:: Chapter Nineteen: The Battle of the Batter ::

The days before Christmas flew by quickly and Hermione found herself being caught up in the magic of the season. She often visited Draco's muggle apartment complex, telling Harry she was just heading to the little coffee shop. Christmas eve approached and the end of Hermione and Draco's vacations were coming closer.

"Aren't you staying?" Hermione asked early Christmas Eve morning as he lay down next to her, fully clothed. Obviously he was going somewhere.

"I can't." He said, his voice dropping in shame. She stared at him from her spot next to him on the bed.

"Oh." Her head dropped and she stared at the pattern on the sheets.

"I'm sorry. It's my job, I know it's hard on you but it's hard on me too."

"Harry, don't worry about it." She plastered a smile on her face and looked back up at him. "I figured you would have to go anyway. I just thought we could be together this Christmas." Inside she was fighting to smile. "It's okay. I'll be fine. It's time I spent a holiday with my parents anyway."

"It's not just this Christmas I won't be here. I won't be here New Years either. This is a month long job. We have some reports of suspicious things happening in Greenwich."

"Oh, so I'm not going to see you until this summer pretty much?"

"I'm so sorry, Hermione."

"It's okay." She shook her head softly. "It's fine. What time do you have to leave?"

"Now…" He said meekly.

"Then get going, Ron would kill me if I was the one keeping you from your job." She laughed recalling some of her best friends antics.

"Goodbye." He said getting up from the bed. He headed for the door but stopped at returned to her side of the bed. He placed a gentle kiss on her lips. "I love you." He said kissing her one last time before apparating to the ministry. Hermione let a heavy sigh escape her lips.

"I can't do this anymore." She groaned burying herself in her pillow. Her itinerary ran through her head and for the first time in her life she had nothing to do for the next three days. No family to spend it with, they were in Ireland visiting her grandparents, no boyfriend; he was locked up somewhere in Greenwich sorting through cases. 'Boyfriend…' Hermione thought to herself. She pondered what Draco would be doing during this small break. Surely he could not go to his family, he only had his mother left and she would turn him over to the Death Eaters faster than you can say "Crucio". She smiled softly against the pillow. She dressed herself properly and grabbed her wand; she was about to apparate when she heard a gentle knocking on the door. She opened the door to find Draco standing there with a smirk on his face.

"What are you doing here? Harry could be here." She scolded, not allowing him to pass.

"But he's not."

"How do you know? You don't have a wand remember?"

"I made the call."

"What… call?" She asked slowly.

"The call to the ministry about there being some peculiar Dark Magic." He smirked.

"You're the reason why my boyfriend was sent away on Christmas Eve?" She asked dismayed. His heart fell but he forced the infamous Malfoy smirk to coat his lips.

"Awe are you going to miss the poor scar head?"

"Draco, that's not nice." She chided him.

"Are you going to let me in or am I going to just have to turn around and go home?"

"Come in," She ushered him inside. "Actually I was just going to get you."

"Really?" His smirk widened. She laughed and rolled her eyes.

"Yes really. I needed someone to eat ice cream with and watch sappy love movies with since you sent Harry away tonight."

"It's Christmas Hermione, not just any normal day. I'm very upset with you… no tree, no decorations…" He looked around the flat as Hermione plopped down on the couch lavishly.

"I haven't had time, you see my boyfriend had been keeping me really busy. Not that I minded of course, he's quite a charmer but you can't do all these things at once." Draco smiled at her cheekily; she knew just how to inflate his already oversized ego.

"Well we need to fix that."

"Nothing needs fixing." She protested.

"Get into the Christmas spirit! Come on now it's not that hard. You have a wand you know."

She grinned, she had never seen him this excited before. "You obviously don't know how to decorate correctly. Using magic takes all the fun out of it."

"So I suppose you never use magic when making a snowman either."

"Of course not!" She exclaimed appalled. "I promise you, the first time it snows, you and me are going to make the grandest snowman that anyone has ever seen."

"Good. Now let's decorate this flat." And they did, for hours they decorated and each time Draco tried to help Hermione's perfectionist personality would leak through correcting everything he did. Finally the flat was decorated at a Christmassy feeling was in the air.

"You know what we're missing?" Hermione asked as they stepped back to admire their handy work.

"Snow?"

"Other than that." He shook his head no. "Christmas cookies."

"Alright," He said reaching for her wand.

"Not that way." She protested.

"Baking?" He asked.

"Yes baking." She proceeded to retrieve the eggs, the flour, the chocolate chips and the numerous other ingredients. She rattled off the instructions and corrected Draco each time he did something incorrectly, being a perfectionist himself his temper was raising.

"Um… Draco." She said for what seemed like the thousandth time. "You don't want to get the shells in the batter." She said as a piece of eggshell dropped into the forming cookie batter. He threw his hands down on the counter and stared at the flour and egg goop in front of him, a mischievous glint in his eyes. He took some of the batter into his hands.

"Hermione…" He said sweetly.

"What?" She turned to look at him. He threw the batter in her face and she froze. Wiping the batter from her face she picked up her own batter and flung it at him. The battle of the batter began.

I suppose it's time to thank all my reviewers. I'm sorry I didn't do this before.

Aurora -- Wow… Thank you so much for complimenting me on my story. I thoroughly enjoy writing this story and I hope that I haven't made these characters too out of character.

Treachery89 – Thank you for reading my story, and all in one sitting it seems. Thank you for taking the time to read it; you've been a very loyal reader.

Lila – They're back together! Thank you for pushing me to write that one more chapter.

Ash – Exactly! He left her to die; did everyone think she'd in and welcome him with open arms?

JnY~ -- I'm glad my story was intriguing to you and I'm glad it lured you made you think of all the possible ways things could go.

Me – Thank you for putting me on your alert list, it really makes me to beam with pride knowing that people can't wait for me to update.

Iarethirwen – Thank you for your compliments and for being one of the first people to review, you truly are one of the people that kept me going.

Edward's Muse – Thank you for giving me a well-rounded critique, hopefully my story has improved and that I've lured in another reader.

Turtle Child, Amanda, All Hail Chaos, Ace7, Serpent of Light, Dannen, Odette, and Th – Thank you all greatly for reading my story, it means a lot to me.