Blue and Millie ended up chatting away until dinner. The system was surprised at the similarities Millie shared to their own home life. Her mum never actually struck her, but the emotional barbs she chose to hurl must have struck even more painfully. Tomboyish and so awkward it was painful, Millie never fit into the proper, pampered princess mould her mother had decided she should, and was endlessly punished for it. She hid her most prized possessions under a loose floorboard to keep her mum from "accidentally" tossing them (Tom started uncomfortably at this tidbit inside, well aware of their own loose, slightly creaky floorboard just under the bed). Her father, a distant workaholic, did his best, but he had no idea what to do with a daughter as it was, never mind one as clumsy and boyish as Millie. He left her upkeep to his wife, not noticing or perhaps not caring the damage the woman was doing to the eleven-year-old with a crippling social phobia and an abhorrence of all things 'pink.'

"But it's gotten better," Millie said, curling up tighter on the sofa and pinning a slightly anxious smile on her face. "She was ever so pleased when I was Sorted into Slytherin. It was her House, you know? I guess she wanted Hogwarts to turn me into a little lady, but..." Her shoulders slanted in a stiff shrug. "You can see how well that's working out."

"Yeah..." Blue trailed off. "I hate how everyone treats you," she confided in a burst of friendship-driven passion. "There's nothing wrong with being shy! W-I am, too! It's scary talking to people sometimes, you never know if they're gonna hurt you..." She broke off and stared down into her lap, her cheeks stained red with embarrassment. Beside her, Millie gave her a very appraising sort of look, dimly aware of just how much Blue had unconsciously revealed about her own life.

"Anyway," Millie thoughtfully changed the subject. "I've got you now, yeah? So all the bullies can sod off. And Snape sets things right in the end, he always does. Mum thinks he's a right tosser, but I think it's because when she was a sixth year, he caught her behind the greenhouse with Angus Fletchley, snogging his brains out, and he told a professor and she got two months of detention." Millie snickered, and Blue couldn't help but join in.

"I wonder if my mum and dad ever got caught snogging," Blue wondered wistfully. "They were in Gryffindor, I know that. And I think my dad played Quidditch..."

"Oh!" Millie exclaimed, leaping up from the couch. "That reminds me!"

"What?" Blue asked, baffled, cringing back into the sofa cushions before catching herself. "What is it?"

"Come with me," Millie said excitedly, catching up Blue's hand and nearly sprinting to the entrance, pulling her out into the dungeons proper with a bit more decorum. "I saw your da's name on a trophy somewhere, where was it..."

It took nearly twenty minutes and getting horribly lost on the second floor, but finally, Millie was prodding a glass case with one enthused, if slightly grubby, finger.

"There! You see?" she asked, pointing.

A large trophy shaped like the Quaffle stood proudly in the center, and Blue's eyes picked out the inscription: To James Potter, the best Chaser Gryffindor's ever seen!

Warmth spread through her body, through the whole system, and she realised with a start that it was pride. They were proud of their father, they knew something about their father, and it was one of the best feelings Blue had ever had. Even more than discovering they were magic and going to Hogwarts, and wasn't that something!

They should have known it was too good to last.

Christmas dinner went off splendidly, despite Ronald Weasley there on the other side of the table, moodily pushing around his food with his fork and sneaking hurried glances over at Harry. Jay shared the front with Blue so that she didn't start too badly at the sound of the wizarding crackers and more than once, he was tempted to snap at Ron and ask if he was really as stupid as he kept portraying himself. The only reason he didn't is because it would scare Blue. Well, and Snape would probably haul his arse off for a detention on Christmas, and did he really want to provoke that?

He shared a wizarding cracker with Millie and a full-fledged wizarding chess set popped out, attracting interest from Tom and making Millie grin and confide that she'd always wanted to play.

"Me, too," Blue said shyly under cover of the rather loud and rambunctious conversations going on around them as the others opened their own wizarding crackers. "I don't know how to play, though. We'll have to find someone to help."

"I know how to play," Ron leaned over the table. Jay wanted to hex him for butting in, but Blue saw the look of almost desperate longing on the redheaded boy's face and stopped him.

"Can you teach us without being a git?" Millie asked bluntly.

"Yes," Ron nodded, looking painfully eager. His whole face was brilliant red, up to the tips of his ears. "I can. Promise. It's not hard once you get the hang of it."

"All right," Blue said. "You want to go and play now? Dinner's pretty well over and all..." She gestured around to the confetti and glitter heaped around the table, and the tableau at the head of it, where Hagrid was boldly kissing a pink-faced Professor McGonagall on the cheek.

"Yeah, all right, sounds good," Ron said awkwardly, stuffing the blue felted hat he'd received from a cracker into his back pocket and clambering up from the table. Blue and Millie followed more decorously, slipping out the doors and deciding that the best place to go for a good game of wizard's chess was the small antechamber off the library. People normally used it to study in, but it would be empty during winter break.

"Listen, Harry," Ron mumbled as they strode along, Millie slightly ahead of them, although she kept casting suspicious glances over her shoulder and Blue noticed her fingering her wand in a meant-to-be-subtle sort of way. "I really am sorry, I just...Mum straightened me out while I was home, my da's been...teaching me some pretty wrong things, and I know that doesn't make up for it! But I just-I really wanted to let you know that I am sorry, I'm not just saying that 'cause someone's making me. I shouldn't have ever done any of that. Not even told you that you were You Know Who's heir or something, there's nothing wrong with being in Slytherin, it was wrong of me to say those things." The boy's face looked sunburnt by now, positively glowing with embarrassment, and Blue's jaw dropped in shock. Collective shock. Of all the apologies for the Weasel to make, that had not been expected.

"Thank-thank you for that," Blue managed to stammer out. "It's...really appreciated. I think Millie's getting impatient up there, we should probably hurry up," she changed the subject and walked a little faster. Millie nodded at Ron with what looked like approval in her dark eyes, and Ron's smile was shaky with relief.

Wizarding chess was a much more convoluted game than Blue or Millie had ever supposed. It didn't help that Ron had his family's chessmen with him (always carried out in the chance of a quick game, he'd explained with an embarrassed grin), and the chessmen that came with the set liked to shout contradicting advice at the two girls, confusing them massively and allowing Ron to overtake them time and time again.

But he taught them at the same time, too, quite well, in fact. Blue was a little surprised at how well Ronald knew the game. In this, it seemed, he excelled and knew it. They occasionally got a bit rowdy, but there was no real need to keep it down, anyway, and besides, they were having fun. Blue kept leaning over the chessboard, ignoring the way her breath kept catching in her throat and the way her cheeks felt nearly inflamed, as she directed a pawn to move to this square and a knight to move there.

They'd been feeling poorly all evening, but the enthusiasm for the chess game overwhelmed everything else until finally, with a slight, pained sigh, Blue fainted, toppling over neatly on the floor at the shocked feet of Millicent Bulstrode and Ronald Weasley.