Velvet: Inspiration. It rocks! I LURV INSPIRATION! Enjoy my inspiration/Uprising/Spongebob (Don't ask) induced chapter! (At least the beginning of it was LOL)
Draco: *Sigh* You're weird.
It was December 25th. That day had never really been important to me until now. I walked into the Great Hall, and turned to look at the Slytherin table. They had finally stopped shunning me, though they had done it rather reluctantly. From what I'd heard, Professor Snape had threatened them ten times over. I didn't think that he had to do that just for me, but he did. I saw something hurtling at me though and gasped as it smashed into me.
"Happy Christmas, Draco!" I laughed at her and rubbed my head. She laughed too and got up off me. She held out her hand and I took it, pulling myself up.
"Happy Christmas, Hermione." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me over to where she was sitting. She sat down and gestured to the seat next to her.
"Sit." I took a seat and got some breakfast. I decided on waffles today, and put some berries and syrup on them. I started eating when Hermione started up a conversation.
"So, when are we going to the Room of Requirement?" I looked over at her, thinking about what she'd said. Room of Requirement? I couldn't recall her ever mentioning anything about that to me. She noticed me looking at her. "We decided to spend Christmas in the Room of Requirement because we'll pretty much spend all day there. It'll look odd if you spend the entire day in the Gryffindor Common Room." I nodded in understanding.
"Alright." They talked about decorating, which included a tree, mistletoe, garland, christmas lighting, the whole shabang. I finished my breakfast, and continued to listen to them talk. It all actually sounded pretty nice. For once I was going to have a pleasant Christmas. Then I got to wondering though, who was going to be there? "Besides the four of us, whose going to be there?"
"Well, we thought we'd invite Blaise, since you two have always gotten along," I couldn't help but agree with that logic. "Ginny is going to be there, and I think that's it. It's a small little thing, but I though that would be better." I nodded in agreement, and noticed everyone had finished eating. We all got up, and left for the Room of Requirement.
We walked in, and noticed it was set up somewhat like a common room. There were black sofa's, and a large fireplace. The one thing I thought was peculiar was how high up the ceiling was. That was until I noticed the giant pine tree in a corner of the room. Hermione smiled and pointed her wand at the fireplace. She silently conjured a roaring fire and fell down into the sofa. She stayed like that for a few minutes before Ron spoke up.
"Hey, 'Mione, we gonna decorate soon?" She got a look of realization on her face and before we knew what was happening she was pushing us out of the room. Ron, Harry, and I, all had bewildered faces as she slammed the doors of the room after telling us to return in two hours time. "So... what are we going to do?" It was Harry who thought of the idea.
"Snowball fight?" I nodded along with Ron and ten minutes later we were all outside, snowballs in hand, glaring at each other. No one was daring to make the first move. Then, I chucked one at Ron, laughing.
"You two call yourselves Gryffindors?" They both threw their snowballs at me, and I turned around so my back would take the hits. I bent down for more ammo, and felt another snowball hit my head. I turned and chucked my new snowball at the first person I saw, that person being Harry. "That's for ruining my hair!" I yelled with a joking tone in my voice. I then threw another snowball, this one at Ron.
This went on for a while, before I finally checked my watch. I stared in awe at it for a moment before looking up at harry and Ron. They looked at me oddly before looking down at their own watches. Their eyes widened and the three of us ran back inside as fast as we could, stumbling on the stairs. I went towards the dungeons and Harry and Ron towards one of the towers. We met up in front of the Room of Requirement and the door appeared.
When we walked into the room, we all gasped. Hermione, Ginny, and Blaise were all sitting in one of the black pieces of furniture with mugs of hot chocolate in their hands. There was a coffee table in front of them, with a large bowl of popcorn and a plate of cookies, both charmed to keep warm. The room was glowing with hovering candles, and the firelight from the fireplace. There was garland wrapped around the room, and hanging from the fireplace. The tree in the corner of the room had tinsel wrapped around it, gold and silver baubles hanging on it, and candles in it. The top of the tree had a star that glowed with magical light that changed colors periodically. Under the tree though was what shocked me the most. There were presents piled beneath it! I remembered getting everyone presents, and recognized a few of them as my own, but i had to wonder how Hermione had gotten ahold of them.
"It took some teamwork to get all the presents here, and all the decorating done, but we managed." Hermione turned to me. "I wanted to surprise you Draco. I figured you hadn't gotten a Christmas like this before. Here you go!" She gestured around her and I couldn't help but smile and laugh. It was the greatest thing i'd ever seen.
"It's wonderful." Suddenly, an owl swooped over to the large window. I rose an eyebrow, and walked over to it. The owl was my father's. I let it in, and it ruffled its feathers before holding out his leg. I was shocked to see that it held not only a letter, but a package too. I took them off of his leg and stroked him a few times before bringing him back to the window. I apologized for sending him out into the cold before letting him take off. I closed the window again and turned to the others.
"I think it's a gift..." They all looked at me when they heard that. "From my father..." They were all somewhat shocked at that, but Harry spoke up.
"I thought you two were trying to get along better?" He had a point, but it was still strange. I brought it back over to the couch and stared at it. Hermione nudged my arm. I gave her a confused look.
"Open it!" I laughed a little, and opened it slowly. She gave me a look, as if asking if I thought it was going to blow up. I opened it, and looked at it with wide eyes. It was an assortment of my favorite sweets. I hadn't even known that he knew my favorite sweets. He certainly never seemed like the type to notice. I remembered the letter and picked it up.
Draco,
We wanted to apologize again for how we treated you. We got these for you, even though there's nothing we can do to really make it up to you.
Happy Christmas!
Your Parents
I handed the letter to Hermione and watched her mouth the words. She looked at me and squealed, before hugging me."Draco that's great!" I laughed a little, and tried to get out of the hug.
"Hermione... can't breathe..." She got off of me, and mumbled a quick apology before running off towards the tree. She turned to us and gestured for us to follow her. We joined her around the tree. She began to hand out presents and when everything was out she looked around. Blaise had one present, which was from me, and I felt a little bad. I had a small pile of about eight presents sitting in front of me, which was strange. There were only six of us.
"Who wants to go first?" Blaise offered and picked up the present. I knew exactly what was in it, seeing as it was from me. I'd gotten him a book of spells, that could be good or bad all depending on intention. It was titled Нейтральные Искусства. It was Russian for "The Neutral Arts". I'd snorted at the obviousness of the title when I saw the book but it was perfect. The book had been charmed to read both English and Russian if you tapped it with your wand.
I'd known Blaise since first year, and we'd instantly gotten along. He was neutral, and that was probably why he'd hung out with him. Crabbe and Goyle were just too idiotic for intelligent conversation, and Pansy was... Pansy. You could only take so much of her before your wand was suddenly pointed in her direction.
"Thanks, Draco." He gave me a genuine smile and I smiled back. I knew he'd like it, but thank you's were always nice. Ron reached for one of his packages next, and I realized it was the one i'd gotten for him. He opened it, and gasped. It was another book, since that was all he could trust himself to get, but it was one that was Quidditch related. It had lots of pictures of quidditch players zooming around, and a few of them were even autographed.
"This is awesome, thanks!" I gave him a grin and he seemed to be resisting the urge to hug me. I watched as Harry opened his present from me, which was a book on Dark Arts. He gave me a confused look.
"I figured, if you've got to stop him you might as well know what you're up against." He nodded in understanding and then Ginny opened hers. Hers was something i'd had a bit of difficulty with. I didn't know Ginny very well, so I decided to go with a nice quill and parchment set. It was a peacock quill, and a very nice one.
"Thanks Draco, it's lovely." It looked, and sounded, genuine. Then, Hermione opened hers. Hers was a book set. I'd been out shopping and had found a set of three defensive magic books. One book was on protective charms, one was offensive spells, and one was defensive spells. They went into full detail, and the spells were better than anything they taught in school. I had figured that Hermione would appreciate the set the most.
"This is amazing! Thank you!" I just sort of nodded. Then she gestured to my pile of presents. "Open yours! All of them!" I gave her a look and she nodded. I just shrugged and reached for the first present. I opened it, and immediately knew who it was from. It was a book of spells. It could only be from Hermione. I opened the book and skimmed the spells. I looked up.
"Thanks." I still wasn't used to receiving presents like this. She gestured and I reached for the next package. It felt as though it held some kind of material inside. It probably did, but I thought that was a little strange. Then I noticed Ron had his head in his hands and Ginny had turned her head away. I arched an eyebrow and opened it. Ron looked up, saw the present, and turned as red as his hair. The present was a green sweater, and it had silver intertwining with the green. It reminded me of what I usually saw the Weasley's wearing on Christmas day.
"She's made you a Weasley sweater..." It was Ron that spoke, but both him and Ginny looked like they wanted to crawl in a hole and die. I didn't understand why though, it was a nice thing really. I could never recall either of my parents going through the trouble of making me something. Everything i'd ever gotten was bought. I draped the sweater over my knee and looked at Ron and Ginny.
"Tell your mum I said thanks for the sweater." Ron nodded and I reached for my next package. It was also from Ron's mum. It was homemade fudge. I tasted some and nearly fainted, it was so good. I was really regretting ever saying bad things about the Weasley family, they were nothing but nice. "And the fudge too." Ron nodded again and I reached for the next package. I opened it, and inside there was a box with a triple W on it. I figured it stood for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. I figured it was from Ron, but as it turned out it was from Harry.
"It's a basic set of their Defense items. It's got quite a bit in there, there should be a letter in there. You can look at it later though." I nodded and thanked him before reaching for the next package. It was from Ginny, and it looked like something she'd made herself. On the front of the book there were the words Things Witches Wish Wizards Knew. I looked up at her, and she was blushing a little.
"Can we talk in private later?" I nodded at her.
"Um... sure." I wondered what that was about but moved on to the next present. I opened up the package and saw a Russian book. It was a little known fact that I spoke fluent Russian, but Blaise knew. It was pretty much tradition that we get each other Russian books charmed to read in English and Russian for any occasion. It was the closest thing to receiving gifts that i'd ever had until this year. 'Никогда не дайте вверх' was its title. It meant 'Never Give Up'. I looked up at him, and he smiled sheepishly. "Thanks Blaise." I moved on to the next present, which was from Ron. I opened it, and it turned out to be some more Weasley's Wizard Wheezes products, but these were more for pranking.
"Cool!" I looked up at Ron, and grinned. "Anyone want to prank someone with me after winter holiday?" Ron, Harry. and Blaise nodded eagerly. Hermione was shaking her head, and I figured she was wondering when they corrupted me. I just laughed a little and grinned at everyone. There was one last present, and it turned out to be from Professor Snape. It was a book on Legilimancy. (A.N. I probably misspelled that...) I made a mental note to thank him later and looked up at everyone. They opened their presents, and we all went over by the fire. We were sitting around the fire when Ginny sent me a look. A door appeared in the corner and we went through it.
"It's about the present I got you."
Velvet: OMM! I can't believe how quickly I cranked this out! *Passes out*
Draco: OMM? What's that... oh you're passed out... *Points wand at Velvet* Ennervate.
Velvet: Mucho thankies Draco!
Draco: So... what's OMM?
Velvet: Oh My Merlin!
Draco: *Facepalm*