Notice: It has been a while since I've written much so please be kind but enjoy. I don't own the Harry Potter world or Harry and Hermione would have always been the end game.

All I Want for Christmas is you

The golden embers were dying in the hearth and rustling could be heard across the room where bookcases went to the ceiling. The chestnut locks across the pillow were getting all the more tangled as Hermione twisted and turned in her sleep on the gray brocade sofa with "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens lay across her azure pajamas. Like most nights Hermione had fallen asleep reading. A bit of light reading before bed usually quieted her thoughts enough to where she could get a bit of more restful sleep. "A Christmas Carol" though… why had she chosen that one? Dickens was a classic of course but like so many over-thinkers in history his tales though engrossing didn't quiet her tonight.

Christmas past.

So many years with her parents before Hogwarts and even trips to museums around the world, orchestras of music, a television playing Bing Crosby's "Bells of St Mary's" the background of her childhood. Then years of disquiet as war waged in the background, a boy with piercing green eyes and messy black hair present in nearly every image going through her mind.

Christmas present.

In her mind's eye she wandered the house. Snoring could be heard from the last room down the hall. Loud enough to remind her of Fluffy, Hagrid's Cerberus. A chess board set with a game always mid play between the red head and his hero Victor in their Owl chess game that went on seemingly forever. Clothes scattered across the room and orange Chudley Cannon's posters on the walls. Flashbacks to phrases like "She's a nightmare" getting the girl to leave quickly as much as the underlying stench. Leaving that room and going across the hall she noticed a drawer partially open with colorful socks artfully mismatched to please Dobby. A forest green and maroon comforter lay across the bed with a leg thrown out of the covers. Her eyes wandering up the young man as they never would easily in her days, black hair tangled across the pillowcase. Through the connecting door she wandered into her own room with nearly as many books as most libraries, her ceiling charmed to show a replay of her Harry's latest game; in this case he was in his Falmouth Falcons uniform playing against the Montrose Magpies. She would be so embarrassed if Harry ever noticed that if her latest book didn't help her fall asleep she would spend her nights watching him catch the snitch over and over again in her cool lonely bed. /p

Christmas future.

What did she really want out of her future? Ron had been riding Harry's coat tales since the war using their shared fame telling "war stories" at every pub he came across to get endless dinner's with Firewhiskey and girls always willing to warm his bed. She wasn't willing to go back and be yet another keeping that bed warm. No, she didn't want the red head any longer. Had she ever really? She didn't have a lot of good friends. None like Harry really. Down the hall appeared a door that was not ordinarily there. Passing through the door a golden mirror awaited. What would the Mirror of Erised show her?

She was on Christmas break from Hogwarts where she was in the process of revamping the History of Magic class to include many of the histories she had lived and discovered in the very library she had fallen asleep in. When Harry came of age he discovered that there were additional vaults at Gringotts. The ministry, after his parents died, had set up the Godric's Hollow home into a memorial and had removed most of the personal items to his family vaults. One of those vaults held the Potter library. Said library was accessible from Grimauld place where they were now in residence. There was so much history to unpack and discover along with Augusta, Neville's grandmother who after the war eased up a tad in her control of Neville's every move as her daughter in law turned her world upside down with tales of mysterious creatures like Snorkacks… was that even a word? Just to survive Luna Augusta had to ease up a bit in her control.

Hogwarts was a different place then her home of her teens where monsters of various sizes and levels on the danger scale existed. Now she had recreated the Marauder's map – with a few upgrades of course, to assist her as she wandered the halls and the library she had made her home. Back home with Harry down the hall she read more books and wished he would see her as more.

Embers crackled and the mass of curls on the pillow moved as Hermione woke. She didn't want that future, always the bookworm never the lover. But what could she do? Crookshanks pawed at her hand and meowed turning toward toe door. Taking the hint Hermione rose. Floor boards and doors in the old home creaked as she moved quietly down the hall and she stopped to check on Harry remembering the nights when it had been just them in the woods and in different situations around the country when Ron had abandoned them. She wished she had gotten up her Gryffindor courage in the tent when they had been dancing and kissed him.

Green eyes met hers as the door eased open. "Merry Christmas, Hermione." She came up beside him and wished they were more. "Merry Christmas, Harry." Covers rustled as he scooted over and moved as he welcomed her to come curl up beside him. Unbeknownst to him she'd been dreaming of her life in the library and tears dampened his old Hogwarts Alumni shirt. He pulled her closer into his arms and held her knowing after all these years together that he just had to be there not try to fix everything. "What do you want for Christmas Hermione?"

"All I want for Christmas is you…" she whispered half praying he would hear and want her too, half praying the words would go un noticed.

"It's always been you for me, Hermione. All I want for Christmas is you too."

"She turned in his arms and looked at him wonderingly. "You mean all this time we could have been together?" Rumbling in his chest surprised her with his laughter. "We have been. Hold on just a second. He turned and reached over to his nightstand drawer pulling out a small box he had picked up while at Gringotts the other day. "How about an early Christmas present to us both? Hermione Jean Granger – my love for you has grown each day since you opened our compartment door looking for my god brother's toad all excited like me about learning all you could about our new world. Every day since you have made my world a better place just by being in it. All I want for Christmas is you too. Would you marry me?" Her eyes shined with love as she kissed the man beside her. He truly was hers.

"All I want for Christmas is you" was heard through the room as the old grandfather clock struck midnight. "Merry Christmas, my love, my Harry."