Deck the Halls
Characters: Luna, Neville, Gawain and Nimue Summary: Merry Christmas from the Longbottoms.
"All right, now pick what you want on your ornaments," Luna encouraged, setting several bowls on the floor in front of the twins. Nimue immediately scooted over to the bowl with sequins of various colors, then turned fascinated eyes upon the bowl full of small mirrors in many shapes. "That's rather what I expected," Luna said, chuckling, as she scooped the bowls out of reach of little hands that liked to put things in little mouths. Nimue pouted and her eyes tightened, so Luna plucked one of the mirrors out and transfigured it into a little mirror man, then set him moving. Nimue brightened and began scooting around after him.
In the meantime, Gawain had pondered his selections and pushed himself over. He already had two fistfuls of the plastic gems before Luna could stop him, but he scattered them on the floor with such concentration that Luna just watched, bemused, her wand ready in case he decided they looked tasty after all. His tongue poking out between his lips, he began splitting them up, until only the small, round pink ones remained in his pile. He stared at it for a moment, then pushed two of those away as well. Then he pushed over to the bowl of ribbons and repeated the process until he had four green velvet ribbons as well. He rolled onto his back and burbled at Luna for a moment. "All done?" Luna looked over his careful selections, then took a diamond-shaped mirror from the bowl. "May I add this?" Gawain sneezed, which Luna took to be a "yes," rolled back onto his stomach, and joined his sister in chasing the mirror man.
With the children occupied, Luna began her project right away. They were still missing three Christmas decorations she considered very important. She lifted the first plain glass ball from its tissue paper-lined box. Since Gawain had been so specific, she did his ornament first, arranging the gems in a heart pattern with the mirror in the middle of it. The ribbons became horizontal bars, two around the top and two around the bottom. She stuck it all on Muggle-style, with glue, having decided that would be more fun, and likewise used something called a "paint pen" to write with. She used silver for Gawain's, as it looked nice with the colors he'd chosen, and wrote "Gawain's First Christmas" in her best curly cursive. After setting it aside to dry, she started on Nimue's, using an oval mirror as the centerpiece and dotting the rest of the ornament with sequins of every shade she had and several smaller mirrors. The only undecorated space was where she painted "Nimue's First Christmas" in gold.
"Moo, moo," Gawain cooed. Luna glanced over at the twins. They'd abandoned chasing the mirror man in favor of staring at one another, patting at the other, and gabbling. She shrugged; whatever made them happy.
For the final ornament, Luna used a glittery paint that was clear except for the reflected rainbow sparkles. She painted a snowflake on each half, using two stencils: one with straight arms and one with tilted, but otherwise identical. She painted "Luna and Neville" along the top in the same paint, this time with a brush. Her handwriting was more crooked than on the other two. Tapping the end of the brush against the tip of her tongue, she paused and considered the next word.
As he walked into the room, Neville smiled slightly to see Luna sticking her tongue out as she thought. He had already observed the same habit in Gawain, and he always felt warmed when he observed the twins picking up on their own behaviour. The twins looked occupied with each other for the moment, communicating in a language private to themselves, so Neville joined Luna, dropping a kiss on her forehead before sinking to his knees and asking, "What's got you looking so thoughtful?"
"I'm not sure what to write for the next bit. Is it our first Christmas, since it's the first we've been married, or our second, since it's the second we've been together, or our sixth, since we've been friends that long?"
Neville chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip. "First, I think. It's our first as a married couple and our first with the twins. It feels totally different this year to last. Better." He leaned in to kiss her lips. "That is if you agree," he added - they were a partnership after all.
"If I'd decided on something else, I would have wrote that already, and those are excellent reasons." It was difficult to remember, sometimes, that there had been a time when they weren't completely in love. Last Christmas had a charm all its own, but Luna was happy with what they'd traded it for. She pulled away from Neville enough to finish the line with "First Christmas." She looked at her bowls of shiny, colorful decorations, then held the ornament up and twirled it a few times. It seemed almost clear out of the light, the paint drying into a faint frost, but it shimmered in dazzling rainbow in the light. Luna turned back to Neville, her eyes resting on his warm brown ones. "I think this one's finished, then," she said with a decisive nod. "We should go hang them."
Neville picked up the two other ornaments and chuckled as he examined them, he hadn't needed to read Luna's writing to know that the sparkle ball would be Nimue's, and the ornament with mostly pink and green on it would be Gawain's. "Did you let them choose?" he asked, turning the bright globes around in the light. Luna let the twins choose a lot of the things that they could at this age, from their mushy breakfast to whether they wanted to listen to a story or play some more. Some of those choices were thrust upon them, like Gawain's continuing love affair with his blanket and the colour pink, and Nimue's decision that all shiny things needed chasing, but Neville found himself feeling nothing but pride whenever he observed these moments of independence. They were growing up a lot quicker than he had realised children did.
"Of course I let them choose," Luna said, rather scandalized at the idea of not letting them choose. "Well, I let Nimue choose in a general sense, and Gawain started on his while I was occupied, so he was much more specific." Neville had a faraway expression that indicated he wasn't really paying attention to the ornaments he was holding anymore. She pitched her voice a little louder to penetrate his thoughts. "Nimue and Gawain should be there while we hang the ornaments, and I don't think they want to be split up right now. You want to carry children or ornaments? I'll get the other."
Coming out of his pleasant thoughts to the even better reality surrounding him, Neville passed Luna the ornaments. He got to his feet and scooped up a twin in each arm. Nimue and Gawain both shrieked happily as he swung them up, and gabbled and patted at him as though they were trying to tell him all about their choices. They both quietened down as Neville carried them nearer to the tree, presumably sensing that Mummy was about to do something important with the shiny baubles. "Our first Christmas," Neville murmured to them, planting a kiss on both their cheeks. A perfect Christmas, Neville thought; the lead up to it with the wedding and extended family honeymoon having made the month all the more special.
Luna cleared a spot in the middle of the front of the tree, then glanced back over her shoulder and smiled at the three of them. "I expect they'll just keep getting better from now on. Those are the best kind of firsts," she said, then placed hers and Neville's ornament in the center of the space with Nimue's on the right of it and Gawain's on the left. She'd chosen that particular spot because a string of lights ran just behind it, so the three balls twirled and twinkled, each in its own way, in the multicolored light.
Satisfied, Luna joined the others, nestling along Neville's side, kissing the back of Nimue's head, and rubbing Gawain's back. "Merry Christmas," she said, her satisfaction and contentment clear in her voice.
"Merry Christmas," Neville replied, gazing at her, a gentle smile curving his lips. "The first of many more to come."