𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸, harry potter

˗ˋ 112

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
AND TWELVE
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-: fifth year :-

── IN WHICH AVIANA 
OPENS PRESENTS

. . .

The door swung open without notice, and the boys looked up to see Aviana trudging through, still half asleep, and with a bit of wrapping paper stuck to her pyjama bottoms. "It's not even eight in the morning." Her nose wrinkled and she clutched at a pile of presents. "It's too early for you to be Apparating everywhere!"

"Never too early for Apparating." George hummed, and nudged Harry in an attempt to be discreet, failing massively and almost fell back on Ron, although it seemed Aviana was too tired to even notice, coming to sit next to Harry, leaning on the wooden headboard. She didn't seem to notice the fact that they were staring at her.

"New jumper?" Harry asked mildly. Ron grinned.

"Yes." Aviana replied, not even sparing a glance down at the emerald green wool.

"Does the A mean anything?" Ron asked innocently.

"I know what it means, dickhead." Aviana looked over at him. "And I'm not blind either, I actually read the tags on presents." She added, glancing pointedly at the hastily-created pile of empty wrapping paper that covered Ron's duvet. "I'll have to go thank Mrs Weasley for it... it's a shame there's no proper stationary around her... although..." She trailed off, seemingly without noticing their interest.

"Don't go down yet." Fred warned. "Percy's upset her, didn't write or anything."

"Oh, that twit of a Head boy from a couple years ago?" Aviana asked, rifling through her pile. "Why would he write?"

"Because he's our brother?" Ron blanched. "Don't tell me you didn't know-"

"Of course I know, anyone with any sense can tell a Weasley from a mile away. You're all bloody ginger." Aviana replied. "Harry told me that he's a Ministry man now, and they're all self-involved. Don't know why any of you expected him to write... everything about him will be all about the Ministry now. Even Clearwater broke up with him."

"Penelope broke up with him?" Fred asked.

"How do you know?" Ron asked, quite rudely.

"Believe it or not, I have friends other than you, Ronald."

"Doesn't seem like it, the way you-" Despite the particularly flirtatious tone, Fred fell to silence as he got a look from both Harry and Aviana, the former one of warning, the latter much more scathing. The twin turned their attention elsewhere. "Just your presents or have you got some for everyone else?"

"A mixture." Aviana replied hazily, her thumb grazing over the parcels on her lap.

"Anything for me?"

She looked up at him and he looked nervous for a moment, before she blew him a kiss and winked and Fred grinned. "Good enough for me. Watch out Potter."

"Yeah, whatever." Harry shook his head slowly. "Have you opened anything except the jumper?" He eyed the pile, having expected to see a number of things from other people, but as of yet he could only see one that wasn't wrapped in the same paper as everyone else's, the communal wrapping paper that had been kept in the drawing room was beginning to formulate a complete lack of surprise to anyone's gifts.

Aviana shook her head. "Not yet. I suppose I'll have some back at Hogwarts, as everyone believes I was staying there over the holiday." She hummed, picking out the one with different paper and placing it on his lap, dumping the rest of the presents out on the bed before her. "That's yours, if you couldn't figure it out from the tags."

Harry blinked silently for a moment, having simply been staring down at the box. "Yeah..." He nodded slowly, reaching for it as he tried to hide his complete surprise at being given one at all. "Yeah, I figured from the tag." He watched as Aviana selected the biggest from the pile, using her pointed nails to slide beneath the paper and tear it off, but didn't hasten to copy her actions, feeling inexplicably nervous at the very idea that she had gotten him a present.

"What the fuck is this?" She asked, staring down at hunk of grey plastic in front of her, completely oblivious. "Harry, you know Muggle things. What the fuck is this?" She repeated.

Harry grinned. "It's from Sirius, it's a Muggle music player – a Walkman?" He asked, and she looked blankly at him. "Open more of your presents," he instructed, "then it'll make sense."

Aviana frowned, reaching for another. Somewhere in the background, Fred and George had begun to test the lengths the homework diary would go in order to spew out those annoying little catchphrases, by throwing it Ron, who began swearing quite loudly. 

"What are these?" Aviana looked even more confused at the scattered tapes in her laps, as well as the headphones she had been given. "These aren't Extendable Ears, are they?" She asked, nose wrinkled.

Harry couldn't tell if it was disgust about the flesh-like string the twins always seemed to have  tangled in their pockets or the fact that she genuinely had no idea what she was looking at. "Give it here." He said, reaching into her lap to take over, and she watched him fiddle around for a moment, before he finally turned back to her and reached for the headphones, placing them over her head, and pressing down on a button. 

He watched as her eyes widened as she finally focused on the music playing, rather than fussing about the headphones over her hair. He let the track play for a moment longer before pausing it, and reaching over to pull the headphones off. "What do you think?" He asked.

She didn't say anything for a moment, nodding slowly as she examined each of the cassette tapes that she had unwrapped. "And these are all Muggle artists?" She asked. 

Harry peered over her shoulder. "Yeah. Sort of stuff I reckon Sirius would listen to when he was our age." He nodded, recognising the neat handwriting within the attempted messy scrawl. "And Lupin... Remus would know where to get this sort of stuff from." 

Aviana nodded blindly, her eyes trained on the tapes, before she swallowed and tucked them neatly away in the box they had come in, before picking up another of the presents. 

Harry's ears turned pink. "That's from me," he said quickly, tongue poking at his cheek, embarrassed. 

She stared at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why are you so nervous?" She asked. "What did you do?" 

"No - nothing." Harry shuffled, his eyes darting over to the three brothers. "We could open them later-"

"Fine." Aviana made to stood up, picking up the tapes and the Walkman as she went. "I have to ask Sirius about either way. And tell him about his present."

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