Hello Everyone!

Welcome to my first entry for the 2022 H.M.S. Harmony Discord Server Advent Fest! Today's prompt is "Harmony's first Christmas together," which I took to mean their first Christmas as a couple, since what's more romantic than getting together on Christmas! (Except, Harry's bad luck remains ever-present and Ginny is a bad influence, so there is plenty of awkwardness to go around too!)

I wrote absolutely way too much for this prompt and spent too much time on it, but this story has been floating around on my list of ideas for a few months now, and I wanted to do it justice. I think I pulled it off, but sometime I'm definitely going to need to study for my finals, so we'll see how long I can keep this type of writing up.

As always, the usual "no own, no money, no sue" and "I write computer code for a living so please be kind" disclaimers apply, and this was not beta read to get this out quickly for you all. If you have any feedback, whether it be things you love or (kind) constructive criticism, I'd love to hear it. Also, this was written instead of sleeping, and edited instead of sleeping, after a week of not getting enough sleep, so if you find any mistakes, please just let me know in the comments and I'll fix them once my brain turns back on again.

With that, though, I leave you to enjoy!

Best,
OfLegosAndDragons

Ginny was the sister that Hermione had always wanted as an only child, and she usually enjoyed their brunches whenever Ginny was back in town from her Quidditch adventures. As much as she adored Harry and Ron, there were some things that were nice to talk to another girl about, particularly when it came to anything emotional. (Hermione was happy to report that Ron, after much personal growth, now had the emotional range of a tablespoon, but that, try as she might, one of her dating criteria was now that any potential suitors must have at least the emotional range of a ladle.)

That being said, there was a limit to the amount of both Quidditch talk and romance talk that she could tolerate in one sitting, and her work as an unspeakable didn't really give her a whole lot of topics of conversation for a casual brunch. Therefore, she figured she'd pick the lesser of the two evils, tease Ginny about the latest string of boys and girls the paparazzi had caught pictures of her snogging, and then they could moan about how stupid the Daily Prophet was still and lead into inquiring about how Luna was doing with the Quibbler. She figured that at least with this, she'd be able to avoid the play-by-play details of Ginny's latest Quidditch match.

"… and this cute green-eyed guy at the bar kept buying me these weird fruity cocktails, which is definitely not my usual style, but they were surprisingly good! But he just kept watching me from his booth and flushing every time I looked over at him and never actually came over, so I finally said 'screw it' and figured that I could approach him myself with my best strut…"

Hermione had forgotten that ever since Ginny had been more thoroughly studying sports commentators as a back up plan for if she ever got hurt, her entire life now came with a detailed play-by-play view. It also served to remind Hermione about how she was in a bit of a dry spell at the moment regarding her love life. And by that, she meant that her love life was entirely a desert other than a small puddle with Ron and a few drops of dew clinging to a cactus for the chaste little kiss Victor Krum once gave her on the cheek after the Yule Ball and the one she gave Harry in Kings Cross after his awful fourth year. Not that she was in any hurry to date or anything, but she still kind of thought that maybe having the option of someone who was interested in her would be nice. But no, apparently her intelligence and status as a war heroine were "intimidating" and made guys feel insecure around her. Meanwhile, Harry, who had personally killed the evilest wizard of their time at least 3 times and was literally the "master of death" (not that he advertised that fact) was fighting off girls with a stick (also literally that one time when he was carrying a confiscated cane hiding an unregistered wand). It just wasn't fair. Not that she expected it to be, and not that she wanted to be fighting off boys with a stick herself, but just one person being interested in her would be nice for a change.

"… and then I met this French guy at the winery, and he had the most tousled hair I have ever seen, and it looked so soft that I just HAD to touch it, so I bought him a new glass of champaign and we got to talking…."

Fine! She would admit to herself (yet again) that by "just one person" she really meant "only one person", who also happened to have tousled hair that she really wanted to see how soft it was. And also happened to have green eyes, and a rather distinctive lightning bolt scar. But she'd been over this at least once every year since her third year at Hogwarts, and, clearly, he was just a friend, or he would have said something. He'd been very clear about his crush on Cho and then Ginny to both her and Ron, but never actually said anything about having feelings for her. And then one fangirl too many coming after him had appeared to turn him off dating entirely, and Hermione was not going to damage her friendship with Harry by letting herself get added to the list of girls he'd had to turn down.

"… and I have never met a girl nearly as talented as she was with her tongue! She managed to startle a moan out of me just by… Hermione, are you even listening?!"

Bollocks, she'd let herself get distracted by thoughts of Harry again, and totally missed a large part of Ginny's speech. "Of course I am! You were talking about the girl you met with the…" Ginny's last words started finally sinking in for Hermione, and her face started to flush without her permission. But she couldn't stop now or Ginny would know something was up. "… talented tongue who made you moan…" Never mind, her face was now the same color as Ginny's hair, and she let herself trail off there waiting for Ginny to complete her thought.

"Honestly, Hermione, get your mind out of the gutter! She made me moan by running her tongue along the roof of my mouth when we were snogging. But clearly if you were thinking of something else, you need to get laid. When was the last time you even got a kiss?"

"Well, it's not like anyone is lining up to kiss me like they are for you or Harry, and certainly not like they are for your brother." Hermione was somewhat pleased at Ginny's rather obvious eyeroll at her perhaps a bit more disdainful than she intended mention of Ron's current dating habits. Not that there was anything wrong with Ron dating around (it's certainly not like Hermione had any say in that, or interest in him anymore), but she was pretty sure that Ron had spent more time attached to some girl's mouth than he had breathing in the past few months, and her tolerance for watching people inspect each other's tonsils in public had not gone up that much since Ron's initial stint with Lavender.

"Yes, yes, Ron is rather distracted at the moment and not super discrete, but that's old news. You still haven't made a move on Harry yet though?"

Hermione just gaped at Ginny for a second, which probably just confirmed any doubts that she might have had, but finally managed to blurt out what she wanted to believe was a perfectly decent defense: "No, of course not! We're just friends!" Ok, not the most original, but it'd force Ginny to move on, and change the topic, right?

"Of course you are. And that's why you only got your 'distracted by a random thought' face when I mentioned green eyes and wanting to run my fingers through someone's tousled hair."

Hermione didn't have much of a reply to that, and cursed herself for not having a poker face when she started thinking about something.

"I expected that you'd have said something after I mentioned strutting after the guy at the bar, since clearly you'd be the one to make the first move and would want to share it, but…"

"Not all of us are leggy, gorgeous Quidditch players with the confidence to go up to some guy and ask him out, or the coordination to strut without tripping over their own feet." Hermione wasn't a huge fan of how much softer Ginny's voice got with her last statement, or how her own was lace with a bit more longing than she wanted it to be.

"Harry thinks you hung the stars, Hermione, and you two are already close enough that if you give him a nudge to show you are interested, I'm sure you'll just fall in together without any issues. Oh! I know! You can give yourself to him as a Christmas present! We can find you some cute little ribbons to wrap you up in, and maybe a few bows to add a sense of mystery and draw him in, and he'll be falling over himself for you! I bet you'd look absolutely stunning in red…"

"Ginny, there is no way I'm going to wrap myself up in just some ribbons and leave myself under the tree for Harry. Now tell me, how is learning the wonky-feint going?" Sure, her voice was a bit shriller than she intended and the change of topic was not subtle at all, but Ginny seemed to realize that she was done with romance talk for the day, and that was good enough for now given that her face had gone straight to scarlet. Honestly, Ginny, who'd ever do that? Certainly not one Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age, and a strong believer in planning things out rather than just jumping in and hoping for the best. She left that to Harry. And with that, she put the thoughts of both Harry and ribbons out of her mind, and focused back on Ginny again.

December 24th saw one Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age, racing from store to store to see if anyone had ribbons and bows in stock still. Particularly thick ribbons and rather large bows, because as much as she couldn't get Ginny's foolhardy suggestion out of her head, she still did have a little bit of modesty. When she finally found a store that had some, she bought almost their entire stock. And she was very proud that she was able to just nod along and kept her blush under control when the poor teenage sales clerk stuck working Christmas Eve made a comment about her doing some last-minute decorating. She was doing some decorating all right, but not quite in the same way the clerk was implying. With that, she set an alarm for way too early in the morning to go sneak into Harry's flat, and settled in for a short nap that definitely wasn't filled with dreams of Harry wearing some ribbons for her….

Upon waking up and confirming that she did indeed get up early enough to pull off her plan, Hermione dragged herself out of her nice, warm bed, gave Crookshanks a few scritches behind the ears as he immediately moved in his sleep to take up the space that she had just vacated in the bed, and started rummaging through her wardrobe for the suitably Christmas-dinner-appropriate dress she had purchased a few weeks ago after confirming that she'd be at the Burrow for Christmas dinner. As much as she was going to be showing off for Harry (she still couldn't believe she was actually going through with this), she also figured that trying to go through the floo in just a few ribbons would not end well for her modesty. Besides, she was relatively certain that Harry had an invite to the Burrow as well, and regardless of how things went with him that morning, she figured they'd probably leave for the Burrow together from his place, so it just made sense to dress for that ahead of time. And not because she was dressing in something festive enough that if she got cold feet part way through, she could quickly change her plans and act like she never had anything else planned.

Hermione had a minor panic moment at how bright the floo was when she arrived in Harry's flat, but when he didn't appear to wake up and investigate, she breathed a quick sigh of relief, then set about implementing her plan to surprise and impress Harry. Which… she could start after she admired Harry's tree, since clearly there was no time crunch to start her plan, and the tree was in urgent need of admiration. And that was definitely not just a procrastination tactic since the first part of her plan involved stripping down in her best friends living room while he slept. Honestly, this probably didn't even make the top 10 list of "the weirdest things she'd done for Harry over the years" list, which featured such gems as "growing cat ears and a tail", "riding a hippogryph", "changing the space-time continuum", "setting a professor's robes on fire", and "becoming a boy for a few hours". Somehow, however, this felt a lot more personal than anything else she'd done though, except for maybe the last one. She was a Gryffindor though, and would not chicken out now that she was here. So, after steeling her resolve, she shimmied out of her dress, then stripped out of her underwear and shoved them all under Harry's sofa. Right. She was committed now. Now to figure out how to make something that resembled a bra and knickers out of only some ribbon and a few bows.

All things considered, for having not practiced in advance and trying to do it in the minimal light provided by Harry's Christmas tree so not to wake him up prematurely, she was pretty pleased with the results. It covered everything that it needed to, and was probably about the same as a rather revealing swimming costume preferred by the girls over on the continent. Also, the ribbon was rather silky rather than the scratchiness she feared, which was good since it was pressed up against pretty much all of her most delicate parts. Finally, she added some bows over the parts she wanted to make sure stayed covered up, and she was all set. With that settled, she just needed to tuck herself under the tree, strike up an alluring pose, and wait for one Harry Potter to wake up.

Hermione quickly realized a minor flaw in her attire that she overlooked: her bum was rather exposed, and pine needles from a Christmas tree poking one in the arse is not comfortable. Which is how she found herself rooting through Harry's cupboards (wearing only some ribbons), trying to find where Harry kept his spare wrapping paper. After finding it stuffed in the pantry next to the cereal and a collection of random potion ingredients (honestly, Harry!), she had an important decision to make: did she want to use the bright crimson wrapping paper with little golden lions on it, or the green wrapping paper with little stars. On the one hand, the lions were a little on-the-nose (and about the same level of subtlety she'd come to expect from Harry), but the green didn't match her ribbons even if it might be slightly less awkward than having little golden lions covering her exposed arse. Ultimately, however, she went with the lions anyway, since she was hoping that Harry wouldn't even see it if all went well, and the green would probably draw his eye more. With that, she set about making her ribbon-thong have a little bit more coverage in the back to fix the persistent pine needle poking problem. With that fixed, she tucked herself back under the tree, and set about using her spare time while waiting for Harry to get up to add a few more artistic ribbons to her attire.

Finally, she heard the sounds of Harry rustling around in his bedroom that indicated he was getting up. With one last move she stuck a bow in her hair, performed one final check that the ribbons and bows were still fully in place, and struck up her alluring pose again to wait for Harry to leave his bedroom. After what seemed like forever, he finally did, and as soon as he rounded the corner and caught sight of her, his mouth dropped open and he froze, just staring at her. Hermione didn't mind at first though, since she was way to busy staring at Harry. She had mentally prepared herself to hold it together in the face of Harry's sleep-mussed hair, an old t-shirt, and some flannel pajama pants. She was in no way prepared for the sight of Harry dressed up, if you could even call it that, in emerald green ribbon similar to how she was dressed. Her eyes tracked up and down his body, following the lines of his ribbons and muscles. She kept finding herself getting drawn to the short little skirt that Harry had apparently made out of the green wrapping paper she found in his cupboard that was preserving his dignity (she supposed that his modesty probably would not be very well preserved with a bow like hers was), and, apparently, the little green bows he had over his nipples. Hermione wasn't quite sure where the thought came from, as she'd seen both Ron and Harry shirtless before and never paid their nipples any attention, but now that Harry was covering his up with little bows, she wanted to lick them. As she finally dragged her eyes up to Harry's face and head, she noticed the little green bow in his hair as well, and how all of the green ribbons were unfairly making his eyes (that were always so beautiful to begin with) pop even more. Hermione felt herself lick her lips.

When he just kept staring at her, however, Hermione started to feel a touch of embarrassment creeping in. She'd been so focused on the outfit she hadn't even considered doing anything with makeup. What if Harry wanted her to wear makeup for this? And she hadn't really fixed up her hair at all, and the last time she caught Harry staring at her hair was the Yule Ball. Should she have tried to straighten and style it for this? And, oh dear Merlin, speaking of her hair, when was the last time she shaved? Maybe he wouldn't notice if he just stayed looking from across the room, then, surely, she could sneak into the floo, shave, and sneak back before he noticed, right? Finally, the embarrassment got too much, and Hermione crossed the arm that wasn't currently supporting her body weight across her chest, only to feel the very distinct feeling of ribbons shifting and the bows falling on the ground, leaving her modesty entirely protected by her arm. And, of course, that was what snapped Harry out of his stupor, right as she started willing the ground to swallow her up.

"I must be dreaming. There is no way the real Hermione would ever be interested in me enough to wrap herself up like a Christmas present for me, no matter what Ginny said."

That was not at all what Hermione was expecting. Before her brain caught up with her mouth, she blurted out "then I must be dreaming too, since there is no way that the real Harry would ever see me as more than just his childhood best friend." Hermione instinctively went to cover her mouth before realizing that doing so would expose her chest to Harry, and froze before he could see anything more than she already intended for him to.

Before she knew it, Harry had pinched himself, his eyes lit up even more, then he was racing forward and pressing his lips to hers. Without even thinking about it, she wrapped her arm around his neck to pull him closer, then rolled over a little bit so that he was practically laying on top of her while she deepened the kiss, desperately seeking more. Before she knew it, Harry was adding some tongue, and she retaliated in kind and tried licking the roof of his mouth. The groan he let out above her and the subsequent press of his bulge trying to escape its wrapping paper prison against her bows and ribbons was divine. Finally, the need for air became too much, and Harry gently detached himself from her lips so they could both gasp in the oxygen their bodies had apparently temporarily forgotten they wanted.

"So… I'm feeling like I missed a few steps here, but, Hermione, will you go out on a date with me?"

Just when she thought she couldn't love this boy any more, he had to be all sweet and ask her out on a date first even though they were literally mostly naked and lying on top of one another. And if it was anyone else, she probably would have just said yes and started getting dressed again so they could plan their date before taking things any further, but this was Harry. This was the boy who fought a troll for her when he was 11. This was he boy who she'd been friends with for almost a decade by now. This was the one who she'd been hanging out with 1-on-1 in pretty much all of her free time since Ginny and Luna started traveling for work, Ron got himself a string of girlfriends, and Neville went back to Hogwarts to work on his Mastery in Herbology. This was the man who she had weekly meetups with at the cinema to show him the movies he missed during his childhood. This was the man who dragged her out to eat after a long day of research. This was the man who had supported her unconditionally in pretty much everything she did for as long as she could remember. Suddenly, Ginny's comments about how much Harry cared about her seemed less of a projection of Ginny's own romantic world view, and probably closer to reality than Hermione ever dared imagine. And with that, Hermione supposed there was only one answer.

"Of course I'll go on a date with you, Harry, you only ever needed to ask. Although I do hope we get to finish unwrapping our presents first, right?"

Harry must have had a similar thought process to hers, since she was able to see the different emotions flicker across his face before he got a big, dopey grin and kissed her again. Hermione was going to take that as a yes to unwrapping their presents first.

When her mum sent her to check on why Harry and Hermione were late to Christmas Dinner at the Burrow, Ginny jumped at the opportunity to flee the endless piles of potatoes that needed peeling. Instead of Harry and Hermione lounging on his couch and totally ignoring the obvious chemistry between them, however, she saw a trail of red and green ribbons, bows, and wrapping paper going from the tree and down the hall toward Harry's bedroom. She couldn't suppress the smirk that spread across her face. They actually took her advice after all! With that, she popped back over to the Burrow to let everyone know that Harry and Hermione were enjoying their Christmas alone together after all….

Is it weird to say that the hardest part of writing this story for me was trying to figure out if I needed to describe the bows? Like, I very clearly pictured them like a big poofy ball of ribbon with the little sticky tape already on the back which would provide a decent amount of coverage, but there are so many ways to tie a bow that I think the one most people think of is the one with the two loops and the two tails? I don't even know at this point. Thank you again for reading this! Best,
OfLegosAndDragons