Because I Love You (D.M)

Chatper 15: The Three Musketeers Return

The next morning, Johnny woke me up with way too much enthusiasm. He was super excited to make cookies today and was even more excited because tomorrow was his party with Gwen. I rolled over and buried my face in the pillow.

"Get up, Davis! The cookies won't bake themselves!" Johnny said and pulled my comforter away.

"I know a spell to make them do it," I said blinking away the sleep in my eyes.

"Can you show me?"

"Next year when I'm of age, I'll make sure I do," I told him as I got out of bed.

"Yay!" He cheered and pulled me downstairs.

Mum was in the kitchen preparing the ingredients for today's cookie overload and Dad was sipping coffee and frowning at the newspaper from the couch.

"What's in the news?" I asked sitting in the arm chair opposite him.

"Too many political campaigns for my liking," he said slurping his coffee.

"Don't slurp, Fred!" Mum shouted from the table.

Dad slurped extra loud with his next swig of that pungent liquid earning him a deep sigh from Mum.

"Political campaigns at this time of the year?" I asked.

"Mm-hmm," He was mid-swallow when he answered.

Johnny bounced into the living room holding a bag of cookie cutters and sat in front of me.

"Help me pick out shapes?" He asked.

I slid down to the floor and started helping him sort Santas, reindeer, and presents until Mum called us in to start cutting out the actual cookies. Johnny made an absolute mess of the flour and ate dough while Mom was putting trays in the oven. Around lunch time, we had successfully baked five trays of golden brown cookies and unsuccessfully burned three trays. Johnny had eaten so much dough he wasn't hungry for lunch, but said he was still hungry when the cookies had cooled enough for eating. Dad put on our old Christmas C. D. while I helped Mum wash up the lunch plates. When I had dried the last plate, Dad suggested we start wrapping presents. I led Johnny down to the basement where we had our presents for our parents. I had taken Johnny out shopping for them before school started which actually worked out very well. Johnny selected snowflake wrapping paper and grabbed Mom's new kitchen set.

"Davis, I didn't see Hannah at the train station. Is she staying over at Hogwarts for Christmas?" He asked innocently.

I froze, just about to tape the ribbon to Dad's newly wrapped slippers.

"About that, well, promise not to tell Mum and Dad?"

"Cross my heart," he said scooting closer to me so he could hear what I was about to say.

"During Herbology on the day we left for break, Professor McGonagall came in and took her out of class. I saw her crying as she was walking back up the hill to the Entrance Hall. I asked around but no one seems to know what happened. I'm scared for her because I haven't seen her since that day." My voice cracked during the last sentence.

"I bet she's fine, maybe a pet died or something," Johnny said smiling sadly up at me.

I swallowed the lump in my throat but could only manage a nod. Did Hannah even have a pet? We finished wrapping the presents in silence and then brought them upstairs to place under the Christmas tree. It looked great with all the blinking lights and beads strung throughout the branches. By now, it was dinner time so Mum heated up a roast with all the trimmings as Johnny and I were going to be dining elsewhere tomorrow night.