Potions of Ari's Love

Midnight Mistletoe

Tapping on Ginny's door, I signal for Hermione and Lily to follow me into the last recruitments room.
"Ginnnnyyy...," I whisper, startling her awake. "Sshhh. We're going to secretly decorate the Burrow for Christmas." Her eyes shoot open with glee, rushing out of bed. Having Ginny's touch of Christmas will brighten up even the darkest of nights.
Creeping out of her room and down the hall, we begin to descend the stairs.
"Do, do, do, do-do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do-do," Lily hums the beginning of In the Hall of the Mountain King from the Nutcracker ballet in time to our footfalls.
She starts in on the verse again. So do I.
Then Hermione who is third on the staircase.
Then lastly Ginny.
We finish just as we huddle up in the living room.
"Ok gals, Ginny, you're in the kitchen, Hermione, you're outside, and Ari, you'll be in the dining room; I'll be in the living room." Lily whispers to all of us.
Throwing hands in the air, we dash off our separate ways, a small grin on our faces.
Lily's POV
I start with a Christmas tree to the left of the fireplace, and a small fire in the logs.
Then comes the decorations. I wave my wand and the tree sparkles with all of the tinsel and ornaments, the star glistening at the top.
Next comes the mistletoe.
Then the stockings are hung on the chimney.
The carpet turned red and green.
I turned to see Aurthr Weasley standing there smiling.
"Molly will love it!" With that, he turns around to walk back up the stairs. My hair turns a dark red.
Pretty soon we're all finished and sitting on the couch, admiring it, when we realize it's three in the morning.
"Ginny's asleep" says Hermione. Pretty soon they're all passed out; I can barely hold my eyes open....

Ron's POV
I walk down the stairs to see all the girls except Mum asleep on the couch.
Sneaking back up the stairs, I shake Harry awake and drag him down after me, making sure he's quiet for once.
He smiles a genuine smile.
Glancing back at Ari, I start to softly sing, something I never thought I would do.
"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." I trail off, not expecting Harry to join in.
"Jack Frost nipping at your nose..." Harry says, walking over to Lily and caressing her nose. She smiles ever so slightly, releasing an obnoxious snort.
We continue the song, and on the line of, Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe, I slyly (if I do say so myself) undo the mistletoe and move the two, one over Ari's head and one over Lily's head.
Exchanging a knowing glance, we bend down and kiss our girlfriends, pleasantly interrupting the song they taught us.
"Good morning sleepy head," she smiles, wrinkling her little nose at me.
"Like it was me," I reply, stroking her hair.
"It was just one of our Christmas presents to you all," she says, untangling herself from the mob of girls and slinking over to the tree, bringing back a neatly wrapped gift.

Ari's POV
Picking up the smallest package, I shuffle back over to the beaming Ron.
I wonder if he looks like this every Christmas.
As he lifts the three mini pitches based off of the ones from the quidditch field, along with the marble that looks like a quaffle, out of the shredded paper and box, I explain to him how they work.
"It took me forever to think of something to get you, but I finally figured it out. I wanted you to know I'll always be there for you, so in case we ever need each other but we're not there to be with the other, these let us communicate." Fumbling in my back pocket, I take out my own set identical to his.
"Each one of your pitches connects to my pitches through a different one of our senses. When you drop the 'quaffle' through one pitch, it may be the listening and speaking pitch, so when you drop the quaffle through that one, you'll be able to talk to me and hear my response through my pitch like that. There's also one for seeing each other, which when the quaffle goes through that one, the hoop part will give you a live video of me, vice versa, and one for smelling, though that one is a little strange. Here, let's try them out." We spend a few minutes dropping our quaffle through our pitches and talking and seeing and smelling the other and their surroundings.
"That's bloody cool. Thanks, Ari." He puts them back into the box and gives me a bear hug as we watch the others open their presents from each other.
"Oh girls... It's beautiful..." Whipping my head around, I look to see a sleepy Molly Weasley standing at the foot of the stairs, her hands over her mouth in awe. "I didn't have much time to get decorations up, and it's so thoughtful...
Let me give you all your presents." She bursts into tears as she carts packages over to all of us.
The red paper sparkles lightly in the dim glow of the lights and candles. The bow is fat and loopy, structured firmly in place. Lost in how pretty and new it is, I fail to realize everyone else is opening their own.
"Merry Christmas, dear." Molly smoothes down my frizzy hair. "Why don't you see what's inside?"
"I-I've never had one before." Tears blur my vision as I look away in embarrassment, focusing on a smudged piece of forgotten tissue paper on the festive carpet.
A single tear falls onto my wrist, greasing it back into work with the unfamiliar saltiness; Molly pats my shoulder in confirmation.
Crease by crease, I peel back the folded paper in wonder, a giddy smile spreading with each rip of my fingers.
Plunging my hand into the creamy yellow scarf at the core, I sigh. I'll always cherish this memory. The thought that someone cares enough about Ari Snape.
"I really must apologize that I didn't have time to make you an official Weasley sweater. Your boyfriend over there forgot to mention that you were coming, so I stayed up most of the night knitting this scarf, which is the least I could do," she frets.
Averting my gaze from her crinkled with concern face, I sneak a look at a beet red Ron, who's too attentively watching Lily unwrap a gift from Hermione.
"That's no matter. I wasn't expecting anything at all. I... I-I..." Sobs start to rack my body, pitching my ball of my body forwards.
A tentative hand reaches out to pat my shoulder as I strain to hold back the river gushing out of my broken dam.
Then two hands secure my shoulders in place.
Eventually I've run out of tears to shed the rest of my shell, prompting me to gaze into the smiling face of the smallest Weasley.
"Would you like to have a snowball fight," she asks, the picture of innocence.
Smiling, I hug her as if Ginny's my only lifeline.
"Yes, that would be wonderful," Arthur calls after our group stampeding the stairs to get dressed.

•. •. •.
"Duck," I yell, tackling Hermione to the frosty ground. She shoots me a glare as icy as the temperature, but it quickly melts in gratitude to saving her from a Weasley twin snowball surprise. You never know what's in those.
Huddling behind my snow mound, I mouth a countdown, giving the signal to Harry, who is at the next fort over, to go.
"RAAAAAAHHHHH!!!" Sprinting across the open field, I throw snowballs with no accuracy whatsoever, hitting practically nothing as I yell my war cry.
One hits Lily, another hits Ginny, and my last snowball smacks, a twin.
A twin suspiciously on their own.
Contemplating the thought, I shriek when the missing twin drops a snowball surprise down the back of my coat.
"Fred or George," I yell, knowing that sounds completely ridiculous.
Laughing like I haven't in years, I take off after them, oblivious to the snowballs whirring past my ears.
Laughing like I never have before.