AN: Sorry guys, apparently something went wrong with the update where people weren't able to read it. Please let me know if the issue is fixed now!
December 23rd—The Tenth Day of Christmas
It was the day before the Christmas Eve party and Hermione and Remus had set off for the streets of London, Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley for some last-minute shopping. The weather had gone drastically downhill overnight, the temperatures dropping so much that their skin began to sting when outside in the wind for too long. Not ideal weather for shopping, but there wasn't much they could do to prevent it.
They had decided to get the muggle shopping out of the way first, so they started off in downtown London. Sirius had given Hermione and Remus a wad of Muggle cash (which he told Hermione was his reserve for when he was in the mood for a 'less magical' one-night stand), as well as a handful of galleons, and gave the pair the task of buying a large cartful of booze. With that in mind, Hermione made a mental list of all the different drinks they would need present at the party:
-Butterbeer for the general population
-Ogden's Old Firewhiskey (lots of it, mostly for the Weasleys)
-Rosmerta's Mulled Mead (for the older guests in attendance)
-Rum for the eggnog
-Brandy for Hagrid and Mundungus Fletcher
-Wine for Madam Maxime and Fleur Delacour, and perhaps a little for Hermione as well
-Christmas cocktail for the younger adults (Audrey especially, who was known to drink herself into a stupor on holidays)
-Alcohol-free punch for Angelina and the kids.
Oh yes, it was bound to be quite the party thanks to Sirius' generosity. She couldn't wait.
Hermione and Remus found their way to a muggle liquor store where they proceeded to spend a generous amount of Sirius' cash so that about half the list was completed. There were so many bottles that Hermione and Remus were forced to apparate home to drop it all off before they continued their shopping.
Next, they were on the hunt for some party foods. The couple wandered down the streets of London, huddled close together and eyes squinting from wind, searching for any sort of convenience store or the likes where they might find some crisps and food platters.
Hermione loved Muggle London at Christmas, all the decorations and lights giving it all a really cozy feel, despite the bitter weather. Hermione noticed many advertisements decorating lampposts and store windows for various Christmas shows and ballets, including The Nutcracker, A Christmas Carol, and some strange play that displayed a picture of about ten men leaping their way across a stage. Hermione had no clue what it was, but it looked rather silly to her.
They found all the Muggle foods and drinks that they needed, but by that time Hermione had started to shiver.
"What do you say we apparate to Hogsmeade so we can stop for a butterbeer?" Remus suggested, pulling her against him in an attempt to warm her up.
"Sounds great!"
Getting butterbeer was a great relief from the cold. Hermione couldn't help but gulp down nearly half her drink in one go, relishing in the feel of the warmth spreading all the way to her frozen fingers and toes.
Just as Hermione was about to pull her chair up beside Remus' so they could snuggle a little, a familiar-looking witch approached them.
"Remus! It's so good to see you! I hear you're hosting a party tomorrow. I'm planning on swinging around to say hi to the rest of the Order if that's alright with you!" she said in an overly-friendly tone. Perhaps it was because this was the first unmarried woman Hermione had seen talking to Remus since they started dating, but she was suddenly feeling a little protective. Based on the rigidity of Remus' back as he talked to the Witch, Hermione felt as though she had a good reason to be a little territorial. The Witch hadn't even acknowledged Hermione yet.
Seeming to realize this, Remus introduced them. "Hestia, this is Hermione Granger. Hermione, Hestia Jones. You were both a part of the Order, though I don't believe you would have had much occasion to meet."
"Oh, that's where I know you! You were that little girl who always tried to snoop on the Order meetings with all the Weasley children that one summer! Not only that but the infamous friend of Harry Potter, as well. I'm sorry for not recognizing you before now," she laughed, and Hermione couldn't help but feel like the Witch used the words 'little girl' on purpose, almost as if to remind Remus of how young she was. Oh yes, this Witch was without a doubt into Remus.
"Yes, that's me. I also happen to be the other host of the party tonight. Remus and I are both living in Grimmauld Place together, so we thought it would be nice to host the party together. Feel free to bring a plus one tomorrow if you do come," Hermione added with fake congeniality.
"Oh, well I'm afraid there's no plus one in my life if you know what I mean," she winked at Remus. Remus' posture grew even stiffer, and in that moment Hermione almost forgot why they were keeping their relationship a secret. She had the strong urge to loudly announce her claim on Remus Lupin to the near-empty bar.
"Well that's a shame," Remus said politely, and Hermione was glad to see Hestia's smile falter for a split second.
"Remus, I think it's time we got going. I don't want to be out for much longer and we still have to finish preparing the house for the party," Hermione half-fibbed, eager to get Remus away from this Witch.
"I think you're right, Hermione. We ought to get going. Nice seeing you, Hestia," Remus smiled, gathering his belongings and leaving Rosmerta a generous tip on the table.
"See you tomorrow! Oh, and nice meeting you, Hermione!"
Hermione plastered a smile on her face and nodded her head to the Witch in acknowledgment.
As soon as Hermione and Remus were out of the bar, Remus huffed out a little laugh.
"I hardly see anything funny about what just happened, Remus Lupin, so you'd better have a good reason to be laughing…"
"Oh, believe me, I do," Remus said, smiling affectionately down at Hermione, who was tugging on her gloves angrily. "Do the words 'protective is hot but jealous is hurtful' sound familiar to you at all, by any chance?" he chuckled.
Hermione's eyes widened in realization before narrowing again playfully. "Oh, shut up, you. You saw how she was basically slobbering all over you. It was plain as day, and at least you were able to tell Sirius off last night. I could do nothing but glare at the woman! I swear, as soon as the holiday season is over and I don't have to worry about any awkward meetings with Ronald Weasley, I will make it common knowledge to all witches and wizards that you are taken," Hermione growled, seizing Remus' hand possessively in hers.
Remus grimaced sheepishly. "I'm afraid the slobbering might be my fault. She and I…well we had a relationship of sorts after the war ended."
Hermione's gut clenched almost painfully. "Relationship of sorts?"
Remus nodded. "She was grieving, I was grieving. The depressing atmosphere made the transformations worse, and sex helped. She was a nice girl who knew of my condition and wasn't repulsed by me, so she helped me out—but it was never anything more than sex," he added hastily, seeing the hurt and insecure look on Hermione's face. "Well, at least for me it wasn't. I'm not interested in her at all now that I have you."
Hermione looked down and let a small smile creep its way onto her face. "Good. But mark my words, if she so much as looks at the mistletoe longingly, I'm going to hex her into the new year."
"Don't worry, love. I believe you," Remus laughed.
The next hour of errands went pretty smoothly, and Hermione and Remus had finished buying the snacks for the children from Honeydukes and the wizarding liquors from Hogsmeade. Only a few more stops in Diagon Alley before they could go home and snuggle up by the fire, perhaps with a little more jealous sex. Hermione's gut clenched pleasurably just thinking about it. With the full moon about a week and a half away, Remus' lycanthropy symptoms were beginning to show a little more, especially when they were having sex. She was delighted to discover that Remus was much more inclined towards rough sex in interesting places when the full moon approached. It was utterly fantastic.
At one point, Hermione's cell phone rang in her pocket. She didn't have much use for it, but she had bought one for both Harry and Ron after the war just so that they could always have a way of communicating, even when Floo and owls were unavailable. Remus looked startled by the noise but knew enough about muggle communication devices to figure out it was a phone that Hermione was fumbling with through her gloves.
"Remus, can we go inside somewhere? I need to pick this up. This might be an emergency," Hermione frowned worriedly.
Remus nodded quickly, ushering Hermione into the shop nearest them. Not even bothering to take in her surroundings, Hermione flipped her cell phone open and answered with a slightly panicked "hello?"
"Hermione! I need your help right now. It's an emergency!"
"Ginny? Is everything okay? You're using Harry's phone…is Harry alr—"
"Oh, don't worry, nobody's hurt. I just need a favour from you. It's urgent. You said you would be going to Diagon Alley today?"
"Yes, I'm in Toat Alley right now…you know, that street we wandered together with the others a week ago." Hermione's brow furrowed in confusion. Why was Ginny talking on Harry's phone? She was honestly surprised that her friend could figure out how to use it, to begin with.
"Oh, perfect! I'm currently looking after little Molly and Lucy right now while Percy and Audrey are out visiting Audrey's parents. Harry's also out doing some last minute shopping, so I can't leave the kids. I forgot that I needed to pick up some photos from a shop in Knockturn Alley before they close for the holidays. They're Christmas presents, so I really need them. Do you think you could pick them up for me? Pretty please?" Ginny begged.
"Sure thing. Do I need to pay for anything?"
"Nope. It's all prepaid. But you will need to pick out some frames for each picture for me, so maybe you can keep me on the phone and I'll tell you what sort of frame I'd like for each picture?" Ginny suggested.
"Sounds alright to me, only I'm going to have to call you back once I get to the shop. It's too cold to keep talking on the phone outside."
"Alright. The shop is called Phoenix Photography. It's near the end of the alley. You can't miss it. Call me when you get there."
"Okay, bye," Hermione replied, flipping the phone shut. She was absolutely not prepared for the sight that awaited her when she turned to Remus.
Hermione had been so distracted talking to Ginny that she hadn't realized what store she had walked into. Turns out, she had been standing in the entrance to the same lingerie store in which Hermione had been held hostage by her friends nearly a week ago. What were the odds?
And then Hermione's eyes fell on her boyfriend, who looked so far out of his element that he seemed ready to run and hide. Hermione was feeling exactly the same way at the moment. God, it was like they were made for each other!
"I swear I didn't bring us in here on purpose," Remus muttered, his face red with embarrassment.
Hermione chuckled embarrassedly. "I know you didn't. Let's get out of here before the traumatizing memories start coming back to me."
They hastily exited the shop, both not wanting to be there longer than was necessary. Once they felt they were far enough away from the shop to stop being so shy around each other, Remus cleared his throat.
"Do I even want to know what you meant by 'traumatizing memories'?"
Hermione laughed bitterly. "I was essentially kidnapped by a bunch of Weasley wives and had a bunch of products from that shop forced into my possession the other day, hence the pile of lingerie that you caught a glimpse of the day after."
"Oh, that's too bad. I was hoping you were putting on that fashion show in your bedroom in the hopes of seducing me, rather than just to try them on…" Remus fake pouted.
"Well, I'm not saying I expected you to knock on my door that early in the morning, but I certainly wasn't too disappointed with the events that followed," Hermione smirked.
"Believe me, I think knocking on your door that early was the best decision of my life," Remus laughed.
They both made their way to Knockturn Alley, and soon enough stood in the cramped entrance of the shop. Hermione approached the desk and asked the owner for Ginny's order. The owner seemed nice enough, but there was something just a little bit off about him. Hermione couldn't quite tell what.
While the owner was going to fetch some samples of frames, Hermione pulled her cell phone out of her pocket again. She motioned for Remus to open the package of photos for her while she dialed Harry's phone number. Turning away and pacing across the small room, she waited for Ginny to pick up. Suddenly, she heard Remus inhale sharply, then make a strangled sound of horror.
Hermione turned around in time to see Remus dropping a small pile of photos onto the counter and cover his face with his hands. Having a feeling that she knew why Remus had been so shocked, Hermione picked up the stack of pictures. Her jaw dropped. It was a boudoir photo shoot, most of them featuring Ginny naked as the day she was born in various sexual positions. The one on top of the stack was a side-shot of Ginny arching off a bed in pleasure, her chest fully exposed and some silk sheets draped over her hips to hide her more private parts. Hermione could see why Remus was so horrified. Even she, who had on more than one occasion accidentally walked in on Ginny and Harry going at it in places they shouldn't be, was embarrassed to see such a thing.
It was then that Ginny decided to pick up the phone. "Hey, Hermione! You got the photos yet?"
"Yes. Remus and I opened the package already. Remus and I saw the contents of your photos. What the hell, Ginny? You couldn't have warned me?!" Hermione screeched. Remus still hadn't removed his hands from his eyes, still hadn't made a noise other than embarrassed whimpers.
"Wait, Remus is there with you? I thought you were alone!" Ginny said, doing a bad job at stifling her laughter.
"Ginny Potter, I am going to kill you when I see you tomorrow!" Hermione screeched shrilly into the phone just as the shop owner came back into the room with the frame samples.
"Okay, okay, I get it. Let's please move on to the pictures. I need them framed for Harry's office at home. Can you pretty please with a pepper imp on top help me out?"
Hermione very nearly growled. "You owe me big-time for this, Ginny," she said before turning to her boyfriend. "Remus, maybe you should go next door and check out the used bookstore? I'll join you once I'm done."
He looked all too eager to get out, which made Hermione smile. Oh yes, it would be hard for this wizard to ever break her heart. She got a really good one.
"Alright, Hermione. Please describe the first picture for me," Ginny began.
Hermione's eyes widened in horror. "No way, Jose. That was never a part of the deal! I will not be describing these pictures to you. Just tell me what sort of frames you want and I'll find them for you."
"But Hermione, I can hardly know what sort of frames would look good with the pictures if you don't describe the pictures to me. I'm honestly going to be largely relying on your ability to choose nice frames for me, as it'll be kind of hard for me to imagine them without actually having seen them."
Hermione huffed exasperatedly. She was going to have nightmares for weeks. She approached the desk and picked up the first image.
"Alright. You're shirtless and arching up off a bed. What sort of frame do you want?"
"Hmmm…I was thinking perhaps a black one to make it pop a little more. That one was one of my favourites."
And so it went on like this until Hermione had picked out a frame for every photo. This had probably been the worst experience of her life, and she considered Ginny lucky that her Christmas gift to Hermione had resulted in some of the best sex of her life. Some of the pictures had been truly awful, for example, the one with Ginny bending over a chair, the camera focusing on her bare arse and quim. Another had been a picture of Ginny tied up to the headboard of a bed with a vibrator stuck between her legs. Hermione hated that the pictures were moving, but she thanked Merlin that they were silent. Otherwise, there would be a lot of moaning noises filling the small shop. It would have been awful.
Just as the owner was about to start wrapping the gifts, a thought struck Hermione. "Uh…Ginny? Where are you going to put all these photos when you have visitors? And what will happen when you have children?"
There was a very long silence before a very embarrassed-sounding Ginny replied. "Funny you should ask that because I haven't really thought about any of that yet…" there was another pause where Hermione could feel the anger bubbling up inside of her, "maybe getting frames isn't such a good idea. Maybe I should be buying an album instead?"
"GINNY WEASLEY I SWEAR TO GOD WHEN I SEE YOU TOMORROW, YOU CAN KISS GOODBYE YOUR [insert many swear and curse words here] AND BLOODY VOYEURISTIC [and a few more here as well]…"
About five minutes later, Hermione was practically dragging Remus out of the bookstore and back home so she could let off the rest of her anger in a way that would be pleasing to the both of them.