𝐎, 𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃 ⎥ "He wants a fight with
a God? I'll give him one."
﹙ from stardust we came, to stardust we return ﹚
Prisoner of Azkaban - Deathly Hollows
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FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, ASPEN LOVELACE WAS THE ONE PRODDING ELARA AWAKE. since the dawn of time, it took fifteen minutes to get aspen to even just stir in her sleep, and twenty more for her to open her eyes. but now, aspen was jabbing elara in the sides quite harshly.
"merlin, aspen!"
"oh, shush. it's christmas!"
aspen dove back onto her bed and began tearing open her presents. elara took a moment to recuperate before she started opening her own. dobby, apparently, had knitted a bunch of socks, and gifted elara one purple sock with stars and planets stitched into them, and another, brown sock, with coffee mugs. hermione had given elara a tin that had different coffees from around the world in tiny little boxes. from ron, a tiny handbook that detailed every up and coming astronomy event. from ginny, a vinyl record of 'the weird sisters', which elara had been hinting at for ages. and from harry, a delicate necklace with a gemini star sign charm. mrs. weasley's usual package, including a new sweater (navy blue, with tiny gray stars stitched into it), and a large quantity of homemade mince pies.
elara met up with harry, ron, and hermione in the common room, and they went down to breakfast together. ron was wearing the blanket with crookshanks' face all over it, much to elara's joy. hermione threw her arms around elara and almost started crying as she thanked her for the 'soul sisters' bracelet. ginny was sporting the muggle shoes called 'vans', elara had gifted her. harry, surprisingly, was nose-deep in his 'how to survive extreme situations: wizard edition', and already had the candle that was enchanted to smell like wherever home was considered alight. they spent most of the morning in gryffindor tower, where everyone was enjoying their presents, then returned to the great hall for a magnificent lunch, which included at least a hundred turkeys and christmas puddings, and large piles of cribbage's wizarding crackers.
they went out onto the grounds in the afternoon; the snow was untouched except for the deep channels made by the durmstrang and beauxbatons students on their way up to the castle. hermione chose to watch harry, elara, aurora and the weasleys' snowball fight rather than join in, and at five o'clock said she was going back upstairs to get ready for the ball. elara, ginny, and aurora went too.
"what, you need three hours?" said ron, looking at them incredulously and paying for his lapse in concentration when a large snowball, thrown by george, hit him hard on the side of the head.
"beauty takes time, ron!" elara called.
"not that you would know that," said ginny, and the girls lapsed into a fit of giggles.
