Under the Mistletoe (Dora)

A cozy fire crackled in the fireplace as Dora sat curled up in a nearby chair, a book splayed open on her lap. There was a mug of hot cocoa on the floor next to her chair. Winter was Dora’s favorite season, she loved the snow and the chill in the air. Christmas had always been sort of a strained holiday for the girl, being carted carelessly around to pureblood parties and warned repeatedly by her parents not to embarrass them, only to have her mum drink a bit too much and have daddy have to pull her away from whomever she was blathering on to. Those were the good Christmases, when they could still go home from school. Dora’s latter years at Hogwarts her parents had clearly decided she and her brother Theon weren’t worth the hassle, no doubt daddy had his hands full with mummy, and they stopped permitting their children home for the winter holidays. Dora had spent much of her teenage Christmases wishing to be with her family all together, and now that wouldn’t be possible. Her father was dead. Her mother had kicked her out after selling their family home.

And then there was that Christmas…

Theon had meant the world to Dora. He was younger by nearly two years, but he offered Dora the sort of support she had needed, whenever she needed it. He was definitely her rock. She had friends, loads of friends from school, but of her family Theon had been the only one to actually be there when she needed it. Now he couldn’t be. Thick, red blood on pure white snow, it was still vivid in her mind a year later. Christmas Eve 1976, the night she found his body. The night Theon had died. Christmas really couldn’t be the same after that.

Bending forward and leaning towards the floor, Dora reached for her mug and brought it up to rest on her lap. Her eyes scanned the last sentence of the paragraph before she lifted the mug to her lips and tasted the warm, chocolatey drink. A knock at the door drew her attention away from the story. She folded the corner of the page down to mark her place and pulled her feet out from under her. Standing, Dora gently tossed the book onto her bed as she headed toward the door, pausing only a moment to set her mug on the little dining table as she passed it. There was an impatient kick at the door and Dora’s eyebrows raised. Checking the peephole, the brunette smiled at the face through the fish-eyed lense. “Oi! Don’t go kicking my door, Finathan, or you’ll be paying to have it replaced,” she called teasingly through the door as she slid the locks open and turned the knob.

Grinning at the sight of Fin with a miniature tree and a box of, presumably, ornaments, Dora stepped back and pulled the door wide for her friend to come in. She placed a hand on her hip and shifted her weight to the opposite leg. Tilting her head slightly, Dora smirked. “I do believe most blokes bring roses when they’ve come to profess their love, but a tree does seem rather fitting considering.” Dora hadn’t planned to decorate this year. There had been a tree in the lounge last year, of course that was when she was living with Fin still and he had the space and desire to put up a monstrous tree and decorate the whole mansion. It had been lovely and admittedly it did take her mind off thoughts of Theon for a bit, but there simply wasn’t the space to do anything like that in her tiny little studio flat, and unlike her wealthy friend, Dora didn’t have the servants to do it all for her. She could be rather lazy when she wanted to be.

Waiting until Fin had moved far enough into the room for her to shut the door, Dora followed after him, only needing to take a few steps to be standing right beside him. “Mistletoe? Are you going to hang it over the bed or on your trousers?” she teased with an impish grin, smacking him on the rear as he began to complain about the size of her flat again. This wasn’t his first visit, but did that stop him from whining about her tiny living quarters? Of course not. Where would be the fun in that? “There’s space on the ceiling, if you’d like,” she offered in jest, though she did know a spell to suspend an object in the air for an extended period of time but no one in their right mind wanted a Christmas tree hanging from their rafters. “The table will work. I don’t really use it anyway, it’s mostly here to make believe I’m a proper adult.” The tree would cover most of the table top, despite it’s small stature, but aside from some takeaway now and again, Dora mostly at in the lounge are or on her bed where it was a bit more spacious. If the weather was right, she had even been known to eat on her little balcony though anything more complicated than a bowl of cereal didn’t easily make it through the little window that she had to crawl through to get to there.

“Oh, do I look like your servant, now?” she asked, her eyes wide with sarcastic shock as she headed for the kitchen to put on the kettle. Grabbing the kettle from the counter, she easily brought it over to the tiny sink and filled it half way. She turned the tap off before reaching ever so slightly to the right and setting the kettle on one of only two burners meant to be the stove in her teeny tiny apartment. Dora knew it was easy to mock her living arrangements and she didn’t want to be here anymore than Fin did, but it was what she could afford for the time being. Soon enough her modeling career would pick up and then she would have more money than she could shake a stick at.

While the water heated, Dora leaned against the window in the kitchen looking longingly at the tiny tree. She imagined Fin, or more likely one of Fin’s servants, had simply climbed up a normal sized tree and snipped the tip off. Somewhere there was a tree with a flat top and had it not been for thoughts of Theon edging into her mind she might have laughed at the mental image. She folded one arm across her chest, holding her opposite arm as she smiled wistfully at the memories of her brother that played in her head.

“I’m tall enough in heels,” she cooed with a false little pout. In actuality, Dora enjoyed her small stature. Being called tiny was a compliment in the raven-haired girl’s eyes. She was easily lifted about and moved wherever a bloke pleased and so long as he was a handsome fellow – or good enough, depending on her mood – then she found she rather enjoyed being handled as easily as a ragdoll. It never occurred to Dora that some people might think her strange for holding such an opinion but then she didn’t generally let on why she liked being short, she simply appeared proud of her height in the same way that she was proud of any other part of her appearance, sans the hideous scars on her leg. She was attractive enough to land most any bloke she liked for the night and for Dora that was all she felt she deserved, so it was all she felt she needed. She knew there would always be a warm bed for her somewhere and were Fin to throw a lavish Christmas party of two, she knew of several vacant beds that she and a handsome stranger could sneak off to. Alright, probably not a stranger. They knew all the same sorts, but maybe somebody had a wealthy foreign cousin in town for the holiday that she could introduce herself to. She quite liked the idea of that.

Words of encouragement stirred her from her thoughts as she realized Fin was looking at her. “Hmm,” she muttered, her lips closed as she gave a small smile. She was an odd creature, though not really out of the norm if people would only talk about it more often. She adored attention, simply couldn’t get enough of it. Showering her with compliments was a quick way to earn Dora’s affection but anything more than superficial and she simply believed it to be nothing more than lip service. Tell her she’s gorgeous; she’s putty in your hands. Tell her she’s smart, and she rolls her eyes at you. Fin was clearly telling her she was doing fine because he was a proper friend and that was what true friends did. They build you up whenever you need it, and sometimes when you don’t, just for kicks. Dora didn’t like to be pitied, she liked to be admired. They were two vastly different forms of attention and after all that had happened in the last few years she was finding the former much more offensive, not that she would ever say anything to Fin. A good friend, Fin was. The best friend. Her life would be so utterly different without him.

The kettle was not yet whistling, and it wasn’t as if her walking four steps to Fin’s side would hinder her from getting to the stove when the time came. As he squatted down in front of the heavy box he’d carried up the stairs, Dora moved to stand beside him, feeling much like a giant with him on the floor closer to her knees than her face. She crossed her arms across her chest as she looked down into the box. He really hadn’t needed to go through all the trouble, but she loved him for it. “Not red,” she answered when he asked what color she wanted to do her teensy tree up in. Red had been Theon’s favorite color and one might think it odd that Dora, who was so missing her brother this time of year, didn’t want to remember him fondly with a bit of Christmas cheer. Her mother had stolen the color for herself and Dora didn’t want anything to do with her mother at all, except the bit of snooping she did regularly.

Rebekah Parkinson had rented a flat on the opposite side of Winchester from where the family had lived when their father was still alive. ‘Back when we were happy’ she would say, unaware of the rose-colored glasses that were permanently affixed to her face when it came to memories of her father. Fin didn’t seem to care too much for her loving talks of her father, not having the same issues with his memories of the man as Dora held. Her mum, though, Dora saw her much more clearly than she’d ever seen her father, though there was still that ever-longing hope that it would all right itself somehow, and her mummy would hold her and kiss her and tell her for once that she loved her. It was that desire that led Dora to Winchester more often than she would admit to, even to Fin, and sit on the bus bench on the opposite side of the street, hoping for a glimpse of her mother. First of December, right on cue, the curtains in the front window of her mum’s flat were opened and a gorgeous little tree shone brightly in the window. Dora was devastated to see it was decorated solely in Theon’s favorite color; red. The painful sight only reminded Dora of the words her mother had said to at Theon’s funeral; “I’ve lost the only things I have cared about in the world; my Heath, my home, and now the only child I loved.”


Dora chewed on her lip as she stared down at the baubles. She had been having such a lovely, uneventful day before now, and sweet Fin had gone out of his way to procure a little festive cheer just for her. She could save sulking for later. Dora inhaled deeply and forced a smile on her face. “Blue, I think,” she answered more confidently than she had before. “And purple, so it matches.” Dora’s eyes shot over to the deep purple comforter that was spread across her mattress; it was by far the biggest thing in the tiny apartment and she didn’t want it clashing with her tiny tree. She ran her fingers through Fin’s hair without having to reach at all, due to his position on the floor and she smiled down at him. “And when you’re done taking care of the tree, I’ve got a few other chores I’d like you to get on with. Pop your shirt off and let’s get to it, shall we?” she said teasingly as the kettle softly began to whistle.

“Oh, it’s not that cold,” Dora said as she turned and headed into the adjacent kitchen. It could have been that cold for all Dora knew. She was so used to casting her warming charm in the winter that it was almost a force of habit to apply it while getting ready, even if she didn’t plan on leaving her flat at all that day. It kept her comfortable without having to start a fire, which she liked to do anyway as she enjoyed the smell, or when she wanted to sit out on her little patio, after clearing the snow off the seat of course. Today, however, she had actually been out for just a quick pop into the shop for some groceries. She had used up all the milk trying to make herself dinner last night, and not getting on with it very well, and she needed more for tea. Good thing she hadn’t been lazy about it, since Fin had decided to drop by unannounced and he enjoyed milk in his tea, too. “Fine, keep your clothes on, then. I didn’t want to look at you shirtless anyway, did I?” She grinned at him from over her shoulder as she turned the stove off and began opening cupboards and pulling everything she would need down from the shelves.

Pulling a small stool from under the sink, Dora positioned it in front of the highest cupboard before climbing up onto the counter to reach the saucers. She could have used her wand to summon them down, except it was resting on one of the bookshelves that surrounded her bed. Not planning to go anywhere at the moment, she hadn’t bothered to keep it on her while in the flat and with Fin working on the tree at the table there really wasn’t enough room to move around him to go fetch it. By the time she did that, she could have just as easily scaled the kitchen counter. “Even if I did let you buy me a house elf – which I never would because I love your stupid face too much, where on earth do you imagine it would go to be out of the way? It’s not like I can spare the cupboard space.” If she had a bigger place, she would of course allow him to procure her a little servant. Even if Fin was too much of a germaphobe to have a house elf of his own, she knew he would still visit her so long as the creature didn’t make itself known in his presence, and Dora knew better by now than to talk about them in front of him.

Setting two saucers down on the counter near her knees, Dora leaned back so that she could shut the door of the cabinet she’d been rummaging in without smacking herself in the head. Pressing her hands onto the countertop, she slowly pulled one leg back and then the other until she was standing firmly on the little stool again. She hopped off gracefully, then opened the flatware drawer and pulled out a pair of teaspoons. “There’s really nothing to tinker with at the moment. I just fixed the faucet in the bathroom, it had been leaking a bit. I’ve been waiting for the bloody landlord to deal with it, but it’s been a whole sodding week. Stupid muggle. Finally, I just went to the library and checked out a book on handyman spells and did it myself. It only took a few tries to get it right.” Her first attempt had done nothing at all, and her second seemed to make the leak worse. Third time was a charm and after she checked to make sure she hadn’t stopped up the pipes altogether she was really rather pleased with herself.

Dora arranged everything on the tea tray and then carried it out of the kitchen just as Fin was finishing up the tree. “Oh, it looks lovely, doesn’t it?” As she passed behind him she gave him a small kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, love.” She continued on around him into the lounge area and set the tea tray on a small coffee table in front of one of the three chairs which made up the seating options in the room. The tray covered nearly the entire coffee table, only a thin sliver of black table top was visible underneath. “Come have a cuppa before we put the lights on the balcony. I have to ensure you don’t catch a cold from being in my little ice box,” she said with clear sarcasm in her tone, giving his a cheeky smile.

Dora would never keep a house elf if it in any way interfered with her best mate coming over all the time. As it was, she missed him simply not being in the same house as she was and Fin’s house was so bloody large that half the time she was home, she couldn’t even be certain was there. It wasn’t so large that she got lost, once she knew her way around, but she could easily lose Fin in it if they were wandering around separately. Fin’s house, the one he purchased himself as a proper adult, was nearly twice as large as the manor Dora and her brother had grown up in, and it was a gazzilion times larger than the little Welsh flat she rented now. The idea of putting a house elf that she would never own, nor afford to obtain in the first place, in a kennel on her teeny tiny balcony was absolutely ridiculous. Dora loved being outside, and without properly leaving her flat her balcony was her only access to the outdoors that she had. At least once a day, rain or shine, Dora sat out on the little cushioned bench and looked out over the city. It was so freeing and calming being out there. It was nothing compared to the Astronomy tower of Hogwarts where Dora had spent her fair share of time while at school, standing on the ledge of the tower, letting the wind blow against her face as she closed her eyes and imagined herself flying or, if she was having an episode, plummeting to the ground. Dora, for her part, had never actually attempted suicide but standing on the ledge of the castle tower after having been attacked, knocked into a coma, and permanently disfigured by a nasty scar running the length of her upper thigh, had been the closest she had ever come to purposely letting the wind blow her over. It was lucky Fin was there to kind things to ease her troubled mind and force her to start looking after herself again. That was the beginning of a dark time for Dora, but she was coming out of it despite thinking she never would and she caught the look of pride on Fin’s face as she made mention of fixing the leaky sink on her own. That made her feel good.

“If there was somewhere I could afford that was completely muggle-free, you know I would I snatch it up in a heartbeat. Honestly, it gets so irksome having to watch myself every time I want to do a bit of magic. You’ve no idea how lucky you are to be in your own home, without muggles all around you. I swear I spotted a bloke across the way using a telescope to see through my window while I was dressing and I couldn’t even hex him properly without worrying about getting all sorts of fines. It’s utterly ridiculous.” Dora shook her head in annoyance and enchanted the tea set to add milk and sugar to her cup once Fin poured and handed it to her. “Right. You try explaining to the landlord why I’ve got a grand piano and a swimming pool in my studio flat when he comes for the monthly inspection.” Dora smirked and then took a sip of her tea.

“Enough about my fabulous life,” she cooed, leaning back in her chair and getting comfortable. “Tell me how much you miss me not being around all the time. Are you terribly lonesome? Have you renamed the fern 'Dora' after me, yet?”

Dora had considered all manner of spells and jinxes she could use against the landlord to make her living arrangements more suitable for a witch of her standing – well, of her past social standing, anyway. The tiny studio flat with the pervy neighbor and leaking faucet were pretty appropriate to the depths her family name had sunk, but she tried not to think of that when she had company. Those were thoughts best left for late nights alone with three or four very strong martinis and a cutting charm on the floor of her bathroom. Company, Fin’s company especially, required happy thoughts. “Why Fin Avery,” she spoke in a dramatic voice with a false accent of someone far higher than her station, “you would risk going to Azkaban just so that I could have a proper library? My, how you spoil me.” She batted her eyes at him and giggled at the idea of Fin using an Unforgivable Curse on the landlord to give her a bit of extra space.

It was an over the top solution to a mediocre problem and she simply adored his mind for going there in the first place. The problem wasn’t really with the muggle landlord, and that was the bigger issue. Dora firmly believed that wizards and witches shouldn’t have to hide their magic from muggles at all, but there were laws put in place forbidding it which meant the real problem was not in the skeevy neighbor and not with the muggle landlord and not even with the tiny flat where they were currently having tea in her bedroom/library/lounge, the problem was with the Ministry of Magic and their arse-backwards way of thinking. Wizards were simply better than muggles, it was a well established fact, and yet they had to hide their magic for risk of being found out. The entire governing system of wizarding Britain was completely upside down. Dora sipped her tea as political thoughts she didn’t fully comprehend ran through her pretty head.

“Poor Henry,” Dora said with more of a real pout than Fin had put on for his dead fern. If he wasn’t taking the piss out of her, then Dora was really rather shocked that he had managed to kill the fern so easily in her absence when he'd gotten fine enough marks in Herbology. She scoffed loudly and stared at him with wide eyes as he claimed naming his tattered old chair after her was “fitting”. Dora didn’t take offense to the strange men part, she actually found that rather funny, but she was not tattered! Dora fluffed her hair and gave him a haughty look. “I am in pristine condition, I’ll have you know. There’s nothing tattered about me.” That was far from the truth but Dora didn’t like admitting her faults, the little scars on her thighs helped to keep her from falling apart publicly and as she was unaware that Fin knew about her little exercise in pain relief, she didn’t like him teasing that she might not be a perfect specimen of physical beauty. He made up for it in admitting that he missed her a bit and that made Dora once again feel special and loved.

“I had to eat while watching you cook, or else I’d end up with your finger in my mouth and one thing would lead to another and we would never get around to eating dinner.” She grinned at him over the rim of her teacup. Dozens of times she had told him that a man who could cook was every witch’s fantasy and that his good looks were only making the whole scene even more attractive. Dora liked flirting, and she did it so effortlessly that it was hard not to do it with Fin, despite not having any real romantic feelings for him. She was attracted to him, as any red-blooded witch was, but there wasn’t anything more than friendship there. Not when they were sober at least.

“Wouldn’t you just love to find out,” she taunted him, her lips spread into a wide grin as they discussed multi-tasking and whether Dora could eat and shag at the same time. Of course she could, but the question really was whether or not she wanted to. More often than not, the answer was no. She wasn’t against multi-tasking or even bringing food into the bedroom but unless it was sweets she could easily lick up or wash off, Dora didn’t much fancy having dinner flat on her back.

Fin set his tea cup down on the tray that covered the entirety of her coffee table. She pouted a little, wanting to continue to chat in the warmth of her lounge/bedroom with her best mate. She missed him something terrible, and while she enjoyed feeling something akin to being a grown up, she also found she was lonely. Being compared to a tattered chair, while not flattering in the slightest, was at least a little comforting seeing as how it was an admission that he missed her, too.

Waiting for Fin to pass a few steps by her before she got herself out of her chair, Dora bent over and placed her own tea cup on the tray, then scooted past Fin and headed towards the window which would lead them to her little balcony. “I don’t think it would take long,” she confessed, grabbing her boobs and looking down at them. She was rather flat chested, Dora could admit that. Her greater asset was clearly her backside, which she frequently flaunted in tiny skirt and dresses. Dora had no qualms about bending over and letting an attractive bloke get a good look. “No bitching about the cold, Finiel,” Dora said in a playfully scolding tone as she opened the window. “It was your idea to decorate, so you can suck it up and deal with a bit of snow.” Dora, of course, didn’t have to worry about the cold as her warming charm was still going strong, despite the fact that she was in a short dress and high heels, not bothering to put on a cardigan or any sort of sweater.

Bending over and crawling through the open window, Dora felt a slight shiver on her skin. It lasted less than a second before her charm adjusted and she was comfortably warm as her knees sank into the thin layer of snow on the ledge of her window. Looking over her shoulder at Fin, her bum in the air as she scooted out of the flat, she grinned. “No looking at my arse,” she said with a laugh, though she would be offended if he didn’t take at least a quick peek. Dora didn’t have any romantic feelings for Fin, not really, but if she thought for a moment that he wasn’t sexually attracted to her she would simply die. Pulling herself out far enough into the open air, Dora slid her right foot forward as she held onto the railing at the edge of the balcony. It was a frightfully small patio but she enjoyed it. One foot on the ground, then the other; Dora stood and turned around in the freshly fallen snow, patting her dress and scooting over to the left to give Fin enough room to join her.