Hermione had wanted to say goodbye to Harry as she headed out of Hogwarts for Christmas, but the sight of Ron and Lavender practically sucking each others face off behind him ,had both made her want to bring up her breakfast and punch him at the same time.
Harry had looked at her almost pityingly; he knew know how hard Hermione had taken it. He knew that it would take a small miracle for the two of his best friends to get back on speaking terms.
Hermione now sat in the back of her parents Ford Escort, trundling through the snow swept Scottish mountains. Hermione has wished Ginny a Merry Christmas on the way out of the door, but her closest female friend seamed to be a little put out that she would be spending Christmas stuck with a house full of men, her mother and Phlegm.
Hermione was aware that her mother was watching her in the rear view mirror. Hermione pointedly stared at the rolling clouds, there was going to be a snowstorm.
The burrow would look amazing in the snow, everything outlined in the pale white powder. The pond frozen, the orchard looking like something out of a child's picture book. In comparison to Hermione's small suburban house, the Burrow was almost angelic.
She might get to see it again, one day. Maybe when Ron and Lavender get married and he invites her just to rub her nose in it.
Hermione laughed lightly to herself, visions of her shoving sickly pink coloured icing in to Ron's face had floated across the forefront of her mind. The icing would have to be pink; Lavender was obsessed with pink, baby pink. Everything down to the stupid slippers that she wore on her feet was the same god-awful colour. It was like talking to a giant piece of candyfloss at times. Hermione knew that Pravati secretly agreed.
The two of them had barged in to the dorm, eager to see what Hermione was going to ware to Slughorn's party. Lavender had sat almost defensively as Hermione had pulled out her dress.
Pravati had given it a coveting look and Lavender had commented on how she thought the dark blue material would look nice in pink. Both Pravati and Hermione had exchanged looks and tried to suppress the laugh that was trying to escape.
As Hermione had known, she could not stay mad at Lavender for long. She said stupid stuff, she was quite often completely away with the fairies, after all, she did fancy the divination teacher and he was half horse. Moreover, Lavender had not talked about Ron in the dormitory…not that she was their most of the time; after all slavering over Ron was a time consuming business and squeezing it in to any available second of the day seamed to be called for.
Still the satisfying sound of Ron's disgust at the news that Hermione was going to the party with McLaggen was like music to her ears.
She was particularly proud of the way she had used her words to twist the knife…
"You know the one that 'almost' became keeper."
She knew it would make his blood boil.
And she was right, as she walked down to the common room in her dress robes Ron had cornered her.
"McLaggen?" he asked her. His eyes darting across her face.
"Well since my date stood me up." she said bitterly. She momentarily felt sorry for Ron his face had dropped. But as fast as the little boy look had crossed his face it was gone again and replaced with the vindictive glare that Hermione had gotten used to in the last few weeks.
"Well Slughorn can defiantly call you king and queen slug now." his eyes darted past her, and to the stairs. Hermione knew that Lavender was there so instead of retaliating walked of in to the common room to find McLaggen, it wasn't hard he was about six foot taller than anyone else was.
The sound of Lavender questioning why Ron looked so mad, gave Hermione a spring in her step.
Shame it hadn't lasted long, she had set off to find Ginny at the party, and found her sulking in the corner with Dean, apparently miffed that she didn't want to dance. Hermione had fought enough, so happily mingled with the quidditch players and notable witches and wizards around the room.
That was until McLaggen had tried to molest her under some mistletoe. She quoted Luna and informed him that it was infested with Nargles and that they should move, the thought of actually kissing the sandy haired seventh year was making her feel sick.
She waited until he started a conversation with a Ravenclaw that Hermione didn't know before excusing herself, under the pretence of getting a drink. She spotted Harry and Luna and was falsely mistaken in thinking that this would distract McLaggen in his quest.
Cursing Ron and McLaggen as she went Hermione disappeared out of the dungeon, ignoring the taunts from Malfoy as she passed him in the corridor, she headed up to the Gryffindor common room.
When the fat lady swung open, the common room was empty, well at least she thought that it was.
"Your back early." the voice of Ron came from his favourite armchair by the fire, see Ron I know it's your favourite armchair. I bet Lavender doesn't, Hermione thought bitterly. She walked forward and there was Ron sitting with Crookshanks on his knee, the ginger cat purred contently as Ron flattened the hair around the beasts face.
"I got sick of talking to the seeker from the cannons…what's his name Galvin Grubbert…."
"Galvin Gudgeon? You got bored talking to…." Ron shook his head, Crookshanks pawed at him contently.
Ron had looked up at her as she sat down in the large oversized armchair opposite him.
"Where's your date?" he asked her with only a tiny bit of venom in his voice.
Hermione shrugged, avoiding his gaze. "Where's the girlfriend?"
"She went to bed."
"It must be nice to come up for air." Hermione had said it before she thought about it and regretted it almost immediately.
Any sort of happy predisposition she had caught Ron in vanished.
"You know something I just realised how much of a bitch you can be." said Ron getting up and dropping Crookshanks in to her knee.
"So why are you waiting for me to come back? You looking to get tips from me and McLaggen?" spat Hermione viciously getting to her feet. She followed him to the foot of the stairs where he had stopped.
He was watching her, his normally sparkling blue eyes looked pale and cold.
"I was worried about you being alone with McLaggen alright; he's got a bad reputation-"
"And I'm more than capable of handling him." Hermione was touched by his sentiment.
Ron looked down at her; she felt like she was being studied, she pulled her robes around her tightly.
"I know you are. But you are acting totally irrationally at the moment; I didn't want you doing something you might regret." Ron found her gaze, he was genuinely concerned about her, and this wasn't the same big brotherly concern that he showed for Ginny.
The two of them had stood looking at each other, unaware of how much time had passed.
Hermione felt the worst she had since Ron started dating Lavender. He was being understanding, caring...in some ways it was so much more difficult than listening to him shout at her.
"You look really pretty tonight." Ron said eventually.
Hermione felt herself smile; she had chosen this dress because she knew that Ron would like it.
He was staring her in the eyes, not wanting to look down at the dress. At Hermione's body.
"You know you could just have come with me as a friend." Hermione said quietly.
Ron looked at her.
"No I couldn't, like you said I made a choice." his voice was shaken it was full of regret.
Neither of them said anything, the only sound in the room was the rustling of the real fairies on the Christmas tree in the corner.
A small smile crept to the corners of Ron's lips. Hermione hadn't noticed that she was staring at them so obviously.
She looked away. It broke the two of them out of there trance.
"There's never any bloody mistletoe when you need it." muttered Ron under his breath; Hermione pretended she hadn't heard him. She would have to, Ron was with Lavender, and she could not do that to herself.
"Ron," he turned and looked at her. "Have a good Christmas." she had said as she ascended the stairs to the dorm.
"You to Hermione." he had whispered after her.
The storm that had been threatening ever since Scotland broke as they passed through Hermione's hometown, the industrial city almost vacant from the winter blizzards that swept the streets. Hermione watched as the Christmas lights blew in the wind, it confused her more than anything the way Ron could change from the man she knew he was, to the spoilt little brat within the space of a minute.
"Are you ok dear?"
"Yes mum, just thinking." Hermione said as they pulled in to the street that Hermione called her own, the row of old Victorian houses was the most impressive in the town, although looks could be deceptive.
As they got out of the car the cold wind whipped at Hermione's face making it red raw.
Holding Crookshanks tightly she followed her mother in to the house.
Crookshanks jumped out of Hermione's arms when they got in to the house, he stalked up the wooden staircase and in to Hermione's room on the third floor.
When her father joined them in the house Hermione took her coat up and hung it on the old hat stand that stood by the back door, her mother had decorated, the walls were now a dark Lavender colour, Hermione thought about the irony of this for a moment, but her mother didn't know anything about her current predicament. In any case the walls of the Granger house were to busy to see the colour of the paint anyway. At the end of the hallway stood a large glass cabinet full of small porcelain bells, they had been her grandfathers, along side his love of collecting beer mats, the tiny coasters were stored in boxes in the attack, her father refused to part with them. Lying on the bottom shelf of the cabinet lay numerous old magazines that her mother would save for the reception at her surgery.
On the floor next to the cabinet lay Hermione's junior school bag, it even still had the little reflective stars stuck to the flap. Hermione smiled, her mother really would not throw anything away.
The kitchen was littered with pots and pans, non of the grangers could cook that well, but they were always willing to have a go, after all they were dentists and there was far to much sugar in most junk food.
The kitchen table was buried under a pile of research notes, her father loved to work at the table, he said the kitchen was the heart of the home and it had the most energy, Hermione thought that Mrs Weasley would probably agree.
The living room was exactly the same as the last time Hermione had visited in the summer. Books lined one wall, a T.V hid, tucked away in the corner, and the faded sofa lay hidden under many blankets.
"Why don't you go and put your things in your room?" suggested her mother, Hermione nodded and followed Cruickshank's lead up the large wooden stairwell, the first landing ( her parents room) was lined with book's all apart from a single print in the middle of it, a map of the world. Tiny flags indicated places where the grangers had visited. Hermione noticed that a vast majority of the flags seamed to be quiet new, especially the one sticking in Bulgaria.
She turned left at 'T', the books were in alphabetical order, and ascended a smaller flight of stairs.
Hermione's room was at the top of the house, it was smaller than the other room's but the view was amazing from the small round window in the alcove.
In stark contrast to all the wood in the rest of the house, Hermione's room had many fabrics; it was painted in pastel shades, not that you could see them through the amount of objects that cluttered the shelves. Snow globes, books, magazines, cd's and childhood toys lined the walls.
Crookshanks slept on the large yellow beanbag in the centre of the room. Behind him on the desk a picture of Ron and Harry waved to her, she walked over and turned it down to the desk. Her eyes fell on all her old school books, all Lockhart books lay stacked neatly; maybe she would read them again over the time she was home. (She would purposefully ignore the nasty, snide comments written in them by Ron.) On top of the Lockhart books lay the standard book of spells grades one through five, Un-fogging the future (This one had more than a bit of her own graffiti written in it.) And her beginners guide to transfiguration, charms and potions, the last one had a huge burn mark on the cover from where Ron had spilt some almino bile on her book.
She sighed even when se was home everything reminded her of Ron, it was sickening.
She picked up 'confronting the faceless' and threw herself down on the bed.
When her mother woke her light of a new day was creeping through the window, Christmas Eve, all thoughts of Ron were pushed out of her mind as she decorated the tree and helped her mother try to dissever the instructions on the back of the pudding mix, and it was nice to spend time with her family.
When she finally returned to her room, to get changed out of the sticky clothes and in to something that did not smell like egg white and baking powder, most of the pudding mix had ended up on the floor and was now being licked at by Crookshanks. Her room wasn't empty, a small feathered something attacked her as she walked in the door.
Hedwig hooted doefully from her desk. Hermione grabbed pig before he started attacking her head again.
"Come to get there presents?" she asked the owls as she pulled clean clothes from her wardrobe and put them on.
She rooted through her bag, pulled out the parcel for Harry, and tied it to Hedwig's leg.
"You wouldn't mind taking the others as well would you." she asked the owl, the peck on the hand Hermione understood to mean that the owl didn't mind at all. She tied the presents for Mr and Mrs Weasley and Fred and George to the owl's leg.
Pig hoped from claw to claw on the desk.
"It's ok pig I have your delivery here." she tied the package for Ginny to the small owls leg.
Momentarily she felt guilty. She couldn't ignore Ron completely.
Smiling at her own brilliance, she rushed down the stairs returning to her room and slid something small and green in an envelope. She scribbled Ron's name on the parchment but did not say whom it was from.
She had a felling he would know though, as she watched the owl's disappearing in to the blizzard raging outside.
Who else was going to send him a sprig of mistletoe?
Thankyou for the loverly reviews, and the words of encoragment. just to let you know i'm going by J.K Rowlings time line so this would be set in the late 90's ( 1996) you might want to know that for the next chapter, because you might end up thinking that i'm a compleate nutter with some of the referances. i myself was12/13(my birthday falls at the sameday as a certain mr harry potter)in the year hermione would have been 16/17 so the next chapter has a lot of me in it. it's a scarry thought right...just think...east17 boyzone all the really awfull boybands and fasion that was around at that point...haha i think i might thoroghly torture the pore girl.
ok i'm rambling, thankyou for the reviews thought i love you all XXXXXXXXXX