There was a strange pallor on the group's mood for the rest of the meal. Harry fished about his bangers and mash numbly, glumly. Grief could rear its ugly head at the most inopportune times, and none more so than at Christmas. He should have been bracing himself for how the first holidays without Fred would be hard, and how in people like George and Molly, there would be a relapse into the pain, however brief. He hoped for their sakes it would be brief. George seemed to be genuinely on the mend. And though Molly had been a sporadic sight in recent months, at least along the first floor of the house, she nonetheless had appeared able to function, helping the girls with some of the household chores.