Chapter Six
"Seems like your parents fancy us together," whispered Draco into Hermione's ear. Hermione giggled, but then hit Draco discreetly in his stomach. Draco let out a gasp.
"Shut up, Malfoy," Hermione said under her breath.
"Are you joining us for dinner, Draco?" Hermione's mother asked. Hermione's eyes widened.
"No," Hermione and Draco spoke at the same time. Draco coughed.
"No, Mrs. Granger, I really need to go home to my parents, but thank you for the offer."
"Oh, well another time then."
"Another time," Draco repeated. "Merry Christmas, 'Mione." Draco now had his eyes on Hermione only. Hermione realised how wonderful his eyes was. It came as a surprise to her every time their eyes caught each other. They were so blue.
"Merry Christmas, Draco. I'll see you next month," spoke Hermione, and formed a smile on her lips.
Draco smiled back at her, and then left to find his parents.
"Nice boy you have met there," Hermione's mother spoke with a smirk. Hermione rolled eyes at her mother, and walked towards the brick wall that lead to the Muggle world. The world Hermione lived in, but did not belong in.
Her mother asked her questions about Draco Malfoy on the entire way home luckily, they did not live far away from King's Cross.
Her father pulled up the car into the driveway of the house Hermione had always lived in -well, except when she was at Hogwarts.
Hermione rushed out of the car, got her suitcase and Crookshanks, and ran up to the front door. She felt twelve again. As was she just arrived back from her first year at Hogwarts. But she was way older than twelve, and she was in the middle of her sixth year.
She took a glare at the garden. It was covered in a white, thick layer of snow. Typical England. Hermione smiled with the memories of running around in the snow when she was younger. She used to play chasey with her father. They never did that any-more.
Hermione picked up the spare key from under the first pot-plant to the left. The flower in it had died since Hermione had last been here, but her mother had not yet thrown it out.
She locked herself in, and stepped into the small hall. The walls had been painted light blue. Hermione smiled. That was a project her mother had been going on and on about for years, and now it had finally happened.
"Welcome home, darling," Hermione's mother said, and kissed Hermione on the cheek. "Did you miss us?"
"Of course she did!" Hermione's father interrupted. He, too, kissed Hermione on the cheek. The family had spent many vacations in France, so the cheek-kissing had become a normality.
Hermione chuckled. She walked up the stair case, and found way to her room. It was very simple and empty. Hermione spent the most of her time at Hogwarts, and did therefore have all of her stuff packed down in her suitcase. Hermione placed Crookshanks on her bed. She sat for a while and played with it while her thoughts were dancing around in her mind.
That night at dinner time Hermione told all kinds of stories from Hogwarts as she always did. She had, though, never mentioned Voldemort, The Chamber of Secrets or any other disasters.
"What about Harry and Ron? I have forgotten to ask you how they are doing. Such nice boys.." Her mother asked all of a sudden. Hermione had been fearing this questions, and had been relived that her mother had not yet been asking it, but she knew she could not avoid to answer.
"They're.. doing well, I suppose."
Both Hermione's mother and father sent her strange looks.
"What do you mean with 'suppose', Hermione? Are you having a row with them?" Her mother all of a sudden looked very concerned. Hermione had neither mentioned any feuds with anybody to her parents. That was why they did not know about Draco, how cruel he actually was and always had been towards Hermione.
"Well, sort of. It's nothing big, just Ron being a complete.." She could not finish that sentence. She was mad at Ron but she did not feel like she could call him names. Somewhere deep beneath they were still friends after all. She hoped.
"I told you to mingle with some girls too, Hermione," her mother said. She had been after Hermione for only being friends with male creatures for such a long time.
"I have! Girls just don't like me. I mean, I have one friend, but she is Ron's sister," she explained.
"Oh, Ginny. What a nice girl. You should invite her over sometime."
"Her mother don't let them out of the house during Christmas, only to Diagon Alley. She prefer that they all spend every minute together."
"Sounds like a.. protective mother. You could give it a try, Hermione. The worst you can get is a 'no'." Hermione rolled eyes at her mothers always positive view at things.
"Molly is a great mother, actually!" Hermione was close to yelling. She cared about the Weasly's and did not want anyone to talk bad about them.
"I did not say she wasn't," her mother pointed out. Hermione could feel that she had a hard time controlling her temper so she felt the table.
What was wrong with her? She got in a row with everybody; Ron and Harry, her two best friends, her mother.. The only person she could actually stand being nice to was Draco Malfoy, and that confused her.
The next few days went by with silence and tons of snow. Hermione got up every morning very early and went for a long walk in the neighbourhood. She watched the snow fall from the sky to the ground, and did once again, as she had done so many times since her childhood, wonder how it was made. Of course she knew the geographical way, but she had always thought there must be something more behind it..
On Christmas morning Hermione went for another one of her early walks. The snow looked even more enchanting that morning. Might been because she could hear Christmas music stream out from every single house she walked by, or maybe it was because everybody she ran into wished her a merry Christmas, even if she did not know them. That was the kind of merry Christmas wishes she loved the most. Why? She had no idea.
She liked being among Muggles, but of course she preferred wizards. She had enjoyed spending Christmas at The Burrow some years. It was thought always full of drama, and it was nice with a quiet Christmas for once.
Hermione locked herself into the house once she got back. She could hear her favourite Christmas song playing in the living room, so she knew her parents would be up by now.
They had not really been saying much to each other since their little row at the dinner table. Hermione missed having conversations with her mother, and she had been feeling quite lonely lately, but she could not make herself forgive her mother for talking trash about the Weaslys.
Hermione took off her snow covered coat and boots, and walked into the living room.
"Hermione, darling," her mother gasped. "Merry Christmas." Hermione was surprised with her even speaking, but it was Christmas after all. Maybe her mother meant it was time for them to leave it all behind.
Hermione nodded as a thank you. "You too." She walked straight into the kitchen to make herself a cup of cinnamon tea. That was her very favourite kind. It had a special warmth about it, and reminded her of Christmas.
Hermione's mother had already prepared breakfast for them. When her father arrived after taking a shower they sat down and ate. The silence all of a sudden felt less awkward.
"Oh, Hermione, an owl arrived for you!" spoke her mother. She got up from her chair, and picked up a letter in a white envelope from the kitchen table. She handed it to Hermione.
The envelope was a tiny bit of dirty from travelling through the snow. The font on the envelope did not look in-recognizable to Hermione -the person had never before written to her.
She turned the letter in excitement, and opened it slowly. The envelope contained a letter written on a fragile paper. It was written in cursive, very beautiful handwriting actually.
Dear 'Mione.
I will forever wonder if this letter will actually make it to you because of the weather, and my owl is not in the best shape. I think my father uses it too much. Anyway, why do I find myself handwriting a letter to you this late at night? I do not know. Something in my mind just wanted to. Well, I hope my family will not catch my letter before it is sent. That would open up a lot of questions that I seriously have no intention to answer.
How are your parents doing? They both seem lovely. Let your mother know that I truly regret not being able to join you for dinner.
Merry Christmas, Granger. Take care.
Malfoy.
Hermione read the letter through twice in disbelief of what it said. She thought somebody was pulling a trick on her. Maybe Ron? It could bloody look like him!
In both anger and confusion Hermione left the table and rushed up to her room. She quickly found parchment and ink, but then.. she realised she had no idea what to write. Or if the letter was even from Draco. It would look quite stupid if she sent him a letter, and it turned out to be one of Ron's tricks. Maybe that was exactly what Ron wanted her to, look stupid.
Hermione put down her pen and sighed. She decided not to reply the letter, and wait to see how Draco was acting around her when they got back to Hogwarts.
"Who was the letter from, sweetie?" her mother asked as Hermione went back into the living room. She had hid the letter from Draco under her pillow. That was the only place she was certain her mother would not be looking.
"Ron," Hermione lied, "he invited me over for dinner tonight."
"Oh, ain't that a lovely idea? Then you also have a chance of becoming friends again!" her father spoke.
"You say I should go?" Hermione had assumed that her parents wanted to have her home for Christmas dinner.
"Yes, I think you should go. It would be nice for you to spend some time with Harry and Ron, to make things all right again." Hermione tried her hardest to make up an argument to why she should not go. She had not been invited to The Burrow, so it would be strange of her to show up.
"Go get the things you need and you can travel with floo powder right away!"
Hermione sighed. There was no way out of it. She had to go. Well, at least pretend to be going. Her parents would not be aware of it if she travelled somewhere else, as The Three Broomsticks. She could easily spend the night there, pretending to be at The Burrow.