Chapter Thirty-Seven: Christmas At Hogwarts
The days leading up to Christmas were spent sitting by the fire watching Ron and Harry playing wizard chess or joining in with the twins exploring the castle and sneaking out to Hogsmeade.
The days went by so quickly that it was Christmas Eve before Lina knew. That night Lina fell asleep mid-conversation with the twins her arms resting in askew positions.
Christmas morning Lina was woken up very suddenly by someone jumping on her, her screams were caught in her mouth as the weight winded her, seconds later a second weight was added on. "Why?" Lina managed to ask, both the twins were lying on top her.
"Tradition," one of the twins said but Lina couldn't see which one.
"I swear you two have gotten heavier," Lina said pushing the twins off her.
"Well that's just rude" they retreated back to their beds and began tearing into their presents.
Lina joined them once she could breathe. She opened the present she knew from Mrs Weasley first, a box of homemade fudge and a black and yellow knitted jumper. "Lina got a Weasley jumper," Fred said.
"Of course" George replied.
Next, she opened a box which held a dragon tooth bracket "amazing" Lina marvelled securing it around her wrist. She also got a huge box of sweets from her uncle and aunt, weird sisters concert tickets from Tonks, her own book on healing from Remus, a whole box of pumpkin pasties from Cedric, a silly teddy from Danny, a muggle mood ring from Lucy, a homemade Christmas card from Ginny and an old currency coin from Bill.
"You've done well" Fred noted looking from his own small pile to Lina's fairly big one.
"My aunt and uncle send me a big box of sweets every year that I never eat, here" she gave the box to Fred "You and George have them I won't eat them and I'm more bothered by the pumpkin pasties. I wonder if Ron and Harry are up yet?" She pulled her jumper over her head and left the dormitory heading for the boys. "Merry Christmas!"
A second later the twins followed in "Merry Christmas!"
"Hey look Harry's got a Weasley jumper" George pointed out, the pair were now wearing their own blue jumpers.
"Harry's is better than ours?" Fred said holding up his jumper "and Lina's, she obviously makes more of an effort if you're not family."
"Or maybe she loves me more" Lina teased sitting down on Harry's bed.
"Why aren't you wearing yours, Ron?" George demanded, "come on get it on, they're lovely and warm."
"I hate maroon" Ron mumbled as he pulled the jumper over his head.
"Oh these jumpers are tradition, it isn't Christmas without them," Lina said.
"Easy for you to say, you're wearing your house colours."
"You haven't got a letter on yours, Ron," George said "I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid, we know we're called Gred and Forge."
"What's all this noise?" Percy said coming into the room a lumpy parcel that was obviously a Weasley jumper tucked under his arm, he didn't question the sight of Lina, that had been the commotion only two day ago but after much begging and a couple of threats Percy had promised to stay quiet.
Fred quickly sized the parcel "p for prefect! Get it on Percy, come on, we're all wearing ours including Lina and even Harry's got one!"
"I, don't, want" Percy tried to protest but the twins had already begun to force the jumper over his head.
"And you're not sitting with the prefects today either," George said. "Christmas is a time for family" they dragged Percy away his ability to fight back was hindered due to the jumper restricting his arm movement.
"Poor Percy" Lina said looking at the closed door.
"What's that on your wrist?" Ron asked.
"Oh, a dragon tooth bracket from Charlie."
"What! I got chocolate frogs and you get that, you know why that is don't you, it's because you're his favourite, doesn't matter you aren't related to us you're still the favourite."
Lina shrugged "I'm pretty sure his favourite is Ginny. Anyway, I'm going to get changed. See you both in a bit."
***
A couple of hours later Lina sat in between the twins, a flower crown hat on her head and clutching her stomach in laughter at a joke Ron had just readout.
The Christmas dinner itself was amazingly spectacular, they were at least a hundred fat turkeys, mountains of different potato's, there were hundreds of dishes filled with all kinds of vegetables, pigs in blankets and stuffing, thick gravy and cranberry sauce were in silver boats.
The turkeys and trimmings were replaced with hundreds of Christmas puddings when everyone was finished, they lined the table with custard, cream and ice cream between them.
When everyone had finally eaten the Weasley's with Lina and Harry spent the afternoon outside in the snow. "I'm an angel!" Lina giggled, she was laying down in the snow her arms and legs moving back and forth to create a snow angel.
Suddenly a snowball was thrown at her face "and what a pretty angel you are."
Lina glared at Fred who had thrown the snowball "you're dead" she gathered as much snow as she could into a little ball and threw it straight at George, it caught him straight in the face.
"Oi What was that for?" He asked.
"You expected me to go to Fred, so I didn't."
For the next couple of hours the small group fought with snowballs, Lina teamed up with Ron and Harry against Fred, George and a reluctant Percy. At one point an unfortunate Professor Qurielle got hit in the back of the head by a snowball thrown by Lina. The group finally stopped when they were so cold they couldn't feel there fingers underneath their gloves.
The evening in the Gryffindor common room was mostly quiet, they ate a tea of turkey sandwiches, crumpets, trifle and Christmas cake, and afterwards, when the twins got a bit bored they stole Percy's prefect badge, Percy spent an hour trying to get it back from them. During all this Lina was curled up in a chair in front of the fire reading a book. This wasn't how she imagined spending her Christmas but she wouldn't swap it for anything.