A Christmas Gift

Chapter Nine: The Real World

Written by: Dizzy

Disclaimer: Own nothing, want everything.

They walked towards the Great Hall together, but there they parted. The trip back had been done in silence, only a few looks of unease and excitement passed between them. Draco had known, from that first moment of being back that he would have to give their time up. Forget it had ever happened. In this world they existed, and the rules applied to them as much as anyone else. So he steeled himself for their parting.

Hermione, however, had failed to realize what would change now that they were out of their little world. She hadn't thought it through. She was more excited about being back, about being seen and able to interact. It wasn't until they reached the large doors of the Great Hall that she realized exactly what was going to happen.

Draco turned to her for a second, his eyes catching her own. It was an intense look, full of a meaning she couldn't place. Then he was gone, he had swept into the Great Hall without so much as a goodbye, leaving her alone at the entrance. Hermione stood there for a moment, wanting to cry but knowing she had no right. It was her fault anything had happened in the first place. Her world had cast them together, and the real world would rip them apart. It already had.

Who had done it? Draco's eyes went from person to person, trying to look beyond their face and see their guilt. It seemed that not a moment had passed in the real world. Everyone was still eating lunch, and his table was still practically empty. He sat down at the end, away from the giggling first years and looked around the room.

The Gryffindors were an obvious gaggle of likely suspects. Most loathed him, and would have been more then happy to see him trapped in that world forever. But Hermione was one of their own, and he doubted they would have endangered her in such a way. Unless they hadn't counted on her being there at the time, which still didn't make any sense to him, they would have seen her.

He ruled out Hufflepuff for the simple fact that they weren't bright enough to be able to think up such a plan.

Which took him to Ravenclaw. Many of his female conquests were at that table. The females in Ravenclaw were intelligent and unusually pretty, and there was no love lost between them and Hermione. They felt it wrong that a Gryffindor could best them year after year in every subject when they were supposed to be the clever house. Surely at least one of them should be smarter then Hermione Granger. They seemed the most likely candidates. Many of the Ravenclaw boys loathed him, for stealing their girlfriends, or would-be girlfriends, and for just generally being Malfoy. And a lot of the girls had their hearts broken by him, perhaps they were a bit bitter. And they were certainly clever enough.

He stared at the table for a moment. No one gave him a look, of guilt or innocence. He couldn't alight on a particular face either. Most of the older students were away, and he had no idea who the younger ones were. That almost ruled them out entirely.

Potter and Weasley would generally be at the top of his suspect list, but he had ruled them out immediately. They would never put Hermione in that much danger. Confused, and hungry Draco turned his attention to his plate. He was a patient man, and he knew that eventually the guilty party would come forward, if the right pressure was applied.

So he ate, and tried not to think of the girl who had just entered the Great Hall.

Hermione ignored the surprised look on Harry's and Ron's faces, knowing that to them she had left just moments before. They smiled in greeting, and resumed their discussion of all things Quidditch. For once, Hermione was able to ignore them without a book in hand, using only her thoughts.

Draco was sitting alone across the hall, eating everything he could get his hands on. He did not look up at her, or even acknowledge that she was there, and it hurt. She had thought, perhaps they could have achieved some kind of closure. A cheesy romance novel ending of some sort, "I want to be with you but I can't" kind of conversation. But there had been nothing. No goodbye, no see you around, no nothing. It hurt. She tried her best to pull her thoughts away from him, but it was to no avail. Her guilt over deceiving him, and her sadness over being cast aside was too great to just ignore.

Harry and Ron were completely oblivious, Hermione was often prone to fits of depression, usually following exams. They chalked her silence up to worry over her results and nothing more.

Hermione had caught only the barest glimpse of Draco in the day following her return. He was walking down the staircase, glaring at each person who passed, accusatory. Her stomach churned. He was trying to find the culprit, she knew it. She just hoped he didn't look to close to her direction.

She missed him. Ron and Harry were poor substitutes. They looked at her like the girl she was, never inviting her to share in their snowball fights, or anything they considered beneath her. She had never joined them before.

That was how she found herself sitting alone, on a high bank of snow watching her boys pelt balls of hard ice at each other with brutal force. For the first time in her life she wanted to join in. She was just as good as them, girl or not. She had held her own in a candy war for Merlin's sake, she could aim bigger objects any day. But they hadn't asked her to join. She knew that Draco wouldn't have asked either however. He would have simply chucked a heap of ice at her, and expected her to realize it was an invitation.

Hermione sat there for a moment, swirling her finger in the snow, making little swirls and curlicues in the white blanket.

Ron let out a rather girly scream of rage, his hair plastered to his head, and white bits clinging to his face. Harry laughed and ducked just in time to avoid a rather massive ball heading his way.

Hermione stood up, her little hands reaching down to collect a rather good portion of snow. She packed it expertly, and then reared her arm back.

It struck Harry dead on in the back of the head. He reared around in surprise. Hermione looked up into the air, feigning innocence. If they weren't going to invite her, she was going to invite herself.

Ron gaped at her in surprise. She gave him a challenging look in return. It was Harry who accepted. While she was issuing her challenge to Ron, he was planning his attack. He snuck close, and dropped a large bit of snow onto her head.

Hermione shrieked, and the war was on.

From a window above Draco looked down. His face twisted from jealous rage to sadness, going back and forth between the two. Was it too much to ask that she at least act as though she missed him? Instead she was having a blast, while he was stuck in the castle, bored and aching.

He heard her let out a shriek, and almost laughed at her running form. They were ganging up on her, chasing her to the bank she had been sitting on so peacefully just moments before.

At least she wasn't dead. A few more moments and she would have been, never to play in the snow again.

It was small comfort.

Draco ached to join them, to show them that he was kind of a different person. He had been rude to only one person all day, and justifiably so. Colin Creevy needed to watch where he was going.

He wanted to join Hermione in her way, and perhaps teach Potter and Weasley a little lesson about fair play. He wanted to make another snow angel.

Instead he turned from the window, and walked back to the dungeons. A good book and a mug of hot cocoa awaited him there, and at least no one would see that he was alone. Per Hermione's suggestion he had visited the Muggle section of the library the day before, and was pleased to see A Christmas Carol was still there. He wanted to find out just who this Scrooge was.

The Christmas Hogsmeade visit was scheduled for later that day, and Hermione found herself not wanting to go. It would be fairly painful.

But Ron and Harry insisted, and there she was putting on her scarf, and boots waiting for them to come down from their dormitory. She would go, and try to forget. Since Draco seemed to be doing so well at it.

At lunch that day, soaking wet from their snow ball fight, she had tried to seek him out. She found him in his usual place, alone, at the Slytherin table. In his hands was a book, and he ate distractedly. He didn't look at her the whole time. Not so much as a glance, she had checked, many times. He had forgotten her it seemed.

In truth she had never been more on his mind. As he read the rather wordy, and somewhat boring book he realized that she had been entirely right. He was Scrooge. It was him to a capital S. Masses of money, although he wasn't quite so old, and not a charitable bone in his body. It was a revelation. Her Ghost of Christmas Past reference was fairly inaccurate however, as he had seen nothing of his past Christmas's. Thank Merlin. He didn't want to show her that embarrassing bit of his life for anything.

The book itself was rather good, although the pictures at the beginning of the chapter's didn't move, and Dicken's was probably the most boring bloke on the planet. But if one plowed through they got results. He liked the Marley brothers, and the ghostly imagery, and even Scrooge himself. With every sentence he read he tried to apply it to how Hermione saw him, and realized that she was right, at least in some respects. As a result of his wandering thoughts he was spending a great deal of time with a rather short book. It was enlightening though.

As he reached the end he really doubted he would have given Bob Cratchett's family a large turkey, or spent Christmas with the annoying nephew, but he might have at least been a bit nicer. Maybe given ole' Bobby a raise or something, and sent the nephew a card. He closed the book and stuck it into his satchel.

He had to get ready to go to Hogsmeade, as boring as the day would turn out to be. It would be just him wandering alone around the shops, stopping for a Butterbeer or two and counting the minutes until he could return to Hogwarts. Under normal circumstances he wouldn't even have gone. But he had an errand to run, and a girl to possibly run into.

Harry and Ron's enthusiasm was infectious, and the day was not as bad as she thought it would be. They disappeared one at a time in turns, presumably to get her Christmas present, and returned with plain brown packages they wouldn't let her see.

She too had disappeared for a little bit, leaving them to themselves. For Ron she got him a massive supply of candy. And a new pair of wool gloves, as his were torn and dirty. For Harry she got him a little toy snitch and a massive poster of the Chudley Cannon's. Laden with packages she returned to her boys, who had already ordered her a butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks.

Hermione sat down, and was just about to take a sip of her butterbeer when she noticed that Ron and Harry had stopped asking her what she had purchased. Instead their eyes were glaring just above her head, their expressions menacing.

She turned, already knowing who it was, and caught her breath. Draco stood just behind her, silver grey eyes piercing into her own. His hair was windswept, his cheeks tinted slightly pink. His expression was not warm, but it wasn't threatening either.

"Granger," he gave her a nod.

"What do you want Malfoy," Ron spat. And Draco ignored him. His eyes instead were focused only on Hermione. She couldn't breath, she couldn't think, she could only stare. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then he held out his hand.

In it was a small brown parcel. He had gotten her a present? Hermione's heart soared for a second.

"You dropped this." Draco said simply, and placed it on the table. It was Harry's toy snitch.

Disappointment flooded her senses, and she opened her mouth to thank him, but he had already turned and was walking out of the pub. She closed her mouth, and watched him retreat, her hand resting on the package he had returned to her.

TBC…..(3 more parts left, hoorah)