A Very Fairy Christmas Errand PV Delilah Stewart Closed

[font=times new roman] Christmas was an odd time for Delilah, her birthday was 2 days away. So many people just lumped her birthday in with regular celebrations, family friends going "Oh here is your present, it's for your birthday and Christmas." While those like June birthday people getting double the amount of gifts and get thought about twice a year rather than just the once. Just felt like people didn't put in as much effort for her as they did for people who's birthdays were not Christmas eve.

To try and make up for it, Del and her granny didn't really do much for Christmas, they tried to prioritise her birthday instead. She always appreciated it. But just generally she was often pretty down around the festive time. So, to try and cheer her up, she had signed up to help decorate the castle, starting with her favourite room in the castle, the library! Walking in the doors with her box of materials held out in front of her, the two fairies sitting on top of the box looking at themselves in every reflective surface and chittering to themselves. One weird thing Delilah had was the envy from these little beings, wishing she could love herself as much as these little guys did.

In her box she had picked up all sorts of things that were shiny or sparkly, thinking that if you can see the little fairies from a variety of angles, it would show them off nicely. The job after all was to show off these little guys the way they would want to be shown off, along with decorating the castle ready for the holidays.

Upon looking around the library hoping to find a spot to set up her decorations, she saw a familiar face, her duelling captain and somebody who sometimes gets mixed up with her due to their very similar nicknames, Dee and Del. "Hey Dee!" The fifth year went up to Dealla to have a look at what she was doing. "Oh I see you are doing the same as I am." She pointed out, gently lifting the box to point out that she had a couple fairies too.

Suddenly Del had an idea, she wasn't a particularly creative person, but she certainly had her moments. "Do you think it would look cooler with all 4 of our faries together? Have like a full on display of em together?" She considered the duelling captain to be a friend of hers, when Delilah was new to duelling and struggling a bit with getting the grasp of casting so many spells, Dealla definitely helped with that by just being a cool person, not being weird about having to treat an older student almost like a student, it was almost humiliating for Del but she got the hang of it quickly.

What she did know was that she owed Dee a lot, more than she probably knew, along with the other captains of course but Dee was always front and centre of the group, helping everybody to understand the rules and best strategies to go about for different people, Del learned to love duelling and it was mostly (although not entirely) due to Dee.
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Date: December 22nd 2021 ---------------------------

Word Count: 540 ---------------------------

Despite her proclamation - which had honestly been more to convince herself than to express genuine motivation - Dee hesitated, staring at the bookshelf and chewing on her lip in thought. She really wasn't the best at this stuff, and usually only decorated things with the support of friends or minions who made sure things turned out alright. If only there was someone she could rope into helping her-

Just in that moment, a familiar voice called her name and Dee turned around automatically, only to brighten up considerably when she recognised the girl walking up to her. "Del!" she replied enthusiastically. "Yeah! I thought I'd help spread some more Christmas cheer before the break starts, and help those little guys show off how pretty they are." She pointed at one of her fairies, who made a buzzing sound at her and stuck her nose into the air. "That sounds like a great idea! I was just thinking that this would be more fun to do with a friend." The timing was perfect, really. Perhaps she had summoned Delilah with the power of her mind. More likely it was coincidence, but a very welcome one.

The two didn't hang out much aside from duelling practice, but Dee liked Delilah, they got along fine. Some older students might have tried to take charge in their team just due to their age and more advanced spell knowledge, but Del had never been like that. She'd helped Dee once, too, when she had really overdone it with practice, and never made much of a fuss about it, and Dee was still grateful for that fact. She'd been more careful since.

Suddenly much more genuinely motivated, Dee spun back around towards the shelf she'd picked. "I was thinking we could set it up in there? Just push the books to the side a little, should be plenty of space for four fairies." Without waiting for confirmation, she hopped over to the shelf to demonstrate what she meant. It left a nice, generous space on the shelf, lined by books on both sides. "I brought some fir branches and some small pillows for them to sit on, and then Christmas baubles and stuff because, well, Christmas and apparently they like shiny things. What do you have?" Between the two of them, they were sure to create an awesome display, there was no doubt about it.

Grabbing a few branches from her box, she started to place them to the back and sides of the shelf space. "What are you doing for Christmas? Going home?"

Word Count | 466 + 429 = 895/800

[font=times new roman] She was glad to see that Dee was happy for her arrival, there was nothing worse than showing up where you weren't wanted. These fairies and their chattering was slightly annoying Delilah but she brushed it off. Looking down at the little guys. "I've got a bunch of sparkly stuff really, tinsel, small mirrors, all sorts of stuff like that, I don't know I just grabbed whatever I thought they would like that wasn't complete tat." She chuckled, "I love that idea though, I think they would look great up there, just hope no books decide they want to go in there and break anything." She didn't totally know how the books pathfinding worked, but she guessed they would see the stuff in the way and go somewhere else or something. It always fascinated her.

Thinking of them almost as if they were in a video game state, although she knew little about video games either, only ever having experienced them at friends houses and such, the computers would go 'oh I need to be there, but there is something in the way so I will go somewhere else' sort of thing, so hopefully they were intelligent enough to do that.

"Oh, yeah I'll be heading home, it's my birthday on Friday so I normally have a little party with my Granny, it'll be great to see her again. How about you?" She placed her box on the floor in front of the shelves and had a look at the space Dee had set out. Pulling her wand out of her pocket, for each branch that dee set up, to try and avoid it falling down, Delilah would say the incantation, "Epoximise." just to keep it in place, it could always be undone if they planned on moving something, either a very specifically done Diffindo or just a good yank would probably disconnect them.

"So, uh, have you got any nice plans for the holidays?"
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Date: December 22nd 2021 ---------------------------

Word Count: 540+335 = 875 ---------------------------

"I think they like sparkly. They'll love the mirrors for sure, that's a really nice touch." Dee nodded in approval at Delilah's choices, then frowned slightly at the concern with the books. "It should be fine? I think. This is for sure not the first time someone has put something into one of the shelves that didn't belong there." She waved her hands vaguely. "I'm sure there are some precautionary measures in place." Nodding at her own explanation, Dee turned her thoughts back to how to best create a stunning display for four fairies with the help of the supplies they had and Del's hopefully superior decorating skills.

The tinsel went nicely with Dee's branches, so she started weaving some between the branches, arranging the longer ends in curves and coils. "Your birthday is Christmas Eve?" she asked, turning her head to look at Delilah. "My condolences." A slight pause. "I mean, that doesn't sound very fun, it sounds like people would always mush Christmas and your birthday together." Dee would liked being the center of attention on her birthday, she didn't want to have to fight for the spotlight with a miracle worker who had died thousands of years ago. "But perhaps you like it...?" After all, he shouldn't just assume that Del hated it just because it sounded like Dee would hate it.

"But it's nice you'll get time with your grandma! Do you live with her? Where are your parents?" A rush of questions, unfiltered, but genuinely curious. There was no bad intent behind them, Dee just didn't tend to think very far ahead of her words. Not far enough ahead to realise it might be a sensitive topic, that was.

"I'm, uh, also spending Christmas with my grandparents." Which was, in turn, a sensitive topic for her. Her mother had sent her a letter allowing her to return to her grandparents rather than go home. There hadn't been a word from her father, however. "In London, they have one of those big old rich people homes." The room Dee had slept in during her summer visit was about twice the size of the one she had home in Whitehaven. The mansion was probably... four times as big as the house she'd grown up in. Six times? Ten? Her brain couldn't really accurately guess. "It'll be... nice." Maybe.

[font=times new roman]"Ah yeah, that makes sense." She nodded, reassured that the books weren't going to smash into the fairies now. As they set it up, she got a lot of questions from Dee, although that was fine, she was used to questions at this point, it didn't phase her. "It's not too bad because a lot of people just don't know when my birthday is." She laughed, "I always go home for it so I don't see people here."

When she asked about her parents, Delilah smiled sadly, "Oh, uh, yeah, I live with my Granny, my parents died when I was a kid." There was a brief pause. "Oh but it's okay though you don't need to feel bad or anything, I wasn't old enough to remember much about them anyway." She smiled, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

Mentioning her own grandparents, Delilah nodded, "That sounds fun, me and my Granny just live in this tiny cottage, must be fun having the space to go wherever you want." It did genuinely sound like fun. Being able to run around, sure Delilah could do that in the village, but it was all cobbled roads so if she fell, it was bloody painful.

"So, what's your family like? I mean you're lovely so they must be pretty cool." She grinned.
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Date: December 22nd 2021 ---------------------------

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"That..." Dee frowned. It didn't really sound better in her opinion that people just didn't know when Del's birthday was. More... sad, maybe? Why wouldn't her friends know (or ask) when her birthday was? "Well, I know now," she stated finally. "And I'll give you as un-christmas-y birthday wishes as I can manage." At least if she didn't forget she would, but considering how soon it was, chances were she'd manage to remember. Next year was a different question. "Where d'you live? I'll send you a letter."

The next topic was even less happy, and Dee began to feel bad for poking. No matter how tense things with her own family were right now, she could not imagine not having one. Or, well, not having parents. Del did have family, even if it was a small one. "Well, your grandma sounds really sweet!" she decided, trying to sound enthusiastic about it.

Which was very different from her own grandmother. Rosalie was many things, but not exactly the definition of a sweet old grandmother. Dee grimaced slightly, but nodded. "Yeah, the house is pretty cool," she agreed, but her voice lacked conviction. While she had been climbing trees and running around in summer, her grandmother had chastised her for it regularly, and honestly... who needed a house that big if only two people lived in it? Despite house elves, it had felt really empty.

Lost in thought, Dee almost missed Del's next question, and she had to pause for a moment to sort through half-heard words for their meaning. "Oh, yeah, I know, I'm delightful," she replied, a genuine grin springing back to her face. She followed it up with a wink. "Don't know where I get it from, honestly." Smiling, she refocused on decorating the shelf. It was starting to look very festive, Del was doing a great job.

"I'm kidding, my mum is pretty cool. She's a potioneer, but we live in a Muggle town, so she markets her healing potions as some sort of herbal remedy stuff... you know, almost esoteric, the sort of things that many Muggles swear by and the other half scoffs at because it isn't backed up by science." Her smile turned a little wistful, almost longing. She missed her mother. "My dad's a healer but obviously can't work as that with Muggles, but he's helping my mum and running most of the shop stuff. He's awesome." And hadn't talked to her since June.

"My grandparents..." She stopped, unsure how to continue. How to describe them? "I barely know them, I only met them in summer. They don't... they don't like my mum so we haven't had much contact." Oversimplification, and at this point she wasn't sure anymore of what was true.

"What about you?" she tried to turn the conversation back to Delilah. "Your grandma must be a badass, raising you all alone."

@Delilah Stewart