Freaks: Year One

I Will Never Forget You

"We do celebrate." Jasper said, not being able to get rid of the worry in his stomach. "It's just...it is more quiet than other families."

Penelope nodded. "That's lovely."

"And to answer your question, Gifford." Jasper started. "We put decorations up by hand."

Gifford gasped. "Really? How do you put the lights up on your house?"

"Climb up to the roof, and put them around the house." Jasper said.

Gifford was wide eyed. "Wow."

Jonathan looked amazed too. "That's very interesting." He looked at his brother. "But shouldn't you know this? Isn't Quinn muggleborn too, wouldn't they have told you about Christmas lights?"

Gifford shook his head. "Quinn doesn't celebrate Christmas."

"Ohhhhh."

"Yeah, Quinn celebrates Hanukkah, like me!" Penelope said.

"Cool." Dorothy said. "What do you do for that?"

"We light a candle each night of Hanukkah on something called a menorah using the shamash."

"How many nights are there?" Harry asked.

"Eight." Penelope replied. "We play games, and eat food, and we get a gift each night."

They each talked about what they celebrated or didn't celebrate. Most of them celebrated Christmas, but not all. Penelope as she said before celebrated Hanukkah, and Marty didn't celebrate Christmas either, she celebrated Eid which was happening later in the school year.

Later Pandora said hello to her sister Maryrose, but she was quickly pulled away by a few older Gryffindor girls gossiping about how one of the Ravenclaw boys was eyeing Pandora. For the remainder of the ride, all the Hufflepuffs ate different types of sweets, and Jasper was still amazed by the Chocolate Frogs, and the cards that came with them. Even after being at Hogwarts for a few months, he was still getting used to the fact that pictures moved.

As the train got closer to King's Cross, Jasper got even more nervous, he was going to face his parents for the first time in almost four peaceful, safe months. He wasn't even sure if they were going to pick him up, or if his mum was going to pick him up, his dad was probably occupied at a pub or something, but Jasper had let his mum know that he was going to be coming home today.

He had to remind himself that there were positives about going home, he was going to see his brothers!

It's only two weeks with your parents, it is only two weeks in that house, it is only two weeks that you can ensure your brothers are safe.

It wasn't that he felt his brothers were weak or not brave enough to face their parents, he just didn't want them to. They shouldn't have to, but it was their reality. He hoped nothing bad had happened, and they all had stayed out of trouble.

He also hoped that they were displaying magical abilities of some sort, because that would mean they could all be at Hogwarts year around until Jasper was old enough to somehow gain custody of them, but that was another topic entirely that he needed to figure out.

If his brothers weren't magical, he needed to figure out something that would work year round, maybe protego would do the trick, but he needed to study that spell more first before he could confirm that.

His thoughts were broken by Venom jumping on his head, and Jasper tensed up. "Sorry!" Dorothy said. "Venom just likes you."

"Why?" Jasper asked, trying to ignore when Venom lay down on Jasper's head, the teacup part laying flat on his head, as its legs going over both sides of Jasper's head.