Four Candles Christmas ~ week 4

[Equinox Chick]

Hello there lovely drabblers! Welcome to The Three Broomstick’s

‘Four Candle’ Christmas challenge!

This year’s Christmas challenge is based around the advent wreath:

Information from Wikipedia:
The Advent wreath is a Christian tradition that symbolizes the passage of the four weeks of Advent in the calendar of the Western church. It is usually a horizontal evergreen wreath with four or five candles. Beginning with the First Sunday of Advent, the lighting of a candle can be accompanied by a Bible reading and prayers. An additional candle is lit during each subsequent week until, by the last Sunday before Christmas, all four candles are lit. The custom is observed both in family settings and at public church services.

The fourth day of advent is today, the 19th of December. Each week, for four weeks, to imitate a candle being lit, we will give you a category of Christmas objects. You will have a week to complete your drabble that should include one or more of the objects in each category.

~~~~~

This week’s category is Christmas Food and Drink.

The traditional Christmas Foods are:

-Mulled Wine
-Turkey
-Christmas Pudding
-Brussels Sprouts


You have until next Sunday (December 26th) (10pm GMT I hope)to complete your drabble, of 500 words or less, including at least one of these creatures.

You MUST base the drabble around the food or drink item. You can't just have Ron saying he doesn't want anymore sprouts and then not mention them again.

Because we're full of the Christmas spirit in The Three Broomsticks, there will be five points for participation (per week) and we will award an extra five points if you complete all four weeks. We will pick a winner and a runner-up each week. The winner will receive an extra 10 points, and the runner up will receive an extra 5.

You may enter more than once per week, but you will only get participation points once per week, Comprende!

Here is the form for your drabble:

[B]Name:[/B]
[B]House:[/B]
[B]Colour:[/B] (Or emotion)
[B]Title:[/B]
[B]Word Count:[/B]
[B]Authors Note:[/B] 

Have fun! Please direct any question to the "Ask a Barmaid" thread.

Merry Christmas!

(Thanks Russiaaaaa for the wonderful competition.)

~The Barmaids~

I realise that the other competition is still running, But I wanted to keep the advent theme on track.

Watch out for a new competition starting on Boxing Day (that's 26th December to all you non-Brits)

[ravenclaw1997]

Name: ravenclaw1997
House: I be a Hufflepuff!
Food: Turkey
Title: An Unthinkable Throw
Word Count: 498
Authors Note: This takes place during the Christmas of 1996 - the trio's 6th year.

The smells coming from the kitchen were delightful. Ron had always loved Christmas, because his mother never let him down with the food. The turkey had the most wonderful smell of all - juicy goodness that Ron couldn't wait to sink his teeth into.

Hermione had come for Christmas this year, and he was looking forward to the holiday with her. Of course there was Harry, too, but Hermione had become more and more his best friend this year. Even though they had their fights, they were always there for each other.

He walked down the stairs at his mother's call, and sat down at the table across from Hermione. Her dug right into his meal, especially the turkey, which was perfectly juicy, seasoned, and sliced. Ron loved every bite of it.

"Ronald, would you stop eating?!" Hermione yelled at him. "Nobody else has even started yet!"

Ron looked around the table. Everyone was standing up, waiting for Arthur to start the meal. "Cnthlptmmungy," he said, his mouth full of food.

Everyone was now staring at him incredulously, wondering how he could possibly so rude. "Ronald!" Hermione especially was furious.

Ron stood up, swallowing the food that was in his mouth. "Sorry, Hermione."

She turned away from him and looked at his father instead.

After Arthur was done, the family sat back down and everyone began eating, not just Ron. He ate three servings each of potatoes, cranberries, and two different kinds of casseroles. The turkey, being his favorite part of the meal, received the honor of being the one thing Ron took four helpings of.

Hermione looked at him in disgust when he was both the first person to start eating and the last to finish. He was still cramming turkey in his mouth when his father rose once more to propose a toast. "To Molly, for this wonderful meal!"

Shouts of "To Molly!" rang throughout the room as everyone toasted to her. The only person not to drink was Ron, who was still eating.

"Ronald Weasley!" The entire room froze when Hermione yelled out. Everyone looked at each other, wondering what would happen next.

Hermione had had enough of this silly behavior. She reached forward and grabbed a slice of turkey. Then she pulled it behind her head and flung it at Ron.

Mouths fell open and glasses were dropped as the turkey hit Ron square in the face. Hermione, realizing what she had done, ran upstairs to her and Ginny's room. Ron's mouth fell open as well, revealing the food he had been chewing. Hermione would never do something like this. He had to go after her.

Ron ran upstairs and found Hermione crying on her bed, extremely upset with her behavior. Ron sat down next to her and put an arm around her shaking form. "I really am sorry, Hermione."

"Why couldn't you just stop eating?"

"I don't know..." Ron honestly had no clue. "I'm sorry."

And then the unthinkable happened: Ron kissed Hermione.

[ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor]

Name: ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor
House: Ravenclaw
Food: Mulled Wine
Title: In Good Spirits
Word Count: 498
Authors Note: I so wanted to make this a pairing, but alas, with 500 words, it couldn’t be. :/

This was a stupid idea.

No, it was a really stupid idea, and he couldn’t fathom what had caused him to agree to this. Normally, spending Christmas with one’s girlfriend’s family is nice, but not if you happen to be a Malfoy and your girlfriend happened to be a Weasley. Definitely stupid.

His only comfort was the ever-flowing mulled wine, and thankfully, he wasn’t the only one drowning himself in it. Rose’s cousin, Albus, was doing much the same. He may not have known the man that well, but at that moment, he was seemingly a kindred spirit in this den full of laughing, singing gingers. Even Rose couldn’t bring him out of his funk, so she gave up and went to help her grandmother in the kitchen, instead.

Tapping his wine glass with his wand and muttering a spell, Scorpius cast a Refilling Charm so he could escape the ‘dulcet’ tones of Rose’s overly-lubricated father singing ‘God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs’ loudly enough to wake the dead and kill them all over again.

Since no one particularly wanted to be out in the snow, Scorpius Summoned his overcoat and slipped outside. The porch swing looked nice, so he gravitated toward it and sat down. The warmth emanating from the wine felt good against his fingers, and every drink laced warmth throughout his body and added to the drunkenness that would eventually get him sent home.

The night was a quiet one in front of him, even if the night behind him was raucous, but he chose to focus on the latter, sipping his wine and forgetting where he was for a moment. Such was his trance-like state that he started when someone sat next to him, but he wasn’t surprised to see that his visitor was Albus, who was also nursing a glass.

“Can’t take it anymore?” he said knowingly.

Scorpius chortled. “I’ve found that the only ginger I like is your cousin, and I think the feeling is mutual. You’re the first person to purposely talk to me all night.”

“Bad manners, that,” Albus said, sipping his wine. He grinned, “I look forward to this every year. This wine is worth every horrible minute of family togetherness.”

“If you say so, Potter.”

And there they sat, both periodically draining their glasses. Scorpius took pity on Albus and spotted him a top-off and a copy of the same Filling Charm, for which he was afforded a nod of thanks. When the cold got to them, they simply cast Warming Charms and went on drinking.

Finally, it was time to head off, and despite neither wanting to move, they simultaneously set their glasses on the bench and pushed themselves to their feet. Scorpius felt his head swim, causing him to lose his balance, but Albus caught him before he fell.

“Thanks,” he murmured to Albus.

“No problem.”

As they muttered surprisingly heartfelt goodbyes, Scorpius couldn’t help but think that the night hadn’t been a complete loss, after all.

[PippaPippa]

Name: PippaPippa (Pip)
House: HUFFLEPUFF
Food: Mulled wine
Title: Of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.
Word Count: 344
Authors Note: This was very much inspired by a discussion on Amortentia, and of course the delightfully Christmasy smells of mulled wine.

There was a scent in the air that made her stop in her snowy tracks. It was of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, and it smelt blissful to Molly as she shifted her handbag from one arm to the other. She stood in the holly-lined doorway of a café and wondered why the aroma that was drifting out into Diagon Alley was so comforting.

***

“That was, of course, before my research into the International Warlock Convention of 1289. Molly? Molly, are you listening?”

“Sorry?” she replied, quickly straightening up on her stool. She couldn’t believe she’d agreed to an afternoon in Hogsmeade with Bernard Wright. She took a gulp of her mulled wine and arranged her face into what she could only hope was an expression of interest, or at least consciousness… Molly and Bernard were sitting in The Three Broomsticks, as they had been for the last hour. It was an hour that Molly had spent berating herself over the situation she had gotten herself into, and Bernard in ecstasy, talking about his favourite subject: schoolwork.

Bernard continued with his relentless speech on all things dreary and Molly directed her attention across the pub to a tall boy with a shock of red hair. He was wearing an overly-large, knitted jumper, and he was holding up what looked like a chocolate frog card. She smiled. The boy began backing away from a group of his friends, laughing. Molly noticed that he was moving in the direction of Bernard’s chair. Bernard, of course, was unaware of the goings-on as he sipped at his mulled wine with a rather repulsive slurp.

The next thing she knew, the red-headed boy had taken another step back and all became a blur of deep cherry as the mulled wine flew through the air and drenched Molly in crimson liquid. It smelt of cinnamon, and of nutmeg, and of cloves.

“Oh, my goodness!” the boy exclaimed. “I’m so sorry, what can I do to help? I don’t believe we’ve ever been properly introduced. My name is Arthur. Arthur Weasley.”

[hogwartsbookworm]

Name: Bookworm, hogwartsbookworm
House: Hufflepuff
Food: Christmas Pudding
Title: Eating Luna's Pudding
Word Count: 498
Authors Note: As one who has been the recipient of many strange food items, this drabble was very fun to write.

“Why are we here, again?”

Hermione rolled her eyes and, grinning, pulled at her husband’s hand.

“C’mon, Ron. Luna has been talking about this Christmas party for almost a year, now. ”

Ron looked up at the bright blue house and lowered his voice to a whisper.

“But don’t you remember the last time we ate at this place?” He shuddered.

Hermione laughed.

“It’ll be different this time. Luna wasn’t married to Rolf then. You know, I hear he’s a great cook.”

“Of what, Freshwater Plimpy Soup?” Ron grumbled as Hermione knocked on the door. Luna opened it at once, beaming.


Harry, Ginny, Neville, Hannah, Rolf and Xenophilius were waiting for them around the table. Ron and Hermione slid into their seats and exchanged pleasantries (Ron, rather stiffly) with Luna’s father, while Luna disappeared into the kitchen.

When she returned, her arms were laden down with the most delicious smelling foods. Yams, turkey and stuffing, sprouts, salad, potatoes and gravy, rolls – Ron’s mouth started watering against his will.

“It looks fantastic, Luna,” Harry said, grinning. Ron stared at the food in awe. He was just reaching for a roll when Luna spoke.

“Oh, wait a moment, Ron. I’ve forgotten the Christmas pudding.” She headed toward the kitchen. Ron settled back in his chair, hands empty.

When Luna returned, everyone but her husband and her father (who was busy examining the tablecloth for who-knew-what, now) gawked at her. In her arms was the largest bowl any of them had ever seen. It seemed more appropriate for serving soup to Grawp than Christmas Pudding to them.

But it wasn’t the size of the bowl that held their attention, but the ghastly contents. It was filled to the brim with, what looked like, dusty brown gravel.

“I may have overcooked it,” Luna said, absently, as she placed the bowl on the table.

She began doling out the… Pudding. Ron shrank in his chair as a large scoop of the stuff was plopped on his plate. Slowly, the people around him began helping themselves to the other foods on the table. After a moment or so, Ron sat up and grabbed the roll he had been after earlier.

Soon, on either side of him, Hermione and Harry tentatively began digging into their helpings of Christmas pudding. Ron, despite a dark look from Hermione, ate around his serving of gravel as nonchalantly as possible.

Luna, sitting at the head of the table, smiled serenely. “Aren’t you going to have any pudding, Ron? I made it.”

Ron looked up at Luna and gulped. She looked so hopeful, so childlike. He didn’t want to be rude…

“Of course, Luna. Leaving the best for last, you know.” And, picking up his fork, he lifted a bite of the stuff to his lips.

He could feel Hermione’s eyes on him. Trying not to grimace, he put the spoon in his mouth and swallowed the contents.

He was the last to recover from the three day bellyache.

[Eponine]

Name: Eponine
House: Gryffindor
Food: Brussels sprouts
Title: Harry's Little Christmas Miracle
Word Count: 496
Authors Note: This takes place when Harry and Dudley are ten. Thanks for the fun challenge, Barmaids! I really enjoyed it.

Harry Potter never liked Christmas. In addition to dully watching Dudley piggishly open present after present with greedy fingers, receiving his one gift (usually a single sock or something equally anticlimactic), he also had to cook the bulk of the Dursley’s Christmas dinner. Not the turkey, or any other centerpiece of the meal, but the boring but necessary side dishes which lacked any sort of interest. Namely, the Brussels sprouts.

Harry hated Brussels sprouts, and yet, year after year, he was forced to make them. Not only that, but, since all of the Dursleys hated them as well, he was forced to consume every one, as Aunt Petunia would scold him about wasting food if they weren’t totally finished. Harry once suggested that they not make them at all, but was only met by a fierce lecture on the importance of tradition.

So every Chritsmas, Harry was forced to painstakingly prepare enough sprouts for a family of four, and eat them entirely on his own.

It was like the Dursleys’ way of punishing him for existing, Harry thought as he shoved the tray into the oven, under Petunia’s watchful eye. She distrustfully surveyed him like a hawk every Christmas as though she suspected him of simply throwing out all the sprouts in a twisted way of single-handedly sabotaging the birth of Christ.

Harry shut the oven and turned around. “They’ll cook for forty minutes,” Aunt Petunia instructed, as though she didn’t force Harry to do this every year.

“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” he said obediently before retreating miserably to his cupboard. After dislodging several spiders that had taken up residency on his pillow, Harry collapsed onto his bed with a heavy sigh. The holidays always got to him, always broke down his carefully constructed mask of stoicism. He couldn’t help but wonder how different his life would be if his parents hadn’t died and left him with his aunt and uncle.

Maybe they would have a Christmas tree and he could actually help decorate it. Maybe he could bake cookies with his mum for St. Nick. Maybe he could get presents. Not that he would even want for any, if he had a proper family; a set of loving parents would be enough.

Harry was pulled from his melancholy daydreams by the dingy ringing of the kitchen timer. He pushed himself off his bed, rushed through the hallway to the stove, where Petunia stood waiting. Harry sighed as he slipped on the oven mitts, not ready to face what would inevitably become his entire Christmas dinner.

But when he opened up the oven, the sprouts were gone. All that sat there was an empty tray, baking in the heat, but notoriously sprout-less. He pulled it out and displayed it to Aunt Petunia.

As she shouted at him for being a little scoundrel and purposefully ruining Christmas for Dudley Harry just nodded obediently, looking appropriately grim, but unable to hide his thankfulness for his own tiny Christmas miracle.

[CoolCatElly]

Name: CoolCatElly
House: Hufflepuff
Food: Christmas Pudding
Title:Who stole the Pudding? Not me!
Word Count:491
Authors Note:I always wondered what happened to the Potters’ cat... So what if it didn’t really happen, let’s make this AU ;-)

It was another Christmas Day on Privet Drive. The houses on either side of the street were dazzling, rendering the occasional passerby temporarily blind as each house tried to outshine their neighbours with lights and decorations. Number four was no different; from where it sat on the doormat, the fluffy ginger cat could see a massive and elaborately decorated Christmas tree through the open curtains. However, the cat was more interested in the heated voices coming from inside...

“Want cat! Want cat! Mine cat!”

“Oh, Diddy Darling, you don’t really want that dirty old thing, do you?”

“WANT CAT!”

“I will not have that filthy animal in my house, Vernon!”

“SHUT UP!”

And so it continued. It seemed that the little boy’s screams soon won, however, and Vernon Dursley, with a sour look on his face, opened the door so the cat could come in. It was immediately seized upon by a chubby pair of arms which seemed intent on squeezing it to death. Vernon chucked.

“Little tyke,” he said as he tried to stop his son from strangling the yowling cat. Once freed, it turned its bright yellow eyes to the object of its travels; a second little boy who sat silently some way away, hardly indistinguishable from the drab wall behind him. As yellow eyes met green, the boy grinned at the cat, a moment of understanding passing between them. This was a friend.

~***~

“Get your hands off that, you greedy boy,” Petunia snapped later at the dinner table as she moved the Christmas Pudding away from the small black-haired boy.

“This looks excellent, Petunia,” Vernon said as he loaded his plate.

“Dinkykins, why haven’t you touched your pudding?” Petunia asked, seeing that the pudgy boy was eyeing his plate sulkily.

“More!” he yelled, banging his spoon on the table.

However, just as Petunia lifted the pudding and brought it over to her son, there was a scream and a blur of ginger as the cat, who had been biding his time silently under the table, sprang up against her, claws bared. In her fright, she tipped the bowl, and dumped the entire Christmas pudding on the fat little boy.

“AGGHHHH!”

There was a flurry of activity as Vernon dived for the cat, Petunia grabbed her son and tried to calm him while he kicked and howled, and the smallest boy clapped his hands and giggled happily.

The cat was finally seized and thrown unceremoniously out the door, where it settled itself on the fence across the street, and watched the other boy. He was alone at the table while his aunt and uncle fussed over their son, who had now turned purple in the face with rage. The boy looked around the empty kitchen, then, deciding that dinner was over, pulled his uncle’s plate towards him and started loading pudding into his mouth.

The cat purred loudly, and set off down the street in search of new adventures.

[Equinox Chick]

Closed

Thank you for entering

Results soon (ish)

The Barmaids

[Russia Snow]

RESULTS!

First Place:
PippaPippa (10 points to Hufflepuff)

Runner up:
CoolCatElly (5 points to Hufflepuff)

So for Week Four the house points look like this:

Hufflepuff 35
Ravenclaw 5
Gryffindor 5
Slytherin 0

And the points for completeing all four weeks look like this:

Hufflepuff Ravenclaw1997
Gryffindor Eponine
Hufflepuff hogwartsbookworm
Ravenclaw ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor
Hufflepuff CoolCatElly


Hufflepuff 15
Ravenclaw 5
Gryffindor 5
Slytherin 0

I thought this challenge up a whole year ago, but I never imagined that when we actually ran it it would be this much fun! Thankyou everyone who entered for being such great participants and congrats to all those who won! (Especially CoolCatElly who placed in 3 out of 4 weeks! ) The points should be posted in the house points thread shortly and I hope you all continue to come back to TTB to enter the challenges in the brand new year of 2011!

Lots of love, and Happy New Year!

From your barmaids,
Madam Carole (EquinoxChick)
and
Madam Russia (Russia Snow)
xxxxx

~