little miss black

-115-

"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" Cass shouted, hitting Lily with a pillow. They were both sleeping in Lily's bed, having been awoken by Cass' nightmares. Lily groaned and rolled over. "Lily! It's Christmas!"

"Cass it's too early." Lily mumbled into her pillow. "Go back to sleep."

"No." Cass whined. "Please Lil."

Cass was acting like an over excited five year old waking up to Santa, but you couldn't really blame her. This was her first Christmas away from the Blacks, and her last two hadn't been all that great — what with Sirius getting disowned two years ago and then the trauma of last year.

"Fine." Lily said begrudgingly. "Go and wake Marlene."

Cass nodded excitedly and hurried over to Marlenes bed, jumping on top of her.

"Merry Christmas!"

"Cass I swear to god if it isn't at least eight o'clock I won't be pleased." Marlene said, opening one eye. Cass giggled and laid down beside her.

"It's half seven, so close enough right?"

"God, you're like an excitable puppy." Marlene said, shaking her head fondly.

"I'm just excited because it's Christmas Marlene." Cass said. "And this is my first Christmas away from the noble house of shitheads."

"I know babe." Marlene said. "I think you should go and wake Sirius."

"Good idea! Meet in the common room for presents!" Cass dashed out of the dormitory.

She climbed the stairs of the boys side two at a time, not even bothering to knock as she flung the door to the marauders dormitory open.

"Merry Christmas boys!" Cass shouted. James sat up, rubbing his head.

"Yeah, Merry Christmas Cassie." He mumbled, reaching for his glasses. Cass beamed at him, turning to Remus and Sirius, who were pretending to still be asleep and Peter, who was actually still snoozing.

"Oi! Lupin! Get your arse out of bed." Cass said. She would have gone and ripped the covers off of them but she didn't know exactly how decent they would be. "You too Sirius."

"Yeah, yeah, we're coming." Sirius grumbled. "Honestly Cass it's not even eight in the morning. Give us a break."

"If you aren't downstairs in five minutes I'll bin your presents." Cass threatened. Sirius rolled his eyes and yawned widely.

"Okay." He said. "Go away so we can get dressed."

"Had some fun last night did you Siri?" Cass smirked. Remus went bright red but Sirius just chucked a pillow at Cass. She caught it, laughing.

"Fuck off." He said. Cass smiled and turned to leave.

"Five minutes, I mean it."

•••

After everyone had exchanged gifts, the ten of them headed down to breakfast. Cass had her gift for McGonagall grasped tightly under her arm and she couldn't wait to give it to her. She had gotten her an ABBA album Arrival on vinyl, because she was a little bit obsessed with them (I mean how could you not be?). She hoped McGonagall would like it. She had also gotten her a pretty scarf that had caught her eye when she was browsing the paper for everyone's gift — she would have gone to Hogsmede, but she was still terrified of even thinking about stepping foot in the village.