Gunpowder & Cinnamon {Fred Weasley}

Chapter Sixty Eight

The entire living room fell silent as Molly opened the door. First, it was of course Percy, who entered the Burrow . He was greeted by his parents with hugs and happy greetings of Christmas. Percy seemed much happier to Eleanor, he wasn't the grouchy man she had known throughout her time at Hogwarts. Since the Battle of Hogwarts, the man smiled as if he had found a new appreciation for life, he was building back the relationships with his family that he had missed out on during his absence. While everyone seemed happy to see him, everyone's attention was focused on the door preparing to see Percy's significant other.

Eleanor was curious herself, wondering what type of person was going to walk through the door. Would she nice? Shy? Quiet? Mean? A woman?

As the last thought cut through her mind, her eyes widened as a man walked into the Burrow shortly after Percy with a smile on his face.

Her mouth parted slightly while Fred spit out his drink behind her, spraying her hair with water.

The Burrow household was still with silent shock except for Eleanor scolding Fred for getting her wet.

Arthur cleared his throat to break the ever growing tension as Percy looked at his family confused.

"What is wrong with you all?" Percy asked reading all of the facial expressions.

"Well,son," Arthur began to tell him, " you told us that you were bringing home your girlfriend and..." the father's eyes fell on the man in the room.

"That's a man!" Nixie pointed out the obvious until Sirius and Remus quickly covered the woman's mouth.

"Right?" Anora added.

Suddenly, Percy began laughing as Molly covered her face.

It was still a rarity to hear Percy laugh, making everyone slightly uncomfortable, still unaware of what was going on.

Percy looked to his mother before looking to the other man in the room. " I'm not dating him, this is my co-worker Bernard. Mum said he could come to as his family is traveling for the holidays."

"OOOOOOH!" Everyone in the room said.

"Then where is your girlfriend?" George asked bluntly.

"Hello!" a voice called out as a woman appeared in the doorway.

"OOOOOOOH! HELLO!" Everyone greeted the woman. The petite blonde made her way inside holding several small boxes in her hands, she had a bright smile on her face and from what the group could tell she seemed very pleasant and pretty.

"I was not expecting that." Marnie whispered to Cedric.

"What were you expecting?" Cedric whispered to her in return.

"I don't know...like Umbridge or something."

The family members arose to greet the new woman who they discovered was named Audrey before they welcomed Bernard as well for the Christmas celebration.

Once everyone had officially arrived and were settled in the living room, Sirius and Nixie asked to go first when it came to giving out gifts. Everyone expected gag gifts or silly light up jumpers of some sort when it came to the couple.

"Now I understand there are plenty of ornaments to go around on the tree already..." Nixie began as she opened one of the boxes. " But this was a tradition in the Dover household that I would like to share with all of you.."

Sirius smiled, standing up and handing out the individually wrapped ornaments to everyone.

"In the Dover household," Sirius said, " everyone that was part of the family received an ornament that represented them and once added to the tree, you were officially part of the family. Nixie and I already consider every single one of you family as it is, but we thought we would continue with the tradition."

Eleanor smiled as Nixie handed Fred and her their gifts. She opened hers carefully expecting a ball of yarn or something of the sort, but instead she opened it to find her ornament was a badger.

She turned in Fred's lap to see him open his to reveal a firework as his.

"Thank you so much." Eleanor told Nixie. "Really, these are amazing!" She looked over to the others who were holding theirs up in amusement.

"We were trying to find a badger with a knitted jumper but.." Nixie said in amusement before Sirius brought Harry over to sit in between the couple.

The young man seemed quite confused as to why they wanted to speak with him in that moment until they each held an ornament to him.

"I don't understand..." Harry said. "You two got me an ornament last year..."

"Yes, but when I found these two...I thought you might want to have them as well."

Eleanor smiled as Harry unwrapped the ornaments in his hands, one revealed to be a stag and automatically Eleanor put it together that the ornaments had once belong to his parents, especially as the second ornament turned out to be a red lily like flower.

Fred looked down to the ornament in Eleanor's hands and laughed dragging her attention back to him.

"Badger...how fitting." he said.

"Speak for yourself, Mr. Firework.'

"You know...oddly enough." Fred lifted his hand up after setting his ornament down. "Now my hands like cinnamon."

"Really?" Eleanor said. "I don't smell it..."

"Here.." he offered his hand for her to sniff leaving Eleanor completely unaware that he hand mistletoe in the other hand.

"Fred, I don't smell anything-" she turned her head to see the mistletoe. "FRED!"

"It's tradition!"