1Christmas Day dawned bright and cheery, greeting Ginny Weasley to a obnoxious tweeting bird and a rather large pile of presents. With what could only be called a squeal, Ginny dived into the pile, tearing wrapping paper as she went. Hermione Granger, her roommate for the Christmas vacation groaned from the bunk beneath her.
"Ginny, I understand that it's Christmas Morning, and all, but did you really need to wake me up at the crack of dawn?" Ginny interrupted herself for a moment, poking her head from between a Weasley sweater and a box of chocolates complete with a love letter, of the type that seemed to be rather common for the youngest Weasley ever since puberty hit, looked at her presents, then back at Hermione before cracking into a grin and nodding empathetically. Hermione rolled her eyes as Ginny jumped back into her presents with renewed relish before turning to her own substantial pile. She was halfway through unwrapping her present from Harry (an autographed copy of Hogwarts; A History) when she realized that the animalistic sounds of unwrapping above her had stilled.
"So, you're through, then. Anything good?"
"No- I mean, yea, I'm finished." Ginny said, with a slightly dejected tremble in her voice. Hermione immediately abandoned her presents and climbed onto Ginny's bed.
"What's wrong?" she asked, worried.
"It's- it's nothing- I just..." Ginny sighed, playing with a bit of her fire-red hair. "I thought he might- you know- give me something. I guess I'm just being materialistic, but it's Christmas, right?" Ginny looked up at her, and Hermione was shocked to see that tears were gathering at the corners of Ginny's eyes.
"Ginny, you're not making sense. Who? Is this the boy you've been sneaking out with every other night?" Ginny looked at Hermione, looking like she just realized that she had given away something she shouldn't have.
"How- how do you know about that?" Hermione grinned.
"It's not hard to figure out, actually. You're just lucky Harry and Ron are as dense as a pair of rocks when it comes to anything romantic. And I'm sure whoever it was really meant to give it to you, but got owls mixed up or something." Ginny shook her head.
"No, no he wouldn't do that." she sighed again, "I'm being horribly selfish, aren't I? Well, whatever. It's Christmas, and no git's going to ruin that for me." she smiled, a bright, brittle smile that didn't seem to reach her eyes. "Now, what did Ron get you? Not socks again?" Hermione giggled, remembering the disastrous Valentines Day after she had hooked up with Ron and he had gotten her a pair of bright red and gold socks with lions on them, and conversation drifted back to normality, although no matter how hard she tried, Hermione couldn't shake the feeling that whatever had happened would not be healed as easily as it seemed. A few hours later, Harry and Ron poked their heads in, demanding to know if they were planning on coming down anytime soon, or if they were content on standing around starving all day. Laughing, the girls shooed them out and emerged fifteen minutes later, fully dressed.
A large commotion startled the relative peace of the common room. Shrugging, the girls went to investigate, to find none other then Draco Malfoy standing in the middle of the circular room, looking horribly out of place. He smirked when he saw them, and walked over to them, effortlessly shoving Griffindors out of his way.
"Malfoy!" Ginny said, looking properly horrified.
"I thought," Draco said, proportioning himself so that he was only inches away from her, "I told you to call me Draco?"
Ginny frowned, confused, and Malfoy sighed, all patience lost.
"Oh, bugger it all." he said, and leaning in close, he grabbed her by her waist and kissed her. She melted into his arms, and kissed like they had done it a hundred times before. Suddenly, it clicked in Hermione's mind and gears fell in to place.
Draco pulled away from Ginny and smiled down at her, a smile so heartbreakingly sweet that Hermione later swore that if it was ever directed at her she'd never be able to resist.
"Merry Christmas." he whispered.