Since the beginning | Deamus |

(first year) Ch. 9 Christmas Part 1 (Seamus POV)

It was almost the holidays and Hogwarts was ready. The great hall was decorated with four gigantic trees dragged out of the forest by Hagrid, one for each corner. Even the suits of armor in the halls seemed festive with their wreaths and enchanted breastplates that randomly sang carols to drive Filch crazy.

When the first snow storm came we were prepared. As soon as we could go outside, we got into an inter house snowball fight. All of Gryffindor went out in our coats and started to throw snowballs. Honestly, it was the best fun I had had for a long time. There was no order to that game, just to the death. A few people even had to go to the infirmary for frostbite. Fred and George abandoned the game after an hour and found a more fun way to get a few laughs: enchanted snowballs. They enchanted some of the snowballs to chase around any teacher who dared to get within a few hundred yards of our game. That earned them many laughs from the House and many hours of detention from the unfortunate teachers who were hit.

I couldn't wait for vacation to start. It was the one time of the year I was allowed to ignore my family for hours on end, that was a good thing about being unnoticeable. Plus, this would be the first holiday I would have someone to send letters to besides my cousins.

The time came for the train to take us home, and I was ecstatic. I was bouncing on the balls of my feet and practically buzzing. Most of the school waited on the platform for the train to bring us to King's Cross. You could barely see from the fog that everyone's breath made in the air.

"Ya excited to go back to your family, Dean?"

Dean, luckily, was going back for Christmas. If I had to talk to Hermione about the art of transforming a rock into a quill, I would jump out of the train. Don't tell her I said that.

"Yeah," he mumbled.

Though we didn't talk about it, I knew that he was still upset about his mother's marriage.

"Hey, Dean, look at me." I forced him to look at me and not the ground, I was special that way. "Things'll turn out alright. It can't be any worse that that one Potions class where Malfoy splashed goo all over the ceiling. Besides, you can owl me and I can set fire to your bird's feathers!"

I grinned, and he even managed to smile.

"Right. Well, looks like our ride's here."

The train was definitely more festive than it was the beginning of the year. Third years chased each other down the halls, all adorning decorations that hung at the windows. At least one person was strangled with a wreath of holly. Dean and I managed to secure a compartment that was empty, no chasing toads that day!!

I managed to get Dean laughing and excited about going back home within half an hour. That is my superpower. During the ride we even came up with a game called How Many Compartments Can You Fill With Stink Bombs Before You Get Jinxed? The answer is ten by the way.

Dean and I exited the train with our trolleys and headed towards our waiting parents. His mum and mine were on opposite sides of platform so I stopped Dean before my mam could spot me.

"You better write," I warned.

Dean laughed. "Okay, I will. See ya."

"Bye."

Mam steered me towards the exit where dad was waiting by an empty corner.

"Ready?" She asked me.

"Yeah,"

Let me tell you, you can apparate as many times as you want but you will never get over how awful it feels. Too bad it's mam's favorite way of transportation. It's like you are being stretched and cut up into a million pieces. And your head is in a million different places at once, though that's a familiar feeling for me.