Eleanor awoke to a strange weight at the end of her bed. She opened her eyes wearily and realised it was a small pile of presents at the end of her bed. She turned her head and both Hermione and Ginny had a similar pile of presents at the end of their beds too.

This struck Eleanor as strange as she was used to being woken by one of her fathers and ushered downstairs where Josh would be waiting eagerly to dig into the presents which sat underneath the Christmas tree. Eleanor did not mind this change in routine though and slowly arose from bed.

"Good, you're up," Ginny said. "We're going to open our presents and then join Ron and Harry in their room. Want to join?"

"'Course." Eleanor said hoarsely, stifling a yawn.

Both Ginny and Hermione began to dig into their pile of presents, so Eleanor thought she should do the same.

She had done rather well for gifts this year. Mrs. Weasley, although short notice, had knitted Eleanor a green jumper which Eleanor put on immediately, already shivering slightly from removing the duvet off herself. Accompanied with the jumper were numerous homemade mince pies. Eleanor wanted whole-heartedly to dig into one but she reminded herself she still had to eat breakfast.

Hermione had given Eleanor a homework journal and upon closer inspection, Eleanor realised it wasn't at all an ordinary homework journal for when she opened it, it said things like; 'do it today or later you'll pay!'

Although Eleanor wasn't much of a fan of doing homework, she appreciated this greatly as although she couldn't use it at school, Eleanor hoped this would give her motivation to actually do her work so she had an excuse to use the planner.

From Ron and Ginny she had received two small boxes of chocolates and sweets of all sorts containing things she had never heard of before. Eleanor amused herself for a while digging through the boxes and being amazed at the kinds of candy the wizarding world had to offer. Eleanor noticed sweets like; Chocolate Frogs, (which she was overjoyed about) Fizzing Whizzbees, Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, (They really had every flavour!) Pepper Imps and Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum.

Moving on to her next gift, Eleanor opened another small box, this time being from Fred and George. Inside it contained a bunch of products from Zonko's Joke shop. This wasn't any old joke shop and Eleanor was immensely grateful to see that Fred and George had written a list of all the products the box included, what they were and how to use them. Eleanor read some of the products on the list: Stink Pellets, Dung Bombs, Hiccough Sweets, Sugar Quills and Nose-Biting Teacups.

Very excited to try these out in the future, Eleanor carefully hid the box out of site, mainly to keep her little brother away from it.

From her parents, Eleanor had received some roller skates which she had been begging for the most part of the year. She was delighted to see that they had managed to get them in the eggshell blue colour she wanted.

After spending ten minutes with the help of Hermione explaining to Ginny what roller skates were, Eleanor moved on to the last of her presents. She was surprised to see she had received gifts from Sirius and Remus and was glad that she had after all, picked up presents for the both of them too.

Remus and Sirius had gotten Eleanor a plain black cloak which Eleanor giggled about as she reminisced on the ongoing joke that the three of them shared that Eleanor wanted a cloak so she, like all wizards, could look like an overgrown bat. Eleanor clasped the cloak around her neck, excited to see her parents reactions.

Her last present was from Harry. Harry had gotten her a small box of Chocolate Frogs, (See I told you I'd get some more for you.) and a small glass spinning top which was called a Sneakoscope which was meant to light up and spin if someone was doing something untrustworthy near by. (So you'll know when Josh is going through your things.)

As Eleanor had finished opening her gifts before Hermione and Ginny, she decided to get dressed. She changed into some black jeans and put Mrs Weasley's jumper back on, while also adorning her new cloak, having a bit too much fun with turning around dramatically to watch the way it swooshed around her.

Soon the girls were ready and descended down a flight of stairs and entered Ron and Harry's room.

"Nice outfit!" Harry grinned at Eleanor as she did a twirl for him.

Ron laughed. "Did Harry get you that cloak?"

"Nope," Eleanor grinned. "It's from Remus and Sirius."

As Eleanor made herself comfortable on Harry's bed, Fred and George suddenly appeared in the room with a loud BANG.

"Merry Christmas," said George. "Don't go downstairs for a bit."

"Why not?" asked Ron, who was busy opening Eleanors gift which contained a variation of Muggle sweets which Ron looked fascinated by.

"Mum's crying again," said Fred heavily.  "Percy sent back his Christmas jumper."

"Without a note," added George. "Hasn't asked how dad is or anything."

"We tried to comfort her," said Fred, moving around the bed to look at something in Harry's hand which Eleanor hadn't noticed until now. "Told her Percy's nothing more than a humungous pile of rat droppings."

"Rightly said." Eleanor couldn't stop herself mumbling.

"Didn't work though," said George, helping himself to one of Ron's Chocolate Frogs. "So Lupin took over. Best let him cheer her up before we go down for breakfast, I reckon."

"What's that suppose to be, anyway?" asked Fred, squinting at what Eleanor now realised was a painting. "Looks like a gibbon with two black eyes."

"It's Harry!" said George, pointing at the back of the canvas. "It says so on the back."

Eleanor couldn't hold in her laughter as she saw the horrible painting. She held up her hands. "I swear it wasn't from me."

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Good likeness." said Fred, grinning and sending Eleanor into an even stronger fit of laughter.

Harry threw a book at him and Eleanor realised Harry had also been gifted a talking homework planner. As Harry threatened to hit Eleanor with a pillow, she quickly stifled her laughter.

They all made their way downstairs for breakfast when they thought the coast would be clear of a tearful Mrs. Weasley. Hermione wanted to stop at Kreachers bedroom to give him a gift. Eleanor was thankful that only Hermione had bothered to get the House-Elf a gift, because Eleanor hadn't even thought twice about Kreacher when she was buying gifts.

Kreachers bedroom was located down in the basement. There was a little door opposite the pantry in which Hermione stopped. Kreachers room was pitiful. A large boiler took up most of the room but it looked like Kreacher had made a sort of nest for himself. A jumble of assorted rags and smelly old blankets were piled on the floor. There was also a pile of trinkets that Kreacher had managed to snag while Sirius had been cleaning the house and Eleanor noticed a moving picture behind a broken frame. The inhabitants of said picture did not look friendly at all.

"I think I'll leave his present here." Hermione said while placing the package in the middle of his mouldy blankets. "He'll find it later, that'll be fine."

"Come to think of it," said Sirius, emerging from the pantry carrying a large turkey. "Has anyone seen Kreacher lately?"

"We saw him when we were decorating the house but I haven't seen him since." Eleanor said.

"Yeah..." Sirius said, frowning. "You know, I think that was the last time I saw him too...he must be hiding upstairs somewhere."

"He can't have left, can he?" Eleanor asked Sirius.

"No, no, House Elves can't leave unless they're given clothes. They're tied to their family house." explained Sirius.

"They can leave the house if they really want to," Harry contradicted him. "Dobby did, he left the Malfoy's to give me warnings years ago. He had to punish himself afterwards, but he still managed it."

Sirius looked slightly disconcerted for a moment, then said, "I'll look for him later, I expect I'll find him upstairs crying his eyes out over my mother's old bloomers or something. Of course, he might have crawled into the airing cupboard and died...but I mustn't get my hopes up."

Fred, George, Eleanor and Ron laughed. Hermione, however, looked as reproachful as ever.

>>>

Christmas dinner had been delicious. Eleanor had second helpings of everything. She supposed she could have had more but the waistband on her jeans complained by digging painfully into her already full stomach.

Ethan and William had done double takes when they had saw what their daughter was wearing.

"What on earth are you wearing?" William had asked.

"A cloak," Eleanor grinned. "Isn't it awesome?"

"Who gave it to you?" William again asked.

Sirius winked at Eleanor and Remus turned away, seemingly deaf to the conversation though Eleanor saw that he was smiling.

"I dunno." Eleanor lied to save Remus and Sirius from her parents scrutiny.

"Well, it's definitely a statement." Ethan said while eyeing the cloak.

"Yes," William said wryly. "You now have the perfect cosplay as a vampire for Halloween. You look like a bat."

Eleanor snorted.

"Wicked!" Josh said as he entered the room, stuffing his face with what was once a full chocolate bar. "I want one!"

"You know," Eleanor said airily, as she sat down, making sure her cloak billowed as she did so. "I think I'm going to wear this every day. It really helps let me get my point across, you know? I love how over dramatic it is. I'm jealous you guys get to wear them all the time."

"Oh yeah?" Ron said absently. "Well you can have my cloaks if you want, I think they're annoying."

"Really!"

"Ron, no!" Mrs. Weasley interjected. "You need them for school."

"I was only joking mum." Ron said exasperatedly, while rolling his eyes at Eleanor.

Eleanor had to duck under the table to hide her laughter.

Needless to say, it was one of Eleanor's favourite Christmases she had ever had.

(I absolutely love writing this book. I also love Sirius Black. I finished the Order of the Phoenix not long ago and no matter how many times I read that book, I'm still never ready for his death :(