31 December, 1990, 11 o'clock
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Andromeda Gamp was nine years, fourth and a half months old, there-about. She could draw a rudimentary chart of the position of the stars at her birth if pushed. But it was no party trick. A party trick was to persuade her bigger brothers to help her play tricks on the guests.

There were plenty of those rammed into their house. Wizard pipe smoke cloaked the ceiling in some rooms. The smell tickled her nose. House elves popped and cracked serving guests. Fairies danced around the branches of the Christmas tree. It sounded like someone was playing the piano. She might be mistaken and it was playing itself.

Her mother had tried to send her to bed an hour ago. It was not the ladylike thing to use her gift to impersonate guests rudely. It had made the other children laugh. Andromeda liked that. They were laughing because it was funny. Not because she was stupid. Or a weak little girl. If they did that she kicked them in the shins. Learn a new hex in one of their many books. Practice with a stick. It was not fair she could not use a wand yet.

Her father was talking to other unspeakables by the fire. He was never jolly. Not even at parties. If he saw her he would send her to bed too. She dodged out of the way behind an armchair. It was filled by a plump witch in hideous magenta and green robes. She looked like she had dressed up as a life-sized Honeydukes sweet to Andromeda. A Godric's Hollow neighbor. She complained about the Gamp children all year. The witch was anything but sweet.

Suddenly a hand pulled her arm. It was sticking out from under a nearby table. Andromeda slipped beneath. Returned to the realm of children and teenagers beneath the tablecloths. As a magical household a small table could be bewitched to make an enlarged tent. She was delighted at who she found.
"Everyone is being boring up there." Said Andromeda to anyone who would hear. "I do not want to be an adult if I will be that boring."

Niobe Thursby | 15 years old, Gryffindor

"Facts," Niobe concurred when Andy joined them under the table.

"Oh, we're such important adults, let's have a party and talk about work the whole time, hup hup." Niobe, fifteen years old from Belfast, mimicked a stuffed-shirt puffing on a long pipe. Niobe was fifteen and wearing a dress she hated. As a compromise her dad had allowed her to wear a jacket over the top, a blazer in dark red.

They'd been slowly amassing a cache of hors d'oeuvre and drinks, filched from the kitchens. The younger kids avoiding bed times, the older kids avoiding questions about what they planned to do after Hogwarts. The little daughter of the Gamps here, Andromeda, Niobe liked. She had a Greek mythology name just like her, was a metamorphmagus, and absolutely adorable.

Sixteen Years old, Fifth Year, Slytherin Prefect

Nadine Pinn thought she was too old to be sitting under a table, but simultaneously, this was where Orion was, so there was ample incentive. The pair had grown up together, not just through Hogwarts, but before when Ri’s mother had tutored them and others at this very house.

She was wearing the new makeup and perfume she’d been gifted at Christmas, wearing a fashionable dress with sparkle at her mother’s approval, which she had charmed an inch off the bottom of, the moment they arrived by floo. Everyone else had been distracted, and Nadine was sixteen. She was able to have one night off before they all went back to school and were swallowed up by piles of homework? (She had completed all of hers the first week of the holiday and spent the rest revising, naturally.)

He was still fifteen, but another fifth year. Orion the last choice for Snape to be prefect[1], always pushing the boundaries for their Head of House. He put more energy into winding people up with his gang, flirting with girls and knocking bludgers into the opposition players on the quidditch pitch with Balfour Spectre for the last two years.

“I’m not putting it[2] in there,” she told Ri, but laughed as she did. Nadine’s laugh was ridiculous and infectious. “You should get your little sister to. Nobody will suspect her.” Nadine pointed at Andromeda who had just appeared beneath the drapes of the tablecloth. “Unless you can charm Thursby.”

1.	See also: this bio
2.	hiccupping powder or similar comedy drink spiking joke

Fifteen years old | Gryffindor fourth year

Somewhere outside their hidden refuge, a party guest had probably noticed that their sparkling wine had gone missing after they'd carelessly set down for a moment. Pollux did his best to look as if he were enjoying his prize as he took another sip from the stemmed glass, trying not to pucker at the strange fizziness of it.

He hadn't been thrilled when the older Slytherins had come to join their hide-out under the table, but Gamp was both their host for the evening and the older brother to little Andromeda, whom Niobe had adopted as her new pet. At least he and Pinn, the prefect, had been mostly tolerable so far, much more wrapped up in flirting and laughing with each other than showing off the haughtiness that marked most of their housemates.

Even so, he wasn't about to let them get away with threatening to charm his sister, even if it was probably in jest.

"Good luck, Slytherin," he said, making a face in Pinn's direction.  "Mum's been trying to get Nibs to show an ounce of charm for years. I shouldn't get my hopes up that you'd be able to manage it."

"Shut your bake," Niobe said and flicked Pollux in the ear. "I'm a delight!"

Niobe and her brother Pollux were just about a month apart in age and both in Gryffindor. Technically they weren't brother and sister, and technically they were. Cousins. Adopted siblings. Don't bother your head about it.

"Give it here," she grabbed for the bottle and packet from Orion and Nadine who were sitting sooo clooose. "We'll do it. 'Dromeda, psst, come to me, my wee child."

Niobe had wanted to have a party with her friends, not sit at the kids' table at a stand-around-and-talk party. She popped a fancy cracker with a fancy topping into her mouth and held the bottle for Andromeda.

Andromeda screwed her face up at her big brother. He acted different when Nadine was there. He stopped paying Andromeda attention. Paid Nadine all the intention.

"I am not wee." Protested Andromeda. "I am nine." Still she came over. "I can look wee." She changed her face. "But I will definitely get sent to bed then." She changed it back. Snatched the bottle.

"What's this?" She stared at Niobe and Pollux. Her brother was looking at Nadine in that way again.