The Romantical Events of Christmas Eve
A/N: This is the only sappy piece I ever imagine writing. Even now I have to wash the syrup off my fingers. My own personal life is a little odd right now, so I writing about the love lives of others to distract me from my own. Anyway, this is a Ginny/Dean oneshot, in time for Christmas.
Also, since it's impossible to write out a chapter for AIAW by today (because time-turners persistently continue to not exist) I wrote this to bring Christmas tidings to you all, particularly PheonixFlight.
So Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Yes, a chapter of AIAW will be out soon, and no, the copyrights to Harry Potter are not under my Christmas tree, nor will they ever be!
o----o
"Popcorn?"
Dean jumped at the question, and looked down to see Ginny Weasley looking at him questioningly. The red-haired girl was curled up on a choice squashed sofa, a woolly blanket pulled tight around her except for the single arm held out with the offered popcorn.
He had woken up to ill-received shouts and screeching arguments that had made him wake in a fright and immediately grab his wand, prepared for an invasion of tornado sirens.
Now, as dormmate to Harry Potter, he was no stranger to waking up to strangled screams and yells. It happened quite often, now that the rebirth of Voldemort had become common news. It was still very unnerving, though, and Dean was quite upset to give up a night free from Harry's Voldemort-induced visions.
Still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Dean sat down beside the youngest of the Weasleys and nodded, getting a portion from the still-hot popcorn in Ginny's bag. He grinned at the devilish amusement dancing in Ginny's eyes, both of them shaking their heads ruefully at the new cause of drama.
Conjuring up a blanket for himself, he also got comfortable on the sofa, a little more comfortable than the Weasley Brothers Six would normally allow (he was, after all, within ten feet of their baby sister) and turned to watch the show.
Harry, and Dean realized that the fact that the Gryffindor resident hero had yet to go to bed might have something to do with the lack of terrified screams, was currently huddled in a corner of an armchair, as if too afraid to be noticed and trying to hide. This, Dean thought, was particularly wise. He certainly wouldn't want to call attention to himself, not in the midst of yet another Ron-And-Hermione-Argument©.
"Ronald Bilius Weasley! If you could look past your self-induced trauma of illiteracy, you would see that 'any sighting of the fabled Kris Kringle has ultimately and without a doubt, BEEN PROVEN FALSE!'" Hermione was breathing heavily, her penetrating yell obviously needing quite a lot of oxygen to prove her point.
"Bloody Hell, Hermione! Who's this Kris Kringle fellow?" Ron retorted, his voice being quieter but more scathing. "We were talking about Santa Claus!"
"Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Father Christmas, Man As Eternal Icon of Coca-Cola, they're all the same person, Ronald!"
"My point exactly!" Ron said back with the air of delivering a final stroke. "Why would everyone spend so much time making him into a nut case with an identity crisis if he wasn't real?!?"
"Ooh, score one for Weasley," Dean said quietly in a sport-announcer's voice, making Ginny giggle and throw a piece of popcorn at him with a 'puft'. "Clear use of logic and roaring voice to make Granger stumble. None of us saw that coming!" Puft. "No, don't waste the popcorn! We need it to last through the night!"
"It's not an identity crisis at all. Different cultures give different names, just like their being so many names for genies, or ghosts... or idiots..."
"Hey!" Ron retorted emptily.
"Weasley'll lose some points for that empty rebuttal, as Granger has clearly flummoxed him with sheer intellectual mumbo-jumbo."
Puft.
"Erm, guys," Harry said quietly, as if afraid he would lose his head to the jaws of his two best friends. "Why don't you agree to disagree?" He received two glares as answer. "...Or not."
"Shut it, Harry! I don't see why Hermione won't just admit that books aren't always right—cough, Lockhart, cough—and be done with it!"
"Just because there was one false book ---" "More like a million, the puffed-up idiot," Ron muttered. ---"does not make all other literary works wrong."
"That's what I get for interrupting their mutual share of sexual tension," Harry muttered, but just a touch too loud. His jaw snapped shut and he grinned weakly as Hermione turned to face him dangerously, Ron not having heard the statement.
"What. Was. That?"
"And Granger goes in for the kill, her attention removed from one prey and onto the next," Ginny said in a deep voice, an imaginary microphone in her hand. Puft. "Hey, I stopped throwing popcorn at you!"
Puft! Puft!
"Erm, I mean, you... tell him, Hermione. Prove your stance!"
She glared at the Hero of the Wizarding World, then turned away with a satisfied, yet still threatening, nod. "That's what I thought you said."
Ron had not wasted his time. He had a stack of evidence ready, proving the existence of Santa Claus.
"Evidence A – cookies and milk present in the evening. Then, bam!" Ron replaced the photograph of cookies and milk with a picture of an empty plate and glass. "The next morning, all edibles gone!"
Hermione scoffed. "Your parents ate them."
"No." Ron had an answer ready for this. "Mum's allergic to coconut, and Dad's allergic to coconut and milk. There's no way they could have eaten them."
"They Vanished them, then. You can't tell me that that honestly hadn't occurred to you."
"You forget, Hermione," Ron said with a shark-like smile, one that made Dean and Ginny forgo their popcorn fight in favor of listening in. "Fred and George were home that Christmas. They rigged up an elaborate pulley system; we all would have known if Mum or Dad had left their bedroom that night."
"Score two for Weasley," Dean continued. "Let's see Granger try to refute that."
"You expect me to believe a plate of cookies can sit in your house without being eaten on any other night of the year?" Hermione yelled, her eyes blazing as Ron refused to accept her logic. She Summoned her own photographs from her dorm.
"Christmas of '91. I sat up all night and took a picture of the fireplace every thirty seconds. Neither Santa Claus or Kris Kringle, nor anyone else, came down my chimney that night!"
"Maybe you weren't particularly well-behaved that year."
"You can't argue with that," Ginny told Dean. "That was the year Hermione sanctioned Harry's sneaking into the Restricted Section of the Library."
"Oh?" Hermione shrieked. "Well, if I'm deemed as not behaving well, that proves Santa Claus, not that he even exists, wouldn't come within a mile of the Burrow! Therefore, he didn't take those cookies, and your entire case is shot!"
"You believe the word of Dumbledore, right?" Ron asked, changing tack entirely.
"Yes," Hermione said, blinking in confusion at the sudden change in topic.
Harry, Ginny and Dean noticed, made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat.
"Well, then let's go ask Dumbledore if he believes in Santa Claus! Then you'll know I'm right!"
"Oh, and how do you presume we do that in the middle of the night?"
There was a short pause, and then as one the two turned to stare at Harry.
"What?" He asked, then realized why they were staring at him. "Oh, come on! It's the middle of the night, and" (Harry realized that that argument fell particularly flat) "and it's not life-threatening or really even relevant!" That, too, was a rather hypocritical point. Sighing as he realized he was trapped, Harry gave in.
"Fine, let's sneak out of the tower in the middle of the night, try to avoid Snape and whatever other dangerous creatures are roaming the hallways, and ask our esteemed headmaster if he believes in Santa Claus. At 11:49 at night. Wonderful."
His attempt at making this journey sound ridiculous did not emotionally move the two impatiently waiting sixth years. In fact, they tapped their feet harder.
"You do know, don't you," Harry added as he moved slowly up the stairs, "that Dumbledore thinks pixies tiptoe through the tulips only because those little books with legs that run through the hallways have claimed the fields of daffodils?"
He disappeared to get his Invisibility Cloak as neither of their two arguers showed any sign of relenting.
Harry shortly reappeared with the Cloak and two pieces of parchment. The first he handed to Hermione, who unfolded it and muttered, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," to reveal the Marauder's Map.
The second parchment, however, Harry silently and discretely slipped to Ginny.
"If I don't come back alive," he whispered, looking at Ron and Hermione nervously, "please give this to McGonagall."
The three friends wrapped the Cloak around them and slipped out the portrait, heading for Dumbledore's office and, no doubt, a rather interesting conversation.
"Thomas," the carrying voice of Ron came back, "stop cozying up to my baby sister!"
He was promptly ignored.
Puft.
"Oy!" Dean exclaimed, throwing a handful back at Ginny. "We should be celebrating our survival against two of the most fearsome Gryffindors, not throwing popcorn. Besides you've got that love note from Potter to read..."
Ginny threw a facetious glare at Dean, as well as a handful of greasy popcorn kernels. "It's not a love note. At least I hope not; he said to give it to McGonagall if he died. Let's see..." She cracked it open to read it, Dean peering over her shoulder in interest.
"Professor McGonagall,
"If this reaches your hands, it means that I have perished, no doubt at the hands of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger for making far too many smart-aleck comments. However, having few worldly possessions to give away (except the Invisibility Cloak and Map, which should be flaunted in front of Snape and then given to Ginny, and my Firebolt, which should be flaunted in front of Malfoy and then used by each Gryffindor Seeker until it needs replacing), there's only one thing I want to say.
"Two, actually" This was scribbled in, as if just written, "one being that Santa Claus DOES exist; I want it written on my tombstone."
"I'm a genius.
"Yes, even more than Hermione. All that homework I've ever been assigned, even from Snape, was all completed to perfection. It's all in an airport locker in Surrey. Number 097 on the second floor. The key is top of the canopy of my bed. I knew all the material, every single fact. And when I'm dead, I want you all to know that Hermione is not the resident genius.
"Harry James Potter"
"P.S. - If the little matter with Voldemort isn't cleared up, I have a hit-man out on loan. He's from Sweden, and his name is Hanz. Tell him to take care of it."
"Well," Ginny said, looking at Dean, "that was interesting. I wonder if he really is in danger from those two---"
Puft!
Dean threw a piece of popcorn right into Ginny's open mouth.
"Hey!" She cried. "Not fair!"
Puft! Puft! Puft!
The two were fighting over the single bag of popcorn, not realizing the compromising position they were in until too late.
"Think you can beat in a popcorn war, do you?" Ginny asked softly, looking at Dean, as they had both somehow twisted both blankets around themselves.
"Nope, I formally surrender," Dean said, his head moving closer to Ginny's as he spoke.
"Good," Ginny whispered firmly, as both forgot about the popcorn, as well Harry's letter and Ron and Hermione's argument.
Neither noticed as a clock chimed as it turned twelve o'clock, and a figure appeared in the fireplace.
After magically placing the presents under the Gryffindor Tree, Santa Claus noticed the two students, put a finger next to his nose, and disappeared, all his stops for Hogwarts completed.
Oddly enough, Draco Malfoy, who had been sitting up next to the Slytherin fireplace to prove that Santa Claus was real, never got his proof.
Oddly enough.
A/N: Ick, sticky! Well, it was going to turn out all lovey-dovey, but I can't help but make it a bit bizarre.
And, yes, I did make fun of the prophecy. I know it says 'either must die at the hand of the other', but I changed it to 'hands' instead of 'hand'. Since Harry heard the prophecy VERBALLY it's a perfectly legitimate conclusion that by paying a hit-man named Hanz ('a' as in apple), Harry could easily kill Voldemort.
The story is not great, but I kind of like it. I guess one-shots are like telling the neighborhood Boy Scout 'Of course I'll buy that tomorrow.'
No commitment necessary.
Merry Christmas!