A/N: I apologize for the hiatus, also this chapter might be short.

Chapter 9: Christmas Has Arrived

It was Christmas day when Adriana woke up. She was surprised to see a pile of presents at the foot of her bed. She got up and looked through them. There were presents from Harry, Hermione, Ron, Hestia, and Flora. She wasn't surprised to see that her mother hadn't given her anything although she was surprised to see that she had a strange lumpy present from Mrs Weasley.

Tears started pouring down her cheeks. It was the first presents she had received in three years. And they look new too. She was glad that she was the only first-year in the dorm, because she would have to explain why she was crying over presents.

She opened Mrs Weasley's first and took out a red jumper that looked handmade. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever received. She pulled it on and hugged it close to herself. It was a little big, but she didn't care. She could tell that it was made with love, despite Mrs Weasley not knowing anything about her.

She opened the book shaped present, which was a red leather journal that had a note stuck in between the cover and the leather cord that was wrapped around the journal to keep it closed. She took the note and opened it.

I noticed that you needed a new journal since you were running out of paper.
Here you go.
Hope you have a Happy Christmas.
- Flora

Adriana set the note aside and looked at the cover. It had a Celtic dragon on the cover with its wings spread. There was a leather cord wrapped around the journal to keep it closed. From the looks of it, there was a lot of parchment in it. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever received.

She set it aside, telling herself that she would write in it later.

Hestia had gotten her a few bottles of red ink and more quills. Hestia's note said that the quills and ink were specifically for her writing since Hestia didn't want her to use up all her school supplies on writing in her journal.

Adriana felt touched that her friends had noticed how much she wrote. It was weird getting this many gifts when she usually ended up with two gifts, but that was before—

No. She wasn't going to think of it. Christmas was a time to be happy, so therefore she was going to make the most of it, before it was ruined.

She opened Hermione's gift, which was a new set of pyjamas. There was a red button down shirt with sleeping trousers that had star patterns on it. Adriana looked at her pyjamas, which had been thinning and fraying for a while now. There was even a hole beginning to form in one of the knees.

Adriana decided that she would like to thank all of her friends in person. All of her presents meant to much for her just to thank everyone in a letter.

She realised that she was going to be late for the Christmas dinner and hurriedly put all of her presents up and hurried out of the dorm room.

She almost ran into Harry, Ron, Fred, George, and Percy who were about to leave the common room.

"Oh, look, Addy's got a Weasley jumper, too," said George.

Adriana wanted to snap at him not to call her that, but she took a deep breath and told herself that she wasn't going to mess up Christmas for everyone. "Tell Mrs Weasley that I said thank you for the jumper."

"Will do," said George. They walked to the Great Hall and found some seats at the table.

It was the biggest feast that Adriana had ever seen. There was a hundred fat, roast turkeys; mountains of roast and boiled potatoes, platters of chipolatas, tureens of buttered peas, silver boats of boats of thick, rich gravy, and cranberry sauce. Most importantly, they had wizard crackers!

She got some chipolatas and some gravy. She didn't want to mess anything up, but she knew that she would mess things up somehow, probably by getting emotional.

"These don't look the ones that the Dursleys get," said Harry holding up a wizard cracker.

Adriana wasn't sure what he was talking about.

"Here, take one end," instructed Fred, holding a wizard cracker to Harry.

Adriana looked at Ron, who was currently eating turkey legs. She asked, "Hey, how come your mother made me a jumper?"

Ron's ears turned pink, "Oh, I may have told her that you and your mother don't celebrate Christmas and that you weren't expecting anything, so I guess she felt like you should have a Christmas present."

It was oddly touching that Ron had talked about her to his mother. Adriana said, "Oh, I'll write her a letter thanking her for it."

Ron nodded and Adriana figured that it was the end of their conversation.

As Adriana left the table, a little earlier than she expected, she was stopped by the Weasleys twins. She looked at them warily, wondering if they were going to call her Addy or call her short. "Yes?" she asked.

"We were going to ask if you wanted to join our snowball fight in the grounds this afternoon," said George.

"Sure," said Adriana. Maybe she could have something nice to put in her new journal.

"See you there," said Fred.

Adriana left the Great Hall and went up to the common room, got her scarlet and gold Gryffindor scarf and headed back down to the grounds.

The Weasleys and Harry were already heading there.

"Oi, Addy!" called Fred. "Over here!" He was waving her over and she joined the group.

"Hello, Adriana," said Percy in a rather pompous tone.

"Hi," said Adriana confused. From what she had managed to hear, the Weasleys were poor, but why did Percy talk pompously? She knew that her mother would tell her that it was none of her business.

"So, it's Harry and Addy against us," said George motioning to his brothers. He threw a snowball right at Adriana, which hit her in the side of the head, startling her.

Adriana grabbed snow and threw it at him, not caring if it missed. She was irritated by the Weasley twins' vehemence about calling her 'Addy' despite her telling them not to.

"Do you know how to make a snowball?" asked Harry confused.

"Yes, I'm not a prat!" snapped Adriana. She almost said 'Mother.'

Harry seemed to scrutinize her, as if he could figure out why she reacted oddly. "I didn't call you that. I was wondering if you knew how."

Adriana scooped up some snow and turned it into a snowball. She held it up to show Harry smugly. She got pelted with another snowball, making her drop her snowball. She shook her fist at the Weasleys. "It's on, Weasley!" She turned to Harry, "We can take them. I can make snowballs really fast, and you can throw them. Ryan and I used to have snowball fights all the time." They hurried a little ways away and Adriana started making snowballs as quickly as she can, while Harry threw them.

Even though Adriana kept getting pelted with snowballs, she found herself actually having fun.

After dinner which was turkey sandwiches, crumpets, and Christmas cake, Adriana had watched Percy chase after Fred and George since Percy's prefect badge. After growing tired of that, Adriana retreated to the dormitory.

She changed into her pyjamas and threw herself onto her bed. She realised that she had a great Christmas for the first time in years. She didn't ruin anyone's holiday, so that was a bonus. It made her feel better and with that, she fell asleep.

A/N: If Adriana looked in the Mirror of Erised, she would see her dad, Ryan, and her mother hugging her, looking really proud of Adriana because she was made Head Girl. Adriana would've most likely burst into tears, knowing that it was never going to happen.