Christmas Cards ((Friends))

[Nokomis Astarra H5]

After saying the password she stepped into a rather empty common room. In these final days before school let out for the holidays, every seemed even busier than normal. She guessed that a lot of students were in the library trying to finish the work they had put off in order to spend time in Hogsmead buying presents. After glancing around the common room, she did quickly recognize anyone she knew, so after sighing slightly she made her way towards the fire and settled down on the floor, pulling out a small red and green box and her quill. Opening the box she took out a small stack of Christmas cards. They were muggle cards that he mum had mailed her a week earlier, and this year, she mad actually made friends to give them to. She started pulling out the cards and signing her name in them, writing short notes in some before putting them in an envelope where she wrote the receivers name in big letters. She started to hum the tune to Jingle Bells as she worked, decided it was a great way to wait for one of her friends to come back to the common room.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy walked down the corridor, having just eaten her breakfast. It was the Saturday, and tomorrow she would have to leave for... home. She wasn't sure she could even call it home anymore. It was home while her father was there, but now her father was not there. Now it was having to go and look after the little Ashtons, help with the cooking. None of it had the Christmas joy it used to have. She would have to remember to smile when she got there. Fanny understood her quite well... but...

"Bich", Ivy said, and a section of the wall formed a beautifully carved arch. Ivy stepped inside and it closed behind her. There was a low buzz in the Common Room. There weren't all that many people in there, though. Some people had already gone home, eager to get away as soon as possible. Others were probably still asleep, or having breakfast.

Ivy saw Nokomis, and with a smile, headed in her direction. Ivy wasn't the same since her father's death. She hadn't told Nokomis, actually, but Ivy suspected that someone else would have done. After all, she had had to go away for the funeral.

"What're you doing?" Ivy asked Nokomis in a friendly manner. She peered over Nokomis' shoulder.
"Ooh! Christmas cards! Yes, I ought to do those too. Hang on!"

Ivy left Nokomis and rushed upstairs to the dormitory, where one person was still snoring. Ivy smiled, and tiptoed across to her chest of drawers. She took out a box of Christmas cards, three pots of blue, green and red ink and a quill. She left the dormitory, glad not to have disturbed anyone, and returned to Nokomis.

"Here we go," Ivy said, setting down her cards beside Nokomis. "I'd like to do something special this year." Ivy drew out the first Christmas card. It was fairly small, a delicately embroidered picture of a robin. Ivy took out her wand and regarded it, wondering what to do.

[Nokomis Astarra H5]

Hearing Ivy's voice she glanced back at her friend, a bright smile crossing her face. She and ivy had never spent much time together away from the quidditch pitch, but she always had a great liking for the fellow chaser. She laughed softly as the older girl darted up the stairs, it was the season to write cards. Grinning to herself she looked down at the one she was working on before slipping it into an envelope and writting 'Ivy' on the front before laying it beside her so her friend could have it when she returned.

A few moments later she heard footsteps behind her and Ivy returned, she smiled again at her friend before nodding to her comment about wanting to do something special this year.

"I am going home to spend Christmas with my mum...Its not really...special...I guess. Do you have any plans?"

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy smiled at Nokomis and noticed the card beside her. She opened it neatly, laying aside the envelope. It was a muggle card, which Ivy liked to see. She wondered whether she was at risk of getting a prank one from Jordan and Katie. On the front it had a picture of a nicely lit Christmas tree, and was embellished with gold foil. It was a nice Christmas card, to put it plainly.
"Thanks!" Ivy said happily, setting the card up on a nearby table. The winter morning light streaming from a window high in the room made it easy to see.

Ivy pondered her cards. For her it was always a chore, but to be honest an enjoyable one. She liked to select the cards she thought people would like best. She smiled at what Nokomis had said, since that wasn't exactly what she'd meant.

"Oh!" Ivy said, aware that she probably sounded a bit over-eager this morning. "I meant with the cards, I want to do something special with the cards." Ivy regarded the card immediately in front of her, wondering. Then she looked up at Nokomis and smiled.

"No, as for Christmas plans, I don't really have any, so I suppose I'll be going home." In her head she automatically added 'To what home there is'. In which case it would have been more accurate to say 'I'm going nowhere.'

[Charles Driscoll H7]

Charles had been up early that morning, had a quick breakfast as he never was much of an eater, and then gone to the Hufflepuff common room. Quite a lot had happened to him in the last few days, a lot of it because of the arrival of the Christmas holidays. He had had a fight with his sister, found out he didn’t really know one of his teachers as much as thought he did, and all of this was because of the vacation. Charles was going to Switzerland on the school trip organised by Hogwarts, one of the reasons being that he didn’t want to go home and see his family, another was because he would practically be the only one staying at Hogwarts if he didn’t go. Charles would have been excited about the trip had it not been that almost none of his friends were going, as they all wanted to spend Christmas with their families.

Charles was now sitting in a corner of the room with his back to the few occupants inside, most of which were much older than him. Charles was one of the youngest third-years; he would not turn 13 till the end of December. He was engrossed in a book about photography, his small body curled up in a ball in the armchair he was sitting on as he read about angles and perspective. He was quite interested in what he was reading and he didn’t notice the people coming into and leaving the common room. After a while though his attention was diverted from what he was doing as he heard two voices he recognised talking about Christmas.

Charles closed his book and turned around and looked over at Ivy and Nokomis, who had kindly helped him hunt for Socks a few days ago when she had suddenly decided she wanted to run around the school and get into trouble. Fortunately though nothing bad had happened as a result of this, in fact some good had come out for Charles had now become more familiar with Ivy and Nokomis. “Hi!” he said, as he walked up to the two. “Oh, you’re doing your Christmas cards! I like that robin you’ve drawn Ivy! Who are you sending this card to?” he asked. “I’m going to have to make my cards too; I don’t think I have any money to buy some,” he admitted, saying this in a light tone but in reality feeling embarrassed about it.

((Sorry for the delay, I’m a bit pressed for time.))

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy looked up as Charles Driscoll came up to them. She hadn't noticed him in the Common Room, so he must have been being very quiet, since Ivy noticed a lot of things. She smiled, lighting up her face, as she remembered their last encounter, when Charles' kitten Socks had gone missing. Eventually Socks had ended up in a teacher's office, which had luckily turned out not to be Professor Snape's.

"Oh no no," Ivy corrected him, "I didn't draw it. I embroidered it - I'm absolutely hopeless at drawing, I'm afraid. Jordan's the one for that." She smiled, knowing that what she was saying was trivial, and liking it. She didn't like to be all gloom and doom all the time. "As for who I'm sending it to - well, if you like it, I'll send it to you."

Ivy listened to what Charles said. She was puzzled as she thought she detected... but no, his manner was as light and carefree as usual. He had even managed to be that even when his kitten was on the rampage, if a little flustered. "Oh," she said, "well I think that homemade cards have a sort of charm about them anyway." She smiled lightly, for once forgettting the burden that tomorrow would bring.

[Charles Driscoll H7]

"Jordan? She likes to draw? I never knew that, but she looks really talented to me. Well anyway I think you've done a good job with the embroidery. Oh thank you! I do like it very much. What do you like to do in your free time? And you Nokomis?" he asked, sitting down on the ground beside them. Christmas was in the air and he was in a very good mood, for he had found a solution to his problem and although another one had just presented itself, he was going to be optimistic enough to hope he would be able to get everyone presents even if he didn't have enough money, for he thought his new friends might think that it was the thought behind them that counted. He placed his book under the table and rubbed his arms to warm them up, watching Nokomis work on her card.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy took out a piece of folded brown card as she listened to what Charles was saying. She looked sideways to Nokomis, who was busy writing in her cards, and smiled. This was how Christmas was supposed to be, she thought contentedly, something you could spend with your friends and if you had it, family, and have a good time with them as well. She opened the card and put the robin inside, sticking it down firmly with a charm. Ivy looked at it with satisfaction, the colours of the robin brought out to great effect by the slightly reddish-brown card.

Ivy realised that Charles had asked them a question, and thought about how she should answer it. She looked at him and smiled slightly, before answering, "Well, I like Quidditch, and I do a lot of reading. I used to do horse-riding, but I can't really do it while I'm at Hogwarts. Same with piano." She thought back to her first horse-ride with some amusement. It hadn't gone very well, actually. The horse had been out to get her, or at least it had seemed like that, not stopping when she asked it to and just deciding to go when she hadn't asked it to. Ivy just hadn't wanted to kick the thing, afraid of hurting it. It couldn't even feel her feeble attempts. The six-year-old's eyes had been wide with fear that first time, and she had vowed never to go on a horse again. But yet she had done, and had found that with a slightly more patient horse, it wasn't quite so scary. she had still had some close shaves though.

Ivy sighed, not sharing the memory with the other two. She found it rather embarassing, actually. She selected pieces of folded card to go with the different embroidered pieces - holly, a large star, a Christmas tree, a snowflake, and the robin, many times over. Her movements became almost automated as she charmed the embroidery onto the card, and she waited for Nokomis to answer Charles, or for him to tell them something about his interests.

[Nokomis Astarra H5]

She lookedu p from the card she was wokring on, to smile at Charles who had come over to join them. Right now, she was so happy with Christmas spirit, anyone could have come over and she would have been friendly, but she was still happy it was him. She had met him a few days before when he cat escaped and she, along with that seemed like half of Hogwarts at the time, went running after it.

She glanced back down at her card to finishing signing it as Ivy talked about her intrests. She smiled when Ivy said Quidditch as her first thing.

"Quidditch definatly--though I havne't been proving myself much latley. I ride horses too, when I'm at home at least. There is a barn close to home and I walk there ever day."

[Charles Driscoll H7]

Charles listened to Ivy, thinking of his animal collection of photos. He didn’t have any good horse pictures and he really wanted to take some of those, those he wondered when and where he might manage to do that. Ivy looked away for a minute, looking as if she was thinking of some happy memory and Charles watched her face then looked away, pondering on his own thoughts. It was a moment like this one that he would love to capture on film – a moment of real happiness in which the person or persons in it were unaware that they were being photographed, and were just perfectly natural. He hated all the family photographs his family had forced him to take with them when he was younger, pretending to smile when he didn’t feel like it at all, pretending to be part of the family when he wasn't. He had borne it just for Samantha, but now even she was no longer family to him. Even all the many portraits of his ancestors and relatives did not make him feel as if he belonged in the family – the pictures depicted them so that they looked hard-hearted and inhuman somehow. Charles sighed then looked back at the other two, and asked Ivy another question. "The piano? Wow! Are you sure there are no pianos at Hogwarts. That surprises me very much, Dumbledore always says music is a magic beyond any we do here. You should look for one," he said, wondering if he knew anyone musical who might be able to tell them if there were any pianos at Hogwarts or not.

Nokomis was now telling them about her hobbies, and it turned out both she and Ivy had the same ones, thought Ivy had more than Nokomis. "I've never tried riding before. We have stables at home, but…" Charles hesitated for a second; he didn’t want to tell them his mother had punished him by not allowing him to do anything she suspected he liked. He didn’t now what they would thin. He just shrugged and left the sentence hanging them changed the subject. "Quidditch, I've been thinking to try and learn to play properly, I mean I like to fly, but I've never tried playing the game before. We need more players on the team, though I'd think I'll ever be good enough, as I've never played the game before. And Nokomis don’t say you haven't proved yourself, it's just that we're playing with so much more experienced players than us after almost everybody on the team left us last year." He leaned to look at Ivy's card which she had been working on while they talked. "You've made it look very pretty," he said, genuinely impressed.

[Ivy Tunstall]

Ivy looked sideways as Charles as he asked rather incredulously whether there were really no pianos at Hogwarts. She pondered this for a while, as Nokomis was talking. She smiled at her friend - they did have some of the same interests then, Quidditch and horses. Having finally reached a conclusion, she reconsidered her statement quickly, before moving on to catch up with the conversation.

"I've only ever seen one piano. I would have thought there were more, but I don't particularly take to exploring." She smiled sheepishly, before changing moving on to other grounds quickly. "Nokomis is our starting Chaser.", Ivy told Charles to confirm his statement, smiling at Nokomis. "And you're right, loads of people did leave our team last year. I would have never made it otherwise." She thought back to that memory, remembering how she had always dropped the Quaffle. Nearly always. She had been incredulous when she made the team. But she had improved with practice, and Quidditch had become a large part of her life.

"You should try out," she concluded. "It's not as though I was good enough when I made the team." Ivy had finished with her pile of cards now, and so moved on to writing greetings in them. The first one, a star, she addressed to Nokomis. 'Happy Christmas Nokomis! Love Ivy'. She put it in an envelope, and wrote Nokomis' name on it in her tall, spindly writing. She found the very first card she had done and addressed it similarly to Charles. Ivy handed the cards to them, smiling, before sitting cross legged on the floor and continuing to select cards for her friends and her neighbours back home in Somerset.

[Charles Driscoll H7]

Charles took his card from Ivy flashing her a happy smile as he did so. He wondered what he was going to do with his own cards. He wasn't all that good at drawing, but he did like colouring and cutting and thinking of different designs for different people. He wondered what the girls would like on there cards. Charles was at the stage where he was just beginning to realise that boys and girls didn't necessarily like the same things. He had always been aware of that of course, but it was beginning to become something more important now for some reason. "Well, I could do with some practice then. Maybe you could help me?" he asked. "I've never thought of Quidditch seriously before. I have my other hobbies – but maybe I could become better if I tried a little harder at the game," he said with the shrug, forgetting to mention what his other hobbies were as he thought about whether he could ever make the team. He suddenly remembered something as he looked back at his card and asked them another question before giving them a chance to answer. "So, I heard both of you aren’t going on the trip. I suppose you'll be going home then? Have some fun with your families?" he said, trying to ignore the pain he felt well up inside him that he would never be able to do that.

[Nokomis Astarra H5]

She felt an ease and both a knot in her stomach when she thought about Quidditch. Sports had never been part of her life before she came to Hogwarts, she always thought she was horrible at them, but she took to flying as if it was hte most natural thing in the world and it seemed to have grown from there. Now it had pratically taken over her life at school. She even focused on the sport more than she did her studies most of the school year and secretly wished to play professionally after Hogwarts, though she knew there was slim chance of that.

She smiled when Ivy told Charles she was their starting chaser. She still remember how nervous she was when Valerie had told her. Part of those nerves had never gone away, and now Valerie had talked to her about taking over more responsibility with the team.

"I think you should try out Charles" She commented, hoping that speaking would make her forget the knots in her stomach.
"What position do you want to play?"