The snow had been falling for four days straight, and the small coastal town of Oban looked like the perfect picturesque Christmas card. It was cold, below zero, and the winds that almost always seemed to be blowing through it’s street made everyone daring to go outside feel cold to the bone. But it’s inhabitants were used to it - it was the same every winter. And to be fair, it gave the town it’s unmistakable charm.

In the outskirts, perched on a hill with the perfect overview of the scenery, Mullach Cottage was built. A thick stream of smoke, filled with the smell of stews and newly baked bread, emitted from its chimney and mixed with the saltiness of the air around it. This was the home of Lawanda Warrington, and right now she was in full swing of preparing a pre-Christmas sunday roast. One Johann Storm was coming for a visit.

The stove was filled to the brim with pots - a stew that had been cooking since last night; potatoes being boiled; a thick gravy was puttering away. Lawanda never really got the chance to do big dinners or luncheons, so this was a chance she couldn’t miss. With Omari’s work as an Auror she couldn’t be quite sure if he would be able to have Christmas Day off. This was as good a time as any.

Omari had thrown himself over a large armchair covered in a pelt and was watching his mother methodically work in the kitchen. He had come to spend quite a lot of time here, in his childhood home, after moving back to the UK, and he always felt a sense of security when being in the same house as his only parent.

Mullach Cottage’s interior was an interesting mix of oak furniture, tartan blankets and African vases and masks. Lawanda, even though being fiercely proud of her Scottish heritage, had quite early on found an interest in the African community. It had been a big part of taking a job at the Office of African Relations at the DIMC, and with Omari’s father being from South Africa it had only increased her interest. She wanted her son to know where he came from.

A fire was crackling welcoming in the fireplace as Lawanda brushed her brow and looked over at her son.

“Mari, care to help me with the plates?”

“He won’t be here just yet, mum” Omari sighed, but nonetheless heaved himself out of the armchair. His leg made a metallic clunck as he set it down on the wooden floor. “Didn’t ya say three’o’clock?”

Lawanda shook her head and turned back to her stew, as her son loomed by the armchair.

“Just prepare the table, ‘Mari,” she said with her no-nonsense tone. A tone Omari knew all too well.

It was flipping freezing up in Oban but at least there was the prospect of a warm cottage, good company and a roast dinner waiting. The night before had been full of friends, a few too many mince pies and glasses of strong mulled wine at Diagon Alley, but what mild hangover he had sustained was gone, ebbed away by a lazy morning with Balfour at home.

The snow was deeper in Scotland than it was down in London, but being by the sea, the salt had stopped it laying as deeply as he anticipated it might be at Hogwarts. Instead the wind whistled around the cottage on the hillside.

Johann was bundled beneath a warm scarf, long coat and a pair of gloves that he'd nicked from Bal. He'd misplaced his own back at the office on Friday night before he'd gone to see Arc and deliver thank you presents. As the cold prickled his nose he rubbed at the tip and could smell the faint scent of tobacco on them. He knocked firmly on the front door, careful not to upset the impressive wreath on the door.

As he waited for the door to be opened, he swapped the bottle of wine into his left hand and used his wand to dry his feet and the bottoms of his trousers from the snow. No humorous Christmas jumper today, just a warm woollen one over a shirt beneath his coat.

He tucked his wand away inside his coat as the door came open. The heat from inside wafted out with delightful invitation, accompanied with a rich smell of cooking.
"Hello, hello!" Johann greeted with a grin, and tugged down the scarf to show such. His arms extended out to either side, the bottle of wine gripped by the neck in his left hand.

"What a place to grow up," He exclaimed, stepping  over the threshold. He looked back over his shoulder at the view before the door closed out the cold, "I'm jealous!"

He exchanged hugs, extended the bottle of wine to his hosts.
"Thanks for having me over. Lovely place you've got up here. Omari's spoken much about the place, so it's curious to see it with my own eyes." He shot his friend a grin. It was good to see him relaxed and in the Warrington family home. They'd barely seen each other for the past couple of months - each of them dashing from one place to the next, or Johann away from the office.

"Do you ever get snowed in?"

The knock on the door made both scots look up, but before Omari even had a chance to motion towards the door, Lawanda was there and threw it open. A gust of cold air and snowflakes filled the hall, and a figured that seemed to be wrapped in a big scarf was standing grinning in the door frame. Lawanda broke into a huge smile, hugged their guest, gratefully accepted the bottle of wine and ushered Johann inside.

“It’s a pleasure havin’ yer over Johann,” she said and closed the door behind their guest. “I’ve been meanin’ to invite yer over for ages.”

Lawanda motioned towards the table, where Omari stood with a sheepish grin. He had meant to greet his friend at the door, mainly to feel like he was the first one to greet Johann. They hadn’t really seen each other for ages, and even though they had had a small fall out, Omari still missed his friend. Setting down the last of the cutlery, Omari rounded the table and moved over to give Johann a proper bear hug. This was the first time since Hogwarts that a friend of Omari’s had come to visit.

“Glad to have yer here, Joh,” Omari said, grinning from ear to ear.

“Do you ever get snowed in?”

Omari laughed, but it was Lawanda who spoke.

“Aye, how do yer think ‘Mari got his muscles?” she said with a wink. “Nowadays I usually just use me wand, but when ‘Mari was younger he used the shovel. Sit, please.”

Omari, shaking his head at and rolling his eyes at his mother, offered an arm to Johann to hang his coat on. With a flick of his wand, that he unnoticably produced from his back pocket, he turned on the gramophone to the strong tones of Olivant MacLennan’s singing. Lawanda immediately turned back to her cooking, now humming along under her breath, and throwing glances at the to young men.

“How ye been?” Omari asked and gave Johann’s shoulder a warm, friendly squeeze. “I’ve missed ye, laddie!”

Johann laughed politely to Lawanda's explanations of the shovelling. Omari was shaking his head and rolling his eyes. This was a common tactic from the witch when the three of them were ever together. It had not escaped Johann's notice that Omari was very easy on the eye - it had become quite the preoccupation over summer, but had left him tongue tied.

He slid his coat from his shoulders and extended it to Omari's waiting arm, but gave a cheeky squeeze of his bicep as he reached over, giving a wink to his friend before uttering thanks.

"Missed you too, mate." Johann agreed, clapping Omari's hand on his shoulder before taking a seat as instructed by Lawanda. "It's been a bit of a year, but I think we're all going to make it." He grinned, settling back. "I'm not sure what happened between September and now, but it went damn quickly. How about you?" He glanced from Omari to Lawanda and then back again, finding it hard to draw his gaze from Omari as usual.

"We need to go out, have a drink again soon. Blow away the cobwebs before the new year. Well, if you're not stuck in scarlet all Christmas and New Year." He suggested. "There is this thing called annual leave which I'm sure your lot get but never take."

“Somehow,” Omari answered Johann, as he too threw himself in a chair at the table. “I ended up at desk duty. Not much fer me, but it has kept me busy.”

With a wave of his wand a bottle of Blishen’s Firewhiskey (“Scottish Firewhiskey is the only kind worth havin’” as Lawanda used to say) came flying through the air and he caught it with ease, starting to pour three big glasses without even asking. He handed Johann a glass, and took a big gulp himself, feeling the warmth almost instantly filling his chest. He grinned and leaned back.

“There’s a thing called annual leave which I’m sure your lot get but never take.”

“This one won’t use his annual leave until his poor maw is in the grave,” Lawanda grunted, grabbing the now finished stew from the stove and setting it down on the table. “He works too much, me ‘Mari, but it shows dedication.”

Once again Omari rolled his eyes, but this time a bit more subtle. He knew what his mother tried to do, and he had suspected since the first time that she introduced him to Johann. It had been years since Lucas passed away, and his mother had gotten the notion in her head that it was time to put Omari back on the market - regardless if he wanted to or not. Ignoring his mother’s remark he answered Johann.

“Aye, drinks we should do,” he said, as he started putting up the steaming stew onto the three’s plates. The pleasant smell of cooked meat and foreign spices filled the room. “I got blootered last time.”

He could feel his mother’s piercing eyes after that statement, but he felt that that might be a discussion for another time. She had never liked his drinking, and after he had found him passed out on the floor on multiple occasions, she had been fiercely protective over his drinking habits. Which she had all right to be.

“What yer up to these days, Joh?” Omari asked, trying to move away from their nights out in Diagon Alley. “Back at the Ministry?”

Whiskey before lunch eating, hm, the Warringtons had a way his liver might not approve of, but he wasn't about to complain. He toasted Omari silently as he and his mother debated annual leave. Lawanda claimed Omari worked too much.
"I can hardly judge." He shrugged with a grin, self-confessed workaholic too. "And it does, we can rest easy knowing Auror Warrington's on duty." He toasted his friend again and winked. Rest easy and picture him in those robes too. Mhm.

"I got blootered last time."
"We both did." Johann winced, it was about five months since the night with the darts[1], dodging Higgins and his talk of floos before they'd ended up in Calaveras. Nobody had been good enough for Omari in Johann's opinion.[2]

"I am," Johann confirmed, "Though as Lawanda may have mentioned, there's enough jokes going round about me still being part time. I couldn't really leave, just needed a bit of time." As he spoke he turned the whiskey glass in his fingers and watched the liquid slop against the glass. "Work hard, play hard, looking forward to Christmas to balance out the work part though. If you're not working New Year's Eve, let me know. There are plans afoot." He extended a finger to point to Omari as he mentioned it, and raised his glass again, wetting his lips.

"And must return the offer of dinner at ours." He smiled brightly, drawing closer to the table, sitting straight as he generally did. He was more hungry than he realised for smelling the food up close. "Merlin, this looks incredible Lawanda, thank you again for having me over. No wonder you grew up like that Omari, between shovelling snow and eating like a king." Taking his lead from the other two as whether everyone was ready to eat he shot them both one of his boyish grins.

"What are your plans for Christmas and New Year, Lawanda? How do Warringtons usually celebrate?"

1.	July 10th Hang on to your IQ
2.	July 10th Drink Them Pretty

Omari was about to blurt out an instant ‘I’m game’ to Johann’s mention of plans for New Year’s Eve, but stopped himself in the last second. He wasn’t sure if he actually was working or not. These times he never seemed to be off, just like his mother said, and he had become accustomed to being called in at a moments notice. He would want to join in whatever Johann was referring to though. He glanced over at Lawanda.

Since he wasn’t going to spend Christmas with his family, he had just written off New Year’s as being the day he would celebrate with his mother, aunt, and uncle, and he wasn’t sure if Lawanda would be okay with him skipping out on yet another family holiday. But Lawanda saw his gaze, and from all the years they had been alone understood what he meant without him saying a word. She gave a silent, almost unnoticeable nod, and Omari turned back to Johann with a grin.

“If I’m not workin’ New Year’s I’ll come to whatever yer have planned!”

“And I must return the offer of dinners at ours.”

Omari, who was just about to put stew on the dinner guests’ plates froze slightly. He hadn’t expected this statement, even though he knew Johann would probably feel inclined to put it forward. Of course he would come to dinner, but he wasn’t sure how the relationship with him and Johann actually was nowadays. And now with Johann living with Balfour. Shrugging he handed the food out. Best not to think about it.

“Aye, Christmas is quite the affair amongst the Warringtons,” Lawanda began, her accent just as thick as Omari’s, and accepted a plate from her son. “Usually we all gather at Winston’s, me brother, and his children and me sister Imani all attend. Roasts, firewhiskey, the house-elves puttin’ on a performence.”

Omari laughed at his mother.

“How does the Storm’s celebrate, then?” she asked Johann, taking a sip of her firewhiskey without making a face.

The pause from Omari wasn't missed by his friend, but he decided not to comment on it. A few people had done similar when he'd started using we, that and the fact Johann's invitations of dinner usually involved going out to eat due to his lack of culinary expertise. A lot could change in a few months. Instead, Johann fixed his bright blue gaze on Lawanda as she explained their seasonal traditions.

"Sounds super," he agreed, nodding along politely. "All the Warringtons together, Christmas is a time for family, and that rings true with you all, or so it sounds." His fingers glanced over the assembled cutlery either side of his plate as he watched Omari spoon out his portion and set it down before himself.

"In recent years, in our own little ways." Johann explained to Lawanda, deciding not to elaborate on Christmas dinner with the Bombay family last year. Omari knew the story. "But if I think back to growing up it was quite similar. Round to grandparents, or my great uncle's at some point amongst it. Sometimes Christmas day would just be me and my parents. Occasionally we'd visit my mother's family in France. I'll probably see them before new year this year - any excuse to travel and wander a bit of Paris." He shrugged, seeing them all served reached for cutlery properly in mirror with the other two.

"This year I'll be up in Edinburgh though. I worked a lot of it last year, so someone else's turn. Pinn needs the cash." He winked to Lawanda who knew which young colleague he meant. "Christmas is not where you are, but enjoying who you're with, hmm?" He smiled broadly and made appreciative but polite noises at the stew. "Gosh, this is tremendous, Lawanda." He nodded to Omari's mother with a bright smile.

"Looking forward to 2011 though - have either of you any plans? Hmm," Johann narrowed his eyes in exaggerated thought, tone upbeat, "… Chair of the International Confederation for you Lawanda and will we see you ousting Pratt or Carstairs, Omari?"

Only 2011 knew....

End