Lily Potter and the Shadows' Misfortune

Chapter Twenty-Four

"Sounds good, mum," Lily said, hopping off of her chair. "Let's go, Hugs."

"I thought we established that you couldn't call me that," Hugo said as Lily led him out of the room. "Hugo. It was Hugo. It is Hugo. And it will be Hugo."

"Way to conjugate that verb, Hugo," Lily said, taking to the steps.

"Is it humanly possible for you to speak English?" Hugo asked as they walked up the steps of the creaky old house, which was once again filled with the warmth of family. "Seriously, what is it with you and these big words?"

"It is nine letters," Lily said. "Nine letters."

"You sure about that?" Hugo asked, scrunching up his face. "I'm pretty sure that there are eight letters."

Lily stopped on the top step and turned back to her cousin, "Nine."

Hugo also stopped, and Lily watched him mouth the spelling of the world and count the letters out on his fingers, "I concur with that."

"Good because it's right," Lily said, turning back around and heading up the next flight of stairs to her room, where she and Hugo talked for two hours before Eli walked through the door.

"Happy Christmas!" he said, entering the room.

"Happy Christmas," Lily said, standing up to greet her friend.

"Are those presents all for me by any chance?" Hugo asked, evidently seeing the boxes in Eli's arms.

"Hugo," Lily said, shaking her head, "you can't say that!"

"It's called humor, Lil," he said, getting up from the bed and helping Eli handle the boxes. "Happy Christmas, Eli."

"Back at ya, chum," Eli said, picking up two boxes. "While we wait for the others to get here, you two can open your gifts."

"And you can open yours," Lily said, taking Eli's gift out from underneath her bed. "Here you go."

The three sat on the hardwood floor of Lily's bedroom, tearing the wrapping paper off of their Christmas gifts.

Lily almost laughed when she took the lid off of Eli's gift. It was an English National Quidditch Team jersey. Eli did the same when he opened Lily's gift: a Welsh National Quidditch Team jersey.

"Great minds think alike," Lily and Eli said at the same time, causing one another to laugh.

"Well, that's freaky, man," Hugo said, looking up from his gift: a Muggle book about comedy. "By the way, I appreciate this gift so much, Eli. I'll have to give you yours on the train ride back to Hogwarts. I was an idiot and left mine at home."

"You were an idiot?" Eli asked, raising an eyebrow. "Well, it's good to know that nothing's change."

"You can't do that," Hugo said, springing to his feet. "Sarcasm and being salty in general is my shtick. Only my shtick!"

"I'm pretty sure that saltiness is partially my shtick."

"Rudy!" the three other Gryffindor second years exclaimed at the sight of their salty friends in the doorway.

"And Cassie!" Cassie said, sticking her head out from behind Rudy and shaking a present. "Happy Christmas, my friends!"

"Happy Christmas, Cassie!" Lily said, smiling to her friend.

"You two practically ran up here and left me downstairs!" Behind Rudy and Cassie, stood an out of breath Nora; she looked up, "Stairs are not my friend."

"Happy Christmas, Nora," Hugo said.

"Happy Christmas, Hugo," Nora said back.

"Wow, you've been in the room for two minutes and haven't bitten each other's heads off," Cassie said. "I suppose that there's a first time for everything."