little miss black

-114-

"You know what we've never done?" Cass said, sitting down beside Sirius at breakfast.

"Good morning to you too." Sirius said.

"Yeah, yeah anyway." Cass rolled her eyes.

"Okay I'll play along, what have we never done?"

"Stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas." Cass said, looking at Sirius expectantly.

"We tried that once, it didn't end well remember?" Sirius said. The memory sent shivers down both of their spines.

"Hard to forget." Cass mumbled. "But that was then and this is now. It would be fun, we could get everyone to stay."

"I don't know..." Sirius said. "Won't everyone want to be with their parents?"

"Please Siri." Cass said. "I want to experience a Hogwarts Christmas, and I want to give Minnie her present in person."

"I mean, I'm down." Sirius said.

"Excellent." Cass beamed. "I think we should go home on the 26th though, I want to go to a decent New Years party."

"Leave it with me." Sirius nodded. Cass gave him a hug and dashed off to speak to Grace. James and Peter sat down, followed shortly by Remus and Lily.

"Whats up Padfoot?"James said.

"I'm thinking." Sirius said, his brow furrowed in thought.

"That's never good." Remus said, sending Sirius a grin. Sirius rolled his eyes and leaned over to flick his forehead.

"It's about Cass." Sirius said.

"Fucking hell what could have happened this time? I saw her less than ten minutes ago." Lily groaned.

"No, no nothing like that." Sirius said. "She just pointed out that we've never had a Hogwarts Christmas."

"Yeah, that is a fair point." James said. "Never felt the need though, to be honest."

"It would be fun though, to have everyone altogether got Christmas." Remus said. "I'll happily stay."

"Yeah, same here." Peter said. Lily looked at James.

"I'll stay if you will?" She said. "I know you already invited me to yours."

"I don't know, I mean I want to but I don't want to have to wait another six months before seeing mum and dad." James said, adjusting his glasses.

"We wouldn't stay the whole holidays." Sirius said quickly. "Just for Christmas, Cass says she wants to go to a New Years party."

"Okay then I'm in." James said brightly. "It would be nice to spend a Christmas with dear old Minnie."

"Excellent, now we just have to convince Dorcas and Marlene." Sirius said. "Frank and Alice are staying already."

"Aw won't this be cute? All of us together." Lily cooed. The boys rolled their eyes. "You all bore me. I'm off to find Cass."

"She went to the Ravenclaw table." Sirius said. Lily nearly fell over in shock.

"Are she and Noah.. like back together then?"

"No." Sirius shook his head. "She went to speak to Grace."

"Oh." Lily said, slightly disappointed. "Well I'll see you idiots later."

•••

"Miss Black—"

"How many times Minnie? It's Cassiopeia." Cass said, shaking her head. McGonagall pursed her lips.