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Calliope and Thalia and Their Inspiration by lucilla_pauie

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~Yule in the Yucatan IV~





“Impressive.”

“What did you expect?”

“Still impressive, though, isn’t it?”

“My house is bigger.”

“Don’t be tacky.”

“You’re the one gaping around and saying ‘impressive’ like you’re looking at Merlin’s decrepit left boot, and right in front of the owners of the house.”

“Would you care for tea?” Narcissa exchanged a look with her husband. He raised his eyes to heaven at her smug expression.

The twins sat down on the sofa she indicated. They did this with a chorus of cracks and creaks that were all the more disquieting because of the bellows of laughter the said cracks and creaks triggered.

“Merlin, we have to remember to film ourselves. This is hilarious,” said Pietro.

“My hip sort of clunks when I do this.” Pierra twisted her torso to the left to take a teacup from the trolley. There was a soft pop of joints. And another bout of giggling.

“This is unnerving to watch,” said Lucius.

Narcissa laughed at how appalled he looked. She turned to the twins. “How are things?”

We--” Pierra motioned to herself and her brother-- “are in San Ignacio. The kids are settling in at Ambergris splendidly. Had a sleepover with both parents! We took a picture. Forgot to take it with us, though.”

“Yes, what is wrong?” said Lucius.

“The wards,” said Pietro sombrely, and Lucius drew back and shrunk a bit as if castigated. Narcissa bit her lip to keep from laughing. Just what was it Pietro and Pierra had that reduced proud Purebloods to dust?

“But we told you the--”

“Yeah, well, we bungled that a bit. You have to understand, such old wards. Can’t be helped. Anyway, as we can’t cook Belizean cuisine” didn’t think of that, did we?” we invited the chef from this nice restaurant in San Pedro Town.”

“Invited?” Narcissa couldn’t help smiling.

“Yes, well, we were desperate,” said Pietro, grinning. Now there was something she and Lucius hadn’t seen before. Lucius was looking disconcerted again. “He was a Muggle, so we had to take down the wards. Of course, the poor chap got in but still got zapped. He was asleep all the way through breakfast. We had to do the cooking ourselves. Thank goodness Malf” Draco thought up an excuse for the English grub. He couldn’t excuse the Muggle couple who got it on on your beach, though.”

Lucius was looking even more consternated at hearing all that slang from Pietro. Narcissa shook where she sat. She had never had so much fun in ages. She wanted to squeeze her granddaughters in glee.

“But we popped over to Boca de Bruja and snagged a chef from there,” said Pierra. “A wizard. Now we just need to get him in while the kids are having lunch out with their mum and dad. We couldn’t even get in.”

Lucius stood up to do what needed to be done. The twins took this as their cue and followed suit. “Lovely tea, Mrs Malfoy,” said Pietro, after he and his sister had finished laughing at their noisy bones again.

Lucius cast a petulant look at Narcissa, not at all amused. Turning to the twins, he asked, “You’re sure they’re in San Ignacio?”

“Really, Lucius!” Narcissa kept a straight face. “We all parted amicably when they retired. If ever they see you, be nice. Are you absolutely certain they’re in Cayo?” she couldn’t help adding.

The twins nodded. “Of course we are. We didn’t summon the essential garnish for the happy potion from the cracks on the floor of your beach house. We had to go to San Ignacio and do some snipping.”

“Splendid, then. Lucius, while you’re there, perhaps you can shoot too snidgets with one stone. Remember what I was saying before our guests arrived?”

“Cissy, you’re allergic. And the counterpotion is addic--”

“Don’t be silly. Not for me. For the girls. Pietro and Pierra are to be the givers.”

“Of what?” said Pietro and Pierra.

“Oh, a little creature with substantial loyalty. And fastidiousness just as big. You know, the kind that takes very poorly to change and pines when it misses someone.”

All four of them let that sink in. The twins grinned first, and then Lucius gave a shake of the head. The one that said he was impressed. Narcissa preened.

“Wait, wait. Before you go, do tell me. Which of you is Fred now and which is George?”





Sunglasses were the first things they bought. Draco had neglected that in his shopping. Although he was very thorough with everything else. Gods. Not the kiss again. What has gotten into me? No, he’d thought of everything in his shopping, that was what she meant. He had bought her accessories from barrettes to anklets. She wore the watch with the straps that looked like they were made from twine. He had bought her a wardrobe that would last even if they stayed here a month and would serve her if they went to anything from beach bonfires to cocktail parties at a posh hotel. She was wearing capris and a loose silk button-down over a tank. A mediocre outfit that still managed to make her look so chic. She was afraid to ask how much each piece cost.

He’d also bought her lingerie. I am not wearing those.

“Stop overanalyzing things,” said Draco in her ear, and she stiffened. “I’m certainly not. I kissed you. You kissed me back. And we've doing so since December, and once in September, too. End of story. I’m not expecting or assuming anything from it or because of it.”

Hermione squinted up at him behind her sunglasses. He was right. “I’m not overanalyzing anything, except maybe the view. Think that much of yourself, do you?” Both of them remembered those words, and his sudden stillness confirmed it to Hermione.

Recovering from her history-laden barb, a smirk bloomed slowly on his lips. Hermione was so very glad for the sunglasses. She couldn’t stop looking at those lips which she happened to have tasted again very recently. And tried hard not to want to taste again, dammit. “Well, I don’t blame you. The view is absolutely enchanting.”

And then he moved his head in such a way that left no doubt as to what he did with his eyes: drank her in.

Hermione shivered in delight inwardly, but she had to be the responsible one here, if not this incorrigible arrogant prat. “In front of your daughters. You should be given the Most Proper Father Award.”

He laughed. “What daughters?”

Hermione scowled at him, and then blinked, looked for the girls, and saw Callie and Lia several yards ahead on the white sand, their wide-brimmed blue and pink straw hats just visible amongst the thin crowd of lunch pilgrims. Hermione broke into a faster walk, and Draco fell into step with her, catching her hand. She squeezed and tugged him when he slowed.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Those hats will hex anyone who so much as looks at them wrong.”

“Really?”

“Your hat, too.”

Hermione smiled and patted the soft straw fondly. “Then why hasn’t it hexed you yet?”

“Well,” he replied gamely, “for adult females such as yourself, the hat detects who’s allowed to look and who’s not.”

She laughed to cover her slight discomposure. Flirting. They were flirting! She associated flirting with her girlhood, and she’d barely done it at all, her girlhood being comparatively nonexistent. And then having Lia and Callie and only having Lia had sort of turned it off for her. No one had really gotten past being intimidated by Hermione’s standing to even think about flirting anyway. She’d been asked out, but formally, reverently.

Perhaps that was why she’d always said no.

There was only one boy who’d ever looked her in the eye and shook her up inside, literally and figuratively. He had prodded at her insecurities and confused her beliefs, not to mention stirred her insides until they were all mush. Goodness knew she’d tried to get away, but they were all piddling attempts, half-hearted, doomed to failure. And he was the same man holding her hand now and stroking her thumb. This time, she didn’t even attempt getting away.

What was the use? And it was only while they were here, under this immense blue sky. It was a place you couldn’t walk without holding someone’s hand. If that someone also kissed you and made you see paradise even with your eyes closed, so much the better. In Belize, you lived for the present and not the muddled past.

“We’re starving! We’re thrilled you’re acting like honeymooners but--”

“You’re starving. Yes, we get the message,” said Hermione, dropping Draco’s hand with no small regret and no small blushing, and herded Lia and Callie onward. “Keep walking. How much farther, Draco?”

He looked a little out of it, and then said, “That cottage on the right should do fine.”

The ‘cottage’ was a clever and classy amalgamation of log, plank, glass and thatched roof made from dried coconut palm leaves. Inside, it was cool and shaded, but the glass walls gave the patrons the impression of dining outside. The host led them to a table facing the sea.

“Is this food-with-a-view, or food?” she asked Draco, while the girls read their menus.

He smiled. “Food. Trust me.”

“Callie told me she hasn’t been here before.”

“You can guess why, can’t you?”

“Oh. Our Improbable Scenarios Game?” Goodness. She shook her head in amazement. “I had no idea at the time that what I said would--”

“Come true, eh? And it did. Try the mango wine.”

“Mango wine?”

“They turn everything into wine here.”

“All right. In fact, order for me. Nothing too exotic, though. I won’t eat snails or frogs or insects.”

Draco and Lia laughed while she and Callie visibly shuddered.

But the food was lovely. Meat and seafood, only cooked differently. Hermione ate, but did more watching than eating. She watched the ocean, she watched the palm trees, and she watched Draco being a father. It made her breath catch. They weren’t toddlers, but he was attentive and if Lia struggled with her knife, he took over fast. He also eyed Callie beadily and was quick to soothe when Callie dug up something disturbing to her delicate sensibilities.

Oh, and in all this hovering, he managed to keep his body touching hers. It was either knee to knee, arm to arm, or his arm touching her back on her chair. When he couldn’t manage any of these, he touched his loafer to her sandal. Exasperating man.





The last time he was here, Belize had been unseasonably wet. As though to make up for that now, the sun was blinding as it sailed west. People were fanning themselves or flapping their tops whenever the breeze paused. These were all details that only made it into Draco’s mind because of their constancy, though. He only had eyes and attention for the three people with him.

They’d walked all over Ambergris Caye, with one or two short rides on a golf cart to go from lagoon to lagoon. Callie and Lia hopped from stall to store to stall and nearly always came away with purchases. Their grandparents had given them money. To Draco’s surprise, Hermione seemed not to mind. He himself thought the girls were being too easily pleased, but Hermione only spoke up when they showed interest in comestibles. “We will eat at home or at a restaurant your father’s tried before. No street food, please.”

When the two had gone off again, Draco said, “It’s safe, Hermione.”

“Can you guarantee that? There was a big enough gamble earlier when we let them eat all that food brimming with coconut milk and red spice. I’m not having them ill.” At this statement, she froze, remembering something. The next second, Callie and Lia were back in front of them as if bodily summoned there, and Hermione was discreetly pointing her wand at each of them in turn. Once satisfied, she secreted her wand back wherever it was in the air that she hid it and set them loose again.

“What was that?”

“A mosquito-repelling charm.”

“Oh. Right.” Her mothering was adorable. He was seeing it for the first time. Granted, she had been motherish all her life, hadn’t she? Keeping Potter and Weasley and Longbottom and all the rest of them under her wing, including house-elves.

“You’re acting like a tired and cranky six-year-old.”

Was she kidding? He felt like he could race lugging a chariot bearing her and the girls. “I’m not the least bit-- six-year-old?”

“Yes, the kind that won’t allow himself to be carried because he’s not a baby any more, but he won’t let go of his mummy either.”

He smirked and swung her hand, which he’d taken again as soon as she was done fussing over the twins. He’d been holding her hand all afternoon, a novelty he could get used to. It was amazing that they’d gone and conceived two children when they hadn’t even held hands before. While students at Hogwarts, they might as well have danced naked if they did it. After Hogwarts, they simply hadn’t had a chance for such a simple thing. There were things to do and she wasn’t one to swan about and just where would they have promenaded anyway without being gawked at? And now while teachers at Hogwarts-- but there was always Hogsmeade, if the place wasn’t crawling with journalists yet, damn it all to Hades.

“If you don’t like it, you can always pull away, Mummy.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t pull away.

The girls were already on the golf cart, examining each other’s loot in their string bags. And here came another first for Draco: he resented his girls’ presence. If only they could drive themselves back home.

“Did you get anything for your dad?” he asked them.

Without looking up from a rather scary rag of a voodoo doll, Callie said, “We got Mum here, didn’t we?”

Hermione blushed but pretended not to hear, and Draco laughed and pretended he hadn’t just thought he resented his girls.

Around some punta or other (he really couldn’t keep track of the place names, he just knew where to go and how to get there), traffic grew heavy. They found out why when they noticed where the other golf carts and pedestrians were all heading.

It was Christmas, after all.

“Why don’t we attend the Mass, too?”

They all gaped at Hermione.

“Your Nana Helen is Catholic. Poppy Logan is agnostic. I remember going to Mass. It’s all the religion I got. Christmas Masses are always beautiful. Want to see it? And in Belize, too!”

Who could say no? They had to wait a bit until the traffic moved so Draco could park the golf cart. And then Hermione suddenly Disapparated. In ten seconds, she reappeared with a soft pop also swallowed by the noise of a flea market nearby.

“Mum, what did you do?” asked Lia.

“Put these on.” Hermione handed him a pair of trousers. “The girls and I are okay, but you can’t go inside displaying your hairy legs. That’s disrespectful.”

“My legs are nice, I’ll have you know.” Draco shot Lia an appreciative look when she laughed. “And how am I supposed to get dressed, woman? People are passing by.”

Both giggling now, Callie and Lia shook open serapes they’d bought”Merlin knew whatever for. But they were effective as impromptu dressing room. Draco shucked his shorts and passed it to Hermione with a wink. In retaliation, she snatched at the serapes before he’d buttoned his fly. A gaggle of biddies that were passing just then gasped. Hermione and the girls acted just as scandalised, shaking their heads and clucking their tongues in disapproval.

“Very funny.”

As they neared the church, it grew quieter and quieter except for the rumble of golf carts arriving and disgorging the devout.

“Just do what I do,” said Hermione. She smiled at him. She had Callie and Lia hanging on each hand. He settled on putting his hand on the small of her back, also hanging on.

At the threshold, she bent her right knee for a moment and let go of Lia to touch her fingertip to her forehead, her belly and two points on her chest. The girls copied her gracefully and Draco fumbled with the obeisance. The sign thing he left off. Better not to do it at all than do it wrong, his mother had said once.

People were still taking seats, and the back was already more crowded than the front. Draco wondered at this, but didn’t wonder at Hermione leading them forward. She was never one to sit at the back anywhere. She wavered a little, however, and in the end let him motion them to a bench in the fifth row from the front. This way, he and the girls wouldn’t be too noticeable in their inexperience.

The stage was beautiful, laden with flowers and candles. On the wall was a sculpture of Jesus robed in white with his right hand in that blessing sign. The large table at his feet was draped in white. There was a podium to one side of it, and on the other was a large representation of the Christmas story. Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus, in a genuine looking stable with a star made of Muggle fairy lights above it all.

“Remember to keep your eyes on the altar,” Hermione was murmuring to the girls. Right, not a stage but an altar.

Hermione had seated the girls on either side of her but it only took a second of subtle squirming on Draco’s part to make her switch. Sweet success. He took her hand. She looked at him oddly. “This lasts an hour. Can you last that long?” she whispered.

He slapped her on the knee and whispered back, “You’re in church! Shame on you!”

She glared at him and tried to pull her hand away.

He stifled a laugh. “I’m kidding. I quite like the setting. They don’t have that sad cross thing here, do they? I never imagined I would be in a church. And with you.”

“The ‘sad cross thing’ is the symbol of salvation. And you know we did a lot of things we never imagined.”

“Speak for yourself.”

He had imagined. And the symbols of his salvation? Right there beside them, prim and proper under their mother's sharp eyes.




Standing, sitting and kneeling as commanded were a little too much for Callie and Lia, but they made it through with hardly any mishaps and no giggles at all while they kept count of how many times their dad jumped. He was too intent on their mum’s hand, was he? When it was time for Communion, they just copied their mother again and knelt on the ‘prie-dieu’ and watched the Belizeans and tourists filing past.

They watched because they had no problem being watched in return any more. They were the same as the other kids now: they had a father and a mother. These two girls had been rather bereft before, no matter how beloved they’d been. Now they felt wonderful and somehow complete and when they caught anyone’s eye, they smiled.

The middle-aged lady who had shared their ‘pew’ had looked at them and, catching their mum’s eye over their heads, whispered, “Muy bonita hijas!” It was their dad who answered, “Gracias.”

At the end of the Mass, there was applause, and then a line formed toward the altar where people kissed the Baby Jesus. Callie and Lia noticed kids around them kissing their parents’ hands. So they did the same, ignoring their dad’s muttering about ‘Feeling about ninety’. Their mum just smiled and kissed them on their foreheads.

“Don’t we line up to kiss Baby Jesus?” Callie asked.

“Um, no, I don’t think--”

“Your mum’s paranoid about dis--”

“Draco!”

They exited the church the way they came in, holding their mother’s hand. Once seated at the golf cart, Callie began the inquisition. It was then that they learned about the pews and prie-dieus and the priest’s layer upon layer of raiment, among other things. It went on until they were back in San Pedro. Lia only wanted to know, “What did the lady beside us say?”

“She said your mum and I made very pretty daughters.”

“And what did you say?” asked Callie, even though she knew very well what ‘gracias’ meant. The two girls grinned at each other.

Their dad came through as predicted, of course. “I said, I agree and want to make more.”

You absolute pillock.

Callie and Lia collapsed into giggles in the cramped back seat of the golf cart. And it was only Day One!

They arrived at the villa to the most delicious smells. Coconut milk smelled divine when being cooked. And garlic, and onions, and chicken and fish. Yum! Lia’s mouth immediately watered as she ran to the house and Callie wasn’t far behind her. Belizean food was like Chinese food. Most everything was cut up small and tiny. Callie liked it.

They found Pietro and Pierra lighting candles in the dining room. The dining table! Oh Merlin. It could rival a Hogwarts feast if it weren’t for the smaller, less showy platters. And the food, aside from a few dishes of English fare, was Belizean, of course. Rice and beans with beef, the onion stew called escabeche, tamales, ceviche, cochinita pibil, most of them red from the spice they were so fond of here or golden with mounds of tortillas.

“Go upstairs and clean yourselves up, girls,” said Pierra. And did Pierra just wink? But she followed it immediately with a narrow stare. Callie and Lia scurried off.

So it was that they bumped into their parents just about to enter the dining room.

“Pierra and Pietro’s in there. Dinner’s wonderful. Do we dress up, Mum?”

“Well, of course. A bit. Let’s go.”

“Hermione, you take the en suite in the master bedroom. I’ll use the shower off the patio. The girls can take it in turns in their own bath.”

So it was that their parents didn’t see the changes in their bedroom. After gaping and giggling madly (they’d been giggling a lot since arriving here), Lia and Callie managed to wash up and change into another pair of matching dresses sent by their Grandmother Narcissa. Lia didn’t complain, they just tried not to look at each other and at their room, because it set them off again. It wouldn’t do to have gas before Christmas dinner.

Although one look at their parents and they burst into giggles again. Just imagining their faces later...

“I was expecting compliments,” said their mum, who did look pretty in her silvery blue dress.

“Get them from me, then. You look like a winter queen who deigned to accept an invitation to a tropical supper.” When the girls finally subsided to coughs and hiccoughs, their dad added, “What’s gotten into you two? I better not find anything in our bed or under my pillow.”

The mention of bed was lethal. Lia sat down on the floor, dragging Callie with her. They barely heard Hermione murmuring thanks to Pietro and Pierra and the latter leaving them with a loud harrumph.

From the living room, music came.

‘O holy night...’




‘Good night’ has never sounded so inadequate and so stupid before. But that’s what she’s said even though they have yet to take dinner. Well, no, she doubts she can eat on such a roiling stomach. Best just to go to bed, then. To sleep, to sleep. Not rehash anything, no matter how nice, like that hug and kiss to her temple. If he has kissed her, that is. Her mind is so giddy she won’t put it past her conscious and subconscious to swirl together and make up sensations of soft lips and an exhale of breath on her skin while she’s still awake. Is she still awake? Surely Draco Malfoy touching her with more tenderness than Ron or Harry has ever shown her is a dream?

She gets her answer when she arrives in her dorm. Her post is on her lap desk, the envelopes all too real, waiting to be dealt with. And that’s what they are doing, waiting for her, rather than tantalizing her with news from Ron and Harry and Ginny. Suddenly, that lap desk and its contents are nothing more than a nuisance, barring her way to snuggling in her bed to think about--

What is she thinking of?! What has gotten into her?

‘Good night’ has never sounded so profound and so befuddling before. He stands there feeling oddly bereft and a little frantic to run after her. To say or do what, he doesn’t rightly know. Nor does he know whether to scowl or laugh.

Laugh at whether this is some sort of comeuppance to his father and forefathers, a Malfoy son painstakingly raised to the Pureblood traditions so utterly bested and bespelled by a Mudblood.

And scowl at the intricacy of such a predicament.

“Why the long face? Well, I know why. I just met her in the corridor. Did you have a nice chitchat? Brighten up, Draco. These types don’t function like we do. They feel it their duty. We won’t owe her. I’ve already arranged for a bouquet to be sent to her tomorrow at breakfast.”

Blaise. Chitchat? Owe her? Bouquet?

“And then that’s that. If she thinks she’ll stop being a filthy Mudblood to us, well, more power to her. That naïveté must take a lot to keep up.”

Even in the most trying situations, a Slytherin never forgets about clout. Clout is slippery, held precariously in place by even more slippery elements such as possessions, reputation and connections. That is why Blaise, counted among the very few who still thinks Malfoy association valuable, narrowly escapes being backhanded and tossed from one of the temptingly convenient windows.
Chapter Endnotes: Yes, there will be Yule in the Yucatan Cinco, mi amores. We’ve really beaten the outline to dust. And discúlpeme for not making it to my update deadline despite it being ‘weekly’ now instead of ‘every seven days’. Another story is clamouring and whining to be written (well, its deadline, not the story. The story is a smug little--), and it’s not easy to switch from the happy-flappiness of this one to the other’s darker tones. I wanted this to be longer, but I want to keep you too and I might lose you if I don’t update sooner. So pleeeease review and let me know you’re still there and cursing me, thank you! ;)

I’m a devout Catholic and if the narration around the Mass sounds ignorant and irreverent, remember that it’s in Draco’s and the girls’ POV. They don’t know about genuflection and the Sign of the Cross and the like. Catholics are big on the humility thing and tend to fill up the back pews first. Myself, I prefer sitting near the front, where there’s little to no distraction from the Mass. Hermione only knelt and prayed instead of taking Communion herself because it would be sacrilege if she does after so long an absence and without Confession. Ooh, imagine that. Should be interesting for her confessor. :D

And I hope it’s okay that I didn’t detail the food and places. I’m not a fan of stories suddenly disguising themselves as travel guides just because the characters visited an exotic location or dined somewhere very nice, and to prove the author’s been there or been very thorough with the research. Heh. And what I don’t like to read, I don’t write. You have a vision of palm trees, white sand and blue skies and you’re in the HP fandom so I have faith in your imagination, so generalities Muggle setting-wise should be more than enough, right? Right!

San Ignacio is the twin town of Santa Elena, not far from Belize City. All three are in Cayo District, which is also home to Belmopan, the capital.

Boca de Bruja: the belatedly mentioned name of Belize’s Wizarding market town.