Black [Theodore Nott]

Chapter 41

The following day, Carina – the whole household woke at the sound of Sirius tramping past their door towards Buckbeak's room, singing "God Rest Ye Merry, Hippogriffs" at the top of his voice.

Carina peaked out of her room and saw her father ringing a bell with a biggest smile she's ever seen from him since they came to Twelve Grimmauld Place. Sirius laughed at the sight of the teenagers walking out of their rooms, yawning and rubbing their eyes of sleep.

"It's Christmas!" Sirius told her.

"I know how to read a calendar." Carina yawned.

"Get up! I'll wake Beaky!" Sirius said as he entered Buckbeak's room.

"I don't think Buckbeak would appreciate that." Harry chuckled.

"I won't be surprised if he came out scratched." Carina smiled. "Oh, Good morning."

"Morning." Harry greeted.

"Hey, look!" Ron called Harry. Ron came to the door of their room with a wrapped gift. "There's presents at the foot of our beds, come on!" Ron said

They gathered in the boys' bedroom, with all their gifts, and sat down to open each one of them. She chuckled lightly when they saw what Hermione had got them: a homework planner that said "Do it today or later you'll pay!" every time they opened a page ("A diary?" Ron exclaimed, "It's a homework planner – so you won't have to do it the last minute every time!" Hermione said); Harry got her a vinyl of a Muggle band she loved;Ron got her (the same with Hermione) a bottle of perfume that she couldn't identify the smell; Roman got her each and every one of her favorite sweets and a letter why he couldn't come for Christmas; Fred, George and Ginny got her each one of their products and a snow-globe that had little ice-skating little people inside; Tonks (along with Andromeda and Ted) got her a new book bag; Maisie got her a new scarf; Tom and Charity got her (the gift they gave her the other day) the photo album that held photos of her years in Hogwarts and a photo of Emmanuelle and Sirius's wedding, the album had more blank pages on it for Carina to use; Mr. and Mrs. Weasley the usual hand-knitted jumper (maroon) and some mince pies; Sirius and Lupin got Carina and Harry the same thing, a set of excellent books entitled Practical Defensive Magic and Its Use Against the Dark Arts that had moving color illustrations of all the counterjinxes and hexes it described; and Theodore (to Carina's surprise) got her an old book about the constellations entitled Guardians of the Skies, it was a thick book that had beautiful illustrations of the constellations, maps of stars, and how to know which star to use to get home or to know where to go.

"What is that?" Hermione went to Carina's side.

Hermione stared in awe at Carina's new Astronomy book, she carefully traced the page where the stars twinkled and a shooting star passed.

"An Astronomy book." Carina said. "It's an old one."

"Probably the last of it." Hermione said, "Who gave it?"

Carina took a small feather from the wrapper that Theodore used to wrap the book and brought it up Hermione's view.

"A little bird that I know." Carina smiled.

•†•

Carina and the others did not come down for breakfast until later when the twins told them about Mrs. Weasley's condition because Percy sent back his Christmas jumper without.

"We did try to comfort her." Fred said.

"Told her Percy's nothing more than a humongous pile of rat droppings –" George said.