“Hvor fikk du ta henne i bilen?” His mother began prattling on quickly to Sergius as soon as we sat down for evening tea, but he waved her away, stuffing a biscuit in his mouth. She turned to me.
“Did you have fun, Candie?”
I nodded my head and gave a weak smile, hoping she didn’t press further. Sergius’ father made a couple gruff comments I expected were about the condition of his car.
“Jeg er overrasket over at du ikke krasjer det fordi du er vant til å fly på en sopelime.”
Sergius rolled his eyes and answered through a muffled mouthful of cookies.
“Jeg kunne fikse det magisk hvis jeg trengte til uansett.”
Mrs Moonblood giggled and handed me another plate of biscuits.
They were decorated with red and green sprinkles and I almost felt bad eating them knowing she had woken up early to bake them.
“So, tomorrow Christmas Eve,” she said. “I just prepare the food all day for tomorrow dinner.”
I wondered if the house elves at Hogwarts had to work as hard for our Christmas feast, but I doubted it. When allowed, house elves could be very powerful. Sergius’ mother continued.
“Your mother, what she make for Christmas? She cook duck too?” I choked back a laugh and shook my head.
“When I was little we would visit different family members every year, but now I just stay at Hogwarts for the feast,” I answered. She looked to Sergius for clarification and he cleared his throat.
“Min nye skolen har en julemiddag for studenter som ikke ønsker å dra hjem.” His mother turned back to me, aghast.
“But Candie, why you do not want to go home for Christmas?” I shrugged and darted a look over at Sergius but he had already departed from the conversation, chugging back his mug of tea like a pint of ale. “You know, Sergius not even allowed to come home before.” I nodded knowingly and suddenly felt guilty. Not for my family, but for his. Maybe his mother thought I was cruel or didn’t have any family values. It saddened me to think because of this she might like me less or have a negative impression of me. Then Sergius stepped in.
“Candie er ikke enebarn , hun har en masse søsken og familiemedlemmer. De alle gjør sine egne ting til jul. Hennes søster sendte som ugle den andre dagen fra Portugal,” he explained. She seemed to accept this and continued drinking her tea.
When we returned to Sergius’ room I immediately stripped off my winter clothing and climbed into his bed, turning to the frosty windows and the white wall, awaiting his hot form to wrap around me. When his impression finally hit the mattress, big arms scooping me up into his chest, I felt safe and at peace, drifting off to sleep, dreaming of the coming day.

“Tisha, kommer ha litt frokost min baby. Kom, Tisha, kom.”
I woke the next morning to Mr Moonblood’s voice echoing down the hallway along with Tisha’s fervent meows. I listened to her shriek until her calls disappeared around the corner; into the kitchen. Sergius wasn’t snoring, or at least I couldn’t hear it as his face was buried in the fluffy white pillow, dead arm lying heavily across my chest. I slipped carefully out from under him and crawled onto the plush rug floor to pull a sweater over my head.
It was snowing heavily outside, and I was glad we didn’t have plans to venture out in it today.
I didn’t want to wake Sergius yet, so quietly I turned on the television, expertly remembering to dial down the sound before sliding the tape of the little boy alone on Christmas into its mouth. The film began to play at the wrong time, while the muggles’ involved names were being listed, so I held down the button with the arrow on it, like Sergius told me, until the sounds coming from the set stopped and it clicked on at the start of the movie.
I sat on the edge of the bed cross-legged, Sergius’ foot in my lap, and watched a good ten minutes of T.V. before he stirred and woke up.
“What’s with you and movies, huh?” he grunted from behind me, sitting up to stretch his arms overhead. They came down around my waist and I leaned back into him without taking my eyes away from the screen.
“Kommer ha litt frokost min baby,” I said.
“What?” he laughed, bringing his chin down in the crook of my neck.
“That’s what your dad said to Tisha this morning, she woke me up. Meow meow meow meow meow,” I replied, imitating her needy cries. Sergius laughed again and squeezed me harder around the middle.
“He was going to give her breakfast,” he said.
I made a small hum of acknowledgement and then became absorbed in the film again.
The boy was running around the empty house in his housecoat, eating sweets and tobogganing down the stairs straight out into the yard. I laughed and Sergius put a kiss on my neck, just below my ear.
“Sergie, våkne opp og komme spise frokost!” called Mrs Moonblood’s voice from the kitchen. He ignored her and continued kissing a trail down my neck to my shoulder.
“Sergie!” she called again, and he groaned, his forehead falling onto my back in defeat.
Sighing, he rose from bed and I caught a glance at his boxer briefs as he strode silently over the rug to the closet, haphazardly pulling out his signature pair of black jeans. He must’ve had dozens of them.
“Come on, beautiful, it’s breakfast.” I pouted and gazed up at him as he buttoned up a plaid flannel over his tshirt. He leaned down with his fists on the bed and rubbed his nose against mine. “Come on,” he repeated, “pause it.” I pressed the button on the television with the two vertical lines, the one that made all the characters in the film freeze only to resume again when I wanted to ‘play’.
I pulled my pajama shorts off the floor and slipped them on over the little pair of underwear I’d slept in. Padding down the hallway we were met by the miraculous sight of the enormous fir tree lit up with dozens of little lights and coloured beads wrapped around it like streamers. There was a box of various ornaments on the coffee table.
Walking into the kitchen to take our respective seats before the fire, Sergius’ mother turned to us and smiled.
“You see this tree Candie? You like?” I smiled back. “Sergie father do last night after you already sleeping,” she continued, handing Sergius a rather small plate for the towering cake it held. She said something to him in Norwegian and he turned to translate for me. “Fortell henne at hun kan dekorere resten etter te og frokost.”
“She said we can finish decorating the tree after we eat.”
Hagrid had let me put the star on top of the humongous tree in the Great Hall one year when I was one of the only ones staying at school for Christmas. I had just mastered ‘Wingardium Leviosa’ and was very proud of myself. Then I thought of the palm tree in the background of Nora’s moving photo. I didn’t want to decorate the Moonbloods’ tree using magic this year. I could do it the muggle way and have a proper muggle Christmas.
Tisha was perched carefully beneath its branches when we emerged, stuffed, from the kitchen to wonder at the tree - and Sergius’ marvelous construction spell. The structural change to the living room could not be seen from the exterior of the house, of course, which made the spell all the more complex. I wondered if he’d have learned more if maybe he did stay the extra years at Durmstrang Institute rather than finishing early at Hogwarts. Sergius picked up a box of tinkling ornaments and handed it to me.
“You start.”
I looked down at the package in my hands and ran my fingers over the strange bulbous shape of a metallic pink ornament. It had a shimmery gold ribbon looped through the top.
I took it out and, dangling it from my thumb, studied the front of the tree and its immense thicket of branches. As I approached Tisha hissed and sprinted out of sight. I frowned. Just as I placed the pink decoration in the center of the tree Mrs Moonblood came out of the kitchen, wiping flour off her hands with an apron.
“Smør litt julemusikk på,” she spoke to Sergius.
“Ok hvor er kassetter,” he replied.
His father motioned him down the hallway and Sergius left following him. They returned with a small muggle machine and a few cassette tapes - the ones that played music. He popped one in and hit the play button, static erupting into the room before a chorus of jingle bells faded in.
“Where are the headphones?” I whispered to him. He shook his head.
“This one is my dad’s, it doesn’t need any.”
We listened to the holiday tunes while I carefully and with much consideration placed ornament after ornament upon the outstretched pine tips of the fir tree. I couldn’t reach the tops so Sergius had to do the ones higher up. I’d forgotten all about ‘Wingardium Leviosa’ by the time we were done. I was so proud of my work I felt like crying. Then Sergius and I scurried off to get ready for Christmas dinner, which apparently began around three o’clock and carried on through the night.
When we returned to the confines of his room I immediately tapped the play button on the television and began sifting through my suitcase again, pulling out the Yule Ball dress I’d been saving for the eponymous dance next year. It was a party held every year for the fourth year students in celebration of having completed half our schooling. I held it up to my body but turned away from him.
“Are you dressing up?” he said, lying back on his elbows atop the bed to look at me.
“Uh, I thought, maybe…” I faltered.
“Okay. Good,” he said. “I like that.” I smiled back over at him and laid the dress carefully down on top of my suitcase.
He tilted his head and watched as I walked over to him, perching on my spot before the TV at the corner of the bed.
“Alright, you keep watching. I’m going to go take a shower,” he said, striding out of the room and closing the door behind him. I took the opportunity to try on my dress, decide if I really had the guts to wear it.
It was a pale iridescent blue, almost lilac, with sheer shoulder straps that wrapped around my arms and a thin waist with a sash. I twirled around in front of the television screen, admiring the way the skirt flew up around me. Then I collapsed back down on the bed, tucking my legs under me, carefully arranging the dress around my feet.
When Sergius returned his hair was wet, brushed back handsomely away from his face, and although he smiled and made me stand up on the bed to show him my dress, I glued my eyes closely to the screen while he changed into a clean pair of jeans and a button down, trying not to let my eyes wander - or get caught looking.

“Candie, you look so beautiful!” Mrs Moonblood exclaimed as we entered the living room where Sergius’ father had carried out the kitchen table and chairs. I sat opposite the tree and stared past Sergius’ curls of drying hair into the darkness of the branches.
“Hun er så vakker, trenger du ikke fortjener henne,” she said, turning to Sergius. I blushed and looked down at my plate. The table was laden with potatoes, fish, duck, beets, and salad. Another enormous cake sat on the coffee table that had been pushed aside in front of the sofa. Tisha, expectedly, was nowhere to be seen.
“Du rydde opp også. Ikke liker ham,” she said to Sergius, motioning toward her husband. Sergius laughed and scooped some potatoes onto my plate. I smiled too, though I had no idea what was funny. His dad grunted.
After only a plate of the meal I was stuffed, but Sergius and his mother kept shovelling more and more food toward me. By the time we’d retired for tea and cake I felt the inseam of my dress wasn’t quite fitting anymore. Mrs Moonblood looked up from her cup and smiled at me.
“We open Christmas present tomorrow, yes?”
I smiled back, thinking of the gift I’d be giving Sergius. But I hadn’t brought anything for his parents to thank them for their amazing hospitality. After the Moonbloods went to bed, Sergius and I still sat on the sofa beneath the tree, cuddling closely, and I mentioned as much. He was running his hand smoothly up and down the soft satin of my skirt.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I didn’t get them gifts, either. I usually give them something for New Years, not Christmas.” I nodded and surrendered to lay my head against his chest. He was certainly right about me not needing to take out money from Gringotts. It was worthless here.
That night Sergius unbuttoned the back of my dress and I stepped out of it into his arms; pulled the t-shirt up and over his head. His mouth was hot against mine; his hands roaming across my back, my fingers clutching at the tendrils of hair tucked away behind his ears. The bed was cold when he lifted me off the floor to lay me down on it so I squirmed under the covers and pulled him down after me for the constant heat he provided. He laid on top of me, hands sliding slowly down my hips, kisses becoming more relaxed. I turned away to breathe, then looked between us at his bare chest; at my little underwear; his jeans.
“Candie,” he said, blue eyes still concentrated down on my lips. “Do you want to?”
His voice was so safe; so familiar and so sweet. I trusted him, but couldn’t find an answer to the question that needed no explanation to be understood. Sergius continued to breathe heavily above me, one hand warm on my hip, the other burning up my thigh.
I parted my lips to reply but nothing came out, and I could only lay beneath him, wishing I could give him what he wanted.
He touched his forehead to mine and his jeans pressed more firmly against me. I couldn’t force myself to respond so instead wrapped my arms around his back, hugged him close to me. His fingers came up to pat my hair; cup my shoulder. He laid a tender kiss on my ear and we eventually fell asleep, curled up together half naked under the duvet of his warm bed.
When we awoke in the morning I was met with the sad realization that he’d slept in his jeans and thought back to the previous night. His eyes cracked open to look at me, the sea of grayish blue almost overtaking his pitch dark pupils as sun filtered in through the windows directly onto the pillow.
“Happy Christmas,” I smiled. A corner of his mouth turned up in the same amused way I’d become so accustomed to since we’d met. We laid on our sides, watching each other.
“Merry Christmas,” he returned. He let out a loud yawn and stretched his arms over his head; I could feel the whole mattress tensing with his body. Then he scooped me up close to him and squeezed; laid his head against my shoulder blade as if to fall back to sleep.
“Oh, no you don’t,” I giggled. “It’s Christmas morning! Time to get up!” He laughed and I could feel his smile but he didn’t budge, arms still wrapped tight around my waist.
“No,” he said impatiently like a child.
“Yes!” I countered, pushing my butt back onto his jeans. He grumbled and made the same muffled ‘no’ sound again.
“Yes,” I repeated.
“You can try,” he said. If it was a challenge he wanted, I was more than obliged to accept.
I kicked my legs and pulled at his enormous arms with my little fingers; shook my entire body trying to get loose. His arms never tightened; his head didn’t even move. He could have fallen asleep the entire time I was struggling.
“Okay,” I replied without an ounce of defeat in my voice, relaxing my body again. “I guess you don’t want your present, then.”
“Oh, I want it,” he answered. I felt his grin against my back and he grabbed my thigh in his hand; rubbed the other across my chest. I screamed in surprise and this time broke free to turn around and face him. His eyes were closed. I grabbed his cheeks between my hands and squeezed until he quite uncannily resembled a giant chipmunk.
“What about my present?” I pouted. His eyes flickered open to look at me.
“Okay,” he said through his smushed up mouth.
I giggled and released his face; gave him a quick peck on the nose. He swung his leg over the side of the bed and I escaped from my wall with the window, prancing onto the white bearskin rug. I pulled on the Christmas jammies I’d picked out, a white t-shirt and pink flannel pants, and went into Sergius’ sliding door closet to retrieve the small gift bag that held the leather pouch that in turn held his gift. I couldn’t wait for him to open it, even if I wasn’t sure what he’d think of it. He pulled a sweater over his head and re-tied his hair back in a ponytail, then opened the bedroom door. We hurried out to the living room and I perched steadfastly on the armchair I always took for tea as Sergius peered into the kitchen.
“Morgen, ma. Vi er klar til å åpne gaver,” he called.
“Ta disse ut for deg og Candie,” his mother answered.
I saw the exchange of hands as his mother handed him two mugs of frothy hot chocolate. I carefully took mine from him and promptly burnt my tongue trying to take a sip as he took the seat closest to me on the sofa. I could hear Tisha meowing from the kitchen; demanding her breakfast. I placed Sergius’ present at the foot of the tree next to him and blew on my mug as we waited for his parents to join us. Mr Moonblood entered holding Tisha and she stared at me with fear and menace as he sat down with her in his lap.
Sergius’ mother took the seat next to him after handing both Sergius and me identical packages, wrapped with dark red ribbon. I smiled and thanked her, then turned to Sergius. He was starting to tear his open so I did the same, until all the wrapping was gone and I was left with a box containing a vial of sorts, the kind in which we stored Felix Felicis in Potions class.
I gasped in excitement. “What is it?”
Sergius laughed and showed me his, pulling the little glass bottle out of the box.
“Smell it.”
I took it from his hand and tried to pry the metal cork out of the top but it wouldn’t budge. “No, no, spray,” he said, “push down on it like this.” He took the bottle back from me and tapped the top like a button on the television. A mist flew into the air and an extremely familiar musk seemed to fill my nostrils. It was hard to place at first, then I realized it smelled like Sergius: like his clothes, and his room, and his hair. My eyes widened.
“It’s you! They’ve bottled your smell for Christmas! That’s amazing! What does mine smell like?” I threw my box at him and sat eagerly on the edge of the chair for him to open it; spray the bottle I’d been given. He laughed and turned to his parents.
“Hun vet ikke hva parfyme er. Hun tror du har magisk flaske slik jeg lukter.”
His mother could barely breathe through her laughter while his father replied.
“Hvis det luktet som deg at det ville lukter hest dritt.”
Sergius made a face at his dad and turned to me, clutching my gifted bottle in his hands.
“It’s perfume,” he said to me, explaining clearly, looking in my eyes for clarity like I was a child. “It smells like me because they give me the same one every year. I wear it every day.” I frowned.
“You wear it?” I said. He nodded.
“Look.” Sergius took my wrist gently in his hand and sprayed the cold liquid onto my bare skin. It smelled of violets and peach; light and airy. Nothing at all like his, although they looked the same.
“You like this one, Candie?” His mother asked, looking over at me expectantly. I nodded without removing my wrist from in front of my face. She giggled and turned to whisper something to Sergius’ father.
“Hun er så søt.” He grunted in response. Sergius pulled my arm to him to take in the scent, running the tip of his nose ticklingly over the soft skin of my inner wrist.
“Sergius says we are supposed to give you your presents on New Years,” I said to both of them. Mrs Moonblood nodded.
“Yes, yes, Candie, do not worry, open more present.”
I turned to Sergius, who was bending down to snatch another gift from under the tree. He placed it in my lap. It was a very small box; a perfect cube, dark grey but tied with a pale pink ribbon. I stared down at it, then looked up at him. He nodded for me to open it, so I pulled at the bow, slipping it off, and lifted up the little lid.
Nestled in the soft black fabric was a moonstone. It was smooth to the touch, slippery like ice, and its clouded opal face shone iridescent white. I gasped and pulled it out of the box and watched it trail along a thin silver chain. I looked up at Sergius, who was looking on expectantly, and beamed. He took it delicately from my fingers and worked at the clasp, brought it over my head while I held the mane of my hair out of the way. When he pulled away I let go and looked down at the stone, laying perfectly cool just above the well of my breasts.
“I love it. Thank you.” I smiled admiringly down at the gift for a moment before I remembered the best was yet to come. “Open mine!” I cried, ushering it gently towards him with my foot. He bent down again and scooped it up, dug through the white tissue paper like tufts of snow to pull out the leather pouch.
“Ooh,” he crooned, analyzing the crude silver logo on the front; ‘Sharpley and Tinns’; feeling the contents from the outside.
“Careful,” I warned. He raised an eyebrow and then opened the drawstrings, a few of his fingers just fitting through the top to gently pull out the trinket I’d gone all the way to Knockturn Alley to get.
It was made of steel, intricate and detailed down to every scale; its tail swishing around menacingly, nostrils smoking: a miniature replica of the Ukrainian Ironbelly, the largest breed of dragon, with deep red eyes and an enormous wingspan. Sergius was staring at the object in his hand in disbelief. After a few shocked seconds of silence, my confidence wavered.
“It’s-it’s a Ukrainian Ironbelly,” I explained. Then I turned to his parents sitting opposite us on the loveseat. “It’s been bewitched to act like the real thing. It sleeps if it’s covered, so as long as you don’t lose the pouch…”
Sergius was prodding the thing with his massive finger, lifting up the front legs, one and the same with its wings, then he placed it on top of the leather bag on the coffee table. It laid down restfully but looked up at him, puffing out smoke over and over again as it exhaled.
Finally I spoke up again. “Do you like it?”
“It’s awesome,” he replied. “This is so awesome.” I smiled back at him and all eyes in the room turned to watch the little metal creature yawn; see the glow of flame within its belly. Tisha looked at it with disdainful reproach, like she had met her match.