Six of One

The next day was Christmas, and everyone woke early in excitement.

"Merry Christmas, everyone!" Cedric exclaimed as he emerged from his bedroom.

He threw his arms around Draco and gave him a huge, wet kiss on his cheek.

"Du-uude!" Draco yelled as he pushed Cedric away.

"Oh, Draco, you know how he gets on Christmas, just humour him," Luna said.

Pansy and Oliver brought out breakfast and coffee, and everyone started eating, except for Cedric, who had started hopping excitedly around the dining table.

"Let's open presents!" he yelled.

"Calm down, mate," Oliver said calmly as he poured a cup of coffee for Cedric.

Ginny whisked it away before Cedric could take it.

"Are you mad?" she hissed. "He's hyper enough without drinking this!"

Cedric had already hopped over to the tree, and was now sitting cross-legged on the floor, ripping into his presents.

"Oh, who cares? Let's go open presents!" Draco yelled.

Soon, the six of them were sitting around the tree, waist deep in wrapping paper, admiring their presents. Pansy was just opening her last present, taking great care not to rip the paper, and painstakingly pulling all the sticky tape off carefully. The others were watching her.

"Oh. My. God. Hurry. UP!!!!!!" Oliver screamed.

Pansy finally got it open and pulled out a cashmere scarf from Ginny.

"Ginny, it's beautiful! Thank you, I love it!" Pansy exclaimed and reached over to give Ginny a hug.

Pansy folded up the wrapping paper and placed in on a pile of carefully folded paper from her other presents. She glared at the rest of the gang.

"Guys! You promised you would save all the paper, and look what you did!" she said, gesturing to all the torn paper everyone had ripped off.

"Oh, relax, Pans, I'll go buy you a brand new roll downstairs," Draco said.

After present-opening, Pansy retreated into the kitchen with Luna to begin preparing for their Christmas dinner, after giving strict instructions to everyone not to enter under any circumstances.

The rest of them stayed in the living room, watching TV. Draco was reading a new book he received from Pansy and Ginny was admiring the handbag Cedric had given her.

Soon it was lunchtime, and they were hungry.

"Draco, go get some food," Oliver said.

"And let Pansy murder me? No thanks," he replied.

"Cedric, you go," Ginny said.

"No, you go."

"Why don't we all go? Everyone run in, grab some food and run out. Don't look at anyone else. Take whatever you can. Most importantly, leave no man behind. If one of us can't get out, no one gets out!" Oliver said.

Ginny nodded with determination.

"Let's do it!" Cedric said.

"Oh, wait, we better get some safety gear. Pansy might throw things at us, and I don't fancy getting egg in my hair," Draco said.

They conjured up some gear, and soon all four were decked out in waterproof plastic raincoats, hard hats, and safety goggles.

"This should do," Oliver said and nodded his satisfaction.

They edged closer to the kitchen. Before entering, Draco signalled to the rest and they drew out their wands and entered.

"Hey, get out! I thought I told you--what the hell are you guys wearing?" Pansy asked.

"Go! Go! Go! Grab what you can! Take as much as possible!" Oliver yelled.

Ginny threw open cupboard doors and grab handfuls of stuff, and handed them to Draco, who handed them to Cedric, who ran them to the dining table, while Oliver took plates and cutlery.

Pansy and Luna stood in the middle of the kitchen watching, dumfounded. When Oliver decided they had taken enough, he yelled, "Okay, everyone out! This is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill!"

They scurried out of the kitchen, with Draco grabbing a jar of peanut butter as an afterthought.

Pansy, who was leaning against the sink, straightened out and looked at Luna with amusement.

"What the hell was that?" she asked.

Luna shook her head with a smile.

"I don't even want to know," she laughed.

Out in the living room, Ginny, Draco, Oliver and Cedric had taken off their safety gear and were admiring the food they had gotten.

"To victory!" Oliver yelled out, as they toasted with wine.

Suddenly Draco started laughing.

"What is it?" Cedric asked.

"Oh my god, you idiots! Do you know we could have just summoned some food from the kitchen and we didn't even have to go in there?" Draco said.

"Oh, god, we're thinking like muggles!" Ginny said.

"Who cares? It was fun! Let's do it again," Cedric said.

The rest laughed and dug into their well-deserved feast.

Later in the afternoon, they set the dining table for dinner, under Cedric's supervision. He had decided to use a red and gold theme for the table, to match their Christmas tree, and was taking great pains to make sure the table looked perfect.

"Draco, stop putting the glitter in your hair! Sprinkle it artfully on the table, you retard!"

"Oh my god, Luna, if you break one more plate, I swear I'll hex you into oblivion!"

"What do you mean you forgot to buy the crackers?"

Finally, they managed to follow his instructions, and the table was immaculately set with their finest china and silverware, a dark red tablecloth and other various red and gold decorations. Then, they began to dress for dinner. Ginny and Cedric had convinced everyone to dress up, even though they were at home. According to Cedric, Christmas was the time to "break out the dress robes", really, he used any excuse to dress up.

After a few more little fiascos, from Luna nearly burning down the house when lighting some candles to Pansy screaming that the turkey wasn't going to be ready in time, everyone and everything was finally ready. The table was set, the Christmas tree was lit and the food was cooked. Draco dimmed the lights and conjured up some floating candles while Oliver set the wireless to play softly in the background. The flames of the candles reflected off the glasses and silverware, sending sparkles of light everywhere. And, of course, everyone had dressed up and looked their best.

"Ooohh, it looks like a fairyland!" Luna exclaimed as she admired the dining room.

"We really outdid ourselves! I think we can set up a party business," Oliver said.

They sat down to dinner and admired the sumptuous feast Pansy had cooked. There was turkey, ham, roast chicken, roast potatoes, pumpkin and carrots, salad, a few more side dishes and of course, wine and champagne.

"I would like to propose a toast," Ginny said, holding up her wine glass, "to Pansy, for cooking this amazing dinner!"

"To Pansy!" everyone said.

"Also to all of you," Draco added, "If I wasn't celebrating Christmas here; I would be at the Manor with ten ugly girls, a bottle of Firewhiskey and about five seconds away from killing myself."

"Oh, Draco, what a sweet toast!" Oliver said, dabbing away pretend tears.

"To us!" everyone chorused.

After dinner they levitated all the dishes to the kitchen and magic'd them to wash themselves.

Draco glanced at his watch and said, "The fireworks are starting in ten minutes!"

"We better head up to the roof now," Ginny said.

Every year, on Christmas, Diagon Alley put on a fireworks show at ten pm, fireworks courtesy of Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes, and the gang had made it a tradition to watch it on the rooftop of their apartment building. So they headed up to the roof and sat down on the picnic mat Luna had brought up. Then Draco pulled out a bottle of Firewhiskey and a bottle of wine from his coat.

"Woo! Now it's a party!" Cedric shouted.

The fireworks began with a bang, and they settled down to watch, passing around the two bottles.

The show was spectacular, featuring many of Fred and George's new fireworks. The show ended with a splendid display of multicoloured fireworks that spelled out a personalised message: Ginny sucks! Draco laughed hysterically.

"Hahaha! Isn't that great? I convinced Fred and George to put that in!" he said.

"Argh! I hate you! The whole bloody Diagon Alley was watching that!" Ginny screeched and drew out her wand.

"Woah, put that away, Gin," Oliver said and summoned it.

"Oh, don't worry; it was enchanted so only the six of us could see it. Everyone else just saw the message 'Merry Christmas!'" Draco said.

Ginny calmed down and Oliver returned her wand.

Pansy shivered. "It's getting cold, let's head back down."

Everyone agreed and headed to the door leading to the stairs, only to find it had been blown shut by the wind.

"Shit!" Oliver yelled. "We can't get back in!"

He tried a number of spells, but to no avail.

"No spells will work on this door. It's the security door that can only be open from the inside. The curfew ends when the sun rises, then we can use 'Alohomora' to open it," Draco said.

"Well, what's the time now?" Luna asked.

"Ummm...eleven pm," Ginny answered.

"Guys, I think you're forgetting that we're wizards and witches who know how to Apparate!" Cedric said.

"Oh yeah!" everyone chorused, except for Draco, who remembered something.

"Wait, wait, wait! What was that notice that was sent to our apartment? The one about no Apparition in and out of the building on the 25^th of December?" he said.

"It said no Apparition in or out of the building. It didn't say anything about within the building," Ginny said.

"Fine, go ahead and do it! Just don't cry when you Apparate into our apartment with your arms Splinched off and there's no one there to rescue you!" Draco retorted.

Ginny narrowed her eyes at him.

"He's right. If the wards are affected, I wouldn't risk it," Pansy said.

"So we're just going to stay up here until five am?" Cedric asked.

"I'm cold!"

"Everyone shut up! Let me think!" Draco yelled and went to sit on the floor. Everyone followed him, and they sat in a tight circle, huddling against the wind. Pansy wrapped the picnic mat around herself while Luna cast some Warming spells.

"All we need is one person to get to the other side of the door and open it," Oliver said.

"Why don't we just blast the door open?" Ginny said.

"Did you not hear when I said no spells will work on the door?" Draco said.

"One of us could jump off the side of the building and do a Cushioning charm, then come back up and open the door," Cedric suggested.

"Okay, go do it, then!" Luna said.

"No, I don't want to, I'm scared," he replied.

"Someone could do a Sticking charm on their hands, and scale down the side of the building like Spiderman!" Pansy said.

"Someone's been watching too many superhero movies," Draco said.

"Or we could conjure up a rope and lower someone down to the pavement."

"We could yell out to a passer-by to come up and open the door."

"Oh, I know! We can summon a broom from the Quidditch Supply Shop and fly down."

"And go to Azkaban for robbery?"

"Fine, let's hear your suggestions, then!" Oliver, who had made the broom suggestion, shot at Draco.

"I say there's nothing we can do, or that I want to do, so we'll just conjure up some sleeping bags and a fire and camp out," Draco said.

"But we're all still wearing our dress robes, and they'll get all crumpled..." Ginny whined.

"Well, transfigure them into pyjamas, then! God, am I the only sensible one here?" Draco said.

He conjured up six thick sleeping bags, while Ginny and Pansy took Draco's suggestion and went over to the other side of the roof, where they conjured up a screen and transfigured their dress robes into pyjamas and got changed.

Oliver peered up at the sky.

"I hope it doesn't snow," he murmured.

Draco went over to stand next to him, and muttered a quick Weather-check spell.

"No, it should be fine," he assured Oliver.

Cedric had conjured up a warm fire and Luna arranged the sleeping bags around it. Ginny climbed into one and squirmed around, complaining, "Argh, the floor's so hard!"

"Do a Cushioning charm under your arse, then, just shut up!" Draco yelled.

"God, you're in a mood tonight, mister," Ginny muttered and glared darkly at Draco.

He rolled over in his bag, flat on his back and faced the night sky, which was dotted with stars.

Luna's voice rang out in the quiet. "Hey, everyone it's one minute past midnight. Happy Boxing Day!"

"Luna, you don't say that!"

"Urgh, I can't get to sleep. Let's play a game!" Cedric said.

His suggestion was met by silence and a few snores coming from Oliver's sleeping bag.

"Guys? Guys?"