Not Who You Think

Eleven

No one minded when Molly sent them up to bed on the 22nd, eagerly taking the opportunity to get out of her sight. Harry and Ron shut the door to their room and locked it, knowing that the locks on the doors were designed so that an Alohomora wouldn't unlock it, Black paranoia and all that, meaning Molly wouldn't know they weren't there during the night. Both boys got changed into nice robes before they each shadowed out, appearing in the entrance room of Black Manor. Fred and George appeared with a crack on either side of them, since they were keyed in to the wards, their appearance closely followed by Hermione who appeared in a burst of smoke. Ginny was next to appear, flaming into the room not a second after Hermione. The only two missing were Luna and Neville, since neither of them had a mode of transport, unique or not, and, while Black Manor was connected to the main floo network, neither Luna or Neville could come using it, mainly because floo travel would arouse suspicion from their family.

"Who's getting who?" he asked, glancing around the group.

"I should be able to get Neville if you get Luna," Ron offered. No one argued, so Ron disappeared in a swirl of shadows while Harry melted out of existence in his own shadows.

Harry stepped out of his shadows next to Luna in her room, who didn't even jump. He wasn't surprised by that though since she had been expecting one of them on top of her ability to just know. She was already wearing a nice dress for the start of the Yule ritual, which made sense seeing as she would have already started it with her dad.

"Daddy knows I'm going and told me to have a Blessed Yule and that he'll see me in the morning," Luna said brightly, bouncing over to him and grabbing his arm. Harry didn't know what to say to that, so didn't reply, instead letting his shadows engulf them and deposit them next to the other Phantoms in the entrance hall of Black Manor. Neville and Ron were already back and waiting for them.

"Come closer," Hermione insisted, gesturing everyone to group together so that they would all be included in the chain of the time turner. She managed to get the chain around all of them with difficulty.

"This would be so much easier if we had individual turners. Anyway, well go back three hours to six o'clock," Hermione said before spinning the turner three times. Once they all untangled from the chain of the turner, Harry keeping it since his Yule was going to be a lot busier than everyone elses, they headed to the fireplace to floo to Potter Manor, Black Manor being the only place that Potter Manor was connected to on the floo network. Harry was last in line and decided to just shadow to his manor, since the floo really didn't agree with him.

They walked as a group in to the family living room, which was on the top floor while the entertaining living room was on the second, which was where they were going to start the ritual. They all settled down in the room together while Harry walked to the fireplace, since he was the Head of the house they were in, where a log was resting on the mantle. He drew his wand and lit each candle sitting in the log one by one, pausing between each one. As he lit each candle, he and the Phantoms all murmured the same thing, asking Lady Magic to aid in revitalising their magic and allowing it to grow stronger in the year to come.

After lighting the third candle, Harry stepped back and took a seat next to Ron on the couch that he was already sharing with Hermione. They all simply relaxed in the room, enjoying the company of each other where they were able to let all their various masks drop. They talked quietly between themselves about everything and nothing, all of them basking in the soothing magic that the candles burning in the Yule Log gave off.

At twenty to eight, Harry sighed before pushing himself off the couch. As much as he was enjoying the company of the family he had found, he was looking forward to meeting his biological family in a setting where they weren't enemies. But no matter how much he was looking forward to doing the Yule ritual with his biological family, he didn't want to leave his friends and the place where the soothing magic already was.