AN: So this chapter is a long time overdue and for that I am really sorry. Last year was pretty much a write off due to medical emergencies and constant trips to hospitals for six months. This chapter though should have been up long before then though, my deadline I gave myself had been christmas 2018 as it was the chapter that featured their christmas celebrations but that didn't work out.

My main problem with this chapter was my wish to include Yule as the holiday that Ianto would celebrate as part of the wizarding world and my complete lack of any real knowledge of the practices involved in Yule. Although I am still uneducated in this , it is on one of my many to do lists of things to research, I decided in the interest of actually posting a chapter of this fic before I am old and grey that I would just write it, but not go into the depth of detail that I had hoped as I don't want to offend anyone by being completely wrong or messing things up.

While not the longest of chapters it felt right to end it there. Hopefully I will have more for you by the end of the month, and I just want to thank everyone who has stayed with this story and this flaky authoress despite how long it has seemed to have been abandoned for.

Yule was a quiet affair in the combined Harkness-Jones household, a private celebration just the three of them, with Ianto teaching Harry and Jack the traditions that he had been brought up with. They had even taken a trip to Ianto's ancestral home to source their Yule log from one of the ash trees planted there, but hadn't remained there for long. They had returned to their home to bring in their first Yule there together. Ianto had thought to invite Severus and Amelia as Harry's wizarding godparents to celebrate this first Yule with them, but Severus was spending Yule with the Malfoys and Amelia had her own obligations for the holiday season. They would be joining them for a celebration on Christmas though.

While Yule had been a quiet celebration that had helped them solidify themselves as a family unit, Christmas was a cacophony of noise and people. Jack had gone all out with the food, making many dishes that he had eaten over the years that he had been on Earth, and everyone who turned up to celebrate with them brought a dish as well. The desert the Doctor brought with him being an instant hit with Harry and Susan, it looked like a simple ice cream cake in the shape of an igloo covered in snowflakes, but after eating a piece and breathing out a small flurry of snowflakes would escape the mouth almost like blowing bubbles.

They had chosen to have Christmas lunch rather than dinner so that Severus would be able to join them as while he was able to escape the school for Yule celebrations the Headmaster insisted on all staff attending Christmas dinner in the great hall. It was a mockery of their great traditions, not celebrating their own holidays, replacing them with the muggle equivalent instead. Ianto had celebrated both in recent years, but he would never think of forgoing Yule and just celebrating Christmas.

The adults had spent the morning watching Harry and Susan open their presents, watching Harry carefully in case he got overwhelmed at any point. Everyone who bought Harry a present did the same and got one for Susan as well not wanting either child to feel uncomfortable, or give Harry any sort of flashback to Christmas with the Dursley's were only one child was getting presents. When they were a bit more assured that Harry was coping with everything around him they left him and Susan to play in his room and retreated to the kitchen to talk.

Those who were well aware of the muggle worlds challenges on this day were nervous throughout the day, and had ended up filling Severus and Amelia in on the previous invasion attempts that seemed to always be scheduled for Christmas day. Donna, who the Doctor had brought as his guest, especially took pleasure in the fact that there were other people out there that hadn't noticed anything strange going on. Normally the main action happened in London, but with the Doctor being in Cardiff for the festivities and all his Companions knowing how trouble liked to follow him were all on tenterhooks for what may happen. The majority of their guests being Torchwood, the wizarding contingent and the Doctor and Donna the only ones not on the payroll, they knew that they could be running out at any point to deal with whatever species decided to play with the Earth that day.

Luckily they managed to get through Christmas lunch before any such thing happened. Severus had just left to return to the school when Toshiko was contacted by Jodi and all the adults started to scramble. Harry was left with Susan and Amelia, with Tally standing guard protectively, informing her masters that no-one would be getting into the flat through her. Ianto was forever grateful that they had gotten such a fierce and devoted house elf, knowing that she would protect Harry to the best of her abilities and that Amelia was no slouch with a wand that they should be safe.

The Doctor had herded them all into the TARDIS, dropping the Torchwood agents of in the Hub while he and Donna went off to try and ferret out some information as to what was actually happening while Torchwood worked their magic. Despite the completely different way in which Jack ran Torchwood compared to Yvonne Hartmann the Doctor was still a little wary of the organisation.

The invasion this year wasn't too difficult to contain really, having the Doctor on hand certainly made the job easier for the Torchwood team as they were completely unable to communicate with the tree like beings themselves. With the help of the TARDIS however they were able to negotiate with the violent species that identified as the Willows. They were looking for a new home planet and Earth had pockets of areas with rich enough soil for them, and while not enough to accomadate them all they felt that they could work with the planet to strengthen the soil to what they needed.

The Doctor had offered an alternate solution, offering to help them find an unoccupied world that would meet their needs immediately. They had been hesitant to accept the offer at first, but after what appeared to be a startling message through their telepathic connection with each other the trees all seemed to change their mind. The leader had spoken with the Doctor about how things had already happened or been set in motion apparently according to one of their kin, and they thanked Earth for the care the seedling had been shown.

The smallest of the group made its way forward to stand next to the leader and Ianto let out a gasp, something had been bugging him about where he had seen these creatures before. He had been racking his brain thinking back through everything he had ever read in the archives of both Torchwood Cardiff and London, but his knowledge of them came from even further back. The young seedling was one he recognised from his first year of magical schooling at Hogwarts, it was a little smaller at the moment, but he assumed that it had flourished in the magical soil of the school grounds.

Getting the Doctor's attention he quickly explained what he knew and the Time Lord stared between him and the treelike species for a minute or two before nodding and ushering the leader and the little one into the TARDIS, the rest of their species retreated to their own exploratory ship ready to follow the coordinates the Doctor gave them. All in all it was rather anticlimactic, although Ianto was amazed to realise that the rather violent tree on his school grounds was actually an alien species.

The Doctor and Donna returned later, after the cleanup was done, having dropped the seedling off with a herbologist who promised to care for it, and taken the others to a new home on an abandoned planet that they could then turn into their own. The team then dispersed to their own homes, the Doctor and Donna taking Jack and Ianto home so that the Doctor could say his farewells to Harry before they dashed off again.

Ianto was the first out of the TARDIS throwing himself down in a chair he looked at Amelia who was a bit shocked at his actions, the Ianto she knew was always more elegant than just throwing himself onto furniture. "The womping willow is an alien."

Amelia just stared at him as he let out a weak chuckle, "I met my first alien at eleven and didn't even know it, maybe I was always destined to end up in Torchwood."

Jack quickly filled Amelia in on what had happened while the Doctor and Donna said their goodbyes to the children. They then offered Amelia and Susan a lift, which the stern witch declined preferring to travel her own way. They all left soon after that and Ianto and Jack took the opportunity to just sit with their son and listen to his version of the day, letting him talk about everything and anything he had enjoyed before tucking him into bed, Ianto telling him a story about an alien tree who had grown up and then stood up to the rest of his people in the defence of the planet he had come to live on.