Fortune Cookies

"I think I've burnt them."

"I knew you would."

The kitchen was filling slowly with billows of black smoke. He was standing by the stove in oven mitts and a too-large sweater, looking disgruntled. Outside the windows, snow was falling slowly, silently from the steely grey sky. Tangled brown weeds jutted out from beneath the waves of white dust on the ground. It was Christmas Eve.

He eyed me with a sour look on his face and batted haphazardly at the smoke pouring from the stove. His face was soon hidden by smoke, but I could hear him speak through the black nonetheless:

"They look pretty good."

I made my way over to him, incredulous, swinging my arms around wildly in an attempt to clear the smoke from the air. How could all that smoke, all that chaos, produce something worthwhile?

The tray he was holding was scattered with blackened, shriveled crisps, presumably Christmas cookies. "I'm not sure he's going to like them," I laughed, patting him on the shoulder and drawing my hand down his arm, soft wool beneath my fingers, warm to the touch.

"'Course he will," he replied, setting the tray down on the countertop and dusting crumbs from his shirt. "We just have to get them off the tray first." He smiled.

I watched, smiling, as he searched the kitchen for a spatula. He'd been here, home, so many times that he had a pretty good idea of where everything was. To the left, I thought to myself, urging him on in my head. He could save the Wizarding world, but he couldn't manage to find a spatula. I smiled at the thought and grabbed a cookie from the counter, one my mother has frosted earlier that afternoon, and put it in my mouth, frosting down. The sugar melted on my tongue, still warm.

He found it: a large silver spatula with a wooden handle, probably as old as I was. "They're obviously not fortune cookies," I said in mock seriousness as I watched him struggle to pry them from the tray. He used his entire body to do so: arms stressing, shoulders curving, feet bouncing on their heels, face screwed up in concentration.

"How do you know?" he said with difficulty, chipping a bit of hardened cookie off the tray and sending it flying halfway across the room. He turned around, facing me and leaning on the counter. "You haven't tasted them yet."

"As good as that sounds, I'm gonna have to say no," I teased, crossing my arms over my chest and standing up.

The living room was completely empty, for once, but there was still a fire crackling warmly in the fireplace, spitting golden orange sparks onto the carpet. The candles on the mantelpiece had melted down to tiny stubs of wax, each glowing dimmer by the minute. One went out as I looked more closely at it, and tiny curls of smoke from the wick floated up towards the ceiling. When I closed my eyes, I could see the tiny flames through my lids, flashing in and out of focus. The tree was to my right, covered in ancient tinsel and dim, flickering lights. I could place every ornament in my mind without opening my eyes.

I opened them anyway. The windows had frosted over in the cold, but I could still make out the shadows of icicles hanging from the sill.

A card castle, about a foot and a half high, was stacked meticulously on the leaning coffee table: doubtless my brothers would return to it in the morning, as it hadn't blown up yet. I turned back towards the tree, sat down, and hugged my knees to my chest. Lumpy packages and stiff boxes were piled haphazardly beneath it, threatening to topple over in reckless abandon at any given moment. What was in them was hardly a mystery, but we usually feigned surprise in order to please my mother. Though after years and years of what felt like the same Christmas, we'd gotten used to patterns, to routine.

I eyed a small square box, wrapped in shiny red paper and partially hidden beneath a larger, lumpier gift. It was pointless to ponder the contents of the packages any more, but I couldn't help hoping, wishing, for a slight variation.

I made my way back into the kitchen. The smoke had cleared away, but the distinct smell of hot metal and burnt flour still hung in the air. I grabbed another cookie from a plate on the table. A Christmas tree. Harry was in the process of frosting his cookies, which were still as black as ever.

I stood up. "You can't hide that they're burnt," I told him. He grinned. "S'okay," he replied. "Fred likes them burnt, and your mother didn't bother to make any that way." He kissed me on the cheek and headed out the front door.

Night had fallen, painting the snow a deep blue and casting shadows in every direction. The only light outside came from through the kitchen window, dim and golden in four even squares on the snow. Snow was still falling: thick, bulky flakes: the good kind.

"Can you hear it?" he said, startling me a bit. He was standing in front of the window, where the tulips usually bloomed. I approached him, crossing my arms over my chest in an attempt to warm myself.

"Hear what?"

Our breath made clouds of icy frost in the cold, sharp then fading away into the dark, into the blue snow. He took me by the hand and said, "The bells." I gave him an incredulous look. He elaborated. "The sleigh. Santa's sleigh. Don't tell me you don't believe in Santa Claus."

I shook my head slowly. "Do you?"

He hesitated. Snow had fallen into his black hair: the contrast was apparent even in the dark. "Believing is the strongest magic there is."