmas to you too!" I shout after him.

I'm so happy by the time we arrive at the Burrow. Here, I can escape Dad's death glares, Mum's disappointed sighs and Hugo's sympathetic glances. Mum reassured me before we came that Dad isn't going to breathe a word to anyone about my pregnancy, so I can relax. Well, relax as much as possible. Which isn't much these days.

The Delacour-Weasley's are already here (it's much easier to call them by that name because there's too many Weasley's), which means I have Dom to talk to. The Johnson-Weasley's arrive shortly after us, the Smith-Weasley's a little later (as in Uncle Percy's lot) and once Uncle Charlie arrives, it's just a matter of waiting for the Potter's.

And they arrive and it's all kisses and flowers and puppies and fake smiles on my part. Harry gives me a hug and slips me a few galleons along with my Christmas present – he tends to spoil me because I'm his goddaughter. Then again, Teddy's his godson and I don't see him slipping Teddy a few galleons. Maybe he did when Teddy was younger.