Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, settings, or situations from the Harry Potter books. Ideas from "A Christmas Carol", of course, come from the book by Charles Dickens.
Christmas Past
I woke up to the sound of my bed curtains being pulled apart. I sat up, rubbing my eyes and looking around. There was a figure standing beside my bed, holding a lighted wand.
"Professor McGonagall? Is something wrong?" I asked, thinking immediately of the attack on my dad last year.
"I am not Professor McGonagall, Mr. Weasley. I am the ghost of Christmas Past. I have merely assumed the form of your Professor McGonagall. Suffice it to say you would find my true form most unpleasant."
"Okay, this joke has gone too far. Did Harry put you up to this? Or maybe Fred and George? Those two..."
"Silence, Mr. Weasley. You will come with me."
"I'm not going anywhere with you. This is crazy. I'm staying right here..."
The ghost grabbed my arm, pulling me from my bed. "I said, you will come with me. Now, Ronald Bilius Weasley."
"Let me go, I'm not coming with..." I stopped struggling, surprised to find myself in the common room--a common room that was full of all the people I thought had gone home for the Christmas break. Seamus, Dean, Neville, and lots of others were there, all watching something that was happening behind me. I saw Harry come in through the portrait hole; he was also paying attention to whatever was going on behind me. I turned and saw...myself. And Hermione. We were angrily glaring at each other, standing only a few feet apart. Hermione looked like she was ready to kill me. Her face was red, and her hair was partly up on her head; the rest was falling around her face. I suddenly realized what I was seeing.
"Well, if you don't like it, you know what the solution is, don't you?" screamed Hermione.
"Oh yeah?" I yelled back. "What's that?"
"Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort!" Hermione turned around and ran up the stairs to the girls' dormitory as I stood there speechless.
"You never knew what Hermione did after she ran up those stairs, did you?" I jumped at the sound of the voice; I had forgotten the ghost was still standing (floating?) next to me.
"No. I just know I was mad. I went upstairs and tore the arms off that stupid Krum figure I had bought." Arms that I had seen around Hermione at the ball, I thought.
"Then come." The ghost again took my arm, and I found myself in Hermione's dorm room. I had never been in here before, and I looked around, taking in the mess of things that apparently belonged to Lavender and Parvati, and the neatness surrounding what must be Hermione's bed. Suddenly the door slammed open, and Hermione hurried in. She turned and kicked the door shut as hard as she could. The only time I had seen her so angry was when she had slapped Malfoy for making fun of Hagrid. Then she turned back toward me, and I saw that she was crying. Actually, crying isn't the word. She was sobbing.
She stood for a moment, her hands over her eyes, then she walked to her bed and lay down, burying her face in her pillow. A few moments later, an ugly ginger cat jumped up on the bed and went to her, meowing.
Feeling the cat beside her, Hermione sat up and picked it up, looking into its face. "Oh, Crookshanks...why do I even care? I waited and waited for him to ask me. When Viktor invited me to the ball, what was I supposed to do?"
"Who is she talking about?" I whispered to the ghostly McGonagall. She shook her head and put her finger to her lips, telling me to be quiet and listen.
"Once in a while, it's nice to be noticed as a girl. Not that he ever will. To him, I'm just bossy know-it-all Hermione who helps him with his homework. Viktor has been so nice to me. I should be happy." Her face crumpled, and she started crying again. "But he's not Ron." She hugged Crookshanks to her, hiding her face in his fur.
"She's talking about me? She wanted me to ask her to the ball? But why?"
The ghost/McGonagall rolled her eyes. "You, Mr. Weasley, may be a hopeless case. Come along."
"Where?" But the ghost had again taken my arm, and I found myself in a room that looked familiar. After looking around for a moment, I realized it was the room Hermione shared with Ginny at Grimmauld Place.
"I'll be down in a minute, Ginny. I just want to finish opening my presents." Turning, I saw Hermione sitting on the floor surrounded by opened boxes and wrapping paper.
"Okay, but hurry. Fred and George will eat everything in sight, and there won't be any breakfast left," Ginny said as she went out the door, shutting it behind her.
Hermione started digging through the piles of paper, obviously looking for something. "Where is it?" she whispered. "Maybe he didn't get me anything." Finally she pulled out a small box which I recognized as the present I gave Hermione last Christmas.
Smiling, she tore the paper from the box, then opened it. Seeing the perfume, she stopped smiling. Great, I thought, she hated it. No wonder she didn't say much.
She lifted the perfume from the box and looked at it with surprise on her face. Then she grabbed the paper which she had thrown on the floor and checked the tag, apparently making sure it was for her and from me. She dropped the paper again and looked at the perfume, and I was upset to see tears in her eyes. She really didn't like it. It was stupid, stupid, Weasley, for you to give her that, I told myself. I was suddenly very glad I had decided not to give her the "real present" I had bought her this year.
After a moment, she wiped her eyes and her face lit up in that smile of hers that I love so much, the one that only appears when she is very, very happy. I was confused. How could she be crying one minute and happy the next? Did she like it or not?
Taking the top off the bottle, she smelled the perfume, then used the stopper to put some on her neck and behind her ears. She replaced the top and smiled again, hugging the bottle to her. She stood up and crossed to the dresser. She put the bottle of perfume carefully into a small box she kept there, then she wiped her eyes once more and went out the door, leaving all the other presents on the floor.
"I don't get it. Did she like it or not?" I asked the ghost/McGonagall.
"She liked it very much."
"But she didn't say much to me about it. She said it was unusual. That's all."
"She wasn't sure why you gave it to her. She wasn't sure of what you were trying to express. Do you remember what you said to her when she told you it was unusual?"
"I told her it was no problem."
"Yes, you did. She was hoping for a more demonstrative answer, perhaps an explanation of your feelings for her. You didn't give her that. I suggest, Mr. Weasley, that you learn to express yourself better."
"But why...?" But before I could finish my question, I found myself back in my bed, alone.
I looked around, but there was no sign of the ghost, or Professor McGonagall, or whatever that being had been. I settled back into my bed, thinking about what I had seen until I fell asleep.