Operation: Secret Santa Errand Finished

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This thread is backdated to the 6th of December, 2020

Word count: 1021/1000

English: #6B5076
Welsh: #9E8FB9
Uzbek: #874343

The day had been fairly peaceful and quiet Sunday.

It made Autumn wonder what would ruin it.

Something would have to. Something always did.

But it had been... normal. Perfectly normal, in fact. No hi-jinks, no nothing. Her homework was done, and she had revised for all of her upcoming exams. She had not had any notable interactions. Usually, this meant her boring day would be interrupted by something new, another unpredictable interaction or noticing or discovery. But there was simply nothing. Her day was normal, and that was all. Which meant that she had nothing to do, and, like any easily bored 12 year old with nothing to do, was bored.

So, like any bored bookworm, she went to the library. Here, she browsed through the shelves, with wonder in her face, as if she were seeing the books on the selves for the very first time, knowing full well that was not the case.

Autumn recognised many books she had read. She recognised many she had re-read, from two times to thirty. However, she also saw many she was yet to read. The Hogwarts library was large, and had what seemed like an infinite amount of books. And although Autumn was a full-time resident of the library, she knew that it would probably take her the next 5 and a half years she had left in Hogwarts (on the unlikely grounds she would survive them) for her to finish every book it contained. That wasn't even considering the Restricted section!

So, she walked around the library, looking for a new book and a place to read it in. Naturally, she felt herself drawn to the thriller and mystery sections, as well as some non-fiction astronomy and potions books. Finally, she settled for a simple, muggle caper story. When she went to find a corner, she instead came across and arts an crafts section. Full ready to turn back and find another spot, she noted what it was for.

The Secret Santa Assignment.

Oh, Autumn had almost completely forgot about the task. The caper story could wait. She would do this instead. She scanned her mind and tried to remember the name, house and year of the person she would be preparing a gift for. She remembered; a third year Slytherin. She also knew that she knew nothing about this person. They had never talked before. Hell, until receiving the name, Autumn had not been aware such person had existed. She knew practically everyone in her grade, at least their names. This person, though, unfortunate as it was, wasn't in her grade.

So, she quickly borrowed the book and put it in her satchel, leaving the library to vaguely exist around the castle, looking for any student in Slytherin robes she could ambush with a series of questions. This led to several uncomfortable situations where the Slytherins did not know who the person was, or they were simply surprised at the ambush. However, Autumn finally got enough about the receiver of her gift.

An energetic, mischievous and sarcastic wizard-born female. And, already equipped with the knowledge of the girl's house and year, this was all Autumn needed to get an idea for a gift. So, she got to the library, and got to work.

Asking for her necessary ingredients of a piece of cardboard, ruler, scissors, hot glue, two magnets, a compression string, a sock, two googly eyes and some coloured marker pens. She almost smiled- a rare event for her studious, cold face- with an evil glint in her eye.

First, she found a book on how to make her desired item, knowing that she knew a lot of things, but that this was fully out of her zone of knowledge. Secondly, she made a cube using the cardboard and the glue, not sticking in one of the surfaces and instead using tape to stick one of its sides so that it would create a hinge which allowed the box to open, creating the lid of the box. Next, she stuck one of the small magnets to the bottom of the lid, and stuck the second one so that they would meet when the box was closed. Then, she glued the spring to the bottom of the box.

Now she had to make the puppet. She had no idea what the receiver of her gift looked like, but she did know what a certain popular dead man looked like. A dead man with a hooked nose, white hair and a disapproving glare. Although the puppet's quality could only ever really be described as poor, Autumn could admit that it looked vaguely threatening, never mind whether or not that had been her intention.

And then it was done. The only thing left to do was to decorate the box. And, boy, did Autumn decorate the box. First, she painted it black. Then, she realised she would need glitter- two different colours, at that-, as well as a pencil, so she quickly visited the librarian to get those. Next, she drew in a snake, and coloured it in using the coloured marker pens glitter. Then, again, she realised she needed a white paint pen, and, again, visited the librarian, this time more sheepishly. Finally, she used the white paint pen to do some calligraphy at the outside of the lid of the box. She really hoped the random Slytherins she had ambushed earlier that day had not been lying about her gift's receiver's personality. Then she stopped doing that, because hope was for the weak.

And then, well... nothing. She was done! She tested it a few times again, just be really, really sure the gift was ready before she gave it, and decided that her job was done. Sure, it was not perfect, but it could certainly be worse. She put the instruction book, as well as all items she had used, away, and although she would deny it, she secretly smiled in satisfaction.

She opened her book and began walking away from the library, gift in her bag.

Maybe this day she would actually get some peace and quiet.

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Saturday 19th December 2020

Sporting a huge grin on her face, Serena walked into the room with a bag on her shoulder. There was a certain amount of 'bounce' in her steps. She was clearly excited about whatever she was here for. It was odd though. The Hufflepuff had barely been to the library in her former three years. Things had started to change this semester though - perhaps after being called out by the librarian. Either way, she was grateful that she was not here today to actually read. Though, she did have a book in her bag with some instructions that she intended on reading. Nonetheless, she was mostly here to make something.

Over the past few months, she had been exploring certain aspects of her life. In particular, she was learning about her lineage and her goblin ancestors. Of course, most of the information she found about goblins was not directly linked to her family but that was beside the point. It was during these times of research that she learned that goblins were particularly known for their skill with metal. It might not have been every goblin, of course, but things suddenly started to make sense to her. She understood why Gringotts was full of goblins - run by them, in fact. There were times in her own childhood that she had helped her father make something or created something herself, such as the first time she made a simple bracelet. By no means was she expert but she recalled being rather impressed with herself the first time she made a metal bracelet. It was very simple but she had no idea what she was doing and somehow, she had put together something that was not terrible.

It also was not good enough to wear around but she really did think it was rather good. It turned out better than her friend who had also been there, at the very least. For her first-ever attempt, she had been impressed.

Well, after learning about this, she wanted to expand her skill with it and improve it. Perhaps she too could be an expert with it one day. Deciding that she liked making jewellery, she had gotten some supplies together. Some of them came from a bundle that her father sent her, after she requested it whilst others were things that she had gathered from the supply table provided.

Finding an empty table in the special area, she sat down whilst dropping her bag down next to her. The supplies she had gathered from the craft table had been placed onto it. Opening up her bag, she pulled out the additional supplies from her father, along with a book that he had sent her - Jewellery Making: A Complete Course for Beginners. And so, the process begun.

In all honesty, she had no idea what she was doing. She knew that she had to make a gift for her Secret Santa but she did not know the recipient well enough to know exactly what they would like or want they might wear. Jewellery seemed like a nice option but then she could not make a ring or earrings... She had no idea what size the ring should be or if they had their ears pierced. Perhaps a bracelet?

After some consideration, she had come to the conclusion to make them a necklace. It was a rather simple design, to be honest, but she wanted it to be something they could use - and more importantly, also something she could actually make. The book had some designs that looked far more complicated than she could even handle or required supplies that she did not actually own. However, she had a whole box of beads and a lot of metal pieces that she could fashion something together with using some tools she had. She did not actually know the names of some of the tools. One was a plier, another would cut the wire and then there was this pokey tool thing in the kit.

All she knew was that she had to be careful or her father would likely get mad. Plus, she was not sure that the librarian would appreciate it if she poked herself and then got the books messy with her blood. Knowing very little about the recipient, Serena opted to use what she did know. In the past weeks, she had figured out what house and year the recipient was in and that was pretty much the best start she was going to get. This was information that had been provided to her anyway... But outside of that, she struggled to really find out anything about her recipient, like their favourite colour. She could have, of course, gone up to them and asked but that would be very obvious. She also did not actually know what they looked like...

Serena rooted around the bead box until she found some round ones in the recipient's main house colour. She took some larger beads and then a few smaller ones. There were around four different sizes by the end of the process. Serena laid them down on the table before shaking her head and moving them around. She would lay a bit of wire between them before moving things around again. Nothing had been attached together, of course. She was mostly trying to figure out how many beads to use, what size and what colours. With the main house colour, she tried something different by adding a few white beads into it so the necklace was not all one colour. She added in a purple - which was just a nice colour - but it did not quite go. Removing that, she opted for some beads in orange. Again, it did not quite work with the other colour. Sighing softly, she rolled a bead back and forth as she pondered.

At least fifteen minutes had passed. Perhaps even thirty before she started to come up with something that she thought would work. Two colours. Both the house colours. She swapped the metal chains, trying to find the right colour. She had a gold chain, a silver and a black one. Most of the other metal pieces were in silver.

Making the decision was perhaps the hardest part though. Once she had decided to commit to something, Serena picked up the tools and started to thread the bead into the metal wire. She had considered doing something random but opted to make the necklace symmetrical by the end of it. The necklace was fairly long by the time it was done, perhaps a bit longer than she had intended to make it but she was not sure. She quite liked the end result. It was simple but she really did like it. The top was one chain that held four larger beads on either side and then the bottom part split into three looping chains of varying height. The inside chain had three small beads in the centre whilst the outside one had nothing. The middle chain ended up with three slightly bigger beads on either side.

Once she was done, she took out some wrapping paper from her bag and wrapped the necklace into it before scribbling the recipient's name onto it. The wrapping paper was a metallic gold colour one that Serena had gotten to use for pretty much any occasion since it had no real words or designs. It was just gold - and oh so shiny. Once wrapped, she cleaned up her workspace and packed up her belongings. On her way out, she deposited the item as she was told to do.

Woo... okay. Ami had to make a gift. For someone she hardly knew. What could possibly go wrong?

To be completely clear, Ami didn't know her Secret Santa recipient well at all. She had no idea what their interests were, who they hung out with between classes, or what the hell she should be making them for the holidays. Did they even celebrate Christmas? Trudging into the library and waving a quick hello to her doppelganger, the Hufflepuff plopped down into a seat at an empty table. She seemed to fold into herself as she did so, her head and neck combining into one, only to sink into her shoulders as she stared at the empty table in front of her. What on earth was she supposed to do? She had to get it done today, it was the last bit of free time she had before the deadline.

Maybe... maybe she could write a song? It felt somewhat odd, to finally be composing something, especially without a piano or guitar right in front of her, but at least she could play to her strengths. Apparently, finding uses for her rather surprising music skill had been harder than she'd originally thought, so opportunities to use her years upon years of musical training were few and far between. Yes... a song. A song would be adequate, right?

Her mind was made up, so she reached into her schoolbag to retrieve a notebook and a pencil. Quills and parchment, however aesthetically pleasing they may have seemed, it would be easier and much less messier to write a song in pencil. Flipping open to a new page, Ami tapped the eraser end of the pencil against her chin as she thought, long and hard about this soon-to-be-written song. Was it meant to be performed live by her, to the recipient? Or maybe she should parody an existing song, one that she'd have to assume that the recipient already knew? The latter felt easier, but then again... performing in front of people was fun. But maybe her recipient didn't like to be singled out in front of a large crowd of people? She certainly wasn't going to serenade her recipient in a dark and quiet corridor, that just seemed unnecessarily creepy.

A parody it was! A parody it... would be? I don't know, I'm not good with grammar.

And exactly which song she would choose was obvious. Who was know around the globe, throughout both Wizarding and No-Maj circles? ... well, not a lot of people, but Taylor Swift was pretty famous, right? And the first Taylor Swift song that came to mind would obviously be Shake it Off. Even if Taylor Swift was (as far as she knew) a No-Maj, that song played non-stop for at least 6 months. Maybe a year. Whatever the case, if her recipient didn't know this song... well, she just felt bad for them. It was a real banger.

Okay, so how did the song start? Humming quietly to herself, Ami first wrote down the words she remembered on the left side of the paper, putting dashes where she'd forgotten the words to act as placeholders for syllables. That way, even if she didn't remember the actual words to the song, she'd at least know to have words in her parody that lined up with the actual song. Finally, after running through the whole song in her head and transferring as much as she could to paper, she could get to work on trying to write a legitimate song... or at least, a parody of a legitimate song.

But what should she write it about? Her recipient? Hogwarts? Spiders?? The possibilities were endless, so she had to narrow it down to one. Maybe writing it about the Great Lake would be a good idea- everyone liked to chill by the Great Lake every once in a while, right? And if her recipient was more of an indoors person, or a recluse, maybe the song would inspire them to venture into the outdoors to see the Great Lake for themselves, rather than just hearing about it through an awesome song.

Pencil in hand, Ami set to work writing her epic parody. It would have to be the most epic of epic parodies in order to truly set into motion the holiday spirit, right? And so she wrote. It had been a good few months since the last time she'd written anything of her own free will, the last time being her incredible ketchup article for the Headliner. Since then, all of her writing had consisted of essays set by professors and obligatory letters home to her parents. Now that she had to kick her creativity into full gear for this, her brain was a little slow in coming up with appropriately festive lyrics about the Great Lake. Besides, any composing she'd done as a child had been on the more classical side. She'd written melodies and counter-melodies, harmonies and phrases, not... lyrics. But at least it was a good challenge for her, right?

And so she spent the better part of her free time that afternoon rewriting one of the most iconic songs of her generation. Part of her felt like she was doing something sacrilegious, but the other part of her was laughing gleefully at how wonderfully horrible her parody was. Even if her recipient had no idea what this song was, the words themselves were hilarious enough to elicit a chuckle or two, right? In fact, she figured that if it were to be read as a poem, it would easily find itself on display in a glass case in the Trophy Room before long.

Word by word, rhyme by rhyme, and line by line, Ami had her way through every magnificent syllable Taylor Swift had penned 6 years ago. Finally, she'd gotten through the entire song, and she could appreciate just how ridiculously hard it must have been to write this from scratch. Even after being given a blueprint of how many syllables she needed for each line, and which words had to rhyme with one another, she still struggled to find lyrics that fit nicely. But doing this all from scratch, with no skeleton to piggyback off of? Suffice to say, Ami certainly had a newfound respect for songwriters.

Getting out a blank, fresh new ream of parchment, she quickly wrote up her final draft with her impeccably neat handwriting, before folding it up and tying a green ribbon around it. Maybe... well, she probably had to include a little note with it, explaining what it was, right? That would be the courteous thing to do, after all. Grabbing a scrap bit of parchment, she quickly wrote a little note to her recipient, before tucking that under the ribbon as well.

And with that, her strange little Christmas present was complete. Not too shabby!

Time was slowly trickling down, and Haven was still yet to start her gift. Second year was much more difficult than first year, she had noticed, and the increase in homework had taken a toll on her free time! And free time was her favorite time!

It was a chilly Wednesday afternoon when Haven finally made her way into the library, making a beeline for the little crafts table she had heard so much about. It was a quaint little corner, overflowing with more craft supplies than she would ever need. However, Haven brought some of her own, as she wasn't quite sure the table would have her oddly specific things, and besides, she already had it, so why not save the supplies for someone else?

Haven pulled a handful of brightly-colored flowers from her bag. She used plastic flowers over dried ones, as she preferred the hues and sense of everlasting the plastic ones provided. After some stalkerlike behavior, Haven was determined that she had the perfect idea for her Secret Santa. To go along with the flowers in shades of yellow and red, she also had some ribbons to tie to the back. And of course, Haven couldn't forget the wire, the base of the entire thing. If she didn't have the wire, all she would be able to give would be a handful of plastic flowers and ribbons, which didn't seem like a very appealing gift compared to what she had in mind.

As she wrapped the wire with a pale yellow ribbon, Haven thought of how the flower crown would look on her Secret Santa-giftee. Just from careful observance (she refused to think of it as stalking) and a few careful questions, Haven had determined a few things about the girl. She was certain her giftee would look like a supermodel when wearing the crown. She would be the belle of the ball, the apple of someone's eye, the bee's knees... or just look good in the crown. That worked too; Haven didn't have to get wrapped up in a bunch of idioms.

With the ribbon completely covering the wire, Haven could trim down the flowers' stems to the perfect height before attaching them to the wire, with a little bit of help from some more of the pale yellow ribbon and some extra sticky glue. She alternated the colors of the flowers, the biggest yellow one in the center, flanked by two of the magenta-hued ones, and so forth. Haven thought it was quite a nice color scheme that would compliment the giftee's aura well.

It wasn't too much later that Haven had run out of flowers and nearly out of crown. It still needed something to fill the bit of empty space and add a little bit of pizzazz. So, she took some of her spare ribbons and tied them along the back so it hung down, not dissimilar to a veil. It would look absolutely stunning on the girl's head. Plus, the ribbon was sparkly, making it the perfect addition and sure to catch anyone and everyone's eye.

Now that the flower crown was completed, the second year could focus on trying to get the glue off of her hands before starting on part two of the gift she was working on. However, it seemed that getting very sticky glue off one's hands was more difficult that Haven could imagine. It refused to budge, so she pouted as she waited for it to dry, as not to mar the second part of the little project.

With her hands thoroughly wrinkled, thanks to the glue, Haven could begin part two: the paper flower bouquet. Flowers seemed to be a recurring theme, which she didn't realize until now. Oh well. Hopefully, the other girl liked flowers.

This was the time when Haven snatched some supplies from the little table: tissue paper and pipe cleaners. She carefully cut flower shapes from folded sheets of the tissue paper, creating petals of all colors. While there wasn't much of a particular color scheme for this part of the gift, Haven was quite sure it would all tie together quite well.

Late last evening, as Haven was drifting off to sleep, she had an idea that she was happy to try to implement today. With a bit of help from some colored water, she created an interesting dyed effect. She let those flowers dry as she applied some glitter glue to the outer rim of the other flowers. One could never go wrong with a bit of glitter, as she always said! But there was an emphasis on the bit of glitter, otherwise, there would be glitter all over the flower and your cat would lick it up and get sick. Haven didn't want to cause the other girl's cat to get sick from glitter poisoning! That was if she had a cat, though.

With the dyed flowers now dry, Haven could apply glitter glue to those, too! The touch of gold or silver really brought out the gift, she felt. It made it... special. She was quite proud of the flowers, and she certainly hoped her Secret Santa giftee would enjoy the gift. However, the flowers weren't even close to being done yet; that was just the beginning! She strung petals onto green pipe cleaners and arranged them in such a way that they might actually resemble flowers, not a five-year-old's craft project, even if Haven was 12.

Now, the gift was almost complete! The end was near! But not in the disastrous, the-world's-going-to-end sort of way. That would put a damper on the holiday season, the end of the world as they know it. However, Haven did not see any reason to believe that the world would be ending anytime soon, so she once again focused on the bouquet, pulling out a little bottle of perfume she had borrowed from one of the older girls. She gave each a little spritz so that when her giftee would smell the flowers, they would actually smell nice! Haven personally thought it was an ingenious idea, and hopefully, the other girl might agree.

There were only a few things left to do now that the flowers were completely finished. She wrapped the flowers together with some more of the sparkly ribbon. Haven was quite happy with the pizzazz it added. The never-wilting flowers would be sure to brighten up a dorm room!

Finally, it was time to wrap the gifts. This was the part that Haven rather feared. She had never been good at wrapping gifts. One year, she attempted to help her mother, but instead of being much of a help, she accidentally covered her foot in the snowflake-print paper. But for the sake of Secret Santa, she was determined to wrap the gift in the Santa-themed paper.

It did not go well.

The gift was misshapen and bumpy, and had a weird hump, for reasons unknown to her. Hopefully, her giftee would not be swayed by the unsightly appearance of the gift. Haven was confident she would love the gifts she had made and the little Paw Patrol band-aid she had slipped in. She wrote a little note to the other girl and attached a big, bright, sparkly bow to the top of the present, trying to hide the hump a bit. The holiday season was full of joy, and Haven was glad that she could spread just a little bit of it.

Proudly, she walked up to the librarian's desk and set it down. As she walked away, Haven had a little bit of a skip in her step. Oh, how she loved Christmas.

Gifts

Reducio

12.12.20 → ic date

♡ it's begining to look a lot like christmas! ♡

The Christmas and winter holiday season was one of Frost's favorite time of the year. Festivities and the Christmas spirit just warmed her up inside. Though she was already a cheerful and warm sort of person, the season had always brought it to new levels of cheerfulness. The holidays had rushed at her so fast, hadn't it been Halloween a few weeks ago?

This year, the girl had taken on the task of partaking in a Hogwarts Secret Santa gift exchange. The muggle side of her family had done these or white elephants each Christmas, and now Frost would be doing her first gift exchange. As a girl with not much money, Frost was very grateful that this would not cost her any money like normal gifts. There had been a few times where she had felt bad for not getting someone as good as a gift as she would have liked to due to her not having enough.

Truthfully, Frost did not know her Secret Santa all too well. How did one go about creating a meaningful gift for someone who might as well be a complete stranger? What did they like? What did they do in their free time? It was probably best to simply make something nice for everyone with any interest. No food items, since she probably didn't have the time and didn't know what they were allergic to or their eating choices. What else was she good at? Gardening didn't quite help her in this situation. Ah yes! There was always her grandma skills of sewing and knitting. Perfect.

A very chipper Frost would make her way to the library sometime after classes, a small bag with the supplies she would be needing for her knitted gift. As she took a seat, ideas rushed through her head. Perhaps a nice froggie plushie would suffice? A nice little round frog would surely suit everyone's taste. Though she had no pattern to follow, Frost would take out a green ball of yarn and get to work, starting with the little froggie feet.

The atmosphere of the library and the ambient noise of murmurs made it a nice choice of location to knit. No hustle and bustle of the Hufflepuff common room or girls dorms, both places she frequented. A small bit of her tongue poked out in focus as she tried her hardest to figure out how to make a frog foot. How many toes did they have again? Frost took a second to stare at her own slender hand, spreading her fingers with a slightly confused look on her face. "Ah," The prefect set down the alien hand looking figure down and started up again. "This will look even cuter, I bet."

This time, she would knit a small green nub for a foot, no toes required. As the girl finished the bottom portion of the small frog, she took a second to smile at the funky little feet. Even if the Secret Santa did not enjoy it, it would still be one of the best things Frost had ever made with her own two hands. As she came close to finishing the green base, Frost stopped and ever so gently placed stuffing into the little creature. A little weird looking without eyes or a mouth, though.

Once the froggie was stuffed, she would close it up. With a quiet "How cute!", Frost lifted it up in the air like simba in the Lion King. She put away the green and pulled out a pale yellow ball of yarn. Now for the circle on its tummy. Circles were tougher to make than it looked. The girl pulled her legs up and sat crisis cross on the chair, putting all her focus into making this little circle piece. Finally, she would attach the patch of yellow to the main body of the frog and sew a small smile onto the frog's face with black thread. A giant goofy grin plastered on her face as she stared at her creation. It was so adorable, her secret Santa would surely love it!

With a small yellow ribbon from the librarian's supplies, Frost tied a bow around the frog's neck. To add a little more charm last minute, the girl took a bit of pink thread and sewed a small heart into the back of the froggie. Now there was proof that he was made with lots of love. As the smiling frog sat in the palm of her hand, Frost wondered what the receiver would end up naming the lovely froggo.

Taking a short cylindrical box and a bigger yellow ribbon from the librarian's supplies as well, Frost wondered what else she could add to her rather small gift. A note? Why not. On a little piece of paper, the girl wrote in her best handwriting.

Take good care of your new friend! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

With love and warm regards,
Frost Cira

Opening the box, Frost took a bit of soft fabric from her bag and lined the bottom of the round box with it, smoothing out wrinkles. She then placed the note and the little frog friend on top, securing it nicely. Before closing the box, Frost gave the frog a small loving pat on its head. The bigger yellow ribbon would be placed under the box and brought up into a rather pretty bow.

Frost would take a sturdy piece of paper and a small cut of thread and write down the recipient's name on it. The tag would be tied around the ribbon and tucked underneath it for safe measures. There would be no point in giving a gift with all that effort to nobody, and especially sad if someone didn't receive a gift. Carefully, so that nobody would see who she had gotten as a Secret Santa, Frost placed the cylindrical box onto the librarian's desk with a small smile.

Hopefully, they would enjoy their gift as much as she enjoyed making it for them.

word count 1007/1000

✿

This thread is now locked since the errand is over.