"Don't worry," Ted murmured to Ralph over dessert, "if anybody says anything, I'll tell her you were a spy operating undercover. She loves espionage, does the old dear."

        Kreacher hadn't changed a single iota. He bowed low to James, one hand over his heart, the other spread wide. "Master James, come back from his first year of schooling, he has," he warbled in his bullfrog voice. "Kreacher has prepared Master's quarters just the way he likes them. Would Master and his friend care for a watercress sandwich?"

        Kreacher had, as usual, kept the house in exceptional order, and had even gone to the trouble to decorate for the holidays. Unfortunately, Kreacher's concept of good cheer was a bit rustic, and the result would have amused Zane endlessly. The severed heads of the previous house-elves, which still hung in the hallway as a testament to the original pureblood owners of the estate, had been dressed with fake, white beards and conical, green caps with jingle bells on the tips.

         "Kreacher had bewitched them to sing holiday songs, too, he did," Kreacher told James and Ralph a bit petulantly. "But the missus decided that that was perhaps a bit too… festive. Kreacher liked it, though, just the same." He seemed to be angling to be allowed to reinstate the caroling heads. James assured Kreacher that it had been a wonderfully inventive idea and he'd talk to his mum about it. He was, in fact, morbidly curious to see and hear the heads in action.

        Both Lily and Albus followed James and Ralph around most of the night, begging to see what the boys could do with their newly learned skills.

        "Come on, James!" Albus demanded. "Show us a levitation! Levitate Lily!"

        "No!" Lily cried. "Levitate Albus! Fly him out the window!"

        "You both know I can't do magic once I'm off the train and officially out of Hogwarts," James said wearily. "I'll get in trouble."

        "Dad's Head Auror, you git. You probably won't even get a warning."

        "It's irresponsible," James said seriously. "You get older and you'll know what that means."

        "You can't do it, can you?" Albus taunted. "James can't do a levitation! Some wizard you are. First Squib in the Potter family. Mum will die of shame."

        "You're the same Albus-blabbus you ever were, you little skrewt."

        "Don't call me that!"

        "What, skrewt or Albus-blabbus?" James smiled. "You know Albus-blabbus is your real name, don't you? It's on your birth certificate. I saw it."

        "Albus-blabbus!" Lily sang, dancing around her older brother.

Albus jumped on James, wrestling him to the floor.

        Later, as James and Ralph headed to James' bedroom for the night, they passed a curtain that seemed to be drawn over a section of wall. A sleepy muttering came from behind it.

        "Old Mrs. Black," James explained. "Crazy old nutter. Wigs out about people desecrating the house of her fathers and stuff every time she sees any of us. Dad and Neville have done everything they could think of to get the old bat off the wall, but she's stuck there right good. Even considered cutting out the section of wall with the portrait on it, but it's a main wall. Cutting her out would probably bring the next floor right down on top of us. Besides, strange as it may seem, Kreacher's rather attached to her, since she was his old mistress. So I suppose she's part of the family forever."

        Ralph peeked tentatively behind the curtain. He furrowed his brow. "Is she… watching television?"

        James shrugged. "We discovered that a few years back. We had the front door open because we were moving in a new sofa. She saw a telly through the window across the street and shut right up for the first time in weeks. So we hired a wizard artist to come and paint one right into her portrait. Crazy old bat loves the chat shows. Ever since then, well, she's been a lot more bearable."

        Ralph slowly let the curtain drape back over the portrait. A man's voice behind it was saying, "And when did you first notice that your dog had Tourette's syndrome, Mrs. Drakemont?"

        Kreacher had arranged a cot for Ralph in James' room. His trunk was placed neatly at the end of it, and there was a ribbon-wrapped pinecone on each pillow, apparently Kreacher's idea of a Christmas mint.

        "This used to be my dad's godfather's room," James said sleepily, once they had settled down.

        "Cool," Ralph muttered. "Good guy, was he? Or was he a nutter, like the old witch in the portrait?"

        "One of the best guys ever, according to Dad. We'll have to tell you about him sometime. He was wanted for murder for over a decade."

        There was a minute of silence, and then Ralph's voice spoke in the darkness. "You wizards can be pretty bloody confusing, you know that?"

        James grinned. A minute later, both of them were asleep.

11.The Three Relics

        After the initial excitement of travel and arrivals, Christmas break at Grimmauld Place became rather humdrum. James introduced Ralph to everyone, and Ralph very shortly became simply one more of the throng of friends and family that crammed the house. On the Wednesday before Christmas, Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione arrived, along with their children, Hugo and Rose. They were followed shortly thereafter by Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur, Victoire's parents. James was very fond of them all, and even though the house was beginning to feel rather strained to capacity, he was thrilled they were staying over through the break.

        "It's a good thing Mum and Dad are off with Charlie this year," Ron commented, lugging his and Hermione's luggage up the steps to their third-floor bedroom. "This place seems so much smaller than it did when we were kids."

        "It's just you who's bigger, Ron," Hermione chided, elbowing him affectionately in the stomach. "You've got no room to complain."

        "I'm not complaining. At least we get a room. If Percy was here, he'd have to bunk in with Kreacher."

James and Ralph, along with James' siblings and cousins, spent their days by the fire, playing wizard chess with Uncle Ron or roaming the nearby streets, performing last-minute errands and Christmas shopping with Ginny or Aunt Hermione. Fleur and Bill enlisted James and Ralph's help in picking out and transporting a Christmas tree, which had looked merely charmingly plump outside, but had taken up twothirds of the main hall when they'd brought it in.