Antidote

Chapter 5 - Amortentia

Following the implosion of Jolie becoming sole heiress of the Carrow fortune and Charlotte's lividity toward the idea, the Christmas holiday did not get much better. 

The only good thing to happen after the fallout on Christmas Day was the exchanging of gifts between her and her friends the next day. 

On Boxing Day morning, Jolie, Draco, Theo, Blaise, Daphne, and Pansy all reunited at the Carrow Estate to enjoy a Full English and tea. 

Later, nearing the afternoon, they each gave their assigned recipient their gifts. 

The process of the friend group's Christmas-gift-giving was, somewhat, like what the Muggles called "Secret Santa". However, there were no secrets as to who whose Father Christmas was. 

Each year, at the end of every winter term, the six friends would sit around the fire in the common room and write their names on pieces of ripped parchment, crumple them up, and spread the wads onto the floor. After Theo gave the paper a good mix (as he always begged to do so), they would each then cover their eyes, reach out and pluck up a name. 

This year, Jolie was Theo's recipient, and Daphne hers. 

Instead of the common room this year,  they sat around the magically flocked tree in the Carrow sitting room. Theo gifted Jolie matching charcoal grey woven jumpers for herself and Tea Kettle which he enchanted himself with a mild Cheering Charm. It actually seemed it may fit her, to Jolie's astonishment. 

After stuffing Tea Kettle into her new jumper, Jolie gave Daphne her gift: an adult Muggle colouring book—to which Daphne had squealed with excitement—and several bottles of different coloured ink wells for her to use with it. 

Daphne gave Draco a hand-knitted beanie that she had made herself (attaching a note that said she'd made it with her "bear hands"). The cap, unfortunately, was several sizes too large for his head, but he pretended to love it anyway. 

Draco gave Blaise the newest series of quidditch chasing gloves which were expensively charmed to give extra grip to the wearer's broom handle and quaffle. 

Blaise gave Pansy a bottle of a very extravagant, costly-looking, flowery perfume that was rumoured to have traces of Amortentia within it. 

Pansy grinned wickedly as Theodore ripped open her neatly wrapped present. Upon opening it, he had found that she'd gifted him a thick tome entitled, 'The Intricacies of Proper Etiquette for the Modern Wizard'. Theo did not seem to appreciate his gift all that much, giving Pansy only a ridiculously fake smile with the stiffest upper lip Jolie had ever seen. 

Finally, with all their presents given out and the day coming to an end, the friends eventually parted ways, hugging and promising to see each other soon at Narcissa's annual New Year's Eve Ball. 

Jolie decidedly kept it to herself that she was dreading the event this year.

Jolie didn't mind visiting Malfoy Manor. 

She just did not much feel like socialising and clinking glasses with Sacred Twenty-Eight, pureblood snobs. Normally, she could get by with the accompaniment of her friends, but this year, the news had come out and made its way through the tight-knit community that Jolie was now the heiress of her family's fortune. 

It was impossible to get away from the night without a few several conversations about the sudden upheaval of her and Charlotte's statuses. 

She had been right to dread the event; the ball had been truly dreadful. Jolie was abhorrently thankful that summer term would begin in only a few more days.