Tickling the Giant Squid and other Grand Adventures

44. Farid

I awoke with a start on Christmas morning at my desk. I'd fallen asleep at my computer more often than not since the start of my inspection of the Ouroboros' sinking, so I wasn't too surprised, only a little stiff from the uncomfortable position. So far I had only found information that had confirmed my aunt's recollection; the ship had sunk and there were no known survivors. Someone had come in and placed the quilt on my bed over my shoulders while I was asleep, and I touched the edge with my fingertips softly, smiling at the kind gesture.

I stood, and wrapped the quilt more securely around my shoulders like a cloak, before moving to my bedroom door and peeking out into the hall. A pale, just-before-sunrise kind of light delicately seeped in through the window over the staircase, and both my cousin's and aunt and uncle's bedroom doors were closed. The last two years, Arthur had pretended that Christmas wasn't a big deal to him anymore, but I knew that he would probably be bolting out of bed in excitement within the hour.

Quieter than a cat, I padded down the hallway in my bare feet, sweatpants, and t-shirt from the day before, and quilt-cape, making it downstairs without a sound. The biscuits and tea Arthur and I staged by the hearth had been reduced to crumbs and an empty pot, and the small pile of gifts under the tree was noticeably larger. A quiet knock brought my attention around to the doorway I'd just come through, where Arthur stood in his blue velvet pajamas and brown teddy bear slippers, which I'd gotten for him as a gag gift, only to discover that he loved them.

"Saint Nick paid us a visit," I said, quietly so as not to disturb the morning.

"I see," Arthur smiled placatingly, matching my tone. We had always been skeptical of characters such as Saint Nicholas and the Easter Rabbit. "Shall we wake mum and dad?"

I shook my head. "Let them sleep in a bit longer." Suddenly a thought popped into my head. "Let's see if it snowed!"

Arthur's face lit up, and I raced him to the front door, easily beaten by his longer legs. He opened the door wide, and we both gasped in amazement. At least six centimeters of snow coated the ground in white; we had gotten snow before, but never on Christmas. Letting my quilt fall to the floor, I tiptoed over the threshold and right up to the edge of the whiteness, shivering at the cold surface under my feet. Our house had a fifty-centimeter-wide border of clear ground where the overhang had prevented the snow from falling, but it was still cold. Arthur tentatively followed me, and I scooped up a handful of ice crystals, forming them into a ball.

"Don't you dare," he warned, eyeing the snowball in my palm.

Unable to resist, I tossed it in his direction, gently enough for him to catch it, but his reflexes were too slow and it hit him directly in the center of his chest. We both stood like statues for a moment, processing what had just happened. Then, slowly, Arthur bent at the waist, and scooped up a handful of snow, forming it into a ball of his own with a mischievous glint in his eye that I hadn't seen in a long time. I grinned and turned to scoop up some more snow, when Arthur's snowball hit me on the shoulder, exploding bits of snow all over me. I let out a small involuntary shriek at the cold and launched my new missile back in his direction. Soon, we were at war, neither of us stopping long enough to think of our wands in our pockets.

"Ahem."

Arthur and I froze, snowballs still raised in preparation, and turned to the front door where Gwendolyn and Byron stood in their bathrobes. Gwendolyn raised an eyebrow, and Arthur and I slowly lowered our projectiles, dropping them to the ground where they collapsed with soft puffs. Our gazes fell upon ourselves and each other, wet from melted snow, flakes caught in our bed-mussed hair, fingers and noses and my toes at least turned pink from the cold.

"S-sorry, mum," Arthur mumbled, bowing his head slightly.

A snort turned our heads back to the adults where both were shaking with suppressed laughter. Arthur and I began to giggle ourselves until the four of us sounded like a flock of ravens clamouring for grain. Byron and Gwendolyn opened their arms, and Arthur and I ran to them, and for a moment, the last few years were forgotten, and we were a young, happy, innocent family. Then they pulled back, exclaiming at our wet and cold states, and ushering us back upstairs.

"You can open presents when you're in dry clothes!" Uncle Byron called after us. "We'll start the cocoa."

Arthur and I were still chuckling as we dispersed into our individual rooms, and I for one was slow to sober as I changed into a fresh green jumper and sweatpants. I had collected my quilt from the doorway and now carefully hung it over the back of my desk chair in case it had gotten wet. I combed my hair from its nest-like shape, until it hung in damp strands around my face, and smiled at the grey streak from my dying experience with Avila in the mirror before leaving my bedroom once again. From the cheerful humming -another long unseen phenomenon- Arthur was still in his bedroom, so I trudged downstairs without him.

My aunt and uncle were already seated in the family room, a tray bearing four steaming mugs of cocoa waiting on the side table, and a path to the small mountain of gifts cleared. I seated myself on the floor in front of them to wait for Arthur, and Uncle Byron reached out to hand me one of the mugs. I smiled my thanks as a set of damp footsteps on the stairs announced the arrival of my cousin. He took his place between me and the presents, receiving his own mug with a nod of appreciation, and we sat in a companionable silence, sipping cautiously at our cocoa and warming from the chill of our snow battle.

Presently, Arthur stood, placing his mug on the tray, and moving to the pile before returning with two boxes. He placed the larger green one by me and patiently held the metallic blue one in his lap, watching me. I stared at the green box.

"This is mine?" I whispered.

"It has your name on the tag," Arthur pointed out, smiling.

I felt a grin break over my face, and I set my almost empty mug aside to pull the box into my lap. I checked the tag, and sure enough, it read:

To: Farid

From: St. Nicholas

A short burst of white light momentarily blinded me, and I looked up to see Uncle Byron fiddling with a camera. "Sorry," he mumbled, "the flash was on..."

I giggled, and turned back to my gift, painstakingly peeling back the wrapping paper with a lovely crinkling sound. Soon, the paper was cast aside, leaving me with a plain cardboard box. I opened the flaps and looked inside to see...

"Is this... is this the Special Edition boxed set of the Master of the Circlets series?" I breathed in awe. I reverently lifted the books out of the box. It was my favourite series growing up, and I'd read the family copies, but now I had a set of my own!

Arthur was already crooning over his own gift from Saint Nick; three monogrammed bronze fountain pens and a multicoloured pack of ink refills. I poked him in the shoulder to get his attention, and gave him my gift of blue fingerless gloves and a set of eagle bookends.

He insisted I open his next, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a box full of Honeydukes treats, with a bottle of butterbeer tucked in the corner. At the bottom of the box was a slip of parchment on which was written: "Don't tell mum." Underneath was a modest assortment of harmless pranks from Zonko's Joke Shop and Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. I grinned and gave Arthur a light punch in the arm, and he ruffled my hair in response.

When all the spoils had been unwrapped, I had collected a slytherin-green-and-silver quilt and a new pair of black leather boots from Aunt Gwendolyn, a common welsh green dragon snow globe and hand-sewn Edward Scissorhands plushy from Karou, and a pocketknife and framed drawing of the three of us with our pets from Avila.

I hoped the girls liked what I had sent them; a dragon on a dagger pendant on a cord, and sturdy leather-bound field journal with blank drawing pages on one side and lined note pages on the other for Avila, and a book about all kinds of fancy tricks you can do on broomsticks, and small pocket watch pendant with a dragon on the front for Karou. I felt a little bad that I hadn't gotten anything for Jaxer, even though we'd only just met, but I sent him a card, and he wrote back, assuring me that it was fine and he would have been astonished if I had managed to send him something.

Uncle Byron gave me his gift last, and inside the box was an almost empty photo album for my Hogwarts memories, a polaroid of my own to fill it with, and a simple silver locket containing a picture of my parents with me as a baby. I put the locket on immediately. After lunch, Arthur and I delivered our presents to our rooms, and returned to the family room for our traditional Christmas games of chess. The return to past normalcy made me feel calm for the first time in a while, and the faint weight of the locket around my neck almost made it feel like my real parents were with us too.

That night, tucked under my new green blanket in addition to the old quilt, for the first night in a week, the Ouroboros didn't even cross my mind, and before I knew it, I had fallen fast asleep.