A/N: Hello! This chapter contains three things the others don't: Harry, snot and Christmas. Please welcome the new additions to the Sunday family.
Talking of the latter, I hope you all had a good one. If you don't celebrate it then I still hope your 25th December was jolly anyway. Have a fun new year, folks! See y'all in 2013!
Disclaimer: J.K Rowling didn't give me the Potter publishing rights for Christmas. I know. I'm shocked too.
"Oi!" Ron hissed as he hoisted the large bag he was carrying more securely onto his shoulder. "Watch what you're doing with that thing!"
Behind him, a large collection of pine needles, baubles and tinsel rustled angrily.
"Sorry," came Harry's frustrated voice from somewhere inside the tree, "it's kind of hard to see where I'm going at the moment."
"Just be more careful. You keep shoving it up my arse!"
"What arse? Anyway, who says I'm doing it accidentally?"
"I will push you down the stairs in a minute..."
The boys' argument dropped to a whisper as they approached the third floor landing of Grimmauld Place. It was Christmas morning and, along with his usual childlike desire to rush downstairs and rip open his presents, Ron had woken up with an ingenious plan. And so, he had crept up two floors to Harry's room to secure a partner in crime. Admittedly Harry hadn't entirely appreciated being woken up at seven in the morning, but it hadn't taken long to get him on board. Half an hour later, they stood outside of Hermione's room, silently trying to work out the best way of executing the final stage. A lot of shuffling, pointed glares and stood-on toes later, Harry used the bottom of the tree to barge the bedroom door open, the two of them barrelling in after it and then promptly falling over.
Ron quickly righted himself in time to see his beloved fiancee scream, scramble up in bed and point a wand directly at him.
"Merry Christmas!" he shouted as shock changed to recognition on Hermione's face. She looked around at Harry placing the tree securely in the corner and the presents spilling out of the bag Ron had left on the floor and sneezed.
"What are you both doing?" she asked thickly. She fumbled a pack of tissues on the bedside table before blowing her nose.
"Couldn't have Christmas without you," Harry chuckled.
Hermione frowned as Ron upturned the bag of presents in the vague direction of the tree. Even though there were dark circles under her eyes, her hair was everywhere and her nose was red, she still looked beautiful to him. Years ago Ron would've laughed at the idea. In fact, even now he thought he was clearly barmy on some level, but he had stopped caring about things like that. He had simply accepted that even when she was bunged with a cold like she was now and clearly a haggard mess, she looked beautiful to him.
"I am capable of going downstairs," Hermione huffed.
Harry snorted in response as he straightened the tree decorations out. "Yeah, but this way you get to stay warm and get presents," he shrugged.
As was expected, Hermione didn't take kindly to people suggesting she wasn't capable of doing something. "This is insane," she hissed. She pulled the covers back and went to get out of bed, but sneezed again instead. Immediately Ron was at her side, forcing her back into bed. She complied, but not without a glare.
"It's just a cold," she told him stubbornly. Ron ignored her and just fluffed her pillows up before she sat back against them.
"Hermione," Harry sighed, now neatly setting the presents out under the tree, "don't make me have carried the whole bloody tree up here for no reason."
"But -"
"Please?" Ron pleaded. He took one of her tiny hands in both of his and tried for his winning smile. "I promise we won't eat Christmas dinner in bed, but you have to rest up, love."
"I can't have you sneezing on the roast potatoes," Harry added.
Ron gave her hand a squeeze and silently hoped that she would cave. She had spent the past few days being ill and Ron had tried his best to stop her carrying on as normal and get some rest. However, never one to sit idly by, especially at a busy time like the build up to Christmas, Hermione had continuously ignored him. It had lead to a few minor arguments, but Ron usually won. As much as she tried to deny it, Hermione was ill after all.
Now, she looked from Ron to Harry, clearly fighting the urge to carry on resisting their idea. Eventually, after staring at the tree for a while, she finally smiled.
"Thank you," she whispered, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Ron shook his head in amusement. It always bemused him how she got all emotional over such silly things.
"No problem," Ron said quietly before he leant in to kiss her. To his great surprise, Hermione pulled back with a grimace.
"Ron, don't," she sniffed. "I'm disgusting."
He shrugged. "I don't care."
Again he tried to kiss her but she placed a hand on his shoulder to push him back. "I don't want you getting ill as well."
Ron sighed and shuffled a little bit closer to her. "In theory this is the only Christmas I'll be able to kiss my fiancee." He tried to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, but his finger got caught in it. Instead of drawing attention to this, Ron buried his whole hand in the curls as though that had been his intention to begin with. "Don't rob me of that."
As soon as he had said 'in theory', Ron expected to have messed everything up and receive a swift blow to the side of the head with a pillow. To his great surprise, the pillow wasn't turned into an impromptu weapon and Hermione's frosty exterior melted into the smile that never failed to do something weird to his heart.
"Fine, but-" Hermione glanced over at Harry, who still had his back to them. "-no tongues," she mouthed.
A goofy grin found its way on to his face as Ron pressed his lips to her slightly chapped ones. Of course, it wasn't long before he had ignored her instruction. It was Christmas after all. Much too soon, Hermione had pulled away.
"That it?" Ron complained, making her giggle.
"I can't breathe through my nose, Ron," she replied with a roll of her eyes. "That's it or I pass out."
Ron figured kissing her in short intervals was better than not at all so he kissed her again. Even though he knew this couldn't be healthy, Ron doubted nothing, not even the presence of snot and germs, would stop him loving every moment spent kissing her. This was just another part of the 'I've Clearly Gone Mad But I Don't Care' thing really.
"Only so long I can pretend to rearrange the presents for."
As soon as Harry's sing-song voice reached them, Ron and Hermione reacted. Ron, by pulling her closer. Hermione, by breaking the kiss.
"Sorry, Harry," she said sincerely.
"Yeah," Ron nodded in agreement, "piss off, Harry." He went to go back to kissing Hermione again, but she pushed him back.
"At Christmas, Ron?" Something about the way she was frowning told him that it wouldn't be wise to try his luck again. With a sigh, he gave Hermione a quick kiss of the nose.
"I love you, Harry," Ron simpered in a falsely sweet voice.
"Piss off, Ron," came the reply.
Ron flashed Hermione a cheeky smile. "Happy?"
"Not quite," she sighed in a resigned kind of way.
Taking this as his cue to stop being the doting fiance and revert back to being an excitable child, Ron bounded off the bed and sat crossed-legged in front of the tree. Harry frowned at him, but he just smirked. Normally he and Hermione would show some restraint around Harry, especially with the three of them living together, but it was Christmas and Ron couldn't give a rat's arse about who else was in the room.
Sensing that his annoyance wasn't as important to everyone else as it was to him, Harry rolled his eyes. "Who's first?"
"Let's get the jumpers out of the way , shall we?" suggested Ron, picking up three lumpy-looking presents.
It wasn't long before Ron had thrown each 'mystery' present at each of their recipients and the sound of ripping paper had filled the room. Harry was the first to pull his woollen jumper over his head and admire the giant 'H' that now adorned his chest. Hermione was next and swapped the jumper that she was already wearing - the jumper that Ron had received last Christmas - for her new one.
Ron missed all of this, however, as he was too busy staring at his lap and the jumper that sat in the nest of shredded paper there. Something wasn't right, but Ron, as ever when he had a huge surge of emotion, couldn't think of the proper way to express himself. In fact, all he could manage was "Oh."
"What?"
He looked blankly up at Harry. "Mine's blue this year."
"So?"
Ron widened his eyes in an attempt to get his point across, but Harry just shook his head. "When has it ever been blue?" he pointed out in an almost breathless voice. He held the jumper up to show him the royal blue jumper with the traditional gold 'R'. Harry stared at the garment, finally appearing to understand why Ron was so shocked. For as long as he could remember and against his many protests, Ron's Christmas jumper had always been maroon. In fact, every article of clothing his mother had ever bought or made for him had been maroon. He had no idea why she had suddenly changed her mind or what it meant, but Ron was filled with a sense that he didn't often feel growing up - that he wasn't just another kid to his mum.
"What colour have you got, Hermione?" he asked, looking up at her.
She smiled at him and plucked the wool she was wearing away from her. At first, Ron didn't notice that she had changed or the letter on the front, so he was shocked by her reply. "Maroon."
Their eyes met and Ron knew that Hermione understood how he felt, probably a lot better than he did himself. He doubted there was anyone else who would not only know what this meant, but know that he wouldn't want to talk about it. Ron looked back at the jumper, grinned stupidly and pulled it over his pyjama top.
"Please don't take mine this year," he begged Hermione who simply hugged her knees over the cover and smiled at him.
"Wouldn't dream of it."
"Right," Harry said, interrupting the moment without realising there was one happening, "I suppose it should be ladies first." He picked up a heavy looking, rectangular present wrapped in plain red paper and tossed it gently onto the edge of the bed. Hermione picked it up, reading the tag as she sat back up properly. Ron recognised the wrapping paper from the roll Harry had managed to buy from the local newsagents last night and his suspicions as to who the present came from were confirmed when Hermione smiled at Harry.
"Merry Christmas, Hermione Granger," he said, looking a bit shy. Even now, nearly a decade after joining the wizarding world and having proper Christmases, Harry still didn't seem to be used to people actually caring about him. Hermione shot him a questioning look at the use of her full name and he shrugged. "Last chance I'm going to have to say it."
As he always did when their impending marriage was mentioned, Ron felt his ears go red and his chest swell. It had been nearly two months since he had proposed, but it still felt fresh. Hermione didn't seem to be any better; she had beckoned Harry forward and was now giving him a tight hug with him kneeling by the side of the bed.
"Thank you, Harry Potter," she said, pulling back. She sounded teary again (although it could have been the cold) and Ron wondered how the hell she dealt with being constantly emotional. "Now stop before I give you germs."
Harry laughed and sat back down to watch Hermione carefully pull the Sellotape away from the paper. Eventually she pulled out what Ron had suspected to see from the moment he had seen the present.
"A book?" he enthused in his well-practised impression of Hermione. "However did you know?"
Hermione gave him her well-practised I'm Not Rising To Your Bait look before smiling gratefully at Harry. "Thank you!"
From his position on the floor Ron could see from the title that the book was about werewolf rights. Hermione flipped the book over to read the blurb, her eyes alight with excitement for reasons Ron didn't ever want to understand. He glanced at Harry, who raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
"Don't start reading it now," he said in a mock-stern voice.
Hermione glanced up from the book and at them. "I wasn't going to," she said with a slight chuckle. Ron and Harry did nothing more than look at her sceptically. "I wasn't," she reaffirmed, sounding hurt.
"How about I give Ron his present now so you don't have to pay attention for a bit?" Harry suggested. Hermione went to protest, but Harry had already thrown another red lump at Ron's face. Ron caught it before it hit him and glared at Harry who merely shrugged.
Ron tore open the paper and found a small square of orange leather in front of him. He turned it over curiously and saw it was a wallet with the very familiar image of two black 'C's and a cannon ball on it.
"Cool!" Ron nodded appreciatively. He saw Harry watching him, grinning. "Now that I've got something to put in it," he chuckled.
Harry laughed but stopped when Hermione poked him in the shoulder.
"I've tried to stop everything he owns being bright orange," she hissed. Harry had the good manners to look guilty until she she stopped glaring at him to blow her nose and he winked at Ron.
Hermione banished her latest tissue with her wand and then used it to summon Harry's present. She handed it to him, still looking a little miffed. Harry first took off the silver bow that had been attached before proceeding to tear open the black and silver paper that Ron was sure he had seen in Hermione's room back in September.
A couple of seconds later, Harry was reading the side of a box that fit easily in his hand, a small crease between his eyebrows.
"It's a broom compass," Hermione blurted out. "I know you already have one, but this is a newer version. I did some research and apparently if you tell this one where you want to go, it can direct you there. According to Which Broomstick it's very reliable and is recommended by-"
"Relax, Hermione," Harry chuckled, "it's great. I love it, thank you."
The relief poured off Hermione as her face lit up. Ron knew how much she panicked over getting everyone the perfect presents, no matter what the occasion. He was just glad that she had got better at choosing them since the homework planner days. He loved her, but there was only so much lying through his teeth that he could do to make her feel better.
"I'd hug you again," Harry said, grimacing slightly, "but I don't want to."
Hermione sniffed, but thankfully didn't look offended. "I understand."
Ron picked up a thin, poorly wrapped package he knew to be his own work and threw it at Harry, who annoyingly managed to catch it.
"Can you two not give each other presents without trying to kill one another?" Hermione asked, exasperated.
"Nope," they both replied.
As Hermione rolled her eyes at their immaturity, Harry opened his present and then stared at it. Frowning, he lifted it up to show the other two a book entitled Chastity: Why the Good Wizard Waits.
"What?" shrugged Ron innocently.
"Ron," Harry began gently, "you are aware that Ginny and I have already-"
"No."
"Several times."
"Blissfully unaware."
"We've been together - what? - two, three years now and-"
"-and I respect your decision to wait, Harry," Ron cut in seriously. "I've told you this before."
"Are you ever going to grow up, Ron?" Hermione sighed.
"What's that mean?"
Hermione shook her head as Harry inspected his new book.
"I mean, it's bad enough that you got me a book," Harry moaned, unaware of Hermione's shocked expression, "but this is just-" He flicked through the pages and noticed something strange. After a quick glance at Ron's smirk, Harry opened the book to find that most of the middle of most of the pages had been cut out, creating a sort of box. Inside the pages was a foe glass, showing the ghostly images of several blurred outlines.
"Better?" Ron asked, arching a brow.
"Much," Harry laughed. "Cheers. Besides, the book would have only messed up the present Ginny got me."
"No prob-" Ron started before Harry's words caught up with him. "Wait - wha-?"
"Did you do that to a real book?" Hermione interrupted.
Ron gulped. "Er - a boring book?" he said weakly.
"I'm sure it wasn't a boring book," she remarked acidly, "if you had taken the time to actually read it before you destroyed it."
"Since when were you interested in chastity?" he joked, sensing he may have really upset her with what he thought was a brilliant prank. Surely, he thought, a bit of humour could defuse the situation.
Judging by the scowl he received, it couldn't.
"Since about now," she replied coldly.
"Did I mention that I got you a present too?" Ron grabbed the package closest to him and waved it at her, hoping it was a good enough distraction. With an unimpressed look, Hermione took it from him and began unwrapping it calmly.
Nerves started to set in and Ron shifted uncomfortably. He had never known what to get Hermione for Christmas and birthdays when they were friends. Since they had been together it had only got worse. Not only did he have to get her something extra special, he had an anniversary to deal with as well, not to mention Valentine's Day. This year the whole thing was a nightmare seeing as he was now her fiance. With every bit of tape she unpeeled, Ron became more edgy. Why was it taking her so long? What had he been thinking when he had bought it anyway? He had to say something. There was no way he could take that disappointed look that was only seconds away now.
"It's not much, but -"
"Don't start," Hermione snapped.
"What?" questioned Ron bemused.
"Whatever you have got me will be perfect," she said in a restrained voice, "but every time you get me a present, you start talking it down because you didn't have to sell your liver to buy it. I am going to love it regardless because it's from you."
Ron felt himself blush at the heated look she gave him. It was unnatural how sexy she could be when angry, even with a cold.
"Although you saw him at work's Christmas do," Harry reasoned, flicking one of the tree's baubles absentmindedly. "His liver isn't worth shit anymore."
Not keen on reliving the embarrassment of him getting drunk, spilling a drink down himself and then falling over while being completely stationary, Ron didn't comment and watched Hermione as she lifted a lump of periwinkle blue fabric up and held it in front of her. Feeling slightly nauseous still, Ron tried to work out whether the look of blank shock on Hermione's face was a good, bad or very bad thing.
"Oh, Ron," she whispered, still staring at the dress in her hands. "But we said we wouldn't spend much on each other." She turned to him, her expression unreadable as far as Ron could tell. "We have a wedding to pay for! We can't-"
"Don't you like it?" he cut in, trying not to sound too disappointed, but he strongly suspected that he had failed miserably.
Hermione was silent for a moment as she blinked back tears and Ron knew he had screwed everything up.
"I - it's beautiful," she finally choked out and Ron felt all of his muscles, even ones he didn't know existed, relax. "But we can't afford to spend this kind of money on-"
"It was in the sale," he butted in hastily. "It was actually dirt cheap."
Harry snorted. "You lucked out with this bloke, Hermione."
Ron chose to ignore his so-called best mate.
"I-I saw it," he explained, "and-and I knew you liked the colour because you wore it-"
"At the Yule Ball," gasped Hermione, her eyes widening. She looked back at the dress and swallowed as a single tear fell.
"Yeah," Ron said slowly, unsure of how to take this latest mood swing. They were always worse when she was ill. "Thought I'd have half a chance of you actually liking it." He chuckled a little, but Hermione didn't appear to be listening; she just carried on staring at the dress. Ron had stopped breathing by this point. While she had said she liked it, she hadn't really said thank you or acted in any way normal since opening his present and he had no idea how to take this. It seemed an age of waiting before she cleared her throat.
"Harry?" she called, not looking at him. "Three second warning."
"Three - what?" Ron asked, completely confused. He went to share a bewildered look with Harry, only to find the Boy Who Lived was now the Boy Intensely Studying the Christmas Tree. Before Ron could put two and two together, he felt something grab the front of his new jumper and kiss him soundly on the mouth. Once the shock had warn off, Ron's hands found their way into hair that he was supremely thankful was Hermione's. She was kissing him with such ferocity that Ron was a little scared. Normally this kind of kiss was the result of an argument and ended in mind-blowing sex. Ron guessed he should have been more concerned about Harry being in the room, but he had more important things to be dealing with - namely Hermione's tongue and how it was definitely worth spending the next week in bed, sneezing his brains out, for this.
Just as Ron started to forget his own name, Hermione made a strange noise and bit his lip a bit harder than he would've liked. It wasn't until she had pulled away, looking mortified, that he registered something sticky on his right cheek and realised she had just sneezed.
"Sorry!" she gasped, hastily cleaning his cheek with a tissue and blushing furiously.
"S'alright," Ron grimaced. "It's in sickness and in health after all." He gave a small smile to show that he wasn't all that bothered. The whole incident was undoubtedly not the best thing that had ever happened to him, but, as she wiped her own nose, still looking embarrassed, Ron found he didn't mind. In fact, it was sort of cute in a weird way. A very weird way.
This whole love thing really had made him barmy.
"That," Harry stated disdainfully, "is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen."
With a groan, Hermione buried her head in Ron's neck and he wrapped his arms around her.
"If you think that's bad," he laughed, planting a kiss on Hermione's head, "you should see what other bodily fluids we can exchange."
Harry gagged as Hermione slapped his arm, still hiding her face.
"Can we just do the last present so we can hurry up and go to the Burrow?" Harry requested, still sounding repulsed. "That way I can talk to decent human beings while you two can do - whatever."
Hermione, looking as though she would welcome the ground swallowing her whole, pulled away from Ron and used her wand to summon a large, square present. She passed it to Ron with a shy smile. He admired the pristine wrapping for a moment before ripping it to shreds.
When the paper was no more, Ron saw his own face grinning up at him. He blinked before realising that he was seeing a photograph of himself from about a year ago with his arms around Hermione. In fact, it was an entire photo frame, the size of his whole upper body, filled with pictures of him, Hermione, Harry and various other family members and friends, waving and smiling. Stunned, Ron sat on the edge of the bed, next to Hermione, and studied the photos in more detail.
There were several from various family gatherings, as well a hand-full from when they were still at Hogwarts. As he stared, the photos changed to whole other set.
"Do you like it?" Hermione asked nervously, biting her lip.
"Love it." Ron smiled at her. "And I love you." He kissed her briefly on the lips before looking back at his present. "Harry, you've got to see this."
Intrigued, Harry moved to sit on the other side of Ron to look at the photo frame, as Ron spotted one of him and Hermione in the orchard by the Burrow, snogging.
"That one is my favourite," he announced, pointing it out to her. "Although why can you only see the back of my head?"
"Hermione, this is incredible," said Harry, smiling at one of the three of them after one of their OWL exams. "Where did you find all of these?"
"I have my secrets," she answered with a wink.
"I mean," Ron continued, ignoring them, "surely there's another one of us kissing from a different angle?"
"Is that all you care about?" Hermione asked. She tried to sound disapproving, but her smirk gave her away.
"'Course not," replied Ron, nudging her gently. "I just think it'd be better if we could see our mouths. That's the good part after all."
"Not for the rest of us," Harry grumbled.
"Ooh! Look at that one!" Hermione said cheerily, clearly trying to stop the discussion about her and Ron kissing going any further.
Ron followed the direction of her finger and saw one of the three of them, dressed in Hogwarts robes, by the window of the Gryffindor common room. Hermione was smiling properly at the camera, while he and Harry were pulling faces and shoving each other behind her back.
"Ha! Look how titchy Harry is!" Ron chortled. "When's that from?"
"I think it's our second year," Harry said with a frown.
"Can't be," Hermione dismissed. "I'm not petrified or a cat."
"Good point."
"Now that is second year," Harry said, pointing to one of the three of them by the lake. "Lockhart is in the background."
Ron sighed. "He's so dreamy..."
Hermione shoved him hard enough for him to nearly knock Harry off the other end of the bed. Once they were all upright again, the three of them silently watched the happier moments of their past. Ron marvelled at how bad his hair looked when he was fourteen and how scrawny Harry was when they had first met. Most of all, he focused on the pictures of his younger self, gazing in what he had thought at the time was a subtle way at the witch that would soon become his wife. Amongst the photos of him beaming proudly with his arms wrapped around her, were many of a boy, clearly itching to do the same, but just grinning awkwardly instead.
Just as he was about to point a particularly good example of this from what looked like Christmas '95, Ron spotted one from the day Gryffindor had won the Quidditch Cup without the help of their captain. Seventeen year old Ron was so overjoyed with the accomplishment that, as he brandished the Cup in front of the camera, he failed to see seventeen year old Hermione stood next to him, her eyes filled with such admiration that if he had just turned around, he would've seen that she had loved him even then.
"Do you think they'd believe us if we told them everything then?" Hermione asked softly. Neither of the boys needed to clarify what she meant.
"No," snorted Harry. "It would terrify them."
Ron slung an arm around Hermione's shoulders and gave her a squeeze. "It was more fun without knowing how it would end up, don't you think?"
"Yeah," Harry said sarcastically, "it was all a pleasant surprise."
They all laughed as the photos changed again and Hermione leant her head against Ron.
"Merry Chris- ach-choo!"
"Way to ruin the moment, Granger," laughed Harry as got up and waved his wand at the wrapping paper that was strewn all over the room, sending it into a neat pile.
Ron watched as Hermione blew her nose again and kissed her temple. She looked up at him through bloodshot eyes, sniffed and smiled. It was fairly undeniable that she really did look disgusting, but Ron didn't care as he gave her another soft kiss on the lips. He loved this woman, even when she had gross stuff coming out of her nose. He wanted to be with her and look after her. He wanted to spend every sick day laughing at her funny-sounding voice and then guiltily bringing her soup in bed to make up for it. He wanted to let her lounge about on the settee with the duvet all day and bring her tea on demand. He'd hold her hair out of her face when she was sick and not even complain once.
Well, maybe once. Or twice. But he'd still do it. And he'd still want to kiss her - after she had brushed her teeth, of course.
In fact, even though it was Christmas Day, his favourite of the year, and he was probably going to be up half the night because Hermione couldn't sleep, he couldn't give a shit because he was the bloke that she had chosen to deal with her in sickness and in health.
And that, in a strange way, Ron thought as Hermione's nose made another horrible, squelching noise, was love.