Cyril would describe it as the most skin-crawlingly disturbing sensation he’d ever had the misfortune to feel. It felt like he was slowly melting from the feet up and the resulting goop was floating up through what was left of him.
“Sorry about that,” his father said when Cyril’s body had reassembled itself. “We were traveling through memories earlier; traveling through space is something different.”
“I prefer Apparition, and that’s saying something,” Cyril said, still feeling a bit wobbly. “That was sickening.”
“Well, as soon as you’ve, er, pulled yourself together, why don’t you have a look around you?”
Cyril ignored his stomach’s ongoing protests and obeyed. He was a little surprised to find that he was standing in front of his mother’s house. Snow was piled on every available surface, and a wreath decorated with holly and mistletoe hung on the front door.
“You said ‘traveling through space,’” Cyril said slowly. “Does that mean it’s this Christmas again -1998?”
“Precisely.” His father looked pleased. “Now, let’s stop lurking about outside and see what’s happening in there.” Cyril stared after him as he walked towards the door, his feet leaving no mark on the snow. How was he going to get through“?
His question was answered before he had even finished formulating it: his father simply glided through the door, apparently more like a ghost than he was willing to admit. A moment later he popped his head back through the door and said, “Well? Aren’t you coming?”
“How do I…?” Cyril gestured at the door. His father might look insubstantial, but Cyril still looked like his usual solid self.
“Just like I did. You look normal enough, but you’re with me; normal rules don’t apply.” With that, his father pulled his head back through the door.
“Right,” Cyril said, squaring his shoulders as he approached the door. “Just like Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.” Moving though the door felt like stepping through a cobweb: it offered only a very slight resistance before disintegrating entirely behind him.
The sitting room looked like something out of his childhood memories: a Christmas tree decorated as his mother always decorated it, with fairies twinkling gently on their branches and fake snow lightly dusting the needles of the tree. A fire roared in the hearth, warming the room and lending its crackling music to the atmosphere.
But Cyril didn’t get long to take it in, for his father steered him towards the kitchen. His mother stood at the counter there, rolling gobs of brown dough into balls, dusting them in sugar and sending them off to lay themselves on cookie sheets with her wand. More cookies, these fully cooked, lay on wire racks cooling. His brother Mattie, tall and gangly now but with the same orange curls as ever, snitched a taste of the dough while she wasn’t looking. Their mother smiled and pretended not to notice. Her auburn hair was coming down out of its bun in wisps as she worked, and Cyril smiled at the familiar image. His mother made her famous ginger snaps only once every year, on Christmas Eve, and she usually had at least one of her sons getting in her way, trying to sneak a taste early.
Footsteps from behind Cyril startled him, and before he could move out of the way, his brother Henry had walked right through him. “Merry Christmas!” he said.
“Henry!” Their mother turned away from her cookies, smiling, to give him a hug. “My goodness, I’d almost forgotten how tall you were. How have you been?”
“Good, actually. Busy, but good.” Henry had been promoted to a full Auror several months ago, and even rank novices had plenty of work to do.
“I’m glad,” she said.
Henry turned to Mattie. “How’s your last year at Hogwarts going?”
Mattie grinned. “Pretty good. I’ve got a girlfriend.”
“Our little Mattie, all grown up!” Henry laughed, while Mattie glowered at him. Henry might be seven years older than him, but Mattie still hated being treated like a child by any of his brothers. “Anyone we know?” Henry asked.
“Not really,” said Mattie. “She’s in my year, but Hufflepuff. Her name’s Amelia Branstone.”
“You’re right, I don’t know her,” said Henry. Mattie rolled his eyes at him.
While they had been speaking, their mother had put the latest batch of ginger snaps in the oven and begun to pack the finished ones into a napkin-lined basket. “The last batch should be done in about ten minutes,” she said, “and then we can leave. Are you two about ready?” She glanced over at her youngest son and sighed. “Mattie, why don’t you put on some nice robes?”
“Mum.” Mattie looked exasperated. “Just because these are Muggle clothes doesn’t mean I’m not dressed well. Look, nice trousers “ not jeans.” He pointed down to his khakis.
“Will you at least comb your hair, then?” She directed a stern look at him. Mattie gave a martyred sigh and left to drag a comb through his hair, accepting her compromise.
When he was gone, Cyril’s mother turned her gaze to her oldest son. “We haven’t seen you in a while. How are you keeping? Feeding yourself well?”
Henry laughed. “I’ve lived on my own for how long now? Five years? I haven’t starved yet, so you can assume that I’m feeding myself just fine, thanks.”
“All right,” she said. “But I worry about you. You’re working all the time these days, and it’s dangerous out there still.”
“Then just ask after my work,” Henry said. “And if you want to know, the most dangerous person I’ve been sent after was a former Snatcher who was cowering in the ruins of some burnt-down house in Lincolnshire - he was as terrified of his own sort as he was of the Ministry, so you can guess he didn’t do too well as a Snatcher. And they sent two pairs of us younger ones after him.” He smiled at his mother. “The work we do is important, but they’re not gambling our lives to get it done.”
“Henry’s grown up quite a bit,” Cyril’s father commented as they watched Henry converse with his mother. “The Henry I knew would have just snapped at her to stop worrying and we’d never get another word about it out of him.”
Cyril shrugged. “I guess we’ve all done some growing up. And Henry doesn’t like to upset Mum “ he says she’s got enough to deal with without him acting like a snotty teenager, so even if he would like to tell her to mind her own business, he doesn’t.”
Mattie slouched back into the room just then, and both conversations came to a pause. “All right, Mum, I’m ready. Are the biscuits nearly done?”
“Almost,” she said, looking over at Mattie. “Oh, that’s much better.”
“Where are they going, anyway?” Cyril’s father asked. “Do you know?”
“You don’t?” Cyril asked, surprised.
“Why should I?” His father raised his eyebrows.
“I thought…well, you control this, right?”
“Not really.” A lopsided smile hovered on his father’s lips. “Really, it sort of controls itself “ it’s hard to explain. I know, in a very general way, what’s going to happen, but what we go to see depends entirely on what you need to see.”
“But…” Cyril stopped. “Right. No questions. I’d nearly forgotten.”
“It’s not because I’m not allowed to tell you, you know,” his father said. “I’m just not sure I know myself; and I certainly couldn’t explain even what I do know.”
“That’s…reassuring,” Cyril muttered sarcastically. His father snorted, but otherwise pretended not to have heard him.
A loud buzzer sounded, and Cyril’s mother flicked her wand in the direction of the oven, opening the door with a nonverbal spell. Another levitated the cookie sheet onto the counter, where she used a spatula to transfer them to her basket.
Cyril’s father closed his eyes and smiled as the aroma of spices filled the kitchen. “Now that’s something I’ve missed,” he said quietly as he opened his eyes again.
“I could kick you for dragging me off on whatever this is,” Cyril said. “I wasn’t planning on smelling those at all this year, but now I’m wishing I’d come here for real “ the scent’s driving me mad, I’d much rather be eating one of those than smelling them.”
“Not exactly the best motivation for celebrating Christmas, but I’ll take it,” his father said, chuckling, as he watched his wife herd two of his sons into the sitting room so they could Floo to wherever it was they were going.
“I didn’t say ““
“A joke, Cyril,” his father said. “Look, we’re going to have to, um, jump through space again…”
“Oh, God,” Cyril groaned. “Can’t we just Floo?” His father just raised an eyebrow, and Cyril sighed and held out a hand. He squeezed his eyes shut as he felt his father take his hand, preparing for the odd, slithery sensation of disintegrating into the air.
“Ugh.” Cyril felt mostly whole again, but he already knew that the queasiness would take a minute or so to pass. He opened his eyes to a room that was, surprisingly, completely unfamiliar to him. “Where are we?”
His father smiled. “I’d forgotten she planned on doing this for Christmas.”
“What? What is it?” Cyril looked around the room for clues. It seemed to be someone’s sitting room, furnished with spindly little wooden tables, chairs and a sofa upholstered in a dusty rose color, and several potted plants. In front of a window there stood a Christmas tree, hung about with velvety red ribbon and garlands of holly and ivy. Standing near the tree were four people: a dark-haired man around Henry’s age, a couple who looked to be his mum’s age, and an imposing woman who seemed to be a bit older.
“Your mother, she goes to this…support group, I suppose,” his father explained. “These people, they’ve all lost someone they loved in the war. The woman whose house this is, her husband was with me when…” He stopped. “Well, we were on the run together for a while. She and your mother have gotten close. But then, I suppose everyone in this group has; it helps them to know that other people know what they’re feeling, and are there to help them when they’re feeling sad. They get together for lunch about twice a month.”
“Oh.” Cyril’s eyes widened. “I was supposed to come to this thing, Mum asked me weeks ago. I sort of, er…blew her off. The whole, you know, not wanting to celebrate Christmas thing.”
Green flames flared in a fireplace along the wall opposite the Christmas tree, and Cyril’s family stepped out. The rather intimidating woman Cyril had noticed before smiled and went to greet them, hugging his mother and smiling as she introduced Mattie and Henry. Cyril’s mother showed the woman the basket she was holding, and the woman pointed through a doorway behind her. Without speaking, Cyril and his father followed her into a dining room where more people were gathered, talking and serving themselves food from dishes and bowls set out on the polished mahogany table. Cyril’s mum set the basket down on the table, and turned away to introduce Mattie and Henry to the others in the room.
“Hey, I know who that is,” Cyril said, surprised, pointing at a young man with shaggy red hair who had just taken one of his mum’s ginger snaps. “That’s George Weasley, he was a Gryffindor in my year…oh.” He fell silent.
“What?”
“He lost his twin brother in that big battle at the end of the war,” Cyril said. “They were sort of notorious in school, and then they left and set up that joke shop of theirs and became really successful.” He paused. “No one ever really said anything about George without mentioning Fred in the same breath. I can’t imagine what it’s like for him now.”
His father smiled a little. “And yet, here he is, celebrating Christmas.”
Cyril rolled his eyes. “Is everything going to be about celebrating Christmas with you?”
“Well, yes. That’s why I’m here, Cyril.” His father’s eyes were blazing. “You have to understand, all these people have lost someone, and they’re living their lives, they’re letting themselves be happy. You’re not. You have to realize just how unhealthy that is “ how much you need and deserve to be celebrating Christmas right along with these people.”
“Why does it matter so much?” Cyril snapped, rounding on his father. “It’s just one day, for Christ’s sake!”
“No, it’s not! Christmas is just the start!” His father stopped, panting, seeming to have surprised even himself with his vehemence. “You want to know why this is so goddamn important? Come with me.” He grabbed Cyril’s arm and yanked. The scene around them blurred and broke up around them, and Cyril felt like he was being pressed against some elastic surface; it stretched around him, but wouldn’t yield. He couldn’t breathe.
And then “ blessed relief “ the barrier gave way, like a balloon popping. Cyril, gasping for breath, didn’t even try to focus on his surroundings at first, but his father’s voice broke through his indifference. One word, but the grim tone caught his attention immediately: “Look.”
Cyril obeyed, and his breath left him all over again.