No Mistletoe Necessary
Author's Note: I really wanted to get a bit of Christmas fluff posted today. I'm not sure how well my attempts at Seamus's accent went, but I figured I'd try to get a bit of practice at it. Anyway, hope you enjoy! I updated Mugglefied yesterday, and hope to make some headway on the next chapter of that this week. Merry Christmas, all!
The Irish wizard sat back on his heels, looking at a job well done. A row of stockings was secured across the fireplace, more or less in a straight line. He wiped his hands on his robes and stood up, looking on as his classmate levitated an angel to the top of the tree.
He looked at the satisfied smile on her face. "Showoff."
She rolled her eyes at him. "Hardly. That's a first year charm." She took stock of the room. Garlands hung across the room, scenting the air with pine. The unused classroom had taken on quite the transformation.
They'd gotten tacit approval from McGonagall to hold a party for the eighth year students in this classroom. There were fewer unused classrooms than there used to be—not all of the damage to the castle had been repaired yet. While there weren't many eighth years at Hogwarts, most of those who had come back this year had chosen to stay over the holidays. They all had their reasons.
Hermione lit the fairy lights on the last garland with a twitch of her wand and breathed deeply. The room felt cozy. Hogwarts was more home than anywhere else. Maybe she'd never leave. She knew it was just her knee jerk reaction to being alone at the holidays. It didn't help the bitter feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"Knut fer yer thoughts?"
She shook her head. Her hair felt like it was inflated to about twice the normal size. She made an expression as if trying to look up at her own eyebrows. "Not much going on in here."
He gave her a level look with a lopsided grin. "I don' believe that fer second. There's always something turning in that head. Not enjoying m'company?" He adopted such an offended look that Hermione couldn't help laughing.
"Just thinking about why we're all spending Christmas at Hogwarts instead of at home." She looked at him curiously. "You've never done this before, except for fourth year. Why are you staying?"
"I stayed last year, not that yeh were around for it," he pointed out. "Me ma and I don't get along so good now. If I were t'go home for the hols, she might try and talk me out of coming back, so thought I'd just stay," he said the words flippantly, without much thought.
Hermione raised an eyebrow, sure there was more to the story, but equally sure that Seamus had said all he intended to say for now. She knew his mother hadn't wanted him to come back in seventh year, and that he'd practically had to sneak himself to King's Cross. Admittedly, every time Seamus told that story, his adventures got a little wilder. On the last retelling he'd claimed that he'd had to blackmail a leprechaun to get him to transport him to the station. Hermione suspected he'd really flagged down the Knight Bus.
Seamus grinned. "And you? What's got yeh sitting in a drafty, half fallen down castle this time o' year?"
She touched the stone walls fondly. Even if it wasn't all rebuilt…it wasn't bad. "Nowhere else to go. My parents…you know." There'd been no undoing the memory charm. Early on in the term, Seamus had found Hermione crying quietly in the common room. He sat with her, arm around her and head on his shoulder until she'd told him the state of things. It wasn't common knowledge—there was the possibility that she could get thrown in Azkaban for that sort of misuse of magic. Even the extenuating circumstances of being the Hermione Granger might not have saved her (though it probably would have). A handful of people who might have been able to help her knew the truth—and Seamus—but they'd all confirmed that the charms were permanent. There'd be no getting her parents back. At best she could try and implant a new set of memories in them…but it would be a new kind of lie. They'd never be the same. A second substantial memory charm on top of the first complete rewrite could result in brain damage. "Anyway, Mrs. Weasley invited me to the Burrow but Ron and I split up last month, a little after Halloween. I don't think I could really face the lot of them right now. So here I am. I thought if nothing else, I could try and brighten Christmas for some people." She bit her lip, looking around the room, wondering what else they could do. The stockings were stuffed and hung. The tree was decorated. There was a bucket of Butterbeer bottles with a chilling charm on them. The party wasn't until tomorrow, so they'd bring the food in then. There were comfortable couches, and an open space for dancing. A Wizarding Wireless Radio was set up in one corner, and there were a couple of tables and chairs for anyone who wanted Gobstones or Wizards' Chess.
"Yeh and Ron split?" Seamus asked in surprise.
She gave a sad smile. "We did. We're leading two very different lives right now and I don't think we'll find ourselves on the same path again. Every time we saw each other, it was just another fight. I'm not sure he really understands where I'm at right now. And now he doesn't have to." She wiped her eye and turned away to fuss with the tree. She was not going to cry over him again. She'd spent too many nights crying in her dormitory with the curtains drawn, and a silencing charm up.
A warm weight pressed against her back and Seamus wrapped both his arms around her, squeezing tight, whispering in her ear, "Sorry, love. Didn't know yeh were going through that. Shoulda said." He'd noticed she was getting hardly any letters lately at breakfast anymore, but he hadn't made the connection. After all, Ron was a lousy letter writer at the best of times. And she hadn't said anything to him. All term they'd done Charms work together. They'd sat side by side in the common room plenty of nights. And she'd never said. "D'yeh need me to blow somethin' of his up? Might make yeh feel better."
She almost chuckled at the tickle of his breath and the feeling of his arms around her. "It's okay. I didn't want to make a scene or anything. I just wanted to try and move on with my life."
He raised an eyebrow, not that she could see it. "Bit hard t'move on with that part of things if everyone thinks you're still dating yer first love."
She shrugged, leaning back into him, resting her head on his shoulder. It was just the right height. "It didn't seem like there was really any graceful way to announce to the world that I'd given up on Ron. In the normal way of things, people would have seen us together, and then seen us not together and known we were broken up. I guess long distance makes it a little harder to publicize a break up." She grimaced at the words. It sounded crass.
He breathed deep for a moment, his face in her hair.
She started to pull away and he let her go….mostly. He caught her fingers and gave them a brief squeeze. She acknowledged it with a smile and then did another circuit around the room. "Well, I think we've done about all we can here. I hope people turn up tomorrow, or that will be an awful lot of Butterbeer going to waste."
Seamus put his hands on his hips and did an inspection from the center of the room, looking around. "'m not sure it's done yet. There's no mistletoe."
Hermione looked her friend over. "I'm pretty sure we don't need it," she said softly.
He looked at her, wetting his bottom lip with his top one without thinking about it, watching in disbelief as she approached him. She cupped the side of his face and ran her thumb along his jaw.
"Do you think we need it?" She leaned forward, her lips a hair's breadth from his.
"Not necessary."
She closed the gap and kissed him, never guessing the real reason he stayed at Hogwarts this Christmas. His fingers tangled in her hair, and they kissed until they were breathless.