"Good! You're back." Aunt Florine greeted the figures arriving through the fireplace. Two girls straightened up and dusted their coats and hats down, careful not to get too much soot off the enchanted rug and onto the apartment's polished wood floor. Kisses were exchanged from mother to daughter and niece to aunt. "Come, your aunt and cousin are in the sitting room, we are having tea." Florine swept away, her embroidered robes tracing just above the floor, an elegant flair even in her own home.

Perle and her cousin Sylvie who was staying for new year celebrations before they went back to Beauxbatons shed their shopping bags, coats and hats after a successful trip into the Paris sales with Christmas money. It had been a rush to get back knowing family were expected, but it seemed although they were late, Perle's mother was not too irritated thankfully.

Voices flitted down the hallway from the sitting room, all speaking French, even their visitors and the sound of Aunt Camille and cousin Johann's voices in answer to a question posed excited both girls.
"Good, Ondine is home too." Perle remarked of her sister and paused to fix her hair in the mirror before they both filed into the homely sitting room with enough space to seat them all. The fire in here was warm and welcoming, and the Christmas tree glittered in the corner, a few remaining presents still remained to be given to guests at New Year the following day.

It had been a few years now since Johann had been to the Bayard's apartment in Paris. Florine and Thomas kept a very comfortable home in the 8th arrondissement. He and his mother had taken a wander before calling in from street level, taking in the Champs-Élysées and the Seine on their route from the French Ministry. A little Christmas sightseeing to see how things had changed and how the Muggles had dressed the city for the season.

An hour or so before they had stood on the path outside of the house Johann had grown up in, in Frankfurt, both curious what had become of it since Chrysopoeia had taken it back on making Wolfgang and then Camille redundant six months ago. There were new occupants, and the house was dressed for Christmas. The face of a young girl with blonde curls had stared out at them from Johann's old bedroom window as they stood silently hand in hand beyond the boundary just looking in. It was strange to think of someone else calling that room their own, even if he had outgrown it sixteen years ago. Stood together, they remembered Christmas past, and put to rest memories of decades of the place as the family home. They would not come by again.

That morning they had laid flowers at Wolfgang's grave in Hanover in the family plot. Today would have been his sixty-fourth birthday, and it seemed an appropriate time if any to visit after laying him to rest in early October. Unable to speak at his own father's funeral out of anger, Johann had let Ignan do so instead. But together, alone, he had managed a few words of the better times. For whatever had happened between them in the last few years, the man had still raised him with open eyes on the workings of the world, pushed him to strive academically and inspired him to strike out as a freelancer. For in death, even the worst bastards were spoken about with forgiving eyes. It hadn't stopped him uttering I'm not sorry at the quiet grave from within his scarf as his mother moved on to lay flowers at Amelia Storm's plot nearby. He stopped short at spitting, but he'd considered it.

Florine, like her sister, his mother, never seemed a year older between visits. To be in Paris and amongst the Bayards, the graveside paled into insignificance.

"How was Marrakech?" She had asked with bright eyes, keen to lift their spirits weary from the travelling around Germany. "Did you both enjoy your stay? I know you wrote to us, but it's so lovely to see your face again, nephew." She had patted her hand affectionately to his cold cheek. "Next time I want to meet your beautiful Scottish man."

Aunt Florine's concept of personal space to her taller nephew was fluid and she studied him only a few inches from his face. She missed nothing.
"I promise. We did, thank you again for the loan of your gorgeous home." He leaned down gently to kiss her again on both cheeks, wrapping his arms around her in genuine thanks for her kindness.

There were more warm greetings with cousin Ondine and uncle Thomas. The Bayards and the Duerrs saw much of each other between Paris and Carnac, and it was no surprise to hear that Sylvie was over to stay with Perle. As they arrived back from shopping he stood up to greet both of them, sweeping them into warm, affectionate hugs and kisses as if they were little sisters less cousins. As the eldest of all the grandchildren, he had seen all seven grow up and in a couple of years they would all be adults which seemed very strange.

"Have you a picture?" Perle begged, clasping Johann's arm, making him blush. "Mother said he is very pretty but Sylvie hasn't seen." The two of them had been present a couple of years ago when he had visited Carnac with Vedir. The maternal family did not think it at all strange that one might like another of the same gender. They were rather excited for him to have found love at long last. They might be 16, 17, and he might be nearly 35, but they could share an appreciation for a handsome dragon handler.

"Perhaps." Johann grinned, settling between the two of them on a sofa, opening his diary to find a few he had slotted in. A mix of some from Marrakech, full of mischief and smiles. Then one Johann had taken of Balfour throwing a ball for Whiskey in the park on Balfour's camera in late October and a favourite of them both at home, Johann's head resting on Balfour's chest contentedly, watching Balfour levitate the camera above them on the sofa with curiosity.

Sylvie squealed at the first, and clapped a hand to her mouth as her aunt Camille, Florine, Uncle Thomas and her cousin Ondine gave her a funny look.
"He tends to have that effect on young ladies, yes." Johann laughed. Recounting the scene to his lover later might even cause the braver man to blush. His mother shook her head with a smile.

"You must come spend a couple of weeks here with us in summer, sister," Florine insisted of Camille. "Give us both an excuse to take a few days leave. No need to find somewhere in dreary Britain, you have a home with us and with Martijn."
"I couldn't impose, Florine, but it is a very tempting offer."
"Well you're free and independent these days. No children to look after, no husband to stop you. Seize life!" Camille glanced to Johann who shrugged, his younger cousins pouring over the mismatched photos on his lap resting on his open diary.
"I'm with my aunt. See a proper summer mother."
"See, your boy speaks sense." Florine winked at her nephew.

"Is all that werewolf business sorted now?" Thomas interrupted with a serious tone, setting down his teacup, sitting forward in his armchair to study them. "We saw the news from London? Another wolf missing over full moon, same names again[1]." Camille's brother in law was the Deputy Chief Editor of La Gazette du Sorcier, the leading French wizarding paper. London's news was not a mile away from them at any point.
"Heavens, the Trumbles. I have no idea brother." Camille admitted with a sombre shake of her head. "But unsettling to know that Musgrave man is still at large."

"Is this your home?" Perle queried Johann, punctuating the sentence, distracting his focus on the conversation topic to the photo of the pair of them in the Atreus flat.
"Hmm? Oh, yes, well, technically his but I sort of live there too." He glanced up. "Nothing to do with mother or I though. Still we feel very much for the Trumbles. The boy's father was a family friend of sorts to the Storms. Though can't say I recall meeting him personally." He shrugged, the thought that he had run into Musgrave[2] only a week or so before Christmas weighed on his conscience.

Across the sitting room his cousin Ondine was examining the tea leaves in her father's cup. Johann could see Uncle Thomas was doing his best not to notice, rubbing the stubble on his chin as he listened to them instead.
"What do you see?" His mother asked outright, genuinely curious as her niece's seeing abilities. Ondine wet her lips and glanced between them all. Her father's gaze urged caution. Their visiting relatives did not need any dramatic readings but a quiet new year.
"Here," She extended her father's cup to her aunt with an innocent smile. Open minded, Camille scooped it up and examined the leaves with narrowed eyes.
"I never was much good at seeing things - numbers have definitely always been my strength. What is it?"
"A cat," Ondine leaned over to show her aunt beside her, tracing the outline of the leaves.

"Will you stay for dinner?" Florine interrupted "There's plenty, we thought you might. Johann you forever look like you need a good dinner."
"I don't know Mother," Perle protested, prodding her older cousin in the side of the stomach as Sylvie giggled the other side of him. Johann slipped an arm around his teenage cousin, it was true he had managed to gain a little weight over the season, and they were used to him rake thin.

"You have not got too big for a good tickle you know?" He warned, "And I got plenty of practice in over Christmas in Edinburgh…!" Opposite them, Camille tapped her brother in law's teacup with her fingertips, considering the shape of the tealeaves as she lowered it down to watch her son playfully wrestle her niece. Cat - deceitful friend or relative. Sometimes it was best not to read.

1.	25th December Northward Leading, by Lake Sleeping
2.	17th December On the Other Hand