Hi, everybody. Sorry for the delay, but I was working on some other stories first, so this new chapter was a bit later than I had hoped. I also kept it a bit shorter than usually, as I wanted to Keep it to Christmas and New Year's Eve. Hope you still like it.

Christmas and New Year's Eve

Harry woke up on Christmas morning, wished Hedwig Merry Christmas, which was returned with a Merry Christmas from her in his thoughts as well, and then Harry put on a robe over his pyjamas. He knew that it was early, just six in the morning in fact, but he was really excited. He just went to his bathroom for a few minutes and then went down to the living room, only to be surprised to find Sirius there already.

"Hey, Pup, Merry Christmas," Sirius said happily.

"Merry Christmas to you too, Sirius," Harry replied, "How come you're up already? You normally don't get up before nine when you don't need to go to work."

"It's Christmas and I wouldn't miss this for anything in the world. We only need to wait for Remus and Neville and then we can unwrap the presents," Sirius explained cheerfully.

Harry smiled at him. This would be a great Christmas. After half an hour, with some help of Sirius, both Neville and Remus were down and they all started unwrapping their presents. Harry again got a lot of token gifts from his acquaintances, some more personal presents from closer friends, and of course those of his new family. Neville also had quite a large number of packages under the tree waiting for him. They included both clothes, some muggle games, which he liked a lot, as he enjoyed playing games in the common room in the evening to have fun with his friends, and of course sweets. He also got a few books that he had wanted.

Once all presents were done with, they were called for breakfast. It was incredible with treats from different countries. Croissants, buns, pancakes, treacle, cereals, fresh fruit, scrambled eggs, sausages, fried bacon, different kinds of jam, cheese and other toppings were placed on the table. They all ate as much as they could. The main course today would be dinner, for which the family was invited. Tomorrow Harry and Neville were invited over to the Boots for the morning as they had decided that they wanted to have all friends together. And Harry had promised to not study over the holidays and simply let go of his normally perfect attitude. For Christmas he was just a twelve year old boy and while it would be a bit difficult to completely let go of his guardedness, he would do his best.

Harry squealed when a snow ball hit him square in the face. He and the other inhabitants of Potter Manor had decided to go out and play in the snow for a while before the guests would arrive in the evening. Their reasoning was that if they had to take a shower before greeting their guests anyway, they could as well also enjoy it after a great time in the snow. They had split in two teams, Neville and Remus on one side and Sirius and Harry on the other. Sadly, to Harry's chagrin, Sirius was prone to hit all players, not only the ones of the opposing team.

Neville declared it fair, as Harry was after all a skilled chaser with impeccable aim, while they were at a disadvantage. Neither Neville nor Remus had ever played Quidditch. While Remus could fly quite well, he didn't like the sport enough to play himself. He preferred watching others do it. And Neville felt safer on the ground. In the end they had lost count of who had been hit how often, they only agreed that it didn't matter, as they had had a fantastic time. Remus and Sirius banished any snow on the clothes of them all before shooing the boys under the showers.

At six the four were ready for the arrival of their guests. They all wore dress robes for the occasion and were eager to taste the feast that they knew the house elves had cooked all day. The tantalising smell had wafted through the house all day. The three Tonks' arrived at half past six and greetings and presents were exchanged. As they had been informed that Neville was staying over, thanks to his grandmother behaving like an idiot, they had also brought a small gift for him. He was very happy with the selection of seeds that he got. He would plant them in spring, when the instructions said was the right time to do it.

Harry had got a number of photos of his father during his early years at Hogwarts. He really loved that and put the large picture frame into his room, where he would later find a place of honour on his wall.

The food was incredible. The house elves had surpassed themselves with the perfectly grilled turkey and the trimmings. Different kinds of vegetables, variations of potatoes, sauces, freshly baked bread, herbal butter and some apple sauce with cranberries were served. Each of them ate more than they probably should, but nobody could help it. It simply tasted so great.

Harry knew that the elves were having their own celebration in the kitchen. He and Sirius had told them that once they were done with cooking dinner, they should have their own party with part of the great food they had prepared for the family. After all, the house elves had their own families as well and they deserved to celebrate this feast that was meant to bring family together. The wizards could serve themselves and there was a cooler with drinks standing in the corner. And just getting up and walking a few steps was no sacrifice at all.

Dessert had also already been set up under a cooling charm. Thanks to the charm they could let the main course go down a bit before starting the dessert. There were two kinds of ice cream, decorated with fresh fruits and whipped cream and a chocolate mousse. Everybody agreed that the food was delicious and praised the talent of the house elves. Once they were completely full, they put the plates and cutlery together and placed them on the serving waggon. The elves had insisted that once they were done with eating, they would take care of everything and that their family should enjoy the holiday. Thanks to a charm on the waggon, the dirty dishes were transported to the kitchen, where they would be cleaned.

The group went into the lounge to simply sit together and talk, sing Christmas carols, where Harry's voice found great admiration by the adults, and they told stories about funny and happy memories of their lives. For all of them it was a great Christmas.

The next morning Harry and Neville took the floo to the Boots at ten in the morning. They had had a lie in till nine and now were eager to see their friends and exchange stories about Christmas and plan a few things for the New Year's Eve's party at Harry's home. Harry provided the place and the food, his friends had been told to get drinks, prepare some games for entertainment and bring some music they wanted to hear. While there wasn't anything like CDs in the wizarding world, the magical gramophones worked well enough and there was one at Potter Manor. So they could bring their discs and have them played at the party.

The plan was for the party to start at eight, the adults would go to their own party at half past seven, and end at one in the morning. Thanks to the floo everybody that lived in a wizarding home could easily get home that way and their parents weren't expected back before that time anyway. And New Year's Eve was an exception to anybody's bed time rules.

Sirius looked at his godson attempting to appear stern, but actually failing.

"Alright, Harry, I agreed to your party, but you have to make sure that some rules are adhered to. First, no alcohol except butterbeer. You're all underage and I'm going to be in massive trouble with my boss if her niece comes back home drunk. I also informed the elves of this. The dangerous or private areas are all warded against anybody that doesn't have any business there, meaning nearly all of the guests. If anything happens that you and the elves can't deal with, call me on the two-way mirror," Sirius reminded Harry.

"I will, Sirius," Harry promised.

"Good. Then have fun and I'll see you when I return," Sirius said and hugged Harry, who returned it.

Sirius walked over to the fireplace, threw some floo powder into the fire and called out: "Templeton Manor, ballroom," and stepped into the flames, which took him away.

Harry grinned and went back to Neville, who was already in the party room, the ballroom of the manor, where they would put the last things into place before their friends would arrive in half an hour.

Though the first ones, Terry and Tony, already came ten minutes earlier. One by one the others arrived and Harry, as the host, greeted them all before inviting them to have fun and enjoy the food. At the beginning it was a bit awkward, but a few party games soon loosened the children up and they enjoyed their night out without the supervision of their parents. Harry had invited all of his friends and closer acquaintances, his Quidditch teammates and two or three others that were close friends with those he had invited. Overall they were twenty three people.

Unknown to them the house elves were keeping watch that none of the guests got any ideas about disappearing somewhere for not so innocent activities. While Sirius didn't really believe that anything like that would happen, as most children were around twelve years old and too young for ideas like that, he would rather be overly careful than having to deal with the outfall.

Harry tried learning the party dance that Lisa was showing the group. She had brought a disc with the song that belonged to this specific dance and they all had fun trying to follow the movements. It was completely different to any dance that was known in the wizarding world. Lisa said that her cousin had shown her this dance and she liked it a lot, so she wanted to have her friends learn it as well. As the moves were fairly easy and were repeated after a while, they soon were able to follow the dance while the music played. There was a lot of movement and sometimes somebody skipped a step, but found into the group soon after again.

Many laughed about how silly they all looked, but as everybody was roped into participating, they enjoyed it fully. Even Draco couldn't help but having fun with the dance. It was a lot freer than the classical dances he had been taught by dancing teachers and liked that nobody made a huge fuss about who his parents were. He was just Draco here and he had an easy time to keep his promise to Harry to not say anything insensitive. Not to mention that trying dishes and drinks that were favoured in the muggle world was an incredible experience. They tasted really good and he wished that they had similar things in the magical world.

"Alright! Let's play a party game!" Miranda called out, "It's called journey to Avalon. You have to walk around a number of chairs as long as the music plays. But there will be one chair less than persons walking. When the music ends, you have to quickly sit down. The one not getting a chair is out and another chair is taken away. The winner that manages to get the last seat will get to choose the next game!"

The others nodded eagerly and quickly the chairs were set up. They were put together back to back and then one of the elves manned the gramophone. The children walked around the chairs and it was a bit of pushing when the music suddenly stopped. The first one to be out was Quentana. She took a chair with her and the game resumed. More and more lost and cheered for their friends to win. In the end it was Hermione that snatched the chair from under Neville's nose and was declared the winner.

They took a small break to eat and drink and then Hermione chose the next game, Vampire.

"Okay, this is how you play this game: I have prepared the cards with the different roles in the game. Everybody sits in a circle on chairs and each has to draw a card from a bag. On the cards are pictures of roles in the game," Hermione said and went around once they all had taken a seat in the circle. They had twenty two players. "The story of the game is that there are four vampires living hidden in a village called Darkmoor. The weather is notorious for being cloudy all day. Each night they will hunt and kill one of the villagers.

"That's where the special roles come into play. There is a hunter in the village that, if he was the victim, can decide to take one other person with him into death. Of course the hunter has to hope that it is one of the vampires and not a villager. Then there is the wise witch, who can decide to save a victim with her potions or to poison somebody with them. Of course, if she is the victim of the night, she can also heal herself. Next is a little girl, who can't sleep at night, which can look through half closed eyes while the vampires were on the hunt. Though there is of course the risk to be noticed by the vampires and to be killed by them. The next is the seer, who is allowed to see one card of his choice and therefore identify who is who and who can give clues when the villagers are hunting the vampires during the next day. It shouldn't be done too obviously, as that can mean that the seer is killed the next night.

"At the beginning of the game Amor has the job to decide on a pair of lovers, who will do everything during the game to protect each other, as when one is killed, the other dies as well. So, for example, if one of the lovers was vampire, he would die if the other part was killed. Or the innocent lover would die if the vampire was killed. The order of the game is this: during the first round, Amor wakes up and decided on the two lovers. After that he is a simple villager. Then, and in each following night at the start, the seer wakes up and has the master check a card. The cards are going to lie with the picture down on the floor in front of the respective player. The seer goes to sleep again and the girl and the vampires wake up. The vampires decide on their victim by pointing at it and nodding. Then they go to sleep again. The witch wakes up and is told who the chosen victim is. She can decide to heal, to poison or to do nothing. That finishes the round and the village awakes and the master will announce the events of the night," Hermione explained.

They decided that they would learn the game easiest while playing and Hermione, as the only one knowing the game, took the role of the master. She described the events, called up the ones with a certain role to play when it was their turn to act, and played the role of narrator. In the end the vampires, consisting of Harry, Draco, Susan and Luna, were found and the villagers won. They played three rounds of the game before going onto the dance floor again.

When it was ten minutes to twelve, they all bundled up in warm clothes and went out into the garden. At exactly midnight grand fireworks were fired up into the night sky. Harry knew that Sirius had prepared this together with Remus before he had left to the Ministry ball. They had set up a timer that would set the fireworks off at exactly midnight with sequences of differently coloured sparks being in the explosions.

The display took half an hour and once the last crescendo was over, the children went back inside and went to collect their things. Everybody agreed that this had been a fantastic party and that they had to have a repeat performance next year.

Till next time.