Just a bit of funny fluff written for the 2023 Yuletide & Mulled Wine Harry Potter Holiday Fest. My chosen prompt was: Holiday Mishaps and Disasters. Full version of cover art is on Ao3 and Instagram.
Friday, 21 December 2007, Mid-Afternoon
Hermione should have realized Christmas was doomed when the mistletoe spontaneously caught fire. However, at the precise moment when Draco Malfoy walked in and all hell broke loose, Christmas was hardly yet a concern. At the time, she had simply been trying to log the strange and dubious "present from Santa" that had been left on her office desk into evidence.
"What the fuck!?" Malfoy screeched as fiery embers rained down upon them, "Aguamenti! Aguamenti!"
"Extinguo!" Hermione shouted at the same time, fumbling the crystal ball she'd been logging. It filled with brightly pink smoke the instant before it fell and shattered on the floor. Hermione froze, concerned over the fallout this accident would cause.
There was no rush of magic, no strange curses or weird hexes forthcoming as the whisps of pink mist wafted harmlessly into the air. Right, then. That was one problem solved at least; it must have just been innocuous ornamental glass, after all. She almost felt silly now about attempting to report it. A new fall of embers jolted her out of her reverie to rejoin Malfoy in the extinguishing spree. The mysterious fire had quickly spread to the holly and pine garlands hanging throughout the front office.
The room was filled with ash and smoke by the time they got the fires put out and the remnants vanished. Hermione was completely soaked through by one of Draco's water spells that she vaguely suspected had been sent her way as retribution for her initial slacking. He, on the other hand, had come through completely unscathed in his tailored red robes. It was frustrating, to say the least.
"Malfoy," Hermione said stiffly to the auror that was presently blocking the door and inspecting the Office for Evidence and Reports for any further hot spots.
"Granger," He acknowledged, but made no move to get out of the way. Prat.
It had become almost impossible to avoid the annoying wizard since she transferred to the DMLE some months ago. Her annoyance was not completely unfounded. In some respects, he could be almost decent only to turn around and pick petty fights with her at the drop of a hat. Then, once they'd finished squabbling, he'd sometimes bring her tea and biscuits as a peace offering before purposefully infuriating her again. The man was a menace.
"Shouldn't you be at the party?" She asked somewhat frostily.
"Shouldn't you?" He countered, finally stepping to the side enough for her to make her way through. He grabbed her by the elbow as she passed, his jaw clenching as he gave her an odd look Hermione couldn't quite place.
If he made a crack about her owing him a kiss under the mistletoe, Hermione swore—
"Might want to use a drying spell before you get back to the party," he said, nodding down at her drenched blouse— her drenched white blouse that revealed all the lacy bits of the pink, stripey bra she'd chosen on a whim that morning. It even had cute little bows that were also perfectly visible.
Hermione flushed red and muttered something unintelligible, as she scurried away, casting a silent drying spell in her flight.
She'd basically just flashed Malfoy! Malfoy of all people! She'd never been so mortified in her life.
Saturday, 22 December 2007, Late Morning
Hermione reached for the toy broom— the very last toy broom of this particular model in the store, and likely in the whole of Britain. With new safety charms and banking features, along with a litany of annoying cheery songs, it was the current year's toy craze for the under threes. And she'd foolishly left her shopping to the last minute.
Another, more masculine, hand reached over her head and grabbed it first. Hermione whirled on the offender.
"Drop it, Malfoy," Hermione growled.
"Bit young for you, isn't it Granger? I know you're abysmal with flying but leave the toy brooms for the kiddies, yeah?"
"I need it for my godson."
"Yes, well, I need it for my son-son, which trumps godson, so there."
It was no wonder his wife had divorced him! He. Was. Such. An. Arse.
"That is the last one, and I was reaching for it first!"
"Possession's nine tenths of the law Granger. You're going to have to pry it from my- eurgh!"
In her infinite wisdom, or rather, growing immature pique, Hermione shoved Draco. She did not expect him to actually fall. She expected him to grab the front of her robes and drag her down with him even less. This was how they ended up in a pile of painfully tangled limbs, with Hermione straddling Malfoy's lap.
The baby broom skittered away to picked up by an older witch who rejoiced in her good fortune, "Oh, excellent! Just what I was looking for! The last one, too! How lucky."
The pair of them glared at the woman's swiftly departing backside to no avail.
Giving it up as a bad job, Hermione groaned, shifting her hips to work toward standing. She froze.
"Malfoy, that had better not be your—"
"It's not my fault! Stop wiggling will you!"
"I'm not wiggling! I'm trying to stand up!"
"You could have fooled me!"
The fire alarm sounded which expedited their disentanglement by minimizing further squabbling. Hermione was even nice enough to give him a hand up and not stare at the vicinity of his robe shielded crotch as they beat a hasty retreat out of the shop.
At least this time when they parted ways, Draco's face was just as flushed as hers.
Sunday, 23 December 2007, Late Evening
"Are you stalking me, Granger?" Draco drawled taking a long sip from his glass.
Hermione begrudgingly sat beside him; it was the only seat left at the bar, and the rest of the pub was packed for a Sunday night. Though, given the time of year, she should have anticipated it.
"Me? Stalking you? I think you'll find it's the other way around," she huffed looking around the crowded pub for a clue. Ginny had said she would know him when she saw him. Hermione didn't know why she bothered; going to a pub for a blind date two days before Christmas was the most foolish idea she'd ever heard of.
"Lost?" He asked smarmily, "You're in the—"
"Shut it, Malfoy. I'm here for a date."
Malfoy did shut up, but instead of minding his own business, he goggled at her.
"Oh, fuck me," Draco groaned, his forehead thunking down on the bar.
Hermione's nose wrinkled at his dramatics.
"What's wrong with you?"
"I'm having an existential crisis," came the muffled reply, "Would you care to join me? We could make a date of it."
She blinked at him. Was Malfoy here for a date as well? Surely not. He didn't, couldn't , mean—
"No," Hermione said in dawning horror, "It can't be… you? How did Ginny even approach you?"
"Pansy," he said to the countertop.
Ginevra Potter and Pansy Zabini: a match made in the firey depths. Hermione wondered by what maleficent act of Merlin they had even become friends.
"Stop being dramatic, Malfoy. We're here now, and I'm going to have a pint. Let's just pretend to be drinking buddies and make the most of it."
"Fine."
"What'd Pansy say to convince you, anyway? I didn't know you were dating again."
"She just said it'd be worth my time," Draco shrugged evading her tacked on statement. "Didn't know it'd be you though, or I'd have picked somewhere less horrible."
Hermione wasn't sure how to respond to that, so she moved on to her next musing.
"Why do you think they're trying to set us up? I mean the two of us together? That's positively mad."
"Is it?" Draco said, carefully. "I'm not so sure I agree."
Hermione took a gulp of her lager that went wholly the wrong way.
Malfoy thumped her on the back, as she sputtered for air. She was too busy choking to hear what spell he cast, but it successfully cleared her airways.
"Come on, Granger. What will I tell our children if you drown yourself on the first date?"
"There wouldn't be any children, you numpty. I'd be dead."
"Mm, can't have that."
They talked. They bickered. They laughed. They talked some more.
It was nice.
The evening Hermione expected to be an unmitigated disaster turned out to be anything but. She was actually having fun.
"Come to dinner tomorrow at the manor," Draco said, eyes bright with the impulsive invitation.
"With your parents? I— That's a bit fast, even for you, Malfoy. And what if I already have plans?" Hermione said airily.
She didn't have plans. She usually bounced around to various friends on Christmas eve and Christmas day, but only when she felt like it wouldn't be an intrusion.
"Come on, Hermione. Just think, we can scandalize and piss off my father, while simultaneously reassuring my mother that I'm not becoming a hermit. It will be fun."
Hermione bit her lip in indecision. "I don't know."
"I'll do all your field reports for a month."
"I don't have field reports," she groaned.
"I just saved your life. You owe me a life debt, and I'm calling it in."
"You hardly saved my life," Hermione scoffed "I would have been fine."
"That's why it's a paltry sum to pay. What are you afraid of?"
"Appealing to my sense of bravery is not going to work on me, Draco. I'm not some rash little kid any longer."
"I'll get you one of those sold-out brooms for your godson," he enticed.
Hermione snapped her mouth shut with a click.
"How? They don't expect a new shipment until spring!"
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "My connections, obviously. What's a little expedited broom order two days until Christmas?"
Hermione tilted her head. "You do realize it's already half eight and Christmas Eve is tomorrow?"
"I'll make it happen," he said earnestly.
"Do you swear?"
"You have the office next to mine; I think you already know the answer to that."
Hermione pressed her lips in a flat line, mock glaring at him.
"Yes, yes. I promise I'll make it happen," Draco groused.
Then he did the most bizarre thing that should have never worked in a hundred thousand years.
Malfoy's eyes grew large and shiny, his eyebrows slanted up sadly, his lower lip jutted out just so to lend him the most pathetic, forlorn look she'd ever seen.
" Please , Hermione?"
She'd already decided to go, but giving in easily went against her nature. But this—
"Yes, fine. I'll come. I'll come. Just… never look at me like that again."
Draco's face broke out into a triumphant grin.
"Fat chance of that, love. Now, I know it works."
Hermione's heart absolutely did not stutter when he called her love. Harry called her luv often enough. Her grocer called her luv when he handed back her change earlier. It was a perfectly innocuous endearment that meant absolutely nothing—
Both Hermione's ruminations and their not-date was cut short by yet another fire alarm. London was alarmingly flammable this time of year.
Monday, 24 December 2007, Early Evening
Lucius Malfoy's eyes squinted suspiciously, cutting between her and his son periodically. It was enough to make her want to giggle, and she regularly had to remember to bite her cheek not to let her amusement show.
From the way Draco— not Malfoy purely for her own mental clarity's sake, as she was presently subjected to an abundance of Malfoys— squeezed her hand at regular intervals, he suffered much the same struggle.
"The timing is slightly gauche, but I believe a June wedding will give me the requisite amount of time to get everything arranged," Narcissa announced. She had been unfailingly polite and, in retrospect, suspiciously quiet after the initial small talk. At least, until this pronouncement.
Three pairs of eyes swiveled to the Malfoy matriarch, with varying levels of surprise and horror. Scorpius simply giggled and tossed his bowl.
"We aren't—"
"Mother, we're only just—"
"Cissa! You can't be serious—"
Narcissa cleared her throat and stared down her husband.
"Lucius, darling, I want what's best for our son and Scorpius. I'm certain you agree."
Lucius shot both Draco and Hermione a glare before draining his wine glass and thunking it on the table.
" Lucius ?" Narcissa asked silkily.
"Of course," he ground out.
"Mother," Draco interrupted, "we're not anywhere adjacent to that sort of talk yet. June is far too soon."
"Oh, Draco, sweet. June is plenty of time for a public courtship," Narcissa said.
" Mother —"
"Hush now, Draco. I read your auras. You and Miss Granger are a matched set; the two of you are far better suited than you and Astoria ever were. And the chemistry! You'll want to try for little ones as quickly as possible, after all. Don't you want Scorpius to grow up with his brothers and sisters?"
Draco sat rigid, his cheeks tinging pink.
The one-and-a-half year old leaned forward to peer at her around his father. Hermione felt fuzzy headed as she smiled at him, and Scorpius let out a high pitched squeal of joy before flinging himself back out of her direct line of sight.
"And Hermione is a natural with him. Scorpy is quite taken with her already. She'll make a wonderful mother."
It was Hermione's turn to gulp wine for want of something to do with her hands.
Lucius shot her an appraising look and made a mock toast with his magically refilled glass. Hermione blinked owlishly as she returned the gesture.
And that was when the glass doors leading in from the patio to the parlour exploded.
Creatures, magical and mundane, poured into the manor as though they were an invading force. Granians and abraxans led the charge, goaded by imps and erlkings. Pixies shrieked. The peacocks strolled through the chaos chasing whatever small creatures might be construed as prey, and several others that might not. Lucius's deerhounds brought up the rear nipping heels and gamboling.
Narcissa scooped up little Scorpius who was eager to escape from his highchair and join in the fun. For his part, the Malfoy patriarch took one look at the pandemonium and stood from the table, striding calmly toward the least affected exit.
"Lucius! Lucius, where are you going?" Narcissa screeched, clutching her grandson to her chest. "There are erlkings in the conservatory!"
"And the granians are in the parlour," Lucius paused to turn around dramatically, looking from Draco and Hermione to his wife. "And I'm entirely too sober to deal with any of this."
With that, he beat a hasty retreat, his unamused wife berating him as she followed with little Scorpius, leaving the pair of them alone to suffer the cacophony caused by the beasts invading the halls.
"Guess the enamorone was right," Draco mused.
"The what?"
"The ee-nam-er-own," he enunciated unnecessarily, "It's like a remembrall but for finding your perfect match. They turn pink when you find your true love."
Amidst the chaos, Hermione stared at him blankly.
"Remember the little crystal ball you were logging into evidence Friday last? It turned pink when I walked in right before you smashed and activated it. That was an enamorone. Ring any bells?"
"Before I wha— You're having me on!"
"I am not," Draco's voice raised in offence.
Draco Malfoy, her true love? It was complete malarkey! Though, she had enjoyed that not-date the night before, and this evening had been going well enough until very recently.
"I've never heard of such a thing before," Hermione sniffed suspiciously.
"Well, you wouldn't have. They're rare because they cause chaos and disaster to bring the lucky couple together," Draco drawled, staring pointedly at the chaos and disaster surrounding them, "They were outlawed decades ago."
Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw the moment when one of the abraxans fluttered its wings, knocked over a candle, and caught the largest Christmas tree in the parlour on fire.
There had been an inordinate amount of fire these past few days. Hermione didn't believe in fate or divination, but the uptick in chaos since she broke that bauble was difficult to dispute.
"And how do I know this enamorone's magic isn't like some kind of love potion?"
Draco rolled his eyes. "It doesn't work like that. The enamerone only facilitates proximity between the parties involved. It doesn't change how you feel."
Hermione bit the inside of her cheek, as she thought through the past few days. She was quite certain that her feelings hadn't swung to the wild obsession a love potion or facsimile might cause. What she felt for Draco through their most recent interactions was more a feeling of cautious optimism and reluctant attraction.
"Okay, say I believe you. You're allegedly my perfect match and the… enamorone's chaos magic brings us together. Just how long is that chaos and disaster supposed to last? What makes it stop?"
Draco glanced up, and Hermione followed his line of sight. Above their heads, a sprig of magical mistletoe bloomed into existence.
"A kiss?"
"True love's kiss," Draco said with a smirk.
"You're joking," Hermione deadpanned, though she supposed muggles had to get the idea of true love's kiss from somewhere.
"There's only one way to find out."
Hermione's breath caught as Draco's head dipped down. Her eyes fluttered closed when his lips pressed against her own. And oh, there was definitely a spark— A peacock screeched and Hermione jerked back, narrowly avoiding a fairy careening through the air trying to avoid becoming bird food.
Chaos reigned.
"Damned bird. Should just roast the lot of them. Fire's right there..."
"Is that it then?" Hermione asked, interrupting Draco's dark musings of peacock annihilation.
It had been a nice kiss. Unfortunately chaste and short-lived, but nice.
Draco bristled. "What do you mean, ' is that it then' ?"
"I just— mmmph!"
Draco kissed her properly. With tongue, and heat, and promise. The chaos surrounding them fell away, and in that moment the only thing that existed was the metaphorical fire between them. One could say it was almost like magic.
Hermione was lightheaded when they finally parted for breath.
"Whoa."
"More in line with your expectations, then?" Draco asked smugly.
"Yes," she blinked, still slightly dazed, until she heard the telltale sound of crackling fire spreading. She hexed an imp that was angling to steal a carving knife off the table. "But if that was true love's kiss, why didn't it work?"
"Fulfilling the enamorone's requirements just stops new chaos from happening. We'll still have to deal with whatever's already going on."
"Right then," Hermione said, "Wait. You've known that was an enamorone since Friday."
"Yes," he agreed, sending some gentle puffs of magic to encourage the winged horses toward the hole where the patio doors used to be.
"You knew it turned pink, indicating that you and I were supposedly meant to be, and every subsequent mishap was because the magic was trying to find ways to bring us together," she puzzled out.
"Yes?" Draco's voice tilted up at the end, as if sensing a trap.
"If you knew this sort of thing was going to happen, why did you invite me here today? I've ruined your family's Christmas! Creatures are destroying the presents! Your manor is on fire!"
As if he had actually forgotten this fact, Draco cast a stasis spell in the direction of the fire before it could move on to the settee. Turning back to her, he shrugged. "They're a right pain in the arse, but an enamorone is rarely wrong. I thought it would be worth it."
Hermione gasped in realization, "Did you leave that blasted thing on my desk!?"
Draco grinned, tucking a wild lock of hair behind her ear.
"Hermione, I'm an auror. I wouldn't just go around distributing illegal artifacts. That would be foolish. Now, I'll just get started on that fire, love, if you'll work on flushing peacocks back this way? The hounds can help. And once we're done, we can get back to snogging."
Hermione gaped after the unrepentant liar, before snapping her mouth shut.
Oh, she was going to get him back for this. Eventually.
But they had just shared an amazing kiss. Additional kisses were needed to determine if it really was a sign of chemistry between them or just a lucky one off. Maybe… Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to see where this went, and perhaps she could exercise her overall annoyance with him more productively. With more kissing. And maybe even with that monster he was hiding in his trousers.
Tuesday, 25 December 2007, Early Morning
Blazes had been extinguished, erlkings exterminated, and granians gathered. Once the evening's chaos had been quelled, Hermione found that Draco's bed was remarkably comfortable. Across the hall, in the heavily warded and creature-proof nursery, Scorpius had slept through the night. Draco and Hermione, on the other hand, had not. Hundreds of new sprigs of magical mistletoe littered the canopy above the obscenely large four-poster bed where the happy couple lay curled around each other in newfound bliss.
The mistletoe did not spontaneously catch fire.
The End
