Because It's Christmastime

by : epiphanies

Snow glistened quietly beneath Hermione's window, reflecting dancing light on the ceiling of her bedroom.

Was it right, she wondered, to long for someplace else to awaken on, on such a day? What kind of daughter could she be if she couldn't get excited about her first Christmas at home in seven years?

It wasn't that she no longer believed in Father Christmas, or that she knew she wouldn't be getting nearly the same amount of presents, or that her parents bored her. She was only having difficulty with... well, being apart from certain people. She certainly realized how very much she'd taken routines for granted. Four long months, she had spent just realizing.

But, it just wasn't as frightening a thought on any other day. When one is used to waking to leap down a grand set of stairs to jump on the beds of one's very best friends, only to wake instead to the beige walls of a bungalow with only two other people, snoring quietly in the room next, it's disconcerting.

She sighed, pulling back a flannel sheet and patting her new dog, sleeping beside her bed, on the head. Quagmire, the shelty, sniffed and wrinkled his nose and Hermione smiled faintly to herself. As if this fluffy new companion could cure her of the longing she felt for the charm of crumbling walls and moving paintings - it was like living in colour only to have to switch to black and white. The world was flavourless again.

A ray of bright sun met a prism in her window and she was blinded by blazing, temporary colour. Before she could gain back her eyesight, she heard a clicking noise at the window. A beak on glass.

"Hello, Hedwig," she smiled, flipping open the latch - only, as she soon realized, it was not Hedwig at all. It was Pigwidgeon - a Pigwidgeon who had obviously gotten more than his share of the owl treats since September, when she'd last seen him.

"Happy Christmas," she stroked the nocturnal bird's soft nape, and as he held out his leg, he made a content purring noise.

"What have you brought me?" she murmured, dropping a few treats on the windowsil and disassembling the package tied to his leg. Pig gobbled them appreciatively as she opened a package wrapped in gold paper. There had been no card - there never was, between them. Everyone else got long, detailed notes - but they had never needed to.

A grin spread across her face as she opened the box flaps.

A book - a beautiful, leather-bound book. She opened it hungrily, only to find -

It was blank, with faint horizontal lines on each page. Brow furrowed, she flipped to the back page.

Knew you'd look here first. Thought this might be a better way to keep track of your thoughts - you're much too qualified to only be reading books. Happy Christmas.

Hermione smiled at Pig, who was falling asleep on the white window sil. She decided to leave him and, instead of changing from her fuzzy pajamas, she ran barefoot into her parents' room.

"Come on now, you two!" she exclaimed, "It's time for peppermint hot chocolate!"

Her mother's eyes fluttered open and took in her daughter.

"Oh, honey, isn't that a bit heavy for this early in the morning?"

Hermione frowned. Instead of replying, she marched over to their window and raised the blinds with a snap. They each groaned and slid further under their duvets.

She stared. Who were these people? Where were her parents - her warm, kind, holiday-loving parents who dressed up as Mister and Missus Santa Claus every Christmas -

Until Hermione went to Hogwarts. They must have stopped that year - after all, what reason would they have to continue, if they no longer had a little girl to entertain?

Hermione ran to the front of the house, the kitchen, and as she tore apart every cupboard, she realized that peppermint was nowhere to be found - not even a mint, not even a candy cane, a tea bag, nothing. Nothing.

Glancing out the front window, there were lights - but no statue of Father Christmas or reindeer or her father's ugly, enormous plastic candle. Three bulbs were smashed into pieces on the -

For the first time in Hermione's memory, the ground had no snow. Christmas day with no snow. The shards were, shiny, broken and festive, sinking into a soft brown lawn.

If Hermione did feel suddenly like a grownup, she might have started to cry.

Deciding not to wake her parents (mother and father, now, not mum and dad,) she made herself a honey tea and went back to her bedroom (no longer her hideaway, crypt or lab.)

Sitting on her bed, she looked around at the photos surrounding her. Her mother and father, unmoving; Ginny Weasley, the day "way back" when she dyed her hair blue with muggle tonic; Ginny and Harry six months before at his graduation (and last day of childhood;) a group photo of the waving Hogwarts choir that Hermione had joined at the "tender age" of sixteen; and, finally, tucked in a corner, a photo of the lake that Colin Creevey had shot last winter - frosted over with snowflakes falling. The photo was one of the loveliest Hermione had ever seen him develop - however, this wasn't the only reason why she treasured it. In the distance, across the lake, on Christmas, on a bench, sat two people. The two people were not facing Colin, and even though it was hardly revealing, there was hand-holding and whispers, jokes and stifled laughter, silence and speech. And it had ended with a kiss.

Hermione pulled out the leather-bound notebook then, and dipped a long quill into scarlet ink.

On Christmas, everyone is a child. Everyone is homesick. Everyone is transported back to those special days when there was just the right amount of snow and carols were sung and cookies were baked from scratch. Nobody needs a Time-Turner on Christmas. From Jacob Marley to the Bloody Baron, I would bet money their mouths are dying to water with the idea of a hot, herbed turkey with garlic mashed potatoes, finishing off with custard and cream. And I know this. I know this because it's Christmastime.

Then she placed the notebook gently between her mattress and box spring, and put her hair up with a black pin.

As she caught sight of herself in the oak-framed mirror beside her bed, she saw the snowflakes falling in the reflection of her rear window and smiled.

I know this because it's Christmastime.