Life as it is Lived 3
3 days later, and the group's cupboards were looking extremely bare. Even the freezer, that was usually pretty full was somewhat lacking in food that could be turned into anything resembling a meal. Bits and pieces of things that could and should never be put together. Hermione was searching around the cupboards for her breakfast, and for something to prepare for everyone else, but very quickly realised that a shopping trip was definitely now a necessity, and in any case, they'd have to go out to get food for the coming Christmas holiday.
Sighing, Hermione simply fixed herself a mug of tea and sat at the kitchen table with her current read propped against the milk jug. 5 minutes passed and Severus strolled in wearing his sweatpants and another t-shirt that said, 'Not The Brightest Crayon In The Box Now Are We', each word in a different colour. His hair mussed from sleep and his eyes still droopy he smiled to her then started towards the fridge. Before his hand had even touched the handle Hermione said, "Don't bother Severus, there's nothing in there for breakfast. If we want something this morning either a shopping trip is required rather early today, or going out for food. Regardless of the choice, a visit to Tesco is required at some point."
As Severus sighed Draco and Lucius came in together, not looking as messy as Severus had, but still not quite recovered from their night's sleep. The both of them made the mistake of assuming the fridge held something to eat, and were very annoyed when both Hermione and Severus shattered their dreams. Sighing, Severus said, "Maybe seen as it looks like none of us will be eating anytime soon, we should wait till everyone else is awake then head out to Tesco. Christmas is 11 days away, and we have nothing for the Christmas dinner yet."
After tea and coffee had been drunk by everyone, waking them all up and clothes had been changed, the group gathered in the foyer of the house. "Right, who's going shopping then? There's too many of us for one or two cars so I think we'll have to take them all." Shaking their heads, Albus and Minerva said, "No Hermione, there's no point us going with you too, we'll stay behind and wait for you lot to come back I think." Lucius also said he would not be going out as he wasn't feeling up to going out. He'd suffered massively during the final battle. When his comrades in the Death Eaters had realised his duplicity, he'd become their favourite target and he was still recovering. Nodding, Hermione gathered her coat and her handbag for the trip out.
A short while later found Hermione, Harry, Draco, Severus, Remus and Tonks leaving the house, all set for the trip out. Harry climbed into the driving seat of his dark blue Mazda 6, followed by Draco in the passenger seat and Remus and Dora in the back seats. Hermione climbed into the passenger seat of Severus's black CLS-Class coupe, followed by Severus getting into the driver's seat. Harry reversed off of the drive and started down the street slowly, waiting for Severus to reverse and join him on the street in front of the house. When they were both ready, they started on their journey to the supermarket, just 4 miles away from the house.
10 minutes later they pulled into the car park of the large Tesco Extra, Severus and Hermione arrived there first and parked the car, waiting for Harry and the rest of them to arrive. 2 minutes later, Harry pulled in to the space beside the Mercedes and opened his door. "Severus, did you have to pull that stunt on the road back there? One minute you were behind me, the next you were next to us and zooming past!" Smirking Severus said, "Well Harry, what's the point of having such a big engine at your disposal if you never use!" Harry and the others grinned at Severus. "Do you have a big engine? Or is that car an extension of something?" Remus and Draco sniggered at Harry, but Hermione and Dora looked rather interested and curious to find out. Severus smiled, shut the car door and clicked the central locking before saying, "If you really want to know, my engine is big, loud and you can get as many miles out of it as is required by whoever would like to have a ride." Harry looked horror struck and the girls giggled at the obvious innuendo about Severus's endowment.
They made their way across the car park and to the main doors, Hermione and Harry grabbed a large trolley each on their way in and Hermione put her handbag on the hook just below the handle bar of her own trolley. They slowly began the trek around the shop, starting in the section closest to the door, the music film and books area. Hermione picked up a film from the bargain section called The Day After Tomorrow, and turned it over to read the back cover. Looking over her shoulder, Draco enquired, "The day after tomorrow? That makes no sense. Why would you call a film that?" Smiling at Draco, Hermione put it into the trolley she was pushing and moved on with the others to the fresh fruit and vegetables.
They very quickly decided that Hermione's trolley would be for general use and Harry's was for their Christmas supplies, and namely the Christmas dinner. As they went from aisle to aisle, both trolleys were piling up nicely, mainly the Christmas one. They had decided that instead of 1 large turkey, 1 medium and 1 small turkey would be just fine, one for Christmas Day and one for Boxing Day. Vegetables were a point of argument for everyone, "You can't have a Christmas dinner without roasted parsnips," said Severus and Draco together, getting a bag of pre-wrapped parsnips each and dropping them into the trolley. Hermione sighed and with a frustrated huff said, "Yes guys you can very easily have a Christmas dinner without parsnips, in fact I can honestly say I've never missed them on my dinners and I can't imagine I ever will." Feeling somewhat childish, Severus stuck his tongue out at her behind her back and Remus and Harry sniggered.
Whipping around as she heard their sniggers she said, "What are you two sniggering about? Those are very unattractive noises you do realise that don't you?" This proclamation made them guffaw and hold their sides, as she flushed and huffed away down the aisle. The both of them looked over at Severus as she flounced away and he stuck 2 fingers up at her using both hands and waved them around behind her. Smirking the men followed her round the rest of the aisle, and by the time they had reached the back of the store where the alcohol and other drinks were, there was very little room. Thinking on his feet, Draco hid behind the rest of them and conjured a third smaller trolley for their drinks.
Bottles of Whiskey, Gin and other such spirits were first, and then half a dozen bottles of wine followed that. Getting to the cider section, 2 crates of Magners and 2 crates of Bulmers went in, along with a large bottle of Scrumpy Jack. A dozen diet coke bottles followed by 3 bottles of non alcoholic wine were the last things to go in, and then the group pushed their heavy load down the bottom aisle in front of the other customers and the checkouts. The cues were enormous so Severus very discreetly pulled out his wand and hit a few with a quick Confundus charm, and the queue quickly dwindled as people remembered they needed something else, or went to the next queue for reasons known only to Severus.
Jumping to the now clear checkout, they began with Draco's drinks trolley, as the crates and bottles would be easier to get though quicker. Then the rest of their shopping followed in the belt, all in groups, with non food items first such as cleaning products, washing powders and personal things people had thrown in like deodorant and the like. Next on the moving conveyer belt were the boxed things like ready meals and the occasional frozen thing, with soft fruits and vegetables in the middle, and bread and eggs at the end. Once everything had been scanned, the woman said the total and Severus pulled out his copy of the special credit card they'd all got to pay for things that were for everyone such as food and bills for the house. The group left Tesco, food packed up and ready to go into the car boots. As Severus's car boot wasn't as big as Harry's Mazda, the alcohol and bottles went into the boot of the Mercedes, and all of the food went into the Mazda. Everyone quickly buckled themselves up and the two cars left the car park and started to trip home.
...
The remaining time leading up to Christmas flew past the occupants of Grimmauld Place, but thanks to their diligent work, the house was very much ready for the festivities that would soon come down on them. After finishing the cleaning and sorting out, the house was in desperate need of decorations, and more specifically a tree. Given that the previous owners of the house had been a family of humbugs, all bar Sirius there was very little in the way of Christmas decorations in the house. Not one string of tinsel or a single bauble could be found by the group in the house. They doubted whether Christmas had ever been celebrated in the house, and they were now determined to change that.
They had all decided the night before, during a very nice Indian take-away, that they all needed a good night out, a bit of fun to let their hair down after the effort of scrubbing the house clean. They had all readily agreed, and so the suggestion had been made by Harry that they should all go out bowling for the night. Lucius, Draco and Severus weren't sure what 'bowling' entailed and were just curious. So Hermione was now rummaging through her wardrobe at 5.30 in the evening, trying desperately to find an outfit to wear tonight that would be comfortable, but was also nice enough to go out in for the night. Deciding on a denim skirt, a red check shirt and a nice pair of patent red ballet flats, she placed the clothes on her bed and jumped in the shower.
Once clean and smelling beautiful, Hermione got out and wrapped a towel around her waist. Padding across the floor of her bedroom, she grabbed her wand off of the side table and sat in front of her vanity mirror. Pointing her wand at her hair, she first dried it, and then deciding quickly how she'd do it, she curled it lightly, so that it was more of a lose curl that was easy to keep in style. Dusting it with hair spray, as no spell could do the same as the muggle spray, she began adding makeup to the ensemble. Silver eye shadow with a black liner over the top of her eye and on her water line, she applied her blackest black mascara, and finally I deep red lipstick with gloss over the top. Quickly looking in the mirror to make sure she looked good Hermione declared herself ready, grabbed for her mini black handbag she used for evenings out and made her way down the hall towards the stairs. Meeting Severus and Lucius on the way towards the stairs she smiled appreciatively at their outfits.
Severus was dressed almost solely in his customary black, but instead of hideously boring robes he was in a black and grey striped shirt which was tucked into black jeans with a thick black belt around his hips. As she studied the belt closer she had to stifle a giggle, and he grinned as he noticed she was trying not to laugh, as the large silver buckle of the belt had the symbol for batman on it. "Well, well, well Severus! My muggle humour and culture are rubbing off on you faster than I thought possible." Smirking at Severus, Hermione turned her attention towards Lucius. He was dressed almost exactly the same as Severus, but instead of black and grey, his shirt was black and blue and the buckle of his belt had the CK from Calvin Klein on it. Both men had their long hair tied back with black ribbon and looked most distinguished and handsome. "Well gentlemen, don't we just look dashing tonight" she said, fanning her face and placing a hand on her heart.
Smiling at each other they said in unison, "Well thank you very much my Lady." Smirking they both offered an arm to her and they ascended the stairs together to meet the rest of the group in the large foyer of the house. Looking around Hermione saw that all the men were dressed in a similar way, although Draco and Harry weren't wearing shirts, but t-shirts. In their opinion shirts were for formal occasions and school, not for going out for fun, although Hermione preferred the shirt to a t-shirts as it seemed to accent a man's innate maleness, as when the shirt collar was open and relaxed, a small amount of chest hair could be seen, and they were much more adult than t-shirts. Seeing Lucius and Severus dressed up had only just now made her aware of them as men, and sexy, handsome men at that.
Smirking at her thoughts, she shook her head and said, "Right ok, seen as our three Slytherin's don't know where we're going or indeed what bowling is going to be, I vote we do some sidelong with them just in case. We all want to arrive in one piece to enjoy the night." Nodding their heads in agreement, the group exited the property, walked across the road to a small park, totally deserted of people and very dark. Harry put his hand on Draco's back and the both of them disappeared, followed closely by Remus and Dora together, Albus and Minerva who each had a hand on Lucius's shoulder, and then finally Severus and Hermione were the only two left. "Ready Severus", said Hermione, checking she had everything with her before going. Nodding his head Severus waited for her to put her hand on his shoulder, however, feeling brave Hermione wrapped an arm around his waist and popped them away, before Severus could react to her proximity.