Merry Christmas everyone!
A gift-fic for Ash Juillet, an amazing writer and beta.
Prompts:
(dialogue) Are you sure your family can eat that many cookies?/What? No, these are just for us.
(setting) a cottage in the mountains
(plot) Walking through the snow, Person A surprises Person B with a snowball to the face.
"Are you sure you won't be able to come back?" Ron asked. The flames don't help the tension in his voice disappear. "I mean, I need you to come back. Viktor and Lavender have taken to drinking competitions and won't listen to me."
Hermione tried to stop laughing. Ron's biggest problem with the holidays was the lack of control that he had over Viktor and Lavender's silly challenges. One a quidditch legend and the other a werewolf, whom together got along like a fire fuelled by gasoline.
"Have you tried giving them cooking jobs, like your mum used to make us do? Also, there is no way I can get permits to Bulgaria this late," Theo said moving closer to Hermione.
While staying in their tiny mountain cottage for the holidays was not something either Theo or Hermione had wanted to do, there were a couple of time-sensitive projects that were at crucial stages. Travelling wouldn't make any sense.
Ron tried to look understanding before his face morphed into anger as something crashed behind him. "I don't get it. It's like there is a single functioning brain-cell between them when they are together."
A whistle went off in the background. An indication that the potion timer had gone off. Hermione waved to Ron and left Theo kneeling at the fireplace.
"We have to go now. I have a wand that needs staining and-"
It was Ron's turn to laugh. "Go, I'll try to see if I can't figure out travel permits to come to you all, at least for New Year's." Ron turned around to raise his voice. "DON'T YOU DARE EAT RAW EGGS, LAVENDER. I don't care that your immune system protects you…"
With that, Ron disappeared from the fireplace and Theo had to stop the urge from Floo-calling again. Ron would be busy trying to wrangle the sugar high's Viktor and Lavender was renown for. While Theo and Hermione usually spent the holiday season outside of their cottage on the mountains, it wasn't the case this season.
There had just been too many wand projects and between the two of them, work had piled an irresponsible amount. Their small home was filled with sketches and very few of those sketches had been actualised.
Hermione was slowly painting a potion stain of an eleven-inch baobab, filled with unicorn hair, that she had been working on for months. The house smelled of wood shavings and that usually wasn't something that Theo bothered to notice.
Their home was a place of creation and work. It allowed for them to be as reclusive as possible while still churning out wands. Their social lives hinged on holiday interactions. Still, it seemed irresponsible to go anywhere this year.
After the War, a lot of old wandmakers had left the business without passing on their trade. It was a mystery how either of them had managed to secure Ollivander's approval. While "Granger & Nott" was a young business, the Wizarding world was always stronger when it had a variety of wandmakers to choose from. Besides the last World Duelling Champion had won with one of their wands, so "Granger & Nott" were getting there.
"How many do we still have to do before we can take a break?" Theo asked, almost forty-eight hours later.
Hermione looked up. Her face was a mixture of disgust and shock, at the idea of taking a break. She blinked before looking around their home. It looked like a tornado had made itself at home and nothing was where it usually belonged.
"We need to clean first, don't we? Also, twenty more possible combinations before June."
Theo scrunched his face. Wand creation was such a volatile branch of magic that it didn't react well with house-cleaning charms. Hermione continued "And we have to make cookies."
Theo groaned. It was an awful tradition in his family, that Hermione was determined to carry on. He had hoped that this year it was a tradition she would have forgotten, as the rest of his family had. But the tradition was important to Hermione and if she remembered it, he would do his best to fulfil it.
"You clean," Theo said, "and I'll get started on the kitchen and biscuits."
It wasn't that Hemione was terrible in the kitchen. She just didn't have the patience required for cooking or baking. Hermione didn't say much apart from muttering about how lovely it would be to own a vacuum cleaner. They had been married for five years and every conversation around cleaning had Hermione wax poetry about genius Muggle inventions for tidying up.
The rest of the day passed with a stillness that their home rarely possessed. Creating wands, as with living life, was more noisy than quiet. Within those deeply meditative, yet repetitive, moments of cleaning, hanging up decorations and filling the home on the mountain (their home on the mountain) with the smell of the warm winter spices.
As the day slowly grew darker, the way only winter days could, Hermione stepped back with a grin. Yes, their house still looked like a tornado flew through it- but it did look a lot cleaner. Theo's pile of cookies had gone from simple sugar and shortbread to, what was definitely, three different batters and twelve timers.
"Are you sure your family can eat that many cookies?" Hermione asked, swiping one and physically having to stop herself to go for another.
Theo cringed. "What? No, these are just for us." He took out another tray. "My gran would literally rise from the grave if I gave out practice round biscuits as presents."
Hermione rolled her eyes. The trial-and-error approach that Theo worked on had never made sense to her. Maybe it was because she only undertook a project once she understood the theory of it and applied that to most of the stuff that she did do.
They got out of the house that night. As usual, Theo was hunting for some more obscure component to add to his wands and Hermione just wanted to be outside. She regretted not spending more time outdoors during her time at Hogwarts. Inevitably, Hermione spelt the first snowball and immediately Theo followed up with one he had prepared. He never would have imagined at Hogwarts that Miss Hermione Granger had loved the juvenile activity of snow fights, in the cold as the sky got dark.
Theo grinned and held Hermione's hand after they had showered off the cold. For him, it was still hard to believe that any of this was real. That they had made it past the war, through apprenticeships and were slowly creating a name for themselves as "Granger & Nott". Christmas alone would suck this year, but they had wands, love and each other. Which was more than enough for most people.
A/N: While I am nowhere near rom-com and romance writer genius the way Ash is, I hoped to at least write a story with a pairing I had a feeling they would enjoy.