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mini_festAuthor/Artist: ???
Pairing(s): Albus Severus Potter/Scorpius Malfoy
Prompt: celebrating Hanukkah at Hogwarts (pairing: Pairing: Anthony Goldstein/anyone or the head canon Jewish of your choice/anyone / year: 2019)
Word Count/Art Medium: 1586
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: It’s Albus’s first Chanukah at Hogwarts
READ ON AO3
It starts with a harmless enough question.
“You’re Jewish, aren’t you?”
He and Scorpius have known each other for all of three months, and Albus hasn’t really talked too much to anyone else since. It’s nothing to do with Scorpius, why he’s not talking to anyone else. It’s everyone else’s fault. Everyone else –
including Rose
– has been acting like he’s some giant stupid disappointment to his father’s legacy. His father’s legacy that he never even asked for!
So you can’t really blame him for not going to Shabbos services with James and Rose on Friday nights, even though (especially since) his father wants him to go. He didn’t go for the High Holy Days, either. But his dad was so weird about Hogwarts, and hadn’t wanted him or James to come home, anyway (and potentially miss three whole days of the complete amazingness that is Hogwarts!), so if Mr. Goldstein or the rabbi he’d owled to come in had told his dad, Albus hadn’t heard about it.
And Merlin knows his dad and Rose and even Aunt Hermione go on and on on about how Judaism is about
community,
but it’s hard to feel a part of a community when everyone’s judging you no matter where you go or what you do.
He looks at Scorpius for half a second before saying, “Yeah.”
“Oh,” Scorpius says. “But you don’t go to services with Rose.”
“I don’t do
anything
with Rose,” Albus says.
“Well, no,” Scorpius says. “I suppose you don’t do anything with Rose if you can help it. But that does mean that you celebrate Chanukah and not Christmas, doesn’t it?”
“I mean, I guess so,” Albus says. “It’s not that I don’t
ever
celebrate Christmas. My gran always has the whole family over, and we’ll light candles if it overlaps with Chanukah, but it’s still definitely
Christmas.
It’s just not really…
my
holiday, if that makes sense?”
“It makes perfect sense!” Scorpius says. “We’ve only ever done Christmas at my house, but it’s always been quite small. Neither of my parents are very close with their families, so it’s always been just the three of us, but I think I like it best that way. I mean, I’ve always thought it’d be quite nice to be in a big family, and have cousins and everyone all together. Though, really, from what I’ve heard about my extended family – I’m not missing anything.”
“I suppose you’re going home for Christmas, then?” Albus says, feeling sort of betrayed even though he knows he really has no reason to be. Most people probably want to spend their holidays with their families.
“Yeah. It’s not as if I expect everything to be perfect, but… it’ll be good to see my mum again. And my dad, too. It’s nice to write them, but… writing is a poor substitute.”
Albus really wishes he could relate.
He’s dreading going home. He doesn’t love Hogwarts – far from it – but he also doesn’t want to go home where it will be all but impossible to escape James and his father.
“When is Chanukah? It’s a bit different every year, isn’t it?”
“Er, yeah,” Albus says. “I dunno exactly when it is this year. Rose’ll know. Or Mr. Goldstein.”
“Do you know if there’s a school party this year? Mum said there used to be one when she was younger – even though she’s not Jewish. She just had some friends who were.”
“I don’t know,” Albus says. But he really doesn’t want to spend hours stuck in a room with Rose and James, even if Scorpius is there, too. Maybe especially if Scorpius is there. His crush on Rose is really obvious and quite annoying, and it’ll probably just make everything worse.
“Well,” Scorpius says. “If you’d like, we can do something in the common room. I don’t know if there are any other Jewish kids in Slytherin, but even if it’s just us, I’m sure it’ll be fun.”
Albus really isn’t sure he wants to, but he has a really hard time saying no to Scorpius.
Besides, it’ll get him out of having to deal with his family.
The first night of Chanukah is on a Tuesday, and as the day approaches, Albus is wondering if maybe going to the school party (which Rose and James and even Professor Longbottom have informed him is very much happening) would be the worst idea in the world. After all, as much as Rose and James annoy him, he’ll at least be in a room full of other Jews and… well, in the Slytherin common room, he definitely won’t be.
But he’s promised Scorpius, and he waffles too long on his decision, so after dinner, he finds himself setting up his Chanukiah in the common room, by one of the windows (it doesn’t look out onto the street, of course, not like at home, but he figures that the creatures in the Lake are as good as anything else), and feeling extremely self-conscious.
Rose would know how to lead the prayers. James always likes to show off his spellwork lighting the shamash (it’s one of the few times his father allows them to use magic underage at home). Albus isn’t even totally sure he remembers the words, or that he isn’t forgetting anything.
He’s aware that people are looking at him.
He fumbles with the spell a few times – it’s a tricky spell, and in Aramaic, at that, and as bad a Jew as Albus admits to being (after all, he hasn’t been to a service since the first week of school), he knows enough to know that he shouldn’t just use
incendio.
Eventually, the spell takes, and he lights the shamash.
He can feel Scorpius’s eyes on him, and knows that Scorpius is far from the only one watching him with interest, but he manages to light the first candle (and he’s
pretty
sure it’s on the proper side), and says, “Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav vitzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Chanukah.”
He’s pretty sure there’s another prayer he’s missing, and Scorpius is still looking at him expectantly, so he tries to remember the Shehecheyanu. It’s not that he’s never said it – far from it. His dad’s really big into what he calls “Shehecheyanu moments”, which is really annoying, but usually when he says it, he’s saying it
with
someone. He’s not saying it alone.
He stumbles through the prayer, which he’s certain he’s just butchered so badly even his
Muggle
Jewish ancestors are going to come back to haunt him, but then he looks to Scorpius, who looks as though this is the most amazing thing he’s ever seen in his life. “Er, that’s it.”
“That’s not it,” Scorpius says, and for a terrible moment, Albus worries that Scorpius knows more about
Chanukah
than he does, when Albus has been celebrating it his whole life.
But then Scorpius reaches into his bag and pulls out a small, wrapped parcel.
A gift.
“I don’t know if it’s traditional to give your friends gifts for Chanukah, but I’m not going to give you a Christmas gift if it’s not your holiday, so I asked Mr. Goldstein, and he said that it would be okay to give you Chanukah gifts. I knew you wouldn’t want me trying to ask James or Rose.”
Albus is touched, both by the fact that Scorpius thought to give him a gift, and that he specifically didn’t ask James or Rose about it.
“Thank you,” Albus says. “Usually we give each other things for Purim in my family, instead of Chanukah, but Dad always gets us something small for each night.” In fact, he’d gotten a package at breakfast that morning, which had clearly been from his father. He’d shoved it to the bottom of his bag. “But thank you.”
“Of course,” Scorpius says. “I mean, you’re welcome. But you’re my friend. I wasn’t
not
going to give you a gift.”
Albus is well aware that Scorpius’s family has more money than they know what to do with (not that Albus’s father is much different in that respect), and that Scorpius has never really had any friends before, not even annoying cousins or older brothers around to bother him, so he doesn’t really expect a very thoughtful, personal gift.
When he unwraps the wrapping paper to find a package of pepper imps, he almost hugs him. Almost.
“You know I’m really
not
just your friend because you give me sweets, don’t you?” Albus says.
“Oh, I know,” Scorpius says. “But if I’d got you what I’d want myself – well, no offense, but you probably wouldn’t appreciate the newest edition of
Modern Magical History.”
“No,” Albus says. “I wouldn’t.”
If he drags Scorpius along to the stupid Chanukah party the next night, it’s just to show him that he’s not missing anything, not having annoying siblings or even more annoying cousins.
James is as obnoxious as ever, and Rose proves, again, that it is possible for a human being to be
quite that insufferable,
but he doesn’t feel people staring at him. He doesn’t feel like people are waiting for him to mess up.
He drinks grape juice and eats latkes and sufganiyot and sings along to Maoz Tzur, and even though he’s still not going to start going to services every Shabbos… he doesn’t completely hate it.
But then, like most things, it’s easier to bear with Scorpius by his side.
