"Memo to Sirius," he said, leaning against her door after he shut it behind him. He allowed his head to loll back and tap the wood quietly. "Don't let Hermione have a drop at the party."
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Ginny loved the new house. It was beautiful. It was perfect. Harry knew exactly what they would require as a couple, together, newlywed, and he had gotten it for them.
The home sat placidly near the sea; far enough away that they could not smell the ocean from their home, but close enough that, if they listened very closely, they could hear it. It was set on remote stretches of the greenest grass in England; their closest neighbors were half a mile north of them… their neighbor to the south, they had not yet visited, but was another plug-in to the Wizarding world, having an already Floo-connected fireplace. The house was three stories tall, made of stone, and with an airy feel during the day, and a nice, homely feel at night. Each room echoed within itself, although not into the other rooms… which would be useful, Ginny thought with a blush, if they ever had children.
Ginny was seated in the kitchen; it was probably her favorite room. She was terrible at cooking, despite her parenting, but the beauty of this little room almost convinced her to give the trade another good try. It was the warmest room in the house—which was why Ginny occupied it most of the time during these cold months—with delicately painted white walls. Ginny and Harry had painted the walls before their wedding, and enjoyed doing it so immensely that they had put on five or so coats. It was blindingly, alarmingly white, although that could hardly be seen. Hung all over were utensils for cooking, framed posters and newspaper clippings, old photographs, new photographs… Ginny's favorite, at which she stared now, was a Muggle picture of Harry as a child (Dudley, the foreground of the picture, had been cut out), sidled next to a wizarding photograph of an infant Ginny.
There was the sound of the front door opening, and Ginny ran into the front room, expecting to see Harry coming through the door and all ready to throw herself at him and kiss him. Instead, however, the top of a rather large evergreen tree was being shoved unceremoniously through the small door, with Harry's impatient grunts at the other end. Ginny laughed, grinning and almost crying from the humor.
Harry finally got himself and the tree through the door, and, sweaty and covered with pine branches, stepped through, throwing his arms out wide.
"Honey, I'm home."
Ginny grinned, looking at the tree. "Oh, dear… you shouldn't have."
"I went out and cut it myself… I feel so manly." Harry said, pulling Ginny into his arms. She kissed him and pulled back.
"Did not. You bought it… admit it."
Harry grinned. "Alright, you caught me. I was going to cut one down, but would you believe there isn't a single one on our property?"
Ginny laughed, and pulled Harry down for a more intimate kiss; when he pulled back, she could tell her felt rather dizzy, and pulled away, wrapping an arm around his waist. She waved her hand at a stack of newspapers on the couch and said, "Those are the Daily Prophet's we missed on our honeymoon. If I were you, I'd look through them, to see what we missed."
"Where were they yesterday?"
Ginny laughed. "Right there. We'd just missed them."
Harry moaned; he grabbed the top two off the stack and followed Ginny's urgings into the kitchen, where he plopped down at the table. He unfolded the bottom-most paper, but his eyes trailed elsewhere, to the ribbon-tied invitation on the table.
"What's that?" He asked, gesturing at it.
"This?" Ginny lifted it, and shrugged. "An invitation to mum's Christmas party. We can bring whoever we want as a date. I was thinking about asking Draco Malfoy…."
Harry laughed and narrowed his eyes, allowing his new wife to kiss him swiftly. "Thanks, dear, I'd love you go with you." He murmured against her lips, and she laughed.
"I'll go set up and decorate the tree, then," Ginny said, ambling off into the living room, pulling her wand from her pocket.
Harry looked down at the front page and saw a familiar sight, although one he had not seen in years upon years; a mug-shot of Sirius Black, looking frightened and angry, was pasted across the front.
Harry frowned, feeling something odd at the back of his eyes, making him bat them quickly. "What is it now?" He wondered aloud. "Why won't they just leave him alone?"
Despite his anger at the newspaper, he began to read the article.
Sirius Black, once thought murderer but now legally pardoned and reported deceased, is not having so restful a death as one might hope, writes Tarin Fields, Special Correspondent. He is back from the beyond, and, sources say, shacking up with the only proven necromancer of our age—now twenty-three year-old Hermione Granger, who brought him back.
"The entire thing was well hushed-up," reports an anonymous Ministry official. "Nobody knew Granger was going to do it." When asked why she would want to do such a thing, nearly all opinions point to that such as stated by this very official. "Fame. She wanted to be the only one who had done it before… and, let's face it, she got it, didn't she?"
Things, however, may have changed since Granger awakened Black, 46. Insiders report that there may be a hidden romance behind closed doors.
Healer Bones of St. Mungo's, who treated both Granger and Black after a mysterious fiasco at the Ministry (full report on page 12) says this about the relationship between the two: "There's nothing to say. I don't know where you people come up with this. They were both treated… Granger woke up first, and went immediately to her home by Floo, 'cause she was too tired to Apparate. Black did the same." A nurse on duty, however, claims that, when Black Flooed away, it was to Granger's flat, and not his own. The other two living people involved in the matter at the Ministry, Remus J. Lupin, 46, and Draco Malfoy, 23—both unharmed in the incident—were interviewed about the matter.
Lupin states: "Pardon me, but I don't believe it's any of your business…."
Malfoy states: "You really are a bundle of prats, aren't you? Merlin! I mean, the first recorded act of necromancy has just been committed—probably one of the deepest and most difficult magical happenings—a huge educational artifact has been destroyed, security breached at almost the deepest level possible in the Ministry, and an old convict is dead! And what do you care about? Some damn love story? Leave me alone, you morons!" Mister Malfoy also said several other things which the newspaper does not care to print. For details of both Malfoy's and Lupin's involvement in this inquiry, turn to page 12.
Harry blinked at the paper. He could not believe his eyes, what he was reading in. Sirius… back? He tried to convince himself it was all a mistake, that they had gotten it wrong somehow. He did not want to get his excitement up. Somehow, however, he found excitement welling inside of him, pooling silently, and, his heart pounding in his brain heavily, turned to page 12.
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Today, nothing could surprise Draco Malfoy.
His sight had, by and large, come back already, although he had to squint to see what it was that the very small, very familiar owl had brought him through the window. It was a small envelope, wrapped in a ribbon, with the words 'Draco Malfoy' scrawled across it. He untied it from the owl, which immediately flew away. Finding his seat on the couch, he lay back onto it and quickly undid the ribbon around the envelope, sliding the letter inside out carefully.
He put on a lent pair of reading glasses to peruse what turned out to be an invitation—Draco's first invitation to a Christmas party in which people did not celebrate instead the birth of the Dark Lord (even though the exact day had been forgotten, the Death Eaters had figured that Christmas was as good a time as any to do so). He smiled at the paper. He was not forgotten, after all. Even though the writing on the envelope was Molly Weasley's, Draco had a feeling that it was more Remus Lupin that had to do with Darco's receiving the invite.
Draco had just decided to finally go back to the Malfoy manor—in order to find something to wear—when he heard a heavy knock on the door of his small, seaside cabin.
Raising his eyebrows (as there was nobody who would willingly visit him that came to mind readily), Draco answered the door.
A little out of focus, Harry Potter stood in the doorway. Draco pulled off his reading glasses to make double certain; there was no mistaking that hair or that scar. Potter smiled a little.
"They told me you lived here… we're just north of you."
"Wonderful." Draco moaned dramatically, waving Harry inside and shutting the door behind him. "I could think of no one that I would better prefer to be my neighbor, truly. Now… pray tell, why are you here? To use my fireplace to Floo? I would have imagined that you would have learned to Apparate by now…."
"I can. That's not what I was doing." Harry smiled, a full-fledged grin… one Draco had not seen since their school days. "I was going to check in on you."
"Check in on me? How kind of you."
"I don't remember you wearing glasses."
"That's probably because I didn't."
"Oh. Mind if I sit down?" Harry plopped onto the couch. Draco rolled his eyes.
"I suppose, seeing as there is no stopping you." Draco now sat in a full armchair, facing Harry, and gave his best attempt at a smile. There was a long silence, after which Draco finally sighed and spoke, a little irritated. "Don't let me cramp your style. Speak whenever you feel like it."
"It's about this," Harry began, procuring a newspaper from seemingly nowhere and waving it about. Draco could not quite read the headline, but he had a guess which article it was—Black's portrait was on the front. "And you, Lupin, Hermione, and an old photo of Pettigrew on page twelve." Harry added, with a smile as Draco put his glasses back on again.
"Hmm," Draco sighed, flipping halfheartedly to the said page. "Not a flattering picture. I look a bit peaky."
"Ferrety, I'd say." Harry added.
"What did you want, Potter?" Draco snapped, rolling his eyes and leaning back in his chair. It was tremendously comfortable.
"I wanted to know if that—if what that states and what you said in it—" Harry's voice trailed off, but came back strong, "—are… true."
Draco flipped back to the first page slowly, crossing one leg over the other and perusing the print knowingly. "Let's see… Pettigrew is dead. Black certainly does seem to be back, and staying at Hermione's—don't worry, he's on the couch, I believe." Draco added, at the look on Harry's face. "But the rest they got wrong, I think. First of all, I'm twenty-two, not twenty-three yet. Also, they're wrong in saying that Lupin and I escaped unscathed. I'd like to see them blinded and such-like and still be unscathed." Draco said darkly. He paused, then sighed. "And it seems, at least to my knowledge, that it didn't leak to the press what doors really were opened that night at the Ministry of Magic."
Harry raised his eyebrows. "Doors? What doors?"
Draco smiled. "I have a feeling it's going to take a while to tell this story. Please, do make yourself comfortable."
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Not for the first time in her lifetime—and, most likely, not for the last—Hermione woke up in strict belief that morning came far too early.
Amazingly, her head did not hurt. That is, it did not hurt while she was completely immobile. The second she attempted to sit up, a dull pounding echoed. She could remember everything from the day before. She had not been incredibly drunk, at least, after two shots. It was a relief to hear that she could at least hold that much liquor.
She dressed and ambled out to the kitchen for breakfast. She had not yet decided whether she should pretend not to have remembered what had happened the day before or no when Sirius came in, wearing only a pair of pajama pants, and yawning, grinning like a loon.
"You were out most of the day yesterday," he remarked, patting her on the head as he passed her up and started heating the stove. He rooted about for a pan, and placed it on the heat.
"I know," Hermione sighed. "I was tired. I see you cleaned my room… thanks."
"It's alright." Sirius said. "French toast sound good to you today?"
"Sure," Hermione said. There was a long silence, in which Sirius got frustrated at how long it took the oven to heat the pan and surreptitiously tapped it with Hermione's wand. Hermione, watching Sirius make the mixture into which the bread was to be dipped before cooking, sighed a little. "Listen, Sirius… about yesterday. I'm really, really—"
"That's alright." Sirius said immediately, cutting off any apology Hermione was going to offer. He did not, however, care to expand; Hermione blushed a little as she wondered what, exactly, he had been expecting her to apologize for. There was another silence, after which Sirius said, "And it is I who should be apologizing."
"Whatever for?" Hermione raised her eyebrows, but her heart was beating wildly inside of her. She knew it was coming—for leading her on, he was going to say. He had been leading her on, was all. He had no idea how much he had hurt her….
"For ever taking you to that awful house." Sirius said, shaking his head slowly. "It's a dreadful place; all the worst things happen in there. It's filled with hate and angst and—I'm sorry again. I'll never take you there again."
Hermione's heartbeat, if possible, sped up, became even wilder. He had not said he was leading her on. Perhaps… just perhaps… he though the she was the perfect date, as well.
Smiling, Hermione accepted a piece of French toast and ate it merrily. For some inexplicable reason, suddenly morning seemed to have come too late, to have taken too much out of her long day, shared pleasantly at Sirius's side.
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"Yes, they are… but you'd best not bother them, dears." Mrs. Weasley said with a knowing smile. Ginny and Harry both put on instantly defensive expressions.
"But I'm her best friend—"
"Hermione can always talk to me—"
"—And his godson, besides—"
"—And I want to see Sirius, too!"
Mrs. Weasley shook her head at their protests. "No, darlings… they need peace of all things right now. Ask Remus… he spoke with both of them, and it was by his decree to re-route all Flooing to Hermione's over here from your house. I have, however, invited them to the Christmas party… so you can see them then. In the meantime—maybe you can help me decorate for the party?"
Harry and Ginny exchanged looks. Harry sighed.
"I guess we don't get to see her, then." He said, and Ginny pouted in return. "May as well stay and help decorate…."
Ginny half smiled. "Well…" she heaved the greatest of great sighs, "I suppose so. I'll hang the mistletoe."
Harry chuckled. "I think I can help you with that…."
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AN: Hello all again! Ah! Christmas season is here, so I'll try to pump out a few more chappies for the lot of you in celebration of that! I hope to get done w/ Christmas in the story before I have to leave my wonderful internet connection behind.
If you enjoy these stories, please look at my Christmas wish list: Reviews! and links to other really good Hr/S fanfics. I love all of you! Sorry to have taken so long, and I hope you enjoy...