Deck the Halls by Hiko [Rated PG-13]
Celebrate the Season fic request for zarah joyce
Title: Deck the Halls
Author: Hiko/plural_entity
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Slash and fem-slash
Disclaimer: I own nothing at all. And it bites.
Author's Notes: Okay, yeah, I’m not good with humor. I tried to add humor in here, but it turned out quite angsty. Sorry for that, but I actually think it’s one of my better fics. Some of it rambles a bit, and some of this is actually a part of real conversations I’ve had with my friends. 6977 word count.
Zarah,
I loved what you gave me, but I found it incredibly hard to work with just because of the little ditch I’ve dug myself into. I don’t like stories where Pansy and Hermione are best friends, because I just think they’re far too stubborn and alike and set in different morals to be good friends. More like I think Hermione could /deal/ with Pansy. And I don’t like Hermione and Luna as bffs because I just think that Luna’s too weird for Hermione to get that close to. And with your request for Ginny Weasley not to be present in this fic, I found myself forced to make an OC for Hermione to have bonded with. I did /mention/ Ginny slightly, but only in the idea that she was dead.
Also, the Ron/Pansy was a bit hard, cause I normally like Pansy with Harry and Ron with Blaise....but I had to switch Ron and Harry for this one. But...it was refreshing. A change of pace. I hope that this isn’t too angsty for you, or too cliché, or that my jokes are so pre-teen, or that you won’t just plain hate it. I put a lot of work into this fic. I’m actually very proud of it, whereas I had originally thought I was going to bomb terribly.
Hope You’re Happy!
--the mysterious writer of said fic--
Summary: There’s a secret that no one knows, and it’s eating away at them both. Now it’s just a matter of time before one of them cracks.
|x|x|x|
“Malfoy?”
Draco tapped his quill annoyingly against the table in front of him, his grey eyes staring off into space. He wasn’t exactly paying attention.
“Malfoy?”
Okay, he wasn’t paying attention at all. And he was bored. Not only was he bored, but he had to pretend that he was interested. How screwed up was that?
“Draco?”
His head jerked upward as his normally unsaid first name was spoken, and his eyes found the dark doe eyes of Hermione Granger. And for five blissful seconds he thought that he had died, escaped the dreaded meeting, and had gone to heaven. “Hm?”
“Mr. Malfoy, are you alright?”
And then he fell through those pretty white clouds and landed right back down where he actually was. He looked over at the aging Remus Lupin, the Minister of Magic. His eyes darted around the room, and he soon realized that every single head of department was staring at him as if he had turned a sickly shade of green.
“Sorry,” he said, shrugging and putting his quill down. He leaned back, arms crossed in front of him defensively. “Zoned out for a bit. You know.”
Hermione’s hands flew from the table in front of him to her hips and her eyes grew even darker with annoyance. “Malfoy, have you been paying any attention to what I’ve been saying?”
He smirked, cocking his head to the side, and giving her a look. “Granger, I’ve known you for how long now? About ten years? You should know by now, I never pay attention when you’re talking.”
Remus looked like he was about to laugh for a few seconds before recovering, and instead put a well-placed hand on his chin. To Draco, it looked more like he was trying to hold his jaw in place, more than look contemplative.
“We’re brainstorming about a place that’s big enough to host the annual Ministry Christmas Party,” Remus said, nodding to Hermione. “Miss Granger just suggested Malfoy Manor. The house is still in use, is it not? What I mean is, you live in it? And the house elves there still take care of it. Do you think that we could possibly use it in this instance? It certainly is big enough.”
Draco visibly paled, rubbing a hand against the back of his head. “Er...I guess so...” he mumbled, almost incoherently, wishing he could just crawl under the table and avoid the piercing looks. “I mean, yes sir. Of course you could use the Malfoy Manor.”
That’s how he referred to it. The Malfoy Manor. Like it wasn’t his. Like he didn’t want it to be his. Hermione’s brows furrowed thoughtfully, but no one noticed her. Most people didn’t. She was plain. Not at all like the boy in front of her.
Draco was tall and thin, not lanky, but built for speed and stamina. Like a stock of grain haphazardly blowing in the cool, crisp breeze. That was his personality too. Calm, cool, collected. Like nothing could break through his heart of glass and that he liked it that way. But Hermione wasn’t kidding herself. She’d seen Draco at his best and his worst. And she knows that his heart just looked icy. It was more like glass.
“If you like, I’ll help you,” she offered, her hand held up in the air in a half shrug. Like she didn’t really care if she helped or not. “It’s a pretty big job for you to do by yourself.”
He looked up at her, grey eyes hardening the instant they met her brown ones. And that was when he wished he knew how to open up. But he can’t. He never could. The few times he did, it was a fluke, and he blamed himself for his own weakness. “I look forward to it,” he muttered, turning back to write something on the paper in front of him. No one else in the room seems to catch his sarcasm.
Remus nodded, smiling as he looked around the boardroom. “Well, if that’s all,” he said happily, raising his hands in the air in a no-shrug, “then we’re done here. I’ll see you all next month for the next board meeting.” His mouse-brown eyes flash up, searching out Hermione’s. “Miss Granger, may I speak to you in my office?”
Hermione wasn’t surprised about this, because she knew what day tomorrow is. She couldn’t ever forget.
She watched Draco gather his materials slower than all the rest. Sitting instead of standing. Silent instead of chattering away. Mouth set into a grim line rather than a warming smile. She nodded to Remus as she watched him leave, but walkedover to Draco instead, her brown skirt rustling too loudly in the quiet room.
“Malfoy, are you okay?”
He didn’t look up. Just stood and began to walk away. A frown quickly formed on her face and her arm shot out with amazing accuracy, grabbing his arm at the bicep and partially halting him. He turned to her with a face full of seriousness. Full of significance. There was a grimace there too. But it was not one of displeasure. It was one of warning. One of caution. The flash in his slate eyes reminded her of what the man in front of her was capable of.
She sighed and let his arm go as if it burned her. “I just don’t get you, Malfoy,” she grumbled as she turned around, grabbing her messenger bag andstuffing her quill and parchment inside it.
“Granger, be at my house tomorrow at 8 o’clock sharp.”
She threw her hand up, waving him off and not bothering to turn around and look. The man had once been completely mean. Completely her enemy. It was so much easier that way. When everything was just black and white. Right and wrong. Us and Them. Me and him. Then that black and white had blurred. Merged, fused, faded and bled together.
Until everything had just been a big blob of gray nothingness.
Draco Malfoy was not the boy that she had known back in Hogwarts’ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But he was no different either.
|x|x|x|
Hermione pulled herself together long enough to walk into Remus’ office, chocolate eyes blinking as she stared at the man that she had grown up knowing. Even though he still looked the same, weak and tired and restless, there was always that one thing that she missed, like the shabbiness of his robes. He was the Minister of Magic now. His robes were nothing but the best.
“You asked to see me, Minister?”
“Hermione, don’t call me that,” he said, sitting down in chair and motioning for her to take the one that was in front of his desk. “I can’t stand being called that. Makes me sound old. Call me Remus.”
“Sorry, Remus, it just sounds so weird calling you that,” she replied with a weak smile. “I called you Professor for so long, it seems like that’s the only thing that seems natural.”
He sighed, running a hand over the back of his head. “Well, you obviously know why I asked you to come here.”
“Yes Remus,” she nodded, absentmindedly twirling a curled strand of hair. “It’s the sixth anniversary.”
It was three days till Christmas.
“We always light the top up today, but I won’t be able to get there till later. I was wondering if you had any time to go and put the new batteries in. You don’t have to go, of course.”
Hermione shook her head, eyes wide. “No, of course! I’ll go straight away. I just have to go pick up some batteries and I’ll head off to Ottery St. Catchpole.”
Remus sighed again and nodded his thanks. “I really appreciate it, Hermione. It’s hard to know that he’s been gone so long. Especially with Molly in St. Mungo’s.”
The young woman nodded, brown head of untamable curls shaking with every move. She excused herself as she walked swiftly away, thinking about the task ahead of her. She didn’t even realize she was walking into him.
|x|x|x|
Draco didn’t know how she had come to have such a quick meeting, but he was surprised to see that she was leaving so early. Everyone knew he left as early as he could. Hermione was known to hang around until around 10 - 11 o’clock.
“Granger, watch where you’re going.”
He could smell her. Her scent was thick and penetrating and oh-so-good and he wanted to eat her up right there. But his smirk stayed in place, never wavering, though his eyes did darken.
“Sorry Malfoy, I was distracted.”
He grunted, forcing himself to take a step backward. He was liable to do something if he didn’t. “Where are you rushing off to? Where’s the fire?”
“I need to go buy some batteries.”
He raised an eyebrow, waving a hand in front of her face. She scowled at him, slapping his hand away from in front of her nose. He loved it when she got snappy. “Sorry, I’m not good on Muggle terms, Granger,” he said, blinking at her. “You’re going to have to elaborate.”
“It’s time to go light the Hope Star. On Mr. Weasley’s grave.”
Draco’s breath hitched in his throat and he thought he heard the traces of a quiver in her voice. But her face was strong. Not really happy - for when talking about a close friend’s demise, you couldn’t ever be happy - but she didn’t look overly upset.
“Do you need some company?”
She smiled, nodding her head. “I’d like that.”
|x|x|x|
“Granger, you cannot be serious.”
“Why not? It’s adorable!”
“It’s a damned stuffed deer.”
“His name is Rudolph. You’re not a Muggle, you wouldn’t understand the story.”
“Enlighten me.”
“See the red nose?”
“Yes. So what? Rudolph’s got a serious sinus infection?”
“No, he doesn’t have a sinus infection. It’s part of a song. ‘Rudolph the red-nose reindeer had a very shiny nose! And if you ever saw it...”
“You would even say it blows?”
“Okay, you had to have heard the song before if you knew how to rhyme it.”
“Of course. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve heard the song. I’ve heard a lot of songs. I just never really knew the entire story behind it. I thought it was just a cute song some random person made up to keep their little kids occupied.”
“Well, then you know about it. Rudolph was born with a red, glowing nose. And it gets him in a lot of trouble. And basically, he hates life for a while, gets treated unfairly, and then his red nose is bright enough to lead Santa around to deliver gifts in the storm.”
“So, basically a waste of time and energy.”
“You’re being really mean right now.”
“Alright, just buy the damn thing and let’s get the hell outta here. I’m freezing.”
“Malfoy, we’re not even outside. We’re in a store.”
“A muggle store...” he snorted softly.
A soft growl echoes from her mouth. “Draco, stop it. That’s not nice.”
She can practically hear him roll his eyes at her comment. “Granger, I don’t like muggles,” he states simply, only offering a shrug and a tilt of his head. “I don’t wish them to die a horrible and bloody death - all though some of them should - I just can’t stand them. Do you fucking get that by now?” It wasn’t so much that he was angry, just that he was frustrated. Every day these same insults were thrown back and forth, and every day, Granger said the same thing and he replied the same way. He had hoped that after a while, she would stop. Obviously, he was getting annoyed with the whole process.
Hermione sighed, turning around and placing the stuffed animal back on the self. “Obviously, I’ve been dealing with you for this long, haven’t I?” she sniffed, waving her hand at him. “Fine, Mr. Asshole, come on. We’ve got to get going anyway. I don’t want to be standing out beside the cemetery at 10 o’clock at night.”
|x|x|x|
“Seems like just yesterday, doesn’t it?”
Hermione refused to look up at Draco, but she noted her affirmation with a nod of her head. “Yea,” she whispered, shivering in spite of her warm overcoat. She rubbed her hands together in front of her, blowing on them lightly.
“Very déjà vu like.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Me, you, standing here...” He shrugged and looked off toward the tree. “We were the last people left here on that day. It just seems weird that we’re here by ourselves again.”
His voice was soft, like he wasn’t sure if he was saying something right or not. And in fact, he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure how she would react to him saying it. But after she didn’t say anything, he began to seriously think that he had said something wrong. He looked down to see if she was still there.
“Granger?”
He heard a sniffle and a rustle as her hand was brought up, and though he couldn’t see her face, he knew she was crying. ‘Same as last time,’ he thought to himself. He leaned down, and tapped her gently on the shoulder. “Granger, don’t cry. You’re going to get sick.”
She nodded her head, and silently leaned forward toward Mr. Weasley’s grave. It was, for the most part, an ordinary headstone. The only thing that was different about the carved, square-like dark granite was the very top. A small, semi-translucent frosted star-globe was situated in the middle. Hermione made a reach for it, seizing it gently and pulling upward. It slid out with a tiny squeak of stone on stone; a thin cylinder slab of stone was attached to it, making it look like a torch. She pulled it to herself, clutching it lovingly.
Draco shivered, though it wasn’t from the cold. It was creepy to think that the Death Eaters could have used such an innocent love to murder such an innocent man. Everyone knew that Mr. Weasley loved muggle things like batteries, and he was especially fond of electrical plugs. Theodore Nott had used this love to his advantage. After capturing Mr. Weasley and figuring out that they couldn’t get the location on the Order of the Phoenix out of him, they had killed him. Electrocuted him.
He was torn from his thoughts by the sudden slapping sound of Hermione rapping the torch against her palm. Three medium-sized black and silver batteries fell out of a small tiny square and into her open hand. She pocketed them, quickly sliding in three new ones; this time, red and blue. The iced star glowed brightly, and she smiled, replacing the batteries’ cover and placing the torch back in its holder.
She sighed, getting up off her now-soaked knees, wiping them off with her bare hands. She turned to look at Draco and nodded. “Done now,” she said breathless, sighing again. She looked at him strangely, but then smiled at him. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. We only have one day of work left, and then we have the Christmas Party to plan.”
He nodded, shoving his hands into his pocket. He didn’t say anything, didn’t offer any more words of comfort. Just the odd glittering of his slate-gray eyes and a silence that said everything in itself. He blinked for a minute, watching her Disapparate and wondering where she was going for the first time in a while. Then he Disapparated as well.
|x|x|x|
Hermione Granger knew that it was wrong to harbor such feelings, but she didn’t understand Draco at all. It was clear that she was attracted to him, even if it was nothing more than a bizarre obsession for watching him and trying to understand what went through his overlarge head.
They had a history with each other in more ways than one. Minutes after, she felt a sharp tug in her navel as she apparated to Diagon Alley. She felt too tired to make her usual journey, half way across London, and she was desperately tired. It would be easier to just use the Leaky Cauldron’s fireplace to floo from. Her pace was quick and she walked into the bar, pulling out exactly 3 sickles and four knuts and handing them to Tom. He reached under the bar and pulled out a small jar of gray-tan dust and sifted out about half a cup into a small paper cup.
“Goodnight, Miss Granger,” he said politely, dipping his head, looking as though he was trying to bow to her from where she was standing.
“Goodnight, Tom,” she replied as she smiled, walking toward the fireplace. “And tell Agnes I said hullo.”
He nodded, dipping his head down again. “Will do, Miss Granger. The missus and I have much to thank you for.”
She grinned and winked at him. “Getting a lemur isn’t easy, but I managed,” she replied, thinking at once of how she had helped the aging man get the gift that his wife wanted most. It had been hard, but in the end, she’d gotten it, hadn’t she?
She turned around, stepping into the fireplace and opening her mouth to call out the name of her apartment (Lion’s Den, as she wittingly calling it) when the flash of silver-blond hair caught her eye. Instantly, her eyes narrowed and the thought that he had been following her angrily crossed her mind. But when she saw him nod to Tom without so much as a word and stride over toward the exit of the Leaky Cauldron, her breath caught in her mouth.
Draco Malfoy had just walked out into muggle London. Her hand dropped the floo powder, and a second later she announced “The Lion’s Den!” loudly. She felt herself roaring along, through hundreds of fireplaces, all connected by the wonders of magi.
|x|x|x|
Her mind was still rushing when she tumbled from her fireplace, rolling to a disgruntled heap on the ground before staring up at her bird’s wing blue-painted ceiling. She arched her back slowly off the ground, reaching an arm around and pressing it against the small of her back. “Fucking ow,” she whispered pathetically, wincing. “Note to self: ‘Look before Stepping’.”
“I’ll be sure to mention it.”
Hermione cocked her head to the side, blinking wearily up at the blue-haired and blonde-haired girls that stood directly behind her, grinning smartly over her. She groaned, slowly brining herself to an admiral sitting position on the ground, spinning on the wood floor to look up at the girls. “Do you have to do that?” she asked, rubbing her temple with her first two fingers.
Pansy smirked smartly as she ran a hand through her blonde hair, making little chuckling sounds that reminded Hermione of a chicken. “Of course,” she said, pulling out a chair and seating herself down on it with a casual elegance that made Hermione mentally pound her head into the wall.
“We just wanted to know where the Ministry was holding the Ball,” said the blue-haired witch, holding out her hand so that Hermione could get herself off the ground. Hermione was always very surprised that she didn’t visibly wince when she heard the girl speak. Not one trace of the lilting English accent whatsoever. Her accent was atrocieous, but mostly she had figured that she had grown used to the speech half comprised of the English Language. “I don’t here much, out there in the country.”
Hermione nodded absentmindedly, taking the outstretched hand in hers and lifting herself awkwardly from the ground. She ruffled her robes, trying to work the dust out of them. Her eyes unwaveringly met Pansy’s. Those charming chocolate brown orbs that danced - so different from her own dull, mud-brown ones - were hard eyes to meet. But Hermione had grown used to having to meet them. It wasn’t like there was any other part of the woman she couldn’t compare herself to.
Pansy was well-formed. And she wasn’t talking metaphorically.
Pansy Parkinson Weasley stood a good half-foot taller than Hermione herself, standing at about a full six feet. Her legs were long and her body was fit, and toned. Despite the somewhat pug resemblance, especially in her button nose, it only made her cuter. Pansy carried herself like a woman - not even a woman, like a queen. And Hermione felt every bit the peasant.
It also didn’t help that Pansy had water jugs for breasts and a mouth like a Hoover.
“Draco’s hosting it,” Hermione said as she walked, smoothing a hand over her robe. She walked over to her wand case and placed her wand inside it. “At Malfoy Mansion. I’m supposed to be going over there tomorrow after work to help him set up.”
Pansy grinned. “Ha, this is going to be hilarious.” Her voice nearly purred and her eyes flashed. “Kyri’s been hoping for a chance to do something to his mansion. This is now perfect.”
Hermione glared over her shoulder at the blue-haird woman, her eyes nearly narrowed to slits. “Kyrianna Mylyl, why must you antagonize the poor boy? What’s he ever done to you?”
Kyri smirked, dark eyebrow shooting upward. “To me? Nothing really, except been incredibly annoying.”
“And don’t forget that time he attempted to feel you up, you can’t forget that.”
“He tried to feel you up?”
“Oh, it was a long time ago,” she waved a manicured hand, trying to bypass the subject. “Anyway, he’s never really done anything to me. He just bores me and I hate balls.”
Hermione bent over, leaning on her desk, cracking up. Pansy rolled her eyes and Kyri grinned smartly. “Did you mean to say that?”
She shrugged, blue eyes twinkling. “Not really, it just came out that way. But it did make a good joke though, didn’t it? I don’t like balls as in the dancing kind, and I’m a lesbian and I don’t like men’s balls.”
“Yes, Kyri,” Hermione mumbled, trying to get off the topic of balls, “I understood the message of the joke. Especially since, you know, I was the one who started laughing at it in the first place.”
Hermione sighed, slowly detaching herself from her robe and desperately trying to keep her eyes open and not fall asleep where she stood. “Guys, is that the only reason you came over?”
Pansy clicked her teeth together, rolling a piece of too-blonde hair between her index and middle fingers. “Well, we had come for that, but we also came to talk. You know, gossip? It’s stuff that girls do. But, I can tell that you’ve had a busy day at work. So, I guess I’ll see you on Christmas Eve.” She got to her feet and angrily turned on her heel; apparating even before the swishing sound of her robes was gone.
Kyrianna sighed, pulling her hands roughly through her blue-black hair, dropping to the ground in front of Hermione and pulling her legs under her.
Hermione echoed the sigh, sliding to the ground to sit across from her friend. “I swear... I’ll never get used to that Slytherin. I can deal with Malfoy and his pompousness. I can deal with Millicent and her tendency to slap you across the back so hard you feel like your eyes might pop out of your head. I can deal with Blaise and his gayness and Malcolm and his absolute perversions. But Pansy is out of my reach.”
Kyri nodded grimly, biting her lip to keep from laughing, and cast a glance at the chair that Pansy had left vacant. “Yea, she’s a bit grumpier than usual, isn’t she?
“A bit more?” Hermione spat back vehemently. “She stole my boyfriend and then married him. What else does she want from?”
“Sex and head?”
Hermione’s eyes widened and then she let out a groaning laugh. “Are you calling me a man?”
“No, I’m calling Pansy a man.” Kyrianna grinned in spite of herself, but as her face sobered Hermione was left with a distinct and very unnerving sense that their conversation was taking a turn for the worse.
“I heard that her and Ronald were having trouble in bed.”
“What?!” Hermione sputtered, red lights going off in her brain. “I mean...er...that’s a bit of information I would have rather done without.”
Kyrianna shook her head. “I don’t mean that they aren’t pleasing each other or anything - as disgusting as that sounds. Blaise came over the other day. Apparently, her and Ron have been trying to get pregnant.”
“Wow. I’m not sure what exactly one says to something like that.”
“Yes, I know. Took me by shock too.”
“How’s Molly?”
The girl sighed, giving Hermione a weary look. Hermione hadn’t noticed when Pansy and Kyri had first gotten there, since she’d had too much on her mind, but Kyri looked exhausted. “She’s...er...not doing too well.”
“The poor woman.”
“Yea, she currently thinks she’s still a teapot.”
Hermione winced. “I hate to say it, but I can’t help but think that sometimes she might have been better off dying with her husband. Losing her mind and spending the rest of her life in St. Mungo’s? Not a pretty way to live. Harry can’t even go visit her anymore. He had a breakdown last time he went.” She sighed, shaking her head slightly. “I hate thinking things like that. It’s just wrong.
“Don’t feel bad. We all have thought like that some days. Yeah, I’ve been going in early to try and work with her. The remaining Weasleys deserve to know that their mother knows who they are.” Kyrianna sighed and nodded. “How is dear Harry? He hasn’t come to visit. He says the Burrow has too many memories for him.”
“Yea, he and Blaise must be fucking like mice, because I haven’t seen either of them in ages. They come up to breath, eat, shit and piss, make a few phone calls so we know they aren’t dead and then they go back to their little ‘down-under’ world.”
“Amen to that.” There was a very uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, before Kyri turned to her friend sadly. “Damn, I really miss her.”
Hermione’s eyes grew slightly misty as she thought about her other best friend. “At least we know she’s in a better place. Dying like a hero and all that,” she whispered softly. “You really loved her, didn’t you?”
“I left America to come be with her,” she sniffed, wringing her hands in her lap. “And then she died.”
Kyrianna sat there silently for a few more moments, before sliding her bottom along the wooded floor to embrace her friend. “Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you on Christmas Eve. Don’t let Draco kill you tomorrow.”
“Ha, don’t count on it. I’d kill him. But yes, I’ll see you. Stay well.”
Kyri offered a smile that lingered in the room, just as her words echoed around the room. “You too ’Mione. Stay well.”
|x|x|x|
What had changed since they had been young? How many things could she honestly remember doing that she had also done when she was younger? Not many. Most people still thought of her as bookworm Hermione Granger, Mudblood Extraordinaire, who had helped her best friend Harry Potter defeat the one of the Darkest Wizards of alltime, Lord Voldemort.
[ “What good am I in here?! How am I supposed to help now?!
Especially now that I’m stuck in here with you!” ]
But truly, what had she done?
[ “Obviously, you can’t exactly do much can you?
You’re locked in here just as much as I am.
Buggers wanted you to ‘watch’ me, didn’t they?
There isn’t anything even I can do in a house
that practically wants to kill its inhabitants.” ]
She crawled her way toward the couch that sat in the corner of the roomand pulled the green comforter and a cushion down from the couch above her. She was too tired to pull herself up to the couch. She blinked sorrowfully, remembering the night that so many wizards had praised her for. She was in books, damn it. The Rise and Fall of the Dark Lord: A Correct Revised Edition, Famous Muggleborns of the 21st Century, Lord Voldemort’s Second Coming, and The Blessed Trio.
[ “You don’t understand.
People are expecting me to be out there.
Fighting.
Right there alongside my friends.” ]
She hadn’t done anything. Not one damned thing. How many people actually knew that she hadn’t been there that night at all? Hadn’t fought. The Blessed Trio, the Wonder Trio, whatever they had wanted to call them... on July 7th, 2009, the Blessed Trio had been a Blessed Duo.
[ “So the boys don’t have their bookworm trailing tail.
What of it? They don’t want you getting hurt.
Forgive me, but I thought that was called having friends.
Especially friends that care about you.” ]
How many knew? How many knew that she had been forced and conveniently locked up within Number Twelve Grimmald Place?
[ “But I’m strong enough on my own.
I don’t need them protecting me.” ]
Locked up with Draco Malfoy as her only human companion for two days straight.
[ “Then I drink to your sorrows, Hermione Granger.
Since yours are so apparently greater than mine.” ]
|x|x|x|
“Granger?”
I don’t want to wake up now. Go away.
“Granger.”
I’m tired. Bugger off.
“Granger!”
Nope. Notice that I’m not getting up.
“Hermione...”
Her eyes flew open.
“Malfoy?” She sat up, rubbing her fist against her eye. She hadn’t bothered to move after she had fallen asleep. Still she lay at the foot of her couch, her comforter twisted awkwardly around her waist. Her hair was frizzy and mussed and in her face, and she pushed at it with her hands. “What are you doing here? What time...?”
Her head turned and she blinked away the mist that had gathered in her eyes. Through the darkness her eyes sought the clock that perched on her wall. She wasn’t sure, but she could tell that the little hand was on five. “Malfoy, it’s five in the morning, what are you doing here?”
She couldn’t see his face very well; it was shrouded in the darkness that was around them. The most she could see was the shining silver of his moon-like eyes, and then the outline of his face. But something about the way that he was leaning in front of her, and something about the way that he wasn’t making fun of her horrible appearance made her pulse jump.
“Draco...” She watched him look up, slate eyes meeting her own dark ones. “What’s wrong? Nothing...nothing happened, did it?”
“I can’t do it Granger.”
“What do you mean?” Her brow furrowed and she reached out to him. The minute the tips of her fingers touched his shoulder he rolled it back, recoiling from her. “Malfoy, answer me! What do you mean ‘you can’t do it’?!”
And then his hands were on her shoulders, pressing her back against the couch. She sucked in a breath of air in a hiss, her eyes closing as she clenched her teeth in a hiss. “I can’t do it!” he yelled again, his face in hers. Still she could only see those flashing silver eyes. “Find some other mansion to host your ball at. I can’t go back there.”
“Malfoy...”
“I won’t! You can’t make me!” He sounded like a mad man, and his fingers were curling into her shoulders, cutting into her skin as if they were knives.
“Draco, you’re hurting me!”
He paused, his breath coming in faded gasps and he jumped back quickly, his hands leaping back to his side to fist his robes. “Sorry,” he mumbled, turning away from her.
Hermione grimaced, reaching her right arm across to rub her thumb against her shoulder. “Malfoy, you’re talking in riddles. I have absolutely no idea what you’re going on about. The only thing I understand is hosting the Christmas Eve Ball somewhere else. That’s basically all I got. And really, why can’t you host it in a house that you’ve been living in? It’s not like you’re a slob.”
“That’s because I haven’t been staying there. I’ve been staying in a muggle flat, just outside of London. The man’s a muggle, but his wife’s a witch. So I don’t have to bothering about changing currency.” Draco sighed, closing his eyes and sliding back along the floor, away from her. He looked as if he were trying to place as much distance between them as possible. “He killed my mum there, Granger.”
Hermione’s head zoomed up, her doe eyes widened in alarm. “What?”
He sighed again, his breathing shaky. “V-volde...Voldem-ort...he killed my mum in that house.” He looked up slowly, eyes shining with the memory. “After I couldn’t kill Dumbledore. He crucio-ed me and then he killed my mother.”
Hermione’s mouth opened slightly, moving up and down, before finally settling on, “Oh Draco...”
“Don’t feel sorry for me Granger,” he snapped. “I don’t need pity.”
She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his head, half sitting in his lap, half on the floor. He froze; eyes wide and arms still stiff at his side. “Granger, get off of me.”
“No.”
“No? You’re the one hugging me for no apparent reason. If I don’t want you hugging me, I’m not going to let you hug me. Now bugger, get off!”
“Draco, you just confessed something to me that you wouldn’t even tell the Wizemgamot. Now, just shut up and let me pity you, if only for three seconds!”
He grumbled something under his breath, but she could feel him relax against her, arms reluctantly draping across her back. She grinned into the folds of his robed shoulder, pulling back. Except that his arms were not loose, but holding her in place. Her smile dropped.
“Draco, let me go.”
She could practically feel him smirking. “No.”
“You didn’t want me hugging you, and now you won’t let go. What is your problem?!” A hand rifled gingerly through her hair, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to prickle slightly. She could feel his chilled breath on the back of her neck, and it didn’t help with her goose bumps.
“What happened to us, Hermione?’ she heard him ask, the soft whisper caressing across her ear and she repressed a shiver. “What happened?”
No. This could not be happening. Not now, not ever. “Malfoy, I don’t know what you’re talking about...”
“Hermione...pretend you love me,” he whispered again, causing her breath to stop in her throat and make her brain foggy. “You did once. I remember it. I haven’t been able to forget it. Why can’t you do that again?”
“Malfoy, we were drunk!”
[ “Then I drink to your sorrows, Hermione Granger.
Since yours are so apparently greater than mine.” ]
She was right. He knew she was right. But liquid courage was the only way this was going to get done. He pulled back, arms retracting from around her so quickly she was sure she was going to have a whiplash when he pulled his hand from her hair. “Tell me you don’t love me.”
Her mouth opened and shut quickly, and she blinked at least a ten times within three seconds. “Draco, we were nineteen. We were nineteen and stuck in a house that hadn’t been lived in fifteen years. We got depressed because we weren’t allowed to fight, and we got really drunk. That was it. There was nothing more to it.”
“Say it.”
“N-no,” she stammered, shaking her head. “I won’t. I’m not giving you that right.”
His eyes flashed at her, mercury heating up with the anger that was behind it. “I’m not leaving until you say it. I want to hear it from your own lips.”
She took a deep breath, her mouth opening again. “I...I don’t...”
She never got to finish. Draco’s arms had leapt from his side again, no longer pressing her against the couch but wrapping around her waist and pulling her towards him. Draco’s lips pressed insistently against hers, tongue running along the base of her teeth. She tried to will herself to bite down on it, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even push him away. She was sitting in Draco Malfoy’s lap, a comforter wrapped haphazardly and constricting around her waist, and he was kissing her and she couldn’t do anything. Her mouth just hung partially open, not denying nor accepting his affections, but she could feel his lips against hers.
He groaned something to her. “Stop running, Hermione.” He pulled back, just a fraction away from kissing her again.
She blinked, not pulling back but highly aware aware of his proximity. “I’m not running,” she murmured back, taking in a shaky breath that caused her body to tremble against his. “I’m not running from anything, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about!”
She was ready and rearing to go, but Draco’s head inched that centimeter forward, lightly touching her lips and starting a fire there. “You never know when to stop talking, you know that?” his lips said to hers, and she shivered at the memory.
[ “Malfoy, you’re completely smashed!
This is hilarious!
I never thought I’d see the day,
when Draco Malfoy tells me I’m pretty.
Wait until I tell Harry and Ron.” ]
[ “Yeah,well, you smell pretty good too.” ]
[ “You seriously must be totally inebriated.
You’re saying things now.” ]
[ “Granger, shut up.
It’s hard to kiss a girl when they keep talking.” ]
“You’re the one that’s talking.” He grinned against her mouth and groaned as he pressed forward again, hands gripping her waist.
She tried to press against his shoulders, but found that there was barely any strength left in her arms, and they just ended up sliding down his back. “Malfoy, you’re drunk.”
“And I’m drinking to your sorrows, now shut the fuck up and just damn well kiss me back already!” His hand crept up her blouse and she shivered beneath his touch, but instantly replied, moving her mouth lightly back against his. This was exactly as it had happened before.
She was tentative, light and fluttery. But it wasn’t like that really mattered. Right now her innocence - or lack thereof - made him completely horny and the way she was shivering in his lap was making sure he wasn’t too bored. Her hands were like ice, and they burned their way on his shoulders and around his neck. She whimpered slightly against his lips when his hand caressed the bottom of her breast. He replied with a groan, the hand that was still at her waist gently squeezing her hip.
He pulled back and tilted his head back, silver-blond hair falling across his mercury orbs as he observed her flushed face and red, swollen lips. He smirked at the effect he knew he’d caused. “Enough of this boy-chases girl thing, Granger.” Her surname rolled of his tongue as loving a nickname as ‘honey’, or ‘sweetheart’. “I’m sick of always being one step behind. I’m leading from now on.”
She smiled weakly, feeling desperately tired. But that was how it always was with Draco. Despite how her body was reacting with his, it was making her mind sluggish. “Yeah, well, don’t run me into a building.” She yawned, eyes watering slightly and her mind so foggy that she leaned forward into his embrace, turning sideways and putting her feet - and most of that damned comforter - off to the side and placing her head on his shoulder. “I’m sleeping now, since you woke me up.”
He grinned, wrapping arms around her and half standing up, half crouching as he waddled his way up and fell back on the couch. “Granger, just unwrap the damned comforter first.”
She sighed, curling downwards and reaching with tired hands, her eyes blurry as she untangled the blanket from her legs, and laid it down over her. She turned back, her head resting on his chest. “Happy?”
“Of course.”
|x|x|x|
Blaise Zabini, his ebony face glowing in the firelight, and smirked as he wrapped his arm around the famous Harry Potter’s waist, turning to look at his lover as he spoke. “We did good, didn’t we?”
Harry grinned, turning to stare across the room at the huddled forms of Hermione and Draco who had - once again - wrapped the comforter around their feet. Draco’s arms were around Hermione’s waist and Hermione was partially on Draco, partially beside him, her head in the crook of his neck and her shoulder nestled against the side of his chest.
“Oh, yes,” he replied, nodding as he looked at his sleeping friend. “We did very good.”
“I told you it was the comforter.”
“Do they know that we know?”
“That they did the naughty while you were fighting Voldemort?” Blaise asked, tilting his head to the side. He turned back at look at the sleeping couple, an evil smirk forming on his face. “No. Not at all.”
“Are we ever going to tell them?”
“Draco might get cocky if he thought we knew. He’ll want to start bragging about how he’s got the smart one of the trio.”
“Hermione might kill me...” Harry leaned toward Blaise, settling his head on the taller man’s shoulder. “At least you got the sexy one of the trio.”
Blaise grinned. “That I did...” He flicked his wrist, and the comforter that was around the pair was instantly in Blaise’s arms, a different blanket on the two. Harry sighed, petting the blanket lightly.
“Ah...the ‘Get-To-Together Comforter...” he sighed, closing his eyes, an innocent smile washing over his face. “Ye have served us well.”
Blaise gulped, prodding Harry’s side with his hand. “Um...Harry?”
Green eyes flashed open and turned toward the black boy holding him, a questioning look on his face. “What? And might I say, ow! Don’t poke like that, it hurt.”
“Remind me to take this comforter to the dry-cleaner.”
“Huh?”
Blaise’s hand unwrapped itself from Harry and pointed to a yellow-white stain on the emerald comforter. “That’s why.”
Three things you want your fic to include: 1.) Humor 2.) Ron/Pansy 3.) Post Hogwarts
Three things you do not want your fic to include: 1.) Superinlove!Draco/Hermione 2.) Bitter Harry/Ron 3.) Ginny
Anything specific that you do not want to write: I don't want to write smut or NC17 stuff, as I am incapable of writing it. Fluffy, humor, angst, horror, or drama is fine with me - though I really want humor, if possible.
Thank-you for Celebrating the Season with Draco and Hermione!
Title: Deck the Halls
Author: Hiko/plural_entity
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Slash and fem-slash
Disclaimer: I own nothing at all. And it bites.
Author's Notes: Okay, yeah, I’m not good with humor. I tried to add humor in here, but it turned out quite angsty. Sorry for that, but I actually think it’s one of my better fics. Some of it rambles a bit, and some of this is actually a part of real conversations I’ve had with my friends. 6977 word count.
Zarah,
I loved what you gave me, but I found it incredibly hard to work with just because of the little ditch I’ve dug myself into. I don’t like stories where Pansy and Hermione are best friends, because I just think they’re far too stubborn and alike and set in different morals to be good friends. More like I think Hermione could /deal/ with Pansy. And I don’t like Hermione and Luna as bffs because I just think that Luna’s too weird for Hermione to get that close to. And with your request for Ginny Weasley not to be present in this fic, I found myself forced to make an OC for Hermione to have bonded with. I did /mention/ Ginny slightly, but only in the idea that she was dead.
Also, the Ron/Pansy was a bit hard, cause I normally like Pansy with Harry and Ron with Blaise....but I had to switch Ron and Harry for this one. But...it was refreshing. A change of pace. I hope that this isn’t too angsty for you, or too cliché, or that my jokes are so pre-teen, or that you won’t just plain hate it. I put a lot of work into this fic. I’m actually very proud of it, whereas I had originally thought I was going to bomb terribly.
Hope You’re Happy!
--the mysterious writer of said fic--
Summary: There’s a secret that no one knows, and it’s eating away at them both. Now it’s just a matter of time before one of them cracks.
|x|x|x|
“Malfoy?”
Draco tapped his quill annoyingly against the table in front of him, his grey eyes staring off into space. He wasn’t exactly paying attention.
“Malfoy?”
Okay, he wasn’t paying attention at all. And he was bored. Not only was he bored, but he had to pretend that he was interested. How screwed up was that?
“Draco?”
His head jerked upward as his normally unsaid first name was spoken, and his eyes found the dark doe eyes of Hermione Granger. And for five blissful seconds he thought that he had died, escaped the dreaded meeting, and had gone to heaven. “Hm?”
“Mr. Malfoy, are you alright?”
And then he fell through those pretty white clouds and landed right back down where he actually was. He looked over at the aging Remus Lupin, the Minister of Magic. His eyes darted around the room, and he soon realized that every single head of department was staring at him as if he had turned a sickly shade of green.
“Sorry,” he said, shrugging and putting his quill down. He leaned back, arms crossed in front of him defensively. “Zoned out for a bit. You know.”
Hermione’s hands flew from the table in front of him to her hips and her eyes grew even darker with annoyance. “Malfoy, have you been paying any attention to what I’ve been saying?”
He smirked, cocking his head to the side, and giving her a look. “Granger, I’ve known you for how long now? About ten years? You should know by now, I never pay attention when you’re talking.”
Remus looked like he was about to laugh for a few seconds before recovering, and instead put a well-placed hand on his chin. To Draco, it looked more like he was trying to hold his jaw in place, more than look contemplative.
“We’re brainstorming about a place that’s big enough to host the annual Ministry Christmas Party,” Remus said, nodding to Hermione. “Miss Granger just suggested Malfoy Manor. The house is still in use, is it not? What I mean is, you live in it? And the house elves there still take care of it. Do you think that we could possibly use it in this instance? It certainly is big enough.”
Draco visibly paled, rubbing a hand against the back of his head. “Er...I guess so...” he mumbled, almost incoherently, wishing he could just crawl under the table and avoid the piercing looks. “I mean, yes sir. Of course you could use the Malfoy Manor.”
That’s how he referred to it. The Malfoy Manor. Like it wasn’t his. Like he didn’t want it to be his. Hermione’s brows furrowed thoughtfully, but no one noticed her. Most people didn’t. She was plain. Not at all like the boy in front of her.
Draco was tall and thin, not lanky, but built for speed and stamina. Like a stock of grain haphazardly blowing in the cool, crisp breeze. That was his personality too. Calm, cool, collected. Like nothing could break through his heart of glass and that he liked it that way. But Hermione wasn’t kidding herself. She’d seen Draco at his best and his worst. And she knows that his heart just looked icy. It was more like glass.
“If you like, I’ll help you,” she offered, her hand held up in the air in a half shrug. Like she didn’t really care if she helped or not. “It’s a pretty big job for you to do by yourself.”
He looked up at her, grey eyes hardening the instant they met her brown ones. And that was when he wished he knew how to open up. But he can’t. He never could. The few times he did, it was a fluke, and he blamed himself for his own weakness. “I look forward to it,” he muttered, turning back to write something on the paper in front of him. No one else in the room seems to catch his sarcasm.
Remus nodded, smiling as he looked around the boardroom. “Well, if that’s all,” he said happily, raising his hands in the air in a no-shrug, “then we’re done here. I’ll see you all next month for the next board meeting.” His mouse-brown eyes flash up, searching out Hermione’s. “Miss Granger, may I speak to you in my office?”
Hermione wasn’t surprised about this, because she knew what day tomorrow is. She couldn’t ever forget.
She watched Draco gather his materials slower than all the rest. Sitting instead of standing. Silent instead of chattering away. Mouth set into a grim line rather than a warming smile. She nodded to Remus as she watched him leave, but walkedover to Draco instead, her brown skirt rustling too loudly in the quiet room.
“Malfoy, are you okay?”
He didn’t look up. Just stood and began to walk away. A frown quickly formed on her face and her arm shot out with amazing accuracy, grabbing his arm at the bicep and partially halting him. He turned to her with a face full of seriousness. Full of significance. There was a grimace there too. But it was not one of displeasure. It was one of warning. One of caution. The flash in his slate eyes reminded her of what the man in front of her was capable of.
She sighed and let his arm go as if it burned her. “I just don’t get you, Malfoy,” she grumbled as she turned around, grabbing her messenger bag andstuffing her quill and parchment inside it.
“Granger, be at my house tomorrow at 8 o’clock sharp.”
She threw her hand up, waving him off and not bothering to turn around and look. The man had once been completely mean. Completely her enemy. It was so much easier that way. When everything was just black and white. Right and wrong. Us and Them. Me and him. Then that black and white had blurred. Merged, fused, faded and bled together.
Until everything had just been a big blob of gray nothingness.
Draco Malfoy was not the boy that she had known back in Hogwarts’ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But he was no different either.
|x|x|x|
Hermione pulled herself together long enough to walk into Remus’ office, chocolate eyes blinking as she stared at the man that she had grown up knowing. Even though he still looked the same, weak and tired and restless, there was always that one thing that she missed, like the shabbiness of his robes. He was the Minister of Magic now. His robes were nothing but the best.
“You asked to see me, Minister?”
“Hermione, don’t call me that,” he said, sitting down in chair and motioning for her to take the one that was in front of his desk. “I can’t stand being called that. Makes me sound old. Call me Remus.”
“Sorry, Remus, it just sounds so weird calling you that,” she replied with a weak smile. “I called you Professor for so long, it seems like that’s the only thing that seems natural.”
He sighed, running a hand over the back of his head. “Well, you obviously know why I asked you to come here.”
“Yes Remus,” she nodded, absentmindedly twirling a curled strand of hair. “It’s the sixth anniversary.”
It was three days till Christmas.
“We always light the top up today, but I won’t be able to get there till later. I was wondering if you had any time to go and put the new batteries in. You don’t have to go, of course.”
Hermione shook her head, eyes wide. “No, of course! I’ll go straight away. I just have to go pick up some batteries and I’ll head off to Ottery St. Catchpole.”
Remus sighed again and nodded his thanks. “I really appreciate it, Hermione. It’s hard to know that he’s been gone so long. Especially with Molly in St. Mungo’s.”
The young woman nodded, brown head of untamable curls shaking with every move. She excused herself as she walked swiftly away, thinking about the task ahead of her. She didn’t even realize she was walking into him.
|x|x|x|
Draco didn’t know how she had come to have such a quick meeting, but he was surprised to see that she was leaving so early. Everyone knew he left as early as he could. Hermione was known to hang around until around 10 - 11 o’clock.
“Granger, watch where you’re going.”
He could smell her. Her scent was thick and penetrating and oh-so-good and he wanted to eat her up right there. But his smirk stayed in place, never wavering, though his eyes did darken.
“Sorry Malfoy, I was distracted.”
He grunted, forcing himself to take a step backward. He was liable to do something if he didn’t. “Where are you rushing off to? Where’s the fire?”
“I need to go buy some batteries.”
He raised an eyebrow, waving a hand in front of her face. She scowled at him, slapping his hand away from in front of her nose. He loved it when she got snappy. “Sorry, I’m not good on Muggle terms, Granger,” he said, blinking at her. “You’re going to have to elaborate.”
“It’s time to go light the Hope Star. On Mr. Weasley’s grave.”
Draco’s breath hitched in his throat and he thought he heard the traces of a quiver in her voice. But her face was strong. Not really happy - for when talking about a close friend’s demise, you couldn’t ever be happy - but she didn’t look overly upset.
“Do you need some company?”
She smiled, nodding her head. “I’d like that.”
|x|x|x|
“Granger, you cannot be serious.”
“Why not? It’s adorable!”
“It’s a damned stuffed deer.”
“His name is Rudolph. You’re not a Muggle, you wouldn’t understand the story.”
“Enlighten me.”
“See the red nose?”
“Yes. So what? Rudolph’s got a serious sinus infection?”
“No, he doesn’t have a sinus infection. It’s part of a song. ‘Rudolph the red-nose reindeer had a very shiny nose! And if you ever saw it...”
“You would even say it blows?”
“Okay, you had to have heard the song before if you knew how to rhyme it.”
“Of course. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve heard the song. I’ve heard a lot of songs. I just never really knew the entire story behind it. I thought it was just a cute song some random person made up to keep their little kids occupied.”
“Well, then you know about it. Rudolph was born with a red, glowing nose. And it gets him in a lot of trouble. And basically, he hates life for a while, gets treated unfairly, and then his red nose is bright enough to lead Santa around to deliver gifts in the storm.”
“So, basically a waste of time and energy.”
“You’re being really mean right now.”
“Alright, just buy the damn thing and let’s get the hell outta here. I’m freezing.”
“Malfoy, we’re not even outside. We’re in a store.”
“A muggle store...” he snorted softly.
A soft growl echoes from her mouth. “Draco, stop it. That’s not nice.”
She can practically hear him roll his eyes at her comment. “Granger, I don’t like muggles,” he states simply, only offering a shrug and a tilt of his head. “I don’t wish them to die a horrible and bloody death - all though some of them should - I just can’t stand them. Do you fucking get that by now?” It wasn’t so much that he was angry, just that he was frustrated. Every day these same insults were thrown back and forth, and every day, Granger said the same thing and he replied the same way. He had hoped that after a while, she would stop. Obviously, he was getting annoyed with the whole process.
Hermione sighed, turning around and placing the stuffed animal back on the self. “Obviously, I’ve been dealing with you for this long, haven’t I?” she sniffed, waving her hand at him. “Fine, Mr. Asshole, come on. We’ve got to get going anyway. I don’t want to be standing out beside the cemetery at 10 o’clock at night.”
|x|x|x|
“Seems like just yesterday, doesn’t it?”
Hermione refused to look up at Draco, but she noted her affirmation with a nod of her head. “Yea,” she whispered, shivering in spite of her warm overcoat. She rubbed her hands together in front of her, blowing on them lightly.
“Very déjà vu like.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Me, you, standing here...” He shrugged and looked off toward the tree. “We were the last people left here on that day. It just seems weird that we’re here by ourselves again.”
His voice was soft, like he wasn’t sure if he was saying something right or not. And in fact, he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure how she would react to him saying it. But after she didn’t say anything, he began to seriously think that he had said something wrong. He looked down to see if she was still there.
“Granger?”
He heard a sniffle and a rustle as her hand was brought up, and though he couldn’t see her face, he knew she was crying. ‘Same as last time,’ he thought to himself. He leaned down, and tapped her gently on the shoulder. “Granger, don’t cry. You’re going to get sick.”
She nodded her head, and silently leaned forward toward Mr. Weasley’s grave. It was, for the most part, an ordinary headstone. The only thing that was different about the carved, square-like dark granite was the very top. A small, semi-translucent frosted star-globe was situated in the middle. Hermione made a reach for it, seizing it gently and pulling upward. It slid out with a tiny squeak of stone on stone; a thin cylinder slab of stone was attached to it, making it look like a torch. She pulled it to herself, clutching it lovingly.
Draco shivered, though it wasn’t from the cold. It was creepy to think that the Death Eaters could have used such an innocent love to murder such an innocent man. Everyone knew that Mr. Weasley loved muggle things like batteries, and he was especially fond of electrical plugs. Theodore Nott had used this love to his advantage. After capturing Mr. Weasley and figuring out that they couldn’t get the location on the Order of the Phoenix out of him, they had killed him. Electrocuted him.
He was torn from his thoughts by the sudden slapping sound of Hermione rapping the torch against her palm. Three medium-sized black and silver batteries fell out of a small tiny square and into her open hand. She pocketed them, quickly sliding in three new ones; this time, red and blue. The iced star glowed brightly, and she smiled, replacing the batteries’ cover and placing the torch back in its holder.
She sighed, getting up off her now-soaked knees, wiping them off with her bare hands. She turned to look at Draco and nodded. “Done now,” she said breathless, sighing again. She looked at him strangely, but then smiled at him. “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. We only have one day of work left, and then we have the Christmas Party to plan.”
He nodded, shoving his hands into his pocket. He didn’t say anything, didn’t offer any more words of comfort. Just the odd glittering of his slate-gray eyes and a silence that said everything in itself. He blinked for a minute, watching her Disapparate and wondering where she was going for the first time in a while. Then he Disapparated as well.
|x|x|x|
Hermione Granger knew that it was wrong to harbor such feelings, but she didn’t understand Draco at all. It was clear that she was attracted to him, even if it was nothing more than a bizarre obsession for watching him and trying to understand what went through his overlarge head.
They had a history with each other in more ways than one. Minutes after, she felt a sharp tug in her navel as she apparated to Diagon Alley. She felt too tired to make her usual journey, half way across London, and she was desperately tired. It would be easier to just use the Leaky Cauldron’s fireplace to floo from. Her pace was quick and she walked into the bar, pulling out exactly 3 sickles and four knuts and handing them to Tom. He reached under the bar and pulled out a small jar of gray-tan dust and sifted out about half a cup into a small paper cup.
“Goodnight, Miss Granger,” he said politely, dipping his head, looking as though he was trying to bow to her from where she was standing.
“Goodnight, Tom,” she replied as she smiled, walking toward the fireplace. “And tell Agnes I said hullo.”
He nodded, dipping his head down again. “Will do, Miss Granger. The missus and I have much to thank you for.”
She grinned and winked at him. “Getting a lemur isn’t easy, but I managed,” she replied, thinking at once of how she had helped the aging man get the gift that his wife wanted most. It had been hard, but in the end, she’d gotten it, hadn’t she?
She turned around, stepping into the fireplace and opening her mouth to call out the name of her apartment (Lion’s Den, as she wittingly calling it) when the flash of silver-blond hair caught her eye. Instantly, her eyes narrowed and the thought that he had been following her angrily crossed her mind. But when she saw him nod to Tom without so much as a word and stride over toward the exit of the Leaky Cauldron, her breath caught in her mouth.
Draco Malfoy had just walked out into muggle London. Her hand dropped the floo powder, and a second later she announced “The Lion’s Den!” loudly. She felt herself roaring along, through hundreds of fireplaces, all connected by the wonders of magi.
|x|x|x|
Her mind was still rushing when she tumbled from her fireplace, rolling to a disgruntled heap on the ground before staring up at her bird’s wing blue-painted ceiling. She arched her back slowly off the ground, reaching an arm around and pressing it against the small of her back. “Fucking ow,” she whispered pathetically, wincing. “Note to self: ‘Look before Stepping’.”
“I’ll be sure to mention it.”
Hermione cocked her head to the side, blinking wearily up at the blue-haired and blonde-haired girls that stood directly behind her, grinning smartly over her. She groaned, slowly brining herself to an admiral sitting position on the ground, spinning on the wood floor to look up at the girls. “Do you have to do that?” she asked, rubbing her temple with her first two fingers.
Pansy smirked smartly as she ran a hand through her blonde hair, making little chuckling sounds that reminded Hermione of a chicken. “Of course,” she said, pulling out a chair and seating herself down on it with a casual elegance that made Hermione mentally pound her head into the wall.
“We just wanted to know where the Ministry was holding the Ball,” said the blue-haired witch, holding out her hand so that Hermione could get herself off the ground. Hermione was always very surprised that she didn’t visibly wince when she heard the girl speak. Not one trace of the lilting English accent whatsoever. Her accent was atrocieous, but mostly she had figured that she had grown used to the speech half comprised of the English Language. “I don’t here much, out there in the country.”
Hermione nodded absentmindedly, taking the outstretched hand in hers and lifting herself awkwardly from the ground. She ruffled her robes, trying to work the dust out of them. Her eyes unwaveringly met Pansy’s. Those charming chocolate brown orbs that danced - so different from her own dull, mud-brown ones - were hard eyes to meet. But Hermione had grown used to having to meet them. It wasn’t like there was any other part of the woman she couldn’t compare herself to.
Pansy was well-formed. And she wasn’t talking metaphorically.
Pansy Parkinson Weasley stood a good half-foot taller than Hermione herself, standing at about a full six feet. Her legs were long and her body was fit, and toned. Despite the somewhat pug resemblance, especially in her button nose, it only made her cuter. Pansy carried herself like a woman - not even a woman, like a queen. And Hermione felt every bit the peasant.
It also didn’t help that Pansy had water jugs for breasts and a mouth like a Hoover.
“Draco’s hosting it,” Hermione said as she walked, smoothing a hand over her robe. She walked over to her wand case and placed her wand inside it. “At Malfoy Mansion. I’m supposed to be going over there tomorrow after work to help him set up.”
Pansy grinned. “Ha, this is going to be hilarious.” Her voice nearly purred and her eyes flashed. “Kyri’s been hoping for a chance to do something to his mansion. This is now perfect.”
Hermione glared over her shoulder at the blue-haird woman, her eyes nearly narrowed to slits. “Kyrianna Mylyl, why must you antagonize the poor boy? What’s he ever done to you?”
Kyri smirked, dark eyebrow shooting upward. “To me? Nothing really, except been incredibly annoying.”
“And don’t forget that time he attempted to feel you up, you can’t forget that.”
“He tried to feel you up?”
“Oh, it was a long time ago,” she waved a manicured hand, trying to bypass the subject. “Anyway, he’s never really done anything to me. He just bores me and I hate balls.”
Hermione bent over, leaning on her desk, cracking up. Pansy rolled her eyes and Kyri grinned smartly. “Did you mean to say that?”
She shrugged, blue eyes twinkling. “Not really, it just came out that way. But it did make a good joke though, didn’t it? I don’t like balls as in the dancing kind, and I’m a lesbian and I don’t like men’s balls.”
“Yes, Kyri,” Hermione mumbled, trying to get off the topic of balls, “I understood the message of the joke. Especially since, you know, I was the one who started laughing at it in the first place.”
Hermione sighed, slowly detaching herself from her robe and desperately trying to keep her eyes open and not fall asleep where she stood. “Guys, is that the only reason you came over?”
Pansy clicked her teeth together, rolling a piece of too-blonde hair between her index and middle fingers. “Well, we had come for that, but we also came to talk. You know, gossip? It’s stuff that girls do. But, I can tell that you’ve had a busy day at work. So, I guess I’ll see you on Christmas Eve.” She got to her feet and angrily turned on her heel; apparating even before the swishing sound of her robes was gone.
Kyrianna sighed, pulling her hands roughly through her blue-black hair, dropping to the ground in front of Hermione and pulling her legs under her.
Hermione echoed the sigh, sliding to the ground to sit across from her friend. “I swear... I’ll never get used to that Slytherin. I can deal with Malfoy and his pompousness. I can deal with Millicent and her tendency to slap you across the back so hard you feel like your eyes might pop out of your head. I can deal with Blaise and his gayness and Malcolm and his absolute perversions. But Pansy is out of my reach.”
Kyri nodded grimly, biting her lip to keep from laughing, and cast a glance at the chair that Pansy had left vacant. “Yea, she’s a bit grumpier than usual, isn’t she?
“A bit more?” Hermione spat back vehemently. “She stole my boyfriend and then married him. What else does she want from?”
“Sex and head?”
Hermione’s eyes widened and then she let out a groaning laugh. “Are you calling me a man?”
“No, I’m calling Pansy a man.” Kyrianna grinned in spite of herself, but as her face sobered Hermione was left with a distinct and very unnerving sense that their conversation was taking a turn for the worse.
“I heard that her and Ronald were having trouble in bed.”
“What?!” Hermione sputtered, red lights going off in her brain. “I mean...er...that’s a bit of information I would have rather done without.”
Kyrianna shook her head. “I don’t mean that they aren’t pleasing each other or anything - as disgusting as that sounds. Blaise came over the other day. Apparently, her and Ron have been trying to get pregnant.”
“Wow. I’m not sure what exactly one says to something like that.”
“Yes, I know. Took me by shock too.”
“How’s Molly?”
The girl sighed, giving Hermione a weary look. Hermione hadn’t noticed when Pansy and Kyri had first gotten there, since she’d had too much on her mind, but Kyri looked exhausted. “She’s...er...not doing too well.”
“The poor woman.”
“Yea, she currently thinks she’s still a teapot.”
Hermione winced. “I hate to say it, but I can’t help but think that sometimes she might have been better off dying with her husband. Losing her mind and spending the rest of her life in St. Mungo’s? Not a pretty way to live. Harry can’t even go visit her anymore. He had a breakdown last time he went.” She sighed, shaking her head slightly. “I hate thinking things like that. It’s just wrong.
“Don’t feel bad. We all have thought like that some days. Yeah, I’ve been going in early to try and work with her. The remaining Weasleys deserve to know that their mother knows who they are.” Kyrianna sighed and nodded. “How is dear Harry? He hasn’t come to visit. He says the Burrow has too many memories for him.”
“Yea, he and Blaise must be fucking like mice, because I haven’t seen either of them in ages. They come up to breath, eat, shit and piss, make a few phone calls so we know they aren’t dead and then they go back to their little ‘down-under’ world.”
“Amen to that.” There was a very uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, before Kyri turned to her friend sadly. “Damn, I really miss her.”
Hermione’s eyes grew slightly misty as she thought about her other best friend. “At least we know she’s in a better place. Dying like a hero and all that,” she whispered softly. “You really loved her, didn’t you?”
“I left America to come be with her,” she sniffed, wringing her hands in her lap. “And then she died.”
Kyrianna sat there silently for a few more moments, before sliding her bottom along the wooded floor to embrace her friend. “Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you on Christmas Eve. Don’t let Draco kill you tomorrow.”
“Ha, don’t count on it. I’d kill him. But yes, I’ll see you. Stay well.”
Kyri offered a smile that lingered in the room, just as her words echoed around the room. “You too ’Mione. Stay well.”
|x|x|x|
What had changed since they had been young? How many things could she honestly remember doing that she had also done when she was younger? Not many. Most people still thought of her as bookworm Hermione Granger, Mudblood Extraordinaire, who had helped her best friend Harry Potter defeat the one of the Darkest Wizards of alltime, Lord Voldemort.
[ “What good am I in here?! How am I supposed to help now?!
Especially now that I’m stuck in here with you!” ]
But truly, what had she done?
[ “Obviously, you can’t exactly do much can you?
You’re locked in here just as much as I am.
Buggers wanted you to ‘watch’ me, didn’t they?
There isn’t anything even I can do in a house
that practically wants to kill its inhabitants.” ]
She crawled her way toward the couch that sat in the corner of the roomand pulled the green comforter and a cushion down from the couch above her. She was too tired to pull herself up to the couch. She blinked sorrowfully, remembering the night that so many wizards had praised her for. She was in books, damn it. The Rise and Fall of the Dark Lord: A Correct Revised Edition, Famous Muggleborns of the 21st Century, Lord Voldemort’s Second Coming, and The Blessed Trio.
[ “You don’t understand.
People are expecting me to be out there.
Fighting.
Right there alongside my friends.” ]
She hadn’t done anything. Not one damned thing. How many people actually knew that she hadn’t been there that night at all? Hadn’t fought. The Blessed Trio, the Wonder Trio, whatever they had wanted to call them... on July 7th, 2009, the Blessed Trio had been a Blessed Duo.
[ “So the boys don’t have their bookworm trailing tail.
What of it? They don’t want you getting hurt.
Forgive me, but I thought that was called having friends.
Especially friends that care about you.” ]
How many knew? How many knew that she had been forced and conveniently locked up within Number Twelve Grimmald Place?
[ “But I’m strong enough on my own.
I don’t need them protecting me.” ]
Locked up with Draco Malfoy as her only human companion for two days straight.
[ “Then I drink to your sorrows, Hermione Granger.
Since yours are so apparently greater than mine.” ]
|x|x|x|
“Granger?”
I don’t want to wake up now. Go away.
“Granger.”
I’m tired. Bugger off.
“Granger!”
Nope. Notice that I’m not getting up.
“Hermione...”
Her eyes flew open.
“Malfoy?” She sat up, rubbing her fist against her eye. She hadn’t bothered to move after she had fallen asleep. Still she lay at the foot of her couch, her comforter twisted awkwardly around her waist. Her hair was frizzy and mussed and in her face, and she pushed at it with her hands. “What are you doing here? What time...?”
Her head turned and she blinked away the mist that had gathered in her eyes. Through the darkness her eyes sought the clock that perched on her wall. She wasn’t sure, but she could tell that the little hand was on five. “Malfoy, it’s five in the morning, what are you doing here?”
She couldn’t see his face very well; it was shrouded in the darkness that was around them. The most she could see was the shining silver of his moon-like eyes, and then the outline of his face. But something about the way that he was leaning in front of her, and something about the way that he wasn’t making fun of her horrible appearance made her pulse jump.
“Draco...” She watched him look up, slate eyes meeting her own dark ones. “What’s wrong? Nothing...nothing happened, did it?”
“I can’t do it Granger.”
“What do you mean?” Her brow furrowed and she reached out to him. The minute the tips of her fingers touched his shoulder he rolled it back, recoiling from her. “Malfoy, answer me! What do you mean ‘you can’t do it’?!”
And then his hands were on her shoulders, pressing her back against the couch. She sucked in a breath of air in a hiss, her eyes closing as she clenched her teeth in a hiss. “I can’t do it!” he yelled again, his face in hers. Still she could only see those flashing silver eyes. “Find some other mansion to host your ball at. I can’t go back there.”
“Malfoy...”
“I won’t! You can’t make me!” He sounded like a mad man, and his fingers were curling into her shoulders, cutting into her skin as if they were knives.
“Draco, you’re hurting me!”
He paused, his breath coming in faded gasps and he jumped back quickly, his hands leaping back to his side to fist his robes. “Sorry,” he mumbled, turning away from her.
Hermione grimaced, reaching her right arm across to rub her thumb against her shoulder. “Malfoy, you’re talking in riddles. I have absolutely no idea what you’re going on about. The only thing I understand is hosting the Christmas Eve Ball somewhere else. That’s basically all I got. And really, why can’t you host it in a house that you’ve been living in? It’s not like you’re a slob.”
“That’s because I haven’t been staying there. I’ve been staying in a muggle flat, just outside of London. The man’s a muggle, but his wife’s a witch. So I don’t have to bothering about changing currency.” Draco sighed, closing his eyes and sliding back along the floor, away from her. He looked as if he were trying to place as much distance between them as possible. “He killed my mum there, Granger.”
Hermione’s head zoomed up, her doe eyes widened in alarm. “What?”
He sighed again, his breathing shaky. “V-volde...Voldem-ort...he killed my mum in that house.” He looked up slowly, eyes shining with the memory. “After I couldn’t kill Dumbledore. He crucio-ed me and then he killed my mother.”
Hermione’s mouth opened slightly, moving up and down, before finally settling on, “Oh Draco...”
“Don’t feel sorry for me Granger,” he snapped. “I don’t need pity.”
She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his head, half sitting in his lap, half on the floor. He froze; eyes wide and arms still stiff at his side. “Granger, get off of me.”
“No.”
“No? You’re the one hugging me for no apparent reason. If I don’t want you hugging me, I’m not going to let you hug me. Now bugger, get off!”
“Draco, you just confessed something to me that you wouldn’t even tell the Wizemgamot. Now, just shut up and let me pity you, if only for three seconds!”
He grumbled something under his breath, but she could feel him relax against her, arms reluctantly draping across her back. She grinned into the folds of his robed shoulder, pulling back. Except that his arms were not loose, but holding her in place. Her smile dropped.
“Draco, let me go.”
She could practically feel him smirking. “No.”
“You didn’t want me hugging you, and now you won’t let go. What is your problem?!” A hand rifled gingerly through her hair, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to prickle slightly. She could feel his chilled breath on the back of her neck, and it didn’t help with her goose bumps.
“What happened to us, Hermione?’ she heard him ask, the soft whisper caressing across her ear and she repressed a shiver. “What happened?”
No. This could not be happening. Not now, not ever. “Malfoy, I don’t know what you’re talking about...”
“Hermione...pretend you love me,” he whispered again, causing her breath to stop in her throat and make her brain foggy. “You did once. I remember it. I haven’t been able to forget it. Why can’t you do that again?”
“Malfoy, we were drunk!”
[ “Then I drink to your sorrows, Hermione Granger.
Since yours are so apparently greater than mine.” ]
She was right. He knew she was right. But liquid courage was the only way this was going to get done. He pulled back, arms retracting from around her so quickly she was sure she was going to have a whiplash when he pulled his hand from her hair. “Tell me you don’t love me.”
Her mouth opened and shut quickly, and she blinked at least a ten times within three seconds. “Draco, we were nineteen. We were nineteen and stuck in a house that hadn’t been lived in fifteen years. We got depressed because we weren’t allowed to fight, and we got really drunk. That was it. There was nothing more to it.”
“Say it.”
“N-no,” she stammered, shaking her head. “I won’t. I’m not giving you that right.”
His eyes flashed at her, mercury heating up with the anger that was behind it. “I’m not leaving until you say it. I want to hear it from your own lips.”
She took a deep breath, her mouth opening again. “I...I don’t...”
She never got to finish. Draco’s arms had leapt from his side again, no longer pressing her against the couch but wrapping around her waist and pulling her towards him. Draco’s lips pressed insistently against hers, tongue running along the base of her teeth. She tried to will herself to bite down on it, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even push him away. She was sitting in Draco Malfoy’s lap, a comforter wrapped haphazardly and constricting around her waist, and he was kissing her and she couldn’t do anything. Her mouth just hung partially open, not denying nor accepting his affections, but she could feel his lips against hers.
He groaned something to her. “Stop running, Hermione.” He pulled back, just a fraction away from kissing her again.
She blinked, not pulling back but highly aware aware of his proximity. “I’m not running,” she murmured back, taking in a shaky breath that caused her body to tremble against his. “I’m not running from anything, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about!”
She was ready and rearing to go, but Draco’s head inched that centimeter forward, lightly touching her lips and starting a fire there. “You never know when to stop talking, you know that?” his lips said to hers, and she shivered at the memory.
[ “Malfoy, you’re completely smashed!
This is hilarious!
I never thought I’d see the day,
when Draco Malfoy tells me I’m pretty.
Wait until I tell Harry and Ron.” ]
[ “Yeah,well, you smell pretty good too.” ]
[ “You seriously must be totally inebriated.
You’re saying things now.” ]
[ “Granger, shut up.
It’s hard to kiss a girl when they keep talking.” ]
“You’re the one that’s talking.” He grinned against her mouth and groaned as he pressed forward again, hands gripping her waist.
She tried to press against his shoulders, but found that there was barely any strength left in her arms, and they just ended up sliding down his back. “Malfoy, you’re drunk.”
“And I’m drinking to your sorrows, now shut the fuck up and just damn well kiss me back already!” His hand crept up her blouse and she shivered beneath his touch, but instantly replied, moving her mouth lightly back against his. This was exactly as it had happened before.
She was tentative, light and fluttery. But it wasn’t like that really mattered. Right now her innocence - or lack thereof - made him completely horny and the way she was shivering in his lap was making sure he wasn’t too bored. Her hands were like ice, and they burned their way on his shoulders and around his neck. She whimpered slightly against his lips when his hand caressed the bottom of her breast. He replied with a groan, the hand that was still at her waist gently squeezing her hip.
He pulled back and tilted his head back, silver-blond hair falling across his mercury orbs as he observed her flushed face and red, swollen lips. He smirked at the effect he knew he’d caused. “Enough of this boy-chases girl thing, Granger.” Her surname rolled of his tongue as loving a nickname as ‘honey’, or ‘sweetheart’. “I’m sick of always being one step behind. I’m leading from now on.”
She smiled weakly, feeling desperately tired. But that was how it always was with Draco. Despite how her body was reacting with his, it was making her mind sluggish. “Yeah, well, don’t run me into a building.” She yawned, eyes watering slightly and her mind so foggy that she leaned forward into his embrace, turning sideways and putting her feet - and most of that damned comforter - off to the side and placing her head on his shoulder. “I’m sleeping now, since you woke me up.”
He grinned, wrapping arms around her and half standing up, half crouching as he waddled his way up and fell back on the couch. “Granger, just unwrap the damned comforter first.”
She sighed, curling downwards and reaching with tired hands, her eyes blurry as she untangled the blanket from her legs, and laid it down over her. She turned back, her head resting on his chest. “Happy?”
“Of course.”
|x|x|x|
Blaise Zabini, his ebony face glowing in the firelight, and smirked as he wrapped his arm around the famous Harry Potter’s waist, turning to look at his lover as he spoke. “We did good, didn’t we?”
Harry grinned, turning to stare across the room at the huddled forms of Hermione and Draco who had - once again - wrapped the comforter around their feet. Draco’s arms were around Hermione’s waist and Hermione was partially on Draco, partially beside him, her head in the crook of his neck and her shoulder nestled against the side of his chest.
“Oh, yes,” he replied, nodding as he looked at his sleeping friend. “We did very good.”
“I told you it was the comforter.”
“Do they know that we know?”
“That they did the naughty while you were fighting Voldemort?” Blaise asked, tilting his head to the side. He turned back at look at the sleeping couple, an evil smirk forming on his face. “No. Not at all.”
“Are we ever going to tell them?”
“Draco might get cocky if he thought we knew. He’ll want to start bragging about how he’s got the smart one of the trio.”
“Hermione might kill me...” Harry leaned toward Blaise, settling his head on the taller man’s shoulder. “At least you got the sexy one of the trio.”
Blaise grinned. “That I did...” He flicked his wrist, and the comforter that was around the pair was instantly in Blaise’s arms, a different blanket on the two. Harry sighed, petting the blanket lightly.
“Ah...the ‘Get-To-Together Comforter...” he sighed, closing his eyes, an innocent smile washing over his face. “Ye have served us well.”
Blaise gulped, prodding Harry’s side with his hand. “Um...Harry?”
Green eyes flashed open and turned toward the black boy holding him, a questioning look on his face. “What? And might I say, ow! Don’t poke like that, it hurt.”
“Remind me to take this comforter to the dry-cleaner.”
“Huh?”
Blaise’s hand unwrapped itself from Harry and pointed to a yellow-white stain on the emerald comforter. “That’s why.”
Three things you want your fic to include: 1.) Humor 2.) Ron/Pansy 3.) Post Hogwarts
Three things you do not want your fic to include: 1.) Superinlove!Draco/Hermione 2.) Bitter Harry/Ron 3.) Ginny
Anything specific that you do not want to write: I don't want to write smut or NC17 stuff, as I am incapable of writing it. Fluffy, humor, angst, horror, or drama is fine with me - though I really want humor, if possible.
Thank-you for Celebrating the Season with Draco and Hermione!