Title: Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men (19/?)
Author: Sonya
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all associated characters, settings, etc., belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, etc. Harry Potter and all associated characters, setting, props, etc., belong to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Inc., etc. No copyright infringement is intended, so please don't sue - all you'll get is a really bratty bird and some really spoiled rats.
Spoilers: Up to 'Wrecked' in the Buffyverse, up to "Goblet of Fire" in the Potterverse.
Pairings: Willow/Snape, Hermione/Viktor Krum, Draco/Ginny, Fred/Angelina. Other 'ships to be decided.
Summary: Light in the darkness.
Author's Note: Just a reminder that this story takes place following "Goblet of Fire" - as in, "Order of the Phoenix" never happened. There will be overlaps, but there will also be differences, and there are no intentional spoilers. So, if you've read the book, you'll see some things familiar and some things not. If you haven't read the book and don't want to be spoiled - use your own judgment. If I don't tell you what's my idea and what's from the book, then you're not really being spoiled, right?
As promised, less gloom, doom, and death - it's not precisely cheerful, but it's not thisclose to being classified as a depressant drug, either. Here be sap and fluffiness, though not of the romantic sort.
***
It never snowed in Sunnydale.
Well, once. But that was sorta technically a miracle. Does that count?
Willow's boots crunched through the soft, feathery top layer of snow and sank part way down into the deeper layer of nearly solid ice underneath. It was the sort of snow you got in places where winter and snow were synonymous; layers and layers of various densities built up over the long dark months, melting and re-freezing and forming a temporary geology sitting atop of the frigid earth. She'd never actually seen the grounds *not* covered with snow, not in the nearly month and a half that she'd been there. It just hadn't been the first thing on her mind, for most of that time.
And it's still not, really, but . . well, it's Christmas Eve.
Not that I actually celebrate Christmas, but .. well, I'm blaming the great big old feast. And the 'let's make *another* toast, with yet more yummy mulled wine' theme of said feast. 'Cause I am *so* being maudlin and pathetic at the moment. I mean, wandering around in the snow, in the dark? Please.
But it's pretty, and I want to, and I can, and it never snowed in Sunnydale, and if I'm gonna be in Scotland for Christmas then I'm gonna enjoy the goddamned snow, damn it!
And I think I'm a little drunk.
She squinted against the darkness and the haze of falling white; somewhere a little ways off, there was a faint red-orange glow, like flame. It didn't look like it was coming from the castle; it was out on the grounds, almost to the Dark Forest.
Oh, yay, something weird. No peaceful holiday snow-admiring for me.
The next gust of wind swirled the snow, tossing it and a faint smell of smoke into her face. She blinked snowflakes from her eyelashes and trudged rather glumly forward. Yep, definitely a fire. A kinda funky-smelling fire. Doesn't smell like wood.
And it's kinda a *big* fire, Willow realized as she approached. The flames leapt nearly as high as she was tall, dwarfing the slim, hunched silhouette of the person sitting beside the blaze. The figure looked human. A few steps closer, and it looked familiar.
She was standing right next to the bonfire - which upon closer inspection, looked to be fueled primarily with dark-colored robes, thought she thought she could make out the nearly-incinerated, blackened shape of a broomstick as well, and other things charred and unidentifiable - before the figure even acknowledged her.
"Hello," Draco Malfoy said tonelessly, not looking away from the fire.
"Uh, hi," Willow responded. Are students allowed to make unsupervised bonfires on the grounds? I really don't think so.
It's Christmas Eve, and his mother just died, and his father's missing, and now he's burning what looks suspiciously like his own possessions . . I am so not sober enough to deal with this.
I don't suppose I can just leave him here, though. That would not be very teacherly and responsible, would it?
Teacherly? Is teacherly a word? I think the last six toasts or so were not strictly speaking good ideas. Her shoes squelched on the thawing ground as she shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, and her cloak dragged in the mud.
"So what are we burning?" she asked finally, sitting and tucking her long cloak completely under her, boots and all, over the melting snow. Might as well save the boots, 'cause this cloak is toast. Very muddy toast.
I'm never buying a single piece of new clothing again. Really. Never. I give up.
Draco watched her, expression somewhere between disinterested and spitefully amused. It was exactly the sort of blatant, you-are-nothing stare that would have made her cringe back in high school. She fidgeted with the laces of her boots.
I hope I'm playing this right. I don't know this kid. He's not my friend, he's got no reason to like me, and honestly, I've got diddly squat in the way of reasons to like him . . most of what I remember about him involves smartassed snarkiness and/or homicidal tendencies. And also I'm kinda tipsy.
But it's Christmas Eve and his mom's dead and he's out here burning stuff in the snow. I think that qualifies for an official truce on all the petty shit.
Not that homicidal tendencies are exactly petty shit, but -
"'We' aren't burning anything," Draco replied in a challenging tone. "I'm out here burning things. You're out here trying to do your teacherly duty and be all consoling and shit and hopefully get me to share my feelings by acting non-threatening."
Well, damn.
"Well, yes," Willow agreed tentatively.
"The painfully honest approach isn't likely to work either," Draco said flatly, poking the base of the fire with a stick and staring into the flames. "Don't feel like sharing. Just feel like burning."
"Okay," Willow meeped, feeling very overwhelmed. No more mulled wine for me. Next year, pumpkin juice. And no nog, either.
"You're doing great on that non-threatening thing, though," Draco commented. "I'm totally at ease. Not at all intimidated by your status as an authority figure."
"And in addition to feeling like burning things, you apparently also feel like being an asshole," Willow blurted out, going with the first thought that popped into her head for lack of better ideas.
Should I have said that? Probably not. I think there's a paragraph somewhere in the non-existent teacher's handbook for this place that prohibits it. Paragraph two-bazillion-and-three, subsection q - do not call the students assholes.
Paragraph two-bazillion-and-three, subsection r - do not interact with the students while sloshed.
He tilted his head to the side, as if considering. "Yeah, pretty much," he nodded after a moment. "The general death and destruction of my entire existence tends to put me in that sort of mood. You're not going to let go of the tactlessness-as-therapy approach, huh?"
"Probably not," Willow answered. "Somebody . . well, somebody shallow and annoying who I still pretty much can't stand, but who occasionally said wise things anyway -"
"Are we nearing a point?" Draco inquired in an exaggeratedly bored drawl.
" - said that tact is just not saying true stuff," Willow finished. "There. Point. Happy?"
"Not remotely," Draco snapped.
"Thanks for sharing," Willow snapped back.
"Sod off," Draco grumbled, putting both elbows down on his knees and leaning perilously close to the blaze. Something towards the middle of the bonfire crackled and sent up virulent purple sparks.
"Did you burn your wand?" Willow asked incredulously, and a little worriedly.
"Why should you care?" he demanded. "Maybe I want to go all wilder and not use one, like you."
"Actually, I was wondering about the environmental ramifications of burning powerful magical objects," she clarified.
"Whatever. So I'll give the Whomping Willow a buzz for the night," he shrugged.
Join the club, Whomping Willow.
And oh, I am so glad I didn't go to school here. Whomping Willow is so not a nickname I would have enjoyed.
The fire hissed and snapped again, sending off yet more sparks, the exact violet of a deep bruise. That so cannot be a good thing. I'm starting to think I shouldn't be inhaling.
"I wonder why I never thought of that when we were burning demon bodies back home," Willow pondered out loud. I can't tell if this stream-of-consciousness-talking thing is working or totally crashing and burning .. but he's still replying .. that's a good, right?
"When you were burning demon bodies," Draco mimicked disbelievingly.
"Yep," Willow confirmed. "Some of them melt, some of them vanish, but some of them just plain lay there and, if left alone long enough, rot, and then smell exceedingly *not* appetizing, so we burned them."
"You know you're a complete freak of nature, right?" Draco inquired belligerently.
"Yep," Willow agreed again. "I brought marshmallows."
"You brought what?"
"Marshmallows. To the demon-body-burnings. Made it seem less, you know, bizarre and creepy."
He laughed, leaning backwards with his hands on his knees, head tilted skyward. It was just a momentary break in the silence, and then he just stayed there, face to the starless pitch of the sky. His breath made little clouds in the cold. Willow could see his adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed, and it took her a moment to realize he was trying not to cry.
"What in the bloody fuck is a marshmallow?" he asked after a long pause, voice thick.
Huh. Marshmallows are a Muggle thing? Who would have thought.
"They're - "Willow began to explain, and paused, frowning. How does one define a marshmallow? More importantly, how in the hell does one get one's self into these things? "Hrmm. Sort of like candy. But, squishy. Like pillows, kinda."
"My pillows aren't squishy," Draco commented. Willow gave the fire a hesitant glance, and he must have caught it, because he added, "I'm not burning those."
"Oh," Willow nodded, "Well, that's good, I guess. Pillows are nice things to have." Of course, so are expensive brooms and school robes and, well, I never saw the point of a wand, but -
"My mother bought the pillows, before my first year," Draco explained, still facing skyward, staring at nothing. "She said the pillows at Hogwarts were lumpy. She started monogramming them and then she forgot about it."
Willow wasn't sure what to say, hearing the gaps in the explanation, the randomness, and remembering what Severus had said about Narcissa Malfoy - Narcissa Black when he'd known her best. Or, um, known her worst? Does Draco know . . ?
"Father saw when I was packing for school - she'd stopped right in the middle of the letter 'D' on the second one, and it looked sort of like a hook that somebody'd stepped on. He had the house-elves take it all out and re-do them. Silver thread."
There was another long, painfully awkward pause. I shouldn't be the one hearing this.
This kid doesn't have anybody who is the one who should be hearing this, though. The people who should be hearing this are dead or maybe dead or run off with Voldemort.
"Mum was all upset because I was leaving for school. She'd - I dunno, done something, drank a lot or something, I don't know what. She tried to take the pillowcases back, slapped one of the house elves."
I don't want to be hearing this.
"Father Imperio'd her and made her lock herself in the linen closet. She was still in the closet when I left for school."
Oh God I do not want to be hearing this. I don't want this to have happened for him to be telling it and me to be hearing it.
Imperio .. that's like . . come on, grow a spine, say it, it's just in your head. It's like what you did to Tara. She let her eyes slide guilty to Draco's face, and hastily away again, irrationally afraid he'd catch her looking again and somehow know. Know that I'm not the good, teacherly sort of person he thinks I am.
"She wasn't making any noise or anything, I guess because she was under Imperio, but I knew she was in there."
But I'm not - I wouldn't - I never made her lock herself in a closet. It wasn't like that. It just wasn't.
Or maybe it just wasn't to you. Maybe it never is to the one doing it. Maybe for her, that's exactly what it was like.
And now there's Severus, and . . I don't deserve this. I don't care what he's done in the past, he's more than reformed, and I don't deserve the person he is now. What I deserve is to be grieving over losing Tara, because I should lose her, because I did awful things, violated her . . it's not fair.
But what do I do? Say no to Severus? Nope, we're not doing this, you can just go back to being alone and friendless and all emotionally retarded because, well, I feel guilty? Sorry, didn't mean to lead you on, but I'm not done punishing myself? Is that fair?
There's no fairness in the universe, that it hands me more people to love than I know what to do with, when I couldn't even keep from hurting the ones I already had.
No fairness in a little boy watching his father mentally rape his mother and lock her in a linen closet.
Willow could hear her breathing, and his, and the crackling of the fire. The snow had melted further and she felt herself sinking ever so slightly into the newly thawed ground. He deserves someone better than me to be hearing this, somebody completely sober to start with, and somebody with nothing in common with his father, someone who could share in the horror and the not understanding it.
"Father said if I did well at school that term, he'd teach me how to do that."
"I'm s -" so sorry, Willow began to say. I'm so sorry, Tara, baby. I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry -
"So what in the hell is a marshmallow, again?" Draco interrupted hastily. "They're like candy pillows?"
"Um, yeah, sort of," Willow managed after a disoriented moment. I'm the one here. I'm a sorry, pitiful excuse for a human being, but at the moment I'm the only sorry, pitiful excuse for a human being that he's got. "They're kinda - oh, screw it," she decided, holding out one palm and concentrating. A half-second later, she had a handful of marshmallows, plump and round and white and looking disturbingly out of context. They look too . . normal. Normal and happy.
You roasted marshmallows over burning demon bodies. Are you sure you actually know what normal and happy look like?
At least my parents didn't lock each other in closets.
Narcissa? Are you listening?
I'm doing the best I can, here. This should be you, but it's not, it's me, and I'm trying.
For both of them. Severus says he's sorry. I guess you know how he can be like that. I'll try to get him to stop beating himself up about it. Not that I want him to forget you or anything, just - well, you know.
I guess you know everything now, being dead. Do you? Know everything? It's not the sort of thing I really felt comfy asking Buffy. And, if you know everything, I guess you know why. And you know, if I were you, I'd be totally having a fit about somebody like me being anywhere near my kid. I'm better now. I promise.
Of course, you may not know everything. You may also not be able to read minds, and I may be talking to myself.
But if I'm not - talking to myself, that is - keep a look-out for a tall blonde lady with kinda curly-permed hair. If you guys still have hair. Do you have bodies? Anyway, her name's Joyce, and she makes a mean cup of hot chocolate, if you guys still eat there. And, um, tell her I'm sorry? About Buffy. Um, and Dawn. And Tara. And everything.
And if you guys know everything, she'll know what you mean. Of course, if she knows everything, she already knows I'm sorry. And if she can read minds, then I could just tell her myself. Which just wrecks the whole poetic-ness of that, doesn't it? I hate being smart.
"They don't look like much," Draco commented, and Willow realized she'd gotten lost in her thoughts long and deep enough that he'd had time to crawl over next to her and peer at the white shapes in her palm, without her even hearing him move.
"What you gotta do is - here -" she grabbed up the stick he'd been poking into the fire earlier, jabbing a marshmallow onto each of its small branches. One of the twigs snapped, dropping itself and its marshmallow into the fire. "Oh, poop!" Willow exclaimed. "Wasted one."
"Wicked," Draco commented, watching the burning marshmallow blacken and expand to three times its original size, white goo oozing out through the cracks in charred outer shell until it collapsed into a pile of burnt-sugar mush. "It hasn't got some sort of engorging charm on it?"
"Nope, they just do that," Willow said, grabbing his hand and folding his fingers around the end of the stick. "Now, you hold them out like this - no, not *in* the fire, just sorta over it - and you wait until they turn sorta brown -"
"Will they blow up too?" he asked.
"They're not supposed to," she shook her head. "You just supposed to get 'em a little gooey and then eat them." He turned and quirked an eyebrow at her. It took her still faintly alcohol-hazed brain a moment to get it, running the words over in her head, and when she did she blushed furiously.
"Gutterbrain!" she exclaimed, slapping at his shoulder. "I should so take points for that! I'm a teacher, you know!"
"Well, you said it," he shrugged. "I'm a teenaged boy, you expect my brain *not* to take that straight to the gutter?"
"You sound like Xander," she said, wistfully, slouching back down in her cloak and sitting her chin in her hands, elbows on her knees. "He liked to blow up marshmallows too. Then he'd stab at them and make them collapse, and say 'Die, evil marshmallow, die!'" She giggled. "And Giles would say something like 'Do stop,' and sound all British. And Buffy would tell him to loosen up."
"You realize I have no idea who any of these people are?" Draco inquired, frowning in concentration as he tried to rotate the stick so that the marshmallows on one side could be roasted without the ones on the other side being melted.
"Yeah," Willow sighed. "Your marshmallows look done."
"And now I eat these things?" he asked incredulously.
"Uh-huh," she affirmed, grabbing one and yelping when her fingers sank into the hot stickiness. She tossed it back and forth between her hands, trying to cool it, and managing to distribute melted marshmallow liberally over her fingers, the ground in front of her, and the tips of her boots. "But don't burn your fingers!"
"Right," he said doubtfully, watching her antics and then very carefully pulling another marshmallow free. He took a delicate bite. "Not bad," he mumbled around a mouthful. "For a muggle thing, anyway." He grabbed another and popped it into his mouth whole, grimacing a moment later, presumably because his mouth was burning.
"Sugar makes all things good," Willow agreed philosophically, trying to lick the marshmallow goo off her fingers. He gave her an unreadable look. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she exclaimed. "I didn't mean - of course, it can't, that was such a stupid thing to -"
"Can you make more of these?" he cut her off, the words rushed together. She stopped. His face had something like panic in it, and pleading.
"Sure," she nodded. "More marshmallows, coming right up."
***
"What are you doing out of bed?" Molly Weasley demanded in a perturbed whisper, shoving several overstuffed stockings behind her back before planting fists on pajama-clad hips and glaring at her youngest son. "No looking at the tree! You'll spoil it for yourself." On the couch, Ginny rolled over in her sleep and muttered something unintelligible. "And you'll wake your sister!"
"'m not looking at the tree," Ron mumbled. "Couldn't sleep."
"Shoo, shoo, shoo!" Molly insisted almost inaudibly, ushering him hastily into the kitchen.
"Sit," she ordered, pointing at a chair, and then turning to rummage in a cabinet. She flinched every time a dish clinked. Ron sat, crossing his arms on the table and sitting his chin on his wrists. A few moments later a steaming mug of hot chocolate was placed, very quietly, in front of him. He stared at it disinterestedly.
"Now," Molly sat down across from him, folding her own arms and laying her head on one elbow, so she was eye-level with her son, "what's wrong?"
Ron shrugged.
"Drink your chocolate," Molly insisted.
"Not thirsty," Ron muttered. Molly sighed and frowned, and waited.
"'Mione hasn't come out of Ginny's room yet, has she?" he said after a moment.
"You know she hasn't," his mother answered. "Give her time, dear."
"It ain't right," Ron protested. "It's Christmas."
"Of course it's not right," Molly whispered back sympathetically.
"It'll be worse for her tomorrow, when all the cousins get here," Ron speculated. "All noisy and happy and . . well, we're a bit much," he said with an apologetic shrug. "And Uncle Ted will get drunk and start singing all different carols all together and then Bethany's triplets will start wailing over something or other -"
"Your Uncle Ted is just -" Molly paused, and then sighed. "Well, alright. Your Uncle Ted is a roaring drunk, I suppose. I guess you're old enough I can say that now." Ron glanced up at her, surprised. "Well, he is, and you are. But don't tell your father I said so."
"He's *your* brother," Ron protested. "Why would Dad care if you called him a drunk?"
"Oh, he wouldn't," Molly shrugged. "It's just your father's been saying he's a worthless drunken lout for the last thirty years now. So he can't know I agree with him."
Ron just blinked at this, and decided perhaps it was best not to comment.
"It may not be so bad as you're thinking, for Hermione," Molly suggested. "Your father and I have been speaking to her mother's sister the last few days, about - things, that have to be settled. Anyway, she doesn't come from a big family. It won't remind her."
"'Course it will," Ron argued sullenly. "Maybe it won't remind her of what she used to have, but it'll sure as hell remind her what she doesn't have now, seeing everybody being all happy together."
"Don't swear," Molly admonished, but without real feeling.
"Sorry," Ron mumbled, as carelessly.
"I offered for her aunt and her cousins to come here for Christmas dinner," Molly told him; Ron looked up in interest - he hadn't known that. "Or for her to go to them. She didn't want to leave, and they didn't want to come. I think they're not very fond of wizards just now, and she's -"
"She's scared to go anywhere, afraid they won't let her come back," Ron finished.
"Yes, I expect so," Molly nodded.
"So she's got nobody," Ron said dejectedly.
"She has us," Molly suggested.
"I haven't been all that nice to her lately," Ron confessed, gaze locked on the tabletop, muttering into his pajama sleeve. "Not that I've been mean or anything, just - you know, we just get at each other. I didn't mean nothing by it. Didn't know she was gonna - I mean, how was I supposed to know -" he stopped, fighting not to choke up, not to cry in front of his mother.
"Of course you couldn't know," Molly said briskly. "You'll just have to take it as a lesson, I guess, that you never do know."
"I was just picking on her about Krum is all," Ron said. "But she got all bent out of shape about it and then I got annoyed 'cause she was acting all high and mighty and not like herself and it just - just turned into this thing, but I didn't mean anything by it. Bloody stupid, really."
"Don't swear," Molly said, softly. Ron nodded against his pajama sleeve. Suddenly he paused, tense, then looked up, eyes wide with inspiration.
"Mum," he said hesitantly, hopefully, "I know we're gonna be real crowded tomorrow, I know we haven't got places to put people as is, but do you think - do you think we could fit one more? If he'll come? If we can get him here by then, anyway, but - do you think we could?"
"Who?" Molly asked, frowning in confusion.
***
"You're patrolling the corridors?" a scandalized sounding voice demanded in a Scottish brogue far thicker than usual. "It's Christmas Eve!" Severus paused mid-stride, turning to quirk an eyebrow at an obviously quite inebriated Minerva McGonagall.
"Someone has to," he suggested dryly. "If no one did, sooner or later the students would catch on, and then it would be a yearly free-for-all on Christmas Eve."
"Oh, heaven forefend!" she exclaimed, rolling her eyes and making an exaggerated dismissive gesture.
"You're drunk," Snape said flatly.
"A little," she admitted with an unconcerned shrug. "I swear Albus puts something stronger in the wine. I only toasted . . three, four times I think . . " she frowned in concentration.
"Thirteen," Snape corrected.
"Hrmm?" Minerva glanced up at him. He sighed loudly, unamused.
"Thirteen," he repeated. "There were no less than thirteen toasts made tonight, and you emptied a glass to each of them."
"Oh, I did not," she scoffed. "Maybe five or six -"
"Thirteen," he insisted.
"Don't you have anything else to be doing?" she snipped at him. "On Christmas Eve?"
"No more than you," he retorted. She sighed then, long and wistful, irritation melting away into a ridiculously fragile expression to be found on such a fierce woman's face.
"Oh, I do," she murmured. "Have something to do, that is. I was just heading up to the Astronomy Tower. Ian and I used to - oh, well, you don't want to know about that," she caught herself, and blushed.
"Oh," Severus grunted in response, pulling his robes around himself and feeling suddenly awkward. Ian was her husband, who had died in the first war with Voldemort.
"'Oh'," she mimicked, grimacing at him. "Don't say it like that. I hate it how no one will talk about anyone who's gone. It's sad, but .. it's more sad not to, I think, and it makes me happy to talk about him," she pronounced rather forcefully. "I don't want to forget. And he wouldn't want me moping about."
"Then why are you going up to the astronomy tower, alone?" he asked. And drunk, he added silently. It probably wasn't the most tactful question to begin with, but he was attempting not to be completely insensitive.
"To say goodnight, and merry Christmas," she explained, with another wistful smile, as if that made perfect sense.
"Ah," he said, nodding along. "Right. Of course." What in the bloody hell does one say to *that*?
"Forget the corridors," she suggested, patting his arm as she brushed past him. "Go find that new professor and say goodnight, hrmm?"
He blinked, blinked again, gaped - and by the time he'd turned around to ask just what exactly she meant by that, Minerva was already gone around a corner, headed up to the Astronomy Tower to wish her dead husband a merry Christmas.
How did she - we've been very discreet, and barely done anything besides - she can't possibly -
Somewhere deep in the castle, a clock began to chime midnight. Around him, the paintings called out holiday greetings. Down the corridor he saw an pair of ghosts float through, too far away to be recognized but hand in ephemeral hand and clearly exchanging well-wishes with the portraits, until they disappeared back through the stone wall on the other side. A nearby suit of armor began a creaky, faintly echoing rendition of 'O Holy Night.'
On the other hand, who blood cares?
Merry Christmas, Ian McGonagall.
Merry Christmas, Narcissa Malfoy - no, Black. Merry Christmas, Narcissa Black. Raise a toast up there for us poor wretched souls down here.
And if I were a redheaded, babbling, religiously eclectic witch, where would I be at midnight on Christmas Eve? He strode off to find out.
***
"Hermione?"
Someone was shaking her shoulders; Hermione whimpered, trying to snuggle deeper down into the bed. She didn't want to wake up. It was warm where she was, and quiet, and blank and empty. She liked it there.
"Come on, Hermione, you have to get up," the voice insisted. "It's Christmas morning."
That wasn't right. The voice sounded familiar, but not familiar enough for Christmas morning. Ginny, that's it. It was Ginny shaking her awake. Not her mum.
Not ever her mum again, because her mum was dead.
Consciousness returned reluctantly, and with it the dull leaden feeling of misery settled back into her gut as if it had always lived there.
"Why'd you wake me up?" she protested faintly. She couldn't put much real ire into it, hateful as waking was. It was just too tiring to care much about anything.
"It's Christmas morning," Ginny repeated. "You have to come down."
What?
It's Christmas morning?
I don't care. I don't care that it's Christmas morning. Why on earth would she think it matters that it's Christmas morning?
Just let me go back to sleep . .
"Come on, up!" Ginny insisted, pulling the covers back off of her. Hermione cringed and curled into a fetal ball, knees tucked up under her chin.
"Cold," Hermione moaned.
"Here," Ginny offered; Hermione had to blink her eyes open to see the younger girl holding out a fluffy blue robe. She struggled wearily to a sitting position, muscles protesting; she reached for the robe with a shaking hand and pulled it around her shoulders, not bothering to put her arms in the sleeves. She tried to lie back down, but Ginny had climbed onto the bed behind her and braced a knee on either side of her hips.
"Want to go back to sleep," Hermione whimpered. I sound like a little girl. I hate how I sound. Weak. Pitiful. Nobody should be pitying me. Not when it's all my fault -
"Not now," Ginny said firmly, and something tugged at Hermione's hair. She winced, putting a hand to her scalp.
"Sorry," Ginny said. "I'm used to straight hair."
"You don't need to brush my hair," Hermione protested.
"You'll do it yourself?" Ginny asked hopefully.
"It doesn't matter if my hair's brushed," Hermione clarified sullenly. Nothing matters.
"Yes, it does, today," Ginny argued, bracing one hand flat against the base of Hermione's skull as she tugged through the tangles, preventing the pulling from causing further pain. Hermione gave up, laying her hands limp in her lap, letting the other girl brush her hair. She could hear other voices downstairs; laughter, shrill and feminine and then deep and booming, and the shrieks of overexcited children. Something down in her gut gave a painful tug at the sound.
Ginny set the brush aside, crawling off the bed and taking both of Hermione's hands in her own, pulling her to her feet.
"I don't want to go down," Hermione curled her arms around herself.
"Yes, you do," Ginny steered her towards the door, hands on her shoulders. Ginny hadn't turned the light on in the room - Hermione preferred it dark - but it was bright in the hallway. Hermione flinched at the light.
"Ginny, I don't want -"
"You can come back up in five minutes," Ginny offered placatingly. "Just five minutes, okay? Everyone's worried."
Hermione relented at that, trudging down the stairs, feeling dozens of eyes turning towards her. Ginny and her siblings were all in robes and pajamas like Hermione; there were dozens more people gathered around the tree, all of them in cloaks still faintly sprinkled with melting snow, most of them with some shade of red hair. There were children everywhere, a madly dashing set of auburn-haired toddlers nearly tripping her as she made her way off the last step. It was colder down in the living room too, with a faint breeze and taste of snow that said the door was still opening and closing, admitting yet more guests.
She spotted Harry's disorderly black hair amidst the sea of red almost instantly, and Ron beside him, both of them standing together near the tree talking to someone else tall and dark-haired. Some of the other Weasley kin had hair that dark, but it tended towards auburn - this person's hair was almost a plain black-brown, not quite the shade of Harry's, but almost. It reminded her -
- and then he turned around.
"Hello," said Viktor, looking somewhere between sheepish and desperately worried. He was covered in a faint haze of soot. Ron and Harry turned too. Harry just grinned; Ron shrugged, and shoved his hands in his pockets, looking at the floor.
"Merry Christmas," Ron muttered.
Hermione made a disbelieving choking sound, stumbling another step forward. Viktor was across the room in two strides, catching her to his soot-stained chest. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I would have come right away but it isn't in the papers in Bulgaria yet, I didn't know until Ron flooed last night, I'm so sorry -" he was muttering over and over into her hair. She didn't much care what he was saying; he smelled of floo powder and Quidditch leathers and last summer, last summer when everything was perfect. She blinked and squinted, and the soot was stinging her eyes, and then she was sobbing.
"I'm making you cry," Viktor said, sounding a little panicked, holding her at arms' length. "Should I not have said anything about it? It's Christmas, you just want me to say Merry Christmas, would that be better?"
"I think it's okay if she cries," Ginny commented dryly from over Hermione's shoulder. Hermione nodded her agreement. Then she pulled back a little, blinking and glancing around. She extricated herself from Viktor's grasp and flung herself on Ron, who made a startled sort of yelping sound before returning her bone-crushing hug.
"Thank you," she murmured into his neck.
"Er, you're welcome," Ron mumbled back awkwardly, patting her back in rather perfunctory way. "You know - you know you're my best girl, right? You're my best friend. I don't care who you date or what the hell you do, you're my best friend."
"Of course I am," Hermione sniffled.
***
I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play
And mild and sweet the words repeat,
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
I thought how as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had roll'd along th' unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bow'd my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."
'Til ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men
***
TBC . . .