GINNY:

"Hey, hey, it's okay," a gentle yet persistent voice said from somewhere nearby.

I jerked awake, lunging in the direction of the voice. A hand grabbed me by the wrist, which only made me panic more. I shot my leg out and made contact with whoever was attacking me, who stumbled and let me go. I scrambled for my wand, but —

"Ginny, it's me!"

In the glow of the early morning light beginning to slip through my curtains, I could just make out the silhouette of Fred, or George. No, Fred, he had both of his ears.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," he was saying, his hands held high in surrender, "but we just got here, I was heading upstairs to check on the ghoul when I heard you crying and — "

I rushed forward to hug Fred, choking out a sob as I did so.

"Hey," Fred murmured as he held me tight. "Hey. It's okay."

"They got — they — Fred, they got Luna," I whispered.

"It's not your fault," he replied.

"I keep — I keep seeing it in my nightmares, and I can never — I can never save her — "

Fred pulled me even closer, not saying anything. There wasn't anything to say.

Luna had been snatched off the train by Death Eaters, right in front of me. We'd tried to save her, all of us, Neville put up a particularly good fight, but it wasn't enough, none of it was enough.

They said it was because her father was using The Quibbler in support of Harry, and I believed that, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was my fault, too. We'd been scheming together, working together, fighting together, rebelling together, failing together. It was only a matter of time before they got Neville too, and Hannah, and Cam, and Lavender and Seamus and Parvati and Padma and Michael and Ernie and Terry and Anthony and and and and and. We'd kept Gretch out of it, thank Merlin, but it was only a matter of time before they got her too. It was only a matter of time before I was left behind again.

I just latched onto Fred and let him hold me, because he felt like the only solid surety in the world in that moment.

"Merry Christmas," Fred commented in a slightly-teasing way.

I snorted. "Yeah. Merry Christmas." I sniffed hard and pulled away, scrubbing at my cheeks even though no tears had actually fallen. "Sorry for attacking you."

"No, don't be. Sorry for startling you. That was an impressive fight you put up, Gin, my knee will rue the day it ever crossed paths with your foot."

"Yes, well, these days, it can't hurt to be careful," I replied with a sheepish shrug. "My roommates have started throwing pillows at me to wake me up so I don't break anyone. I thought about mentioning it to Mum and Dad, just in case they tried to wake me up, but I thought I'd feel safer at home and less... combative upon waking."

"It's okay," Fred assured me. "Last week, Archie was eating a bowl of cereal in the kitchen in the dark in the middle of the night when Henry crept down to get a snack too. They each thought the other was an intruder."

I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle the horrified half-laugh that threatened to escape me.

Fred grinned, nodding. "Yeah, it went about how you thought it would. I got there to find Henry trying to set the kitchen right again while Archie frantically flipped through one of our books looking for the Skele-Gro recipe."

"Henry vanished Archie's bones?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes, yes he did, Archie's wand hand looked rather like a webbed duck foot. Henry said it's like a more effective Disarming Charm. He felt awful about it, of course, but Archie broke Henry's nose so badly it was easier to vanish his bones and take Skele-Gro too, so they thought it was rather fair. They've both been jumpy too ever since they got back. It should please all of you to know that your Christmas gifts this year contain nothing flashy, noisy, or otherwise startling in any capacity."

"Thank you," I said in a small voice. "I — I've been coping rather well at school, I think, but now that I'm safe, I — I don't know, it's all hitting me at once, and — I don't know."

Fred nodded. "It's okay. I'm sure you've been through hell. Do you want to talk about it?"

"I've told you everything important in my letters. I don't really want to rehash it all today. It's Christmas... such as it is," I added with a twinge of sorrow.

"Such as it is," Fred agreed. "Do you want to come up with me to check on the ghoul?"

"No offense, but no, not at all, that's gross," I replied, wrinkling my nose.

"It is. George is downstairs with both Henry and Archie, thanks to his plea on Potterwatch that they fortunately happened to hear."

I grinned. "We always have one person stay in the Room of Requirement overnight with the radio on, just to make sure someone hears the latest and can pass it along to other D.A. members. I happened to be on radio duty the night George did his broadcast. It was sweet. I'm so glad it worked." My grin faded. "Any way someone could make the same plea to Dean? We — I — "

"He's okay, as far as we know," Fred assured me. "Henry and Archie saw him, though, if you want to — "

I shoved past him and sprinted down the stairs.

"Oh, good morning, sister," George said with a smile.

I granted him a perfunctory side hug as I stared down Henry and Archie.

"Fred mentioned that you've seen Dean?" I panted. "I'm glad you're safe, by the way, sorry, I should have led with that."

"Hey, it's okay," Archie replied. "Yeah, our paths crossed. He's okay. He's with Ted Tonks, and Dirk Cresswell, and a couple of goblins too, last we saw him."

Henry nodded. "We went off on our own so we didn't attract any unwanted attention. We had one very specific and determined group on our tail, but they were just on the run more generally. If anything, he's doing better than we were — they hadn't encountered any Death Eaters or Snatchers, whereas we'd been discovered a couple of times."

"Before we found out You-Know-Who's name had been Tabooed," Archie clarified. "Henry's the one who connected those dots."

"Yeah, I heard about that, Snape mentioned it," I said. "I thought he was just bluffing until Mum and Dad said it was true, because why would he tell the whole school a piece of information like that?"

"Search me," Archie replied. "I can't imagine he was trying to help anyone in doing so, but he's not stupid either, I can't imagine that was accidental."

George piped up suddenly, a worried expression on his face as he looked directly at Henry. "The name being Taboo is news to me. You don't think — that night you were all near the same riverbank — is there any chance you had figured it out at that point?"

"Yeah, we did." Henry glanced at Archie. "We told the others it'd been Tabooed, right? I don't remember much of that particular period of time, I was too sick."

Archie nodded. "Yeah, I told the others that night. Don't worry, George, I'm sure Lucy overheard that part."

"What are you all on about?" I demanded. "If your path crossed with Lucy's, I want to know about that too."

"We didn't see her, and we still have no idea what they're doing, but yes, Lucy was near us at one point about a month ago," Henry said. "She's okay, as far as we know."

But there was something off about his tone, something he didn't want to tell me.

"You're sure?" I pressed, determined to figure out what exactly it was, one way or another.

George nodded. "We talked to her after the full moon. She's okay. I reckon it'd be major wizarding world news if she wasn't."

I wanted to keep pressing, but Mum and Dad and Fred all entered the kitchen at that moment, and warm Christmas greetings were exchanged. We'd received word from Bill that he was going to stay at Shell Cottage with Fleur, for their first Christmas as a married couple, so we weren't worried when he didn't appear. Henry and Archie were a nice addition to the family, the presence of new people helping to ease the ache of the hole of the people who should have been there but weren't. No one mentioned the hole over breakfast, though Mum did make a comment about how she wished Bill and Fleur were there. The fact that she wished Fleur was there was a true testament to just how cold and lonely Christmas felt that year for all of us.

The pile of wrapped jumpers remained untouched. None of us could quite bring ourselves to reach for our own jumper, knowing that there would be four left untouched for a long time to come, possibly forever.

Ron's. Harry's. Hermione's. And Lucy's.

So instead we exchanged other gifts in the glow of the Christmas tree. During a lull in the conversation as the sun was falling, Fred went so far as to fetch a gnome from the garden for our tree topper again, which made Archie laugh so hard he snorted eggnog out of his nose. He appeared to be in an abnormal amount of pain, though, so I promptly dragged him to the kitchen under the guise of helping him clean up, then I cornered him.

"There was firewhisky in that eggnog, don't deny it," I said, cutting off his protest. "Just share a sip or two or five, please."

Archie looked apprehensive. "Your brothers would kill me."

"They'd never have to know. Besides, better death by twin than by whatever else is out there. Come on, Graye, please, I've been having the worst months of my life, which really says something considering I spent most of my first year possessed by You-Know-Who."

"Alright," Archie relented, reaching into his pocket and coming up with a flask, "here. So what exactly has been going on at school? I know the gist of it, but I haven't been there since my fifth year and I know there's more to what's going on than you're willing to share with your family. I promise not to freak out, no matter what you tell me, that's not my nature."

I appraised him for a long moment and drew the conclusion that he was being sincere. "I see why Cam loves you so much."

A surprisingly-shy smile found its way onto Archie's face.

"She's okay," I said. I plucked the flask from his hand and gulped down a couple mouthfuls of firewhisky, then handed it back to him. "Thanks. I just needed something to take the edge off, because I still — " I shook my head. "Cam's okay. She's been a good friend, and a great ally. You'd be proud. She's taken a page out of your book and started becoming buddies with her fellow Slytherins. She's told everyone other than our little band of rebels that she's come to her senses and broken up with you and decided to embrace her magical heritage. I'm not entirely sure how she gained their trust, they were slow to believe her sudden change of heart, but she managed, and now she feeds us information about all of her housemates and whatever they happen to share about the, shall we say, extracurricular activities of their families."

Archie's eyes widened. "Really? That's great! Has anything really notable happened?"

I nodded. "She overheard someone saying that they heard a rumor that the Death Eaters were going after the Montgomery family again, and we were able to tell her so she could warn her parents. They were able to get away, and make the house look like it'd been abandoned for a while so the Death Eaters had no idea they'd been found out."

"That's brilliant," Archie said with a smile. "That's my girl."

"You two make a lot of sense," I continued. "She's very... out there. She's extroverted and charming and all over the place. She has a lot of energy, and you do too, but you're very grounded in a way that she's not. You don't freak out."

"I have my moments," he replied.

I snorted. "Really? Like what? You were there in the Department of Mysteries, and you were unflappable. I don't think I've ever even heard you raise your voice."

"I reckon I made quite a bit of noise when this happened," Archie said, pointing to his face.

"Well, yes, I'm sure you did," I retorted, "but I'd say that's a rather extreme example."

Archie shrugged. "If you say so." He sipped from the flask before hiding it again. "Go on, take advantage of my unflappability, give me the worst you have."

"Detentions aren't detentions anymore. It's the Cruciatus Curse or getting carved up or both."

"What?" Archie, for all of his unflappability, had gone pale. "For everyone?"

"Yeah. Obviously the severity depends on who it is and what they've done — they're loath to spill pure blood but they're willing to overlook that if your offense is serious enough — but the days of lines are over. Professors are supposed to refer everyone to the Carrows for punishment, but they don't, if they can avoid it."

"That's so incredibly fucked I can't even wrap my mind around it," Archie said.

I narrowed my eyes. "Remember, Graye, not a word to anyone else."

"But Henry — his sister — "

"We make sure she's okay," I interrupted. "You can tell him if you can guarantee he won't tell the twins, but trust me when I say we'd all die before we'd let anything happen to Gretch Furls. She keeps wanting to try to help us, but we don't let her do anything that would actually get her in trouble. We give her little jobs here and there, because we know refusing her outright would just make her all the more determined to do something reckless — "

"Like you?" Archie asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

"Fuck off, Graye, you're only one year older than me and you were in the fucking Order already when you were supposed to be a sixth-year, so I don't want to hear it." I huffed. "Anyway, we make sure she doesn't do anything that could get her hurt. She's — for lack of a better word, she's like our little mascot, she's the reason we're fighting as hard as we are. Self-preservation is running a bit low these days, because hope has run even lower. We're just... doing what we can."

"I understand that," Archie replied. "Now that I'm not running for my life, I want to go back to doing something tangible and helpful and good. I got Henry back safe, I want to know what's next. I dropped out of school to join the Order and make a difference, but now I just sit in the flat above the joke shop — today notwithstanding — and jump every time I see a shadow out of the corner of my eye. I want to be doing more."

"Yeah," I said flatly. "Me too."

Archie studied me for a moment. "Touchy subject?"

"They left me behind. They didn't even say goodbye."

"You would have been the best Weasley to take," Archie commented.

"THANK YOU!" Finally feeling a bit vindicated, I seized my opportunity to properly vent my grievances. "I know Harry and Ron are Harry and Ron, but — "

"You and Lucy are you and Lucy," Archie finished for me. "Random question, but when exactly did Bill say he wouldn't be coming for Christmas?"

"It was a bit last-minute. Why? Do you think something bad happened?"

Archie shook his head. "No, sorry, I was just thinking of other Weasleys. I'm sure he's okay. But yeah, they should have taken you, for... whatever they're doing."

"You really don't know?" I asked.

"Not a clue. All I know is that they were somewhere in the woods about a month ago, that's it. We didn't even know they were there, but Lucy slipped a little note and a bit of food into Henry's pack somehow, so they must be doing well enough. I reckon they'd be doing better with you there, though."

"What's with all the flattery, Graye?"

"Just the truth," Archie replied with a grin that suggested that he, like Henry, was hiding something.

I was more comfortable pushing Archie's buttons than Henry's, though, so I decided to attempt just that.

"Alright, I know there's a lot I don't know, but you're all hiding something very specific," I said. "What is it? And don't deny it, please, spare us both the theatrics."

Archie furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "I'm genuinely not sure what you want me to tell you. I've already said more than what they wanted me to say. The fact that they were in the woods that one night is supposed to be Order-only, but, well, you're you, and I respect you, and clearly you can handle yourself at school."

"Yes, I can, and I can handle whatever this is too," I replied, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Dean worries for you, you know," Archie said.

An emotion rushed through me and left me empty before I could even identify what it was. "What?"

"He wishes he could have stayed with you, to protect you," Archie continued. "How does that make you feel?"

"What does this have to do with anything?" I challenged.

"Everything, and nothing."

I huffed. "Despite the truly ridiculous amount of time I've spent with Ravenclaws lately, I've gotten no better at understanding riddles. Kindly start explaining before I start slamming my head against the wall."

"How do you feel about the fact that Dean wishes he could have protected you better? Take your time if you must."

"I'm not really the one who needs protection, contrary to popular belief," I muttered after a moment of contemplation. "I want people to trust me, not worry about me."

"Who says those are mutually exclusive?" Archie asked.

"Me. I do. What does this have to do with anything?"

"No idea, really."

I blinked. "You're joking."

"No, I'm rather sincere, actually. My brain connects strange dots on occasion. This is one of those instances. I was thinking about you, and your relation to your family, and then I started thinking about Dean, and I realized we didn't mention that particular detail earlier. Your family worries for you, and Dean worries for you. Everyone worries for everyone else these days, but, well, I think there's something different about the worry people feel for you. Do you agree?"

"I guess, I don't know. Keep talking, and maybe one of us will reach a conclusion."

"Happily! Well, I think the worry people feel for you is uniquely grating. Do you agree with that much?"

"Yes," I admitted softly. "The worry people feel for Lucy, for instance, is different. It feels justified."

"Does it?" Archie asked.

"Well, yeah! She's a werewolf!"

"And you're the youngest."

I huffed. "Fuck off."

"No, I don't think I will," Archie replied with a shit-eating grin. "I think I'm onto something here. Do you really think the worry people feel for Lucy's well-being is justified?"

"Yes! She's on the run with Harry Potter doing Merlin-knows-what — "

"Before that."

"Before that? Well, she's been a werewolf for more or less the whole time I've known her, whether I knew it or not. Her parents worried, and — oh." I froze. "I think I just walked face-first into the point you wanted to make."

Archie nodded. "Yes, I think you did. Everyone feels like their worry is justified. Am I correct in assuming you struggle so valiantly against the worry of others because you're scared their worry will be justified?"

I winced, which was all the answer he needed.

"For the record, I don't think it is," Archie said. "I know I don't know you as well as your family and closest friends do, but in my mind, you're just as capable as anyone else, if not more capable. Like you said, you were possessed by You-Know-Who for a good deal of your first year, and you haven't gone mad yet. I think most people would — to which I'd say a very hearty 'Fair enough' — but not you."

"Thanks," I replied in a small voice, embarrassed by how well he was perceiving me.

Archie nodded. "I understand why everyone worries about you the way they do, though. Like it or not, you're the youngest in the group, and you're specifically the younger sister of six protective older brothers who were born into a war, one way or another. And as far as your friends are concerned, Harry and Lucy have both always had extreme 'protect everyone else even at the cost of my own life' complexes, and I'm not really sure what it's like to be proper friends with Hermione Granger, we've only interacted a handful of times, but something tells me she has a tendency to assume she's more capable than just about everyone else. With reason, of course, she's rather incredible, but, well, I can see how even that indiscriminate sense of 'You're all less capable than me' could bother you, in addition to the more-specific 'You're my baby sister' mindset."

"How in Merlin's name did you figure all of this out?" I asked incredulously.

"I'm observant." Archie shrugged. "I have a bit of a unique perspective, since I know just about everyone in your little group without being directly a part of it. I think I have a more objective sense of how the dynamics usually play out, and you've always seemed a bit desperate to prove yourself and I've never understood why, because, again, to me, you've always been abundantly capable of handling yourself. I can see how it'd be easy to feel inferior to Harry Potter and Lucy Diggory, but you're not. They should have brought you along. Their desire to protect you is arguably noble, but you're allowed to be hurt by it too. And maybe keep this all in mind when Lucy's back. I think she's very similar when it comes to people worrying about her."

I nodded and glanced in the direction of her childhood home. I couldn't see it, the house was too far away, but I knew it was there. I thought of Lucy then, Little Lucy, a little werewolf girl confined to her family's property with no one but Cedric and her parents for company because her parents were so afraid. They wanted to protect her, and they wanted to protect Cedric, and they wanted to protect their own reputation, too scared of what consequences a known werewolf for a daughter would have. I thought of Cedric then, and how he was always so careful to mask the worst of his worry for his sister. He was there for her when she needed him to be, but he was supportive even more than he was protective, and there was a difference, I thought.

"I'm still not exactly sure what you think we're hiding, because to be honest, I think it's quite a bit, and telling you everything would accomplish nothing other than giving you more reasons to worry about something that's out of your control anyway. That said..."

I turned back to look at Archie expectantly.

He sighed, then whispered, "We tried to get in contact with Lucy last night, and then again this morning, and heard nothing back. In and of itself, that's not worrying, because she always reaches out to the twins first, and it's almost always on the full moon, but something about the silence... it's just a little concerning, you know?"

I nodded, determined not to freak out so he didn't regret telling me. "Thanks. I knew something was off, I just didn't know what."

"That's been what's weighing on my mind at the very least," Archie said with another sigh. "We know they must be okay, because it'd be big news if they weren't, but at the same time... it's Christmas."

"Such as it is," I replied with a sad smile. "Well, thanks for talking to me. I reckon we should head back in before they start to suspect we're in here sharing firewhisky."

Archie held out the flask to me again, and my smile turned more sincere as I took a final swig. I grabbed a Christmas cookie from the table before returning to the sitting room, and Archie followed suit.

Soft Celestina Warbeck swirled throughout the room. Henry and George were engaged in a game of wizard's chess, Fred was explaining a Wheezes product to Dad, and Mum was in the process of knitting a small jumper.

"Who's that for, Mum?" I asked as I went to sit next to her on the sofa.

"Oh, I know Remus and Nymphadora's baby isn't due until spring, but it's just been so long since anyone I know has welcomed a new life to the family that I couldn't resist," she replied. "Of course, they don't know if their child will be a boy or a girl yet, but I thought yellow was a rather neutral color, no?"

"It's perfect, Mum," I assured her. "Maybe the baby will end up being a Hufflepuff, like Tonks."

Mum smiled, nodding. "Perhaps. A good Hufflepuff is always nice to have around."

"I agree!" George said with an affectionate smile at Henry, who promptly blushed.

"Someone has to be patient with you Gryffindors," Archie retorted. "You're tolerable enough, but — "

Fred snorted. "You're the first Slytherin to set foot in this house since Charlie brought one of his friends over for Christmas about a decade ago. I do think you're a favorite, though, so congratulations."

"Merula was a sweet girl," Mum asserted. "I love all of my children's friends equally."

I tossed my head back and laughed. "It's okay, Mum, we all know Harry's your favorite."

She opened her mouth to protest, but Fred and George both started talking at once, effectively silencing her.

"Ginny's right — "

"It's true — "

"Ever since you saw him on the platform — "

"He got his first Weasley jumper as a first-year, you'd met him just the once — "

But Mum was silently shaking her head, looking solemn, so the twins faltered and stopped.

"What is it, Mum?" I prompted after a moment.

"That wasn't Harry's first Weasley jumper," she said. "I made one for him for his first Christmas." She sniffled and set down her needles. "James used to come over all the time, you know, James and his friend Cass. They'd play with the kids while Arthur was at work so I could tend to the house and the garden without your oldest brothers demanding my attention. James was Charlie's favorite, Cass was Bill's and Percy's, especially Percy. I started making jumpers for James and Cass when they were still in school, since they were such a wonderful help over holidays, so it only felt right that I make a jumper for James's son too. Of course, I'm sure that little jumper is still in Godric's Hollow, I doubt Harry knows it ever existed and I never saw a good reason to bring it up, but — the one I made him six years ago wasn't his first Weasley jumper."

Heavy silence hung over the room for a moment.

"So what you're saying is the rest of us never stood a chance of being the favorite?" Archie asked. "I just need to go back in time and ask my parents to — "

The tension effectively broke as we all laughed.

"Yes, I'm afraid you don't have the nepotistic advantage that Harry does," Fred replied. "That's interesting, though, Mum, I never knew that Harry had always been part of the family, in a sense."

Mum nodded. "Oh yes, James brought Harry over here for play dates, before they had to go into hiding."

"What about the Diggorys? Did we ever play with Lucy and Cedric before Lucy was bitten?" I asked.

"Oddly enough, only Cedric," Dad piped up. "Amos was always keen on showing off his son, until he got a new assignment at work that kept him busy almost constantly. Susan was an Auror, you know, so they were both busy for a spell, and when we didn't hear from the Diggorys for a while, we assumed they were keeping their distance for a reason. Our only other close wizarding neighbors are the Lovegoods, you know, so we were rather used to... I don't think 'oddities' is the right word, but I trust you understand what I mean. The Lovegoods have never been particularly social, so we didn't think much of it when the Diggory family started keeping to themselves. Then one day, we realized it had been a couple years, so we extended a dinner invitation and they accepted, Amos and Susan and Cedric and Lucy. They said Lucy was very ill when she was born so they hadn't wanted her leaving the house much when she was a small child, but that they felt it was safer the older she got. Knowing what I do now, I've always just assumed that the 'new work assignment' corresponds to Lucy being bitten, and, well, the illness was lycanthropy."

"But she couldn't have been bitten as a baby," I said. "Right?"

Fred shrugged. "She still could have been sickly as a child. She's always been rather small for her age."

"Henry looks like he has a thought," Archie said.

George nodded. "Yeah, Henry, you knew Cedric better than any of us. Do you have any insights?"

Henry was silent for a long moment before speaking. "I didn't even know Lucy was a werewolf until Cedric was already gone, so I'm still trying to put puzzle pieces together. Chances are he told me something that would be relevant to this conversation, but I don't always recognize it in the moment because I'm still trying to put everything Cedric told me in the context of information Lucy's provided since... you know."

"Speaking of needing context, I still can't believe I called her Lancelot for months, thinking she'd decided to sleepwalk into a suit of armor when in fact it was a werewolf injury," Archie remarked, chuckling to himself. "I know she thought it was funny, but Merlin."

"I'm just glad we don't have to worry about that anymore, somehow," I whispered.

I leaned back against the sofa and glanced out the window. The sky was cloudy, so no moon nor stars shone through, but the warm glow of the candles inside illuminated snowflakes following their dizzy paths through the air until they settled on the windowsill.

Full moons no longer posed such an immense threat to life and limb. Somehow, impossibly, full moons were okay. I was still holding out hope that one day, full moons wouldn't pose any threat whatsoever. I hoped that one day the full moon would threaten Lucy no longer and the pain of the past would be nothing more than distant memories in the form of scars, but in the meantime, well, good enough was good enough, I supposed. Lucy had Harry, who loved her enough to do the impossible.

And Harry had Lucy, who loved him enough to follow him into the unknown time and time again. And Harry had Ron, who loved Harry enough to put him first even though Ron had never been anyone's first choice. And Harry had Hermione, who loved him enough to put her whole life on hold to help him try to save the world.

And we had each other. I knew that my whole family wouldn't hesitate to come to school to help me if I ever asked for it. The whole Order, really, would come to the school if those of us D.A. members who remained ever got in over our heads and needed help. And the second the Order decided they were willing to let us help more, we would be there too.

We didn't have the famous Quintessential Quirky Quartet with us — they were off on their own little world-saving mission — but we all had each other, and we knew they had our backs, and we knew we'd have theirs if they ever needed us.

"They're going to be okay," I said to no one in particular, maybe even just to myself. "We're all going to be okay."

It wasn't enough, though. We were going to be okay, but we weren't okay.

It was Christmas, and there was an untouched pile of jumpers in the corner.

I thought of all of the jumpers Mum had made — and had stopped making — over the years.

She hadn't made a jumper for James since 1980. She went a decade without making a jumper for Harry. I wondered if she used to make jumpers for my uncles Gideon and Fabian too, before they'd died. I wondered if she used to make jumpers for anyone else in the Order who had died, in the first war or the second one. A quick glance at the pile earlier in the day confirmed that she'd made one for Percy still.

The jumper for Teddy was the start of something new. Maybe by the time he was born, the war would be over. Maybe Teddy would be born into a new world, one without Voldemort and Death Eaters. Maybe that was too good to be true. Maybe I was wishing too much.

Hermione had told me about a character from a Muggle fairy tale named Father Christmas, who supposedly had the power to grant every child's Christmas wish as long as they were good all year long.

I didn't believe in Father Christmas, and I wasn't sure if I was in any position to be asking anything of him after the year of mischief and misery I'd experienced, but I tossed my wishes up to the sky anyway, hoping someone, anyone could hear me and someone, anyone would grant the world this one miracle.

But the snow continued to fall. The sitting room remained devoid of the four people I missed the most. The lonely, bitter ache in my chest only intensified, and I glared into the night, because fairy tales were for fools too naïve to know how horrible the real world was.

I wondered if Lucy had ever believed in fairy tales, or if she'd always known the real world was a painful place to be.

I softened my gaze at the sky as I asked the stars hidden behind the clouds for one more favor. I wanted Ron and Lucy and Harry and Hermione to be okay, even if they couldn't come home.