day 15- elf
“So, just making sure we’re clear here,” Barty starts, hands pressed together gesturing as he talks, “You are an elf now?” He looks around the table, reassuring himself that everyone else is confused too and he isn’t on his own.
They’ve tried really hard to wrap their heads around the whole concept of muggle Christmas. Lily, Mary and James have tried to explain but it just seems to confuse them even more, which is why Marlene gave up after a failed attempt to explain leaving out a plate of cookies.
Pandora shrugs in response to Barty’s question, she understands more traditions than the rest of them but is more blindly following along with her girlfriends' traditions than actively understanding and participating.
“For December, Lily and Mary do it every year, they run this thing in their hometown,” Pandora waves a hand, not really sure how to explain it, and throws back her drink “I don’t know, they asked me if I would join them so I agreed.”
“You don’t even know what you’re doing? What is this?” Evan leans forward, staring at his sister sceptically, confusion clear in his furrowed brow.
“I’d do pretty much anything for them,” Pandora sighs dreamily and Evan pretends to gag while Dorcas pinches her cheek and calls her a big softie.
“Aren’t elves the ones who make all the toys?” Barty seems very stuck on this topic, trying fruitlessly to wrap his head around the concept, it shouldn’t be that hard really, they know all about house elves and magic so the muggle version shouldn’t be so confusing.
“No, I think that’s the, um, the guy, Reggie what’s his name?” Dorcas jostles Regulus’ arm, who just looks at her in confusion, being jolted out of his staring at someone across the bar. It’s then that she sees who he is staring at and smiles at him teasingly.
“Oi, Potter!” She calls across the bar to where he stands with a few friends. He turns and upon spotting Regulus his face lights up with a blinding grin, he turns away to talk to his friends, practically bounding over to them afterwards.
“Hi, I didn’t know you were here,”
“Can we ask you a question?” Barty asks, probably far too drunk to even remember this tomorrow but still following through on his quest for an answer.
“You just did, but feel free to ask another,” James jokes, visibly flustered as his eyes keep darting back to Regulus. Barty doesn’t even notice, leaning across Evan to look James in the eye while he questions him.
“Who is the guy, the red one, with the hat? We don’t remember.” James laughs at them, although not unkindly, happy to oblige and answer their Christmas questions even if they ask the same thing a hundred times.
“Santa Claus,” Barty nods, trying to follow his train of thought.
“So he makes the present?”
“No, that’s the elves,” James answers and Barty snaps his head around to look at Pandora, gesturing so wildly that he nearly smacks Evan, who interlinks their hands to stop him.
“They’re going to make you make the toys, Panda, do you even know how?” He laments his words slightly slurred by the copious amounts of alcohol he’s consumed. Pandora pats his hand consolingly, looking slightly more apprehensive about her winter job than she was earlier.
“I’ll figure it out,”
“I’m confused,” James admits, placing his drink down on the table and sliding into the booth beside Regulus. “Why would Pandora be making the presents?”
“She agreed to be an elf,” Evan frowns and rolls his eyes at sister's romantic side, “because her girlfriends asked her to, so she didn’t even check what she had to do.”
“Oh, you’re being an Elf for the Christmas fair?” James asks to clarify and Pandora nods, frowning down at her hands, “You just dress up, and then you help with the Santa’s grotto, you’ll help keep the lines entertained, run little decorative workshops and stuff, it’s fun I helped out a few years ago.”
“Dress up? Are they going to shrink her?” Barty asks, genuinely confused and sounding slightly scared. A stranger gives them a weird look as he walks past and Dorcas glares back in retaliation to their judgement.
“Are they going to make her look like Kreacher?” Evan practically sobs, placing his face into his hands as his eyes well up, “She looks weird enough as it is!” He teases, it’s his sister, what kind of brother would he be if he didn’t tease her?
She kicks him under the table, “We look pretty much the same, dickhead.”
James laughs, and she turns to him, eyes wide and full of worry, “Are they going to make me look like Kreacher?”
James shakes his head, unsure how to explain this to the table full of drunk out of their mind purebloods with no understanding of the muggle traditions. “No, you’ll still look like you,”
Pandora visibly deflates in relief, and Evan immediately stops his dramatics.
“Well, she’s not even going to be an elf then?” Barty seems more annoyed by this than the original confusion over how she’d be an elf, “What’s the point?”