No Place Like Home for the Holidays
Gideon liked school. Really, he did. He'd made friends quickly, he did pretty well in his classes, and he had a grand time exploring the grounds when they had down time. It was good to be back in his brother's company again, too; the previous year spent with Fabian at school and Gideon back home in Lincolnshire had been hard.
Being away from home was hard, too. He really started to feel it was Christmas approached. Their mother wrote to tell him about putting up the tree, and he felt a pang of homesickness so strong he thought he might choke on it. At nearly twelve Gideon thought he should be above that sort of thing, but he spent the next two hours writing his sister anyhow.
The closer the time for boarding the Hogwarts Express came, the brighter Gideon's spirits became. By the actual day, he was bouncing off the walls. It was a bit like having a large, excitable puppy in the Gryffindor tower, but like most puppies Gideon was good at dragging everyone else into his enthusiastic spirit. He even got four whole train compartments engaged in belting out "Bluebell Flames of Yuletide" with gusto (if not with much tone).
The year before, Fabian had been determined to keep up the proper front of being a near-adult who could look after himself. When the train pulled up to the platform he had waited his turn and strolled down the platform to meet his family as if he hadn't been missing them just as much as Gideon was this year. It had been forty-five seconds of awful until Gideon spotted him and bolted toward him at top speed.
This year, Fabian was on his feet as soon as the train stopped, giving his brother a grin. "Race you!" he declared.
Gideon would have grinned back, but he was already running.