Christmas was rolling around again for what felt like the umpteenth time.
A thin layer of frost had already crept over the windowsills of Hogwarts, and outside the castle, the Forbidden Forest lay soft and heavy under fresh snow.
Cold wind wound its way through the cracks in the corridors, but it couldn't quite blow away the faint, oppressive tension that lingered in the halls.
After all, Voldemort's shadow had returned in force, and even the starlight on the Great Hall's ceiling seemed dimmer than in years past.
But whatever else was going on, the holidays were still, in the end, a happy thing.
Sprigs of holly and mistletoe had been wound around the pillars of the Great Hall, the house-elves were busy baking gingerbread and mulling wine, and the sweet smell mixed with pine drifted through every corner of the castle.
Only, as the Christmas spirit grew thicker by the day, the workload for the Head Boy, Head Girl, and prefects grew heavier right along with it.
Neville Longbottom, as ever, was having no luck at all.
Put in charge of overseeing the castle's decorations, he stood on tiptoe atop a wobbly wooden stool, straining to tie a gold-and-green ribbon high up along a support column. He frowned, beads of sweat forming on the tip of his nose, his left hand gripping the pillar for balance.
The moment his right hand finished the knot; a burst of mischievous laughter rang out behind him.
"Hee hee hee…"
Peeves had popped up out of nowhere, hovering in midair, and with a sly grin yanked hard on the other end of the ribbon.
Neville's body lurched forward instantly, the ribbon was cinching tight around his throat. He opened his mouth but couldn't make a sound; his face turned the colour of a ripe tomato at visible speed, his eyes were bulging as though they might pop out.
Luckily, Hannah Abbott, the Hufflepuff prefect, happened to be right there, and yanked the ribbon loose just in time to save Neville, whose face had gone alarmingly red. Strangely enough, even after Hannah rescued him, Neville stayed just as flushed for a good while before he finally returned to normal.
On top of that, the prefects also had to take turns patrolling the castle corridors alongside Argus Filch.
After all, Filch was forever insisting that the odds of students getting into fights went up considerably during the holidays.
Not that many students actually agreed with that theory but out of a sense of duty, the assignment still got carried out.
Head Boy Cedric Diggory did more than his fair share of work too.
Not only did he draw up a detailed patrol schedule, he personally went and talked to Filch, trying to get the old caretaker to ease off a little on his nitpicky punishments.
"Good thing there's no Christmas ball this year."
Having just finished patrolling the third-floor corridor, Cedric leaned back against the stone wall with a sigh of relief and said this to Sherlock and Harry.
He raised a hand to wipe the thin sheen of sweat from his forehead, his golden hair catching a soft glow in the corridor lamplight.
"Otherwise, just preparing for a ball alone would've had us run off our feet."
Given the circumstances, nearly every student was planning to head home for the holidays.
"Oh, right, Harry—how are things going with you and Cho, anyway?"
Cedric suddenly seemed to remember something, turning to look at Harry with a hint of teasing in his tone.
Ever since Harry and Cho Chang had officially started going out, Cedric had firmly plucked out the sprout of feeling that had only just begun to take root, before it had the chance to grow any further.
He looked at Harry's reddening ears, his eyes were full of genuine, heartfelt good wishes.
"Er, it's going well."
Harry rubbed the back of his head, a little embarrassed, his gaze was drifting toward the snow falling outside the window, though the corner of his mouth couldn't help but curl up.
"Have you kissed yet?"
Ever since they'd fought side by side in last year's Triwizard Tournament, Cedric and Harry's friendship had grown close enough that they could sling an arm around each other's shoulders.
So even a fairly private topic like this one could be asked without a second thought.
"Er… not yet."
"That won't do at all, Harry!"
Cedric threw an arm around Harry and launched straight into process of imparting his wisdom: "Look, even Ron's gotten ahead of you at this point!
If you want to take things further with Cho, you need to actually make a move!
Not even Sherlock can help you with this one—you've got to listen to your buddy here!"
And so Harry sat there, dazed, taking in a whole pile of theory.
Even after hearing it all out, though, he still only half understood, and could only remember Cedric clapping him on the shoulder at the end and telling him to "take the initiative."
"Forget it—looking at you, I can't exactly count on you to make the first move. Might as well just wait until the feelings build up naturally and let it happen on its own!"
Watching Harry's thoroughly bewildered expression, Cedric gave up.
He turned instead to Sherlock, who stood off to one side with his arms crossed, watching them with something between a smile and a smirk, and raised an eyebrow.
"What about you, Sherlock? Have you figured out who you want to be with?"
"Why would I need to think about that?" Sherlock raised an eyebrow, tossing the question back as though the answer were self-evident.
"Ah, isn't it obvious?"
Cedric blinked, as though he'd just heard something utterly unbelievable.
"You're all in fifth year now—next year's Valentine's Day, you'll be getting chocolates!
If you don't figure out who you're going with well ahead of time, you're bound to end up with a headache when it comes down to it."
Sherlock and Harry exchanged a glance, and both fell silent.
Harry simply didn't know how to respond; Sherlock, meanwhile, just found Cedric's logic utterly baffling.
That evening, once Harry had finished his date with Cho Chang in the Room of Requirement, he made his way back to the Gryffindor common room, heart thumping wildly in his chest.
The fire in the hearth crackled and popped. Sherlock and Hermione sat in the best spot in front of it.
Ron and Lavender were a little further off.
Sherlock appeared to be showing Hermione his homework.
Even though Hermione was top of the year, she preferred, for a great deal of her schoolwork, to hear Sherlock's particular take on things.
So, Hermione and Sherlock were sitting quite close together.
Ron and Lavender, meanwhile, were nearly glued to each other.
Ever since that Quidditch match, when Lavender had excitedly kissed Ron, the two of them had naturally ended up together.
Only now, the two of them carrying on so obliviously, utterly wrapped up in each other, was more than a little cringe-inducing.
Harry figured it was probably because there were only the four of them in the whole common room, which put everyone at ease around their own. He crept quietly over and sat down beside Sherlock, wanting to say something but hesitating.
Part of him wanted to tell his best friend what had just happened in the Room of Requirement.
The other part of him wanted to take this sweet little secret straight to the grave.
After all, even between best friends, there ought to be some secrets kept.
"Sherlock, are you going home for Christmas, or staying at school?"
After considering it over for a long moment, Harry finally decided to open with this comparatively unimportant question first.
His fingers absently pushed his glasses up his nose, his eyes were unable to help sliding over toward Sherlock.
Hermione and Ron both turned their heads to look at Sherlock at the same moment, a movement that left Lavender rather put out.
She pouted, reached out, and turned Ron's head back to face her, forcing him to look at her instead.
"Home—and also, my mother's already written to invite you three over."
Sherlock closed his book, and as he said this, his expression turned a little odd.
He frowned, as if recalling something troublesome. "Besides the three of you, there's also Gemma and Luna."
Harry: "..."
Hermione: "..."
Ron: "..."
This… how exactly was one supposed to put it?
It was genuinely difficult to say.
After turning it over every which way, the only thing to be said was that Mrs. Holmes truly was something else.
Only Lavender failed to grasp what any of this actually implied.
Hermione looked up from her quill, glanced at Harry, then gestured toward the four people in the common room, adding with a smile:
"We're all going home."
Besides being invited to spend Christmas at Sherlock's, Hermione was also going skiing with her parents.
Ron found this endlessly amusing, since he'd never once heard of Muggles strapping planks to their feet and sliding down a mountain.
As for Ron himself, he was naturally headed home with the Weasley twins and Ginny.
Since all of their homes were connected to the Floo Network, hopping between them was fairly convenient.
One fireplace, a handful of Floo powder, and you could get wherever you wanted to go with ease.
"So, Harry, you'll be heading back to Sirius's, right?" Ron asked curiously.
"Yes… er… yeah…"
Harry's voice came out a little unsteady, his eyes were flickering as he spoke.
Seeing this, Ron sharply picked up on the fact that something was off.
He pulled his hands free of Lavender's grip and sat up straight, turning his head toward Harry to get a proper look at him.
"What's wrong with you? What happened? Why's your face so red?"
Harry shrugged distractedly, his eyes drifting toward the flames leaping in the hearth, mumbling under his breath:
"Nothing…"
Ugh—had even oblivious Ron actually noticed?
And yet he still didn't know how he was supposed to tell them, or even whether he ought to say anything at all.
It was only that the kiss had come so entirely without warning.
Just then…
"Did you and Cho kiss?"
Unexpectedly, it was Hermione who asked this question with such a distinctly Holmesian flair.
She set down her quill, a certain knowingness appeared in her eyes, as though she'd already anticipated exactly this.
Ron shot straight erect, the motion so sudden that his elbow slammed straight into the small side table.
The inkwell fell to the floor with a clatter, but he paid it no mind, his eyes were going wide as he asked: "Really? Harry! You sly dog, you!"
Lavender, too, gave up turning Ron's head back and instead, just like him, stared wide-eyed at Harry, her face was brimming with curiosity.
"..."
Harry's face instantly went as red as the fire in the hearth. He lowered his head, staring at his knees, and after a long moment, gave a small nod.
"Ha!"
Ron pumped his fist triumphantly and burst into laughter, loud enough to make the cauldron on the mantel rattle.
"Harry, you've finally caught up to my pace!"
Beside him, Lavender nodded happily too, then leaned in and planted a loud kiss on Ron's cheek.
Harry: "..."
He suddenly felt like there hadn't really been any need to say anything about this secret after all.
Hermione watched the two of them carrying on obliviously with a touch of helplessness, shaking her head, though the corner of her mouth couldn't quite help curving up.
Ron then hauled Harry off bodily, dragging him into a corner to whisper conspiratorially, leaving a huffy Lavender behind.
He hung off Harry's shoulder, pestering him for details with an unabashedly gossipy look on his face:
"Come on, tell me—what did it feel like? Did you make the move, or did Cho?"
Hermione couldn't be bothered with the two of them making a racket, and turned instead to Sherlock with a hint of amusement in her voice.
"Sherlock, you must have noticed too, right?"
"Obviously, my friend."
Sherlock set down the homework in his hands, the corner of his mouth were curling up in a faint smile.
"From the way Harry walked in just now—the unsteady footing, the corners of his mouth turned up, plus his reddened ears and the way his eyes kept darting away—it's more than enough to prove—"
"Stop!"
Hermione quickly cut off Sherlock's deduction, waving a hand with a laugh, a mischievous glint was flashing in her eyes.
"I don't need you to walk me through your reasoning this time—I worked it out myself too, didn't I?"
Having said this, she leaned in close to Sherlock and, in a voice only the two of them could hear, lowered her tone and said:
"I was just wondering—when exactly are you planning on giving love a try yourself?"
Sherlock's expression froze for the briefest instant. He looked into Hermione's bright, sparkling eyes, opened his mouth, and yet found no words came out.
The firelight from the hearth played across his face, flickering bright and dim.
December 25th, 1995.
Christmas had finally arrived.
Inside the Holmes family's country house, the air was dense with the smell of roast turkey and cinnamon.
The Christmas tree stood decorated and gleaming, strings of coloured lights wound through the deep green branches, and beneath it lay a heap of beautifully wrapped presents.
At the insistence—the very firm insistence of Mrs. Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, who was perpetually busy with something or other no one quite knew what, had finally made it home on Christmas Eve, and sat down for a proper family reunion dinner.
That morning, he had, for once, not rushed off to the office, but instead sat on the living room sofa in a neatly pressed suit, flipping through a newspaper.
And then the two brothers launched straight into their usual routine of brotherly love and affection:
"My dear brother, I've noticed you're looking more and more like a wizard these days."
"Mind your precision of language—I was already a wizard. You're the Muggle here."
"Ha, speaking to your own brother like that is hardly polite, don't you think!"
"If you could manage to worry Mother a little less, I might consider revising my attitude toward you."
"Ha, I hardly think you're in a position to say that to me, Your Lordship the Lion King, standing on the front line against the Dark Lord."
"You're mistaken again—it's the adult wizards standing on the front line. I merely provide them with a bit of consulting."
"My foolish little brother—even if I say nothing else, I doubt even you believe that yourself—you are, after all, one of only two underage members of the Order of the Phoenix."
"If you spent a little less energy on all of that, I imagine London's public safety would improve considerably—at the very least, you'd have solved the Reichenbach Triple Murder ages ago."
"Merry Christmas—boys, are you two arguing?"
Just then, Mrs. Holmes's gentle voice drifted out from the kitchen.
She came out with her apron on, carrying a tray of pastries, smiling brightly.
"Impossible!"
"Of course not!"
Sherlock and Mycroft said this in unison.
Then, having said it, glared at each other once more.
"Well, that's good then—it's not often the whole family gets to be together."
Mrs. Holmes glanced at her two sons, then said with a smile:
"Sherlock's friends should be arriving any minute now. And Mycroft, when are you going to follow Sherlock's example and bring a few girl friends home?"
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