My idea of a perfect Christmas,
is to spend it with you.
In a party or dinner for two,
anywhere would do.
Ginny shoved her mother aside at the sink for the third time that morning and relieved herself of her morning sickness. Molly rubbed her daughter’s back and shared a half-wince and a half-smile with Harry, who sat at the table wearing rice cereal and peas beside a similarly attired James in his high-chair. Ginny had barely muttered a ‘Thanks, Mum’ to Molly’s offered glass of water when two yells erupted from two different directions outside the kitchen, barely seconds apart:
“Grandma, Minnie and Molly are tearing each other’s hair out!”
“G’anma, I can’t find Vicki and her dog is still chewing on my B’udger!”
Molly threw up her hands. “Times like these, I wish Arthur and I are headed back to spend a quiet Christmas in Romania or even Tunisia!” she said with mock vehemence, though she was grinning as she wiped James in passing as she ran out of the kitchen.
In the hall, she bumped into Arthur, who grabbed her shoulders to steady her with a whispered, “Do you?” He, too, was grinning.
“Well,” Molly drew it out as they went up the stairs together. “I’ll answer that after we see the damage the two girls did to each other.”
But Minnie and Molly were already hugging (as they always did after fights) by the time their grandparents reached the second landing and Lucy was rolling her eyes above her book in the window seat. “Molly wanted to win in their last round with the Exploding Snap but Minnie axdentally made them burst because she flipped her hair and Molly just burst, too, and grabbed the hair furiously and Minnie had no choice but to grab back. I thought I’d call you because they both have beautiful hair and it would be a shame for them to scalp each other,” the four-year-old recited, as if she read what happened from the book in her hands.
Molly and Arthur wisely took care not to catch each other’s eyes as they soothed the fighting girls and made them hug each other again. Little Molly and Minnie were quite thick due to their similar ages but they also quarreled nearly as often as they held each other’s hands, more like sisters than the cousins that they were.
After inviting Lucy to come down for a cookie and receiving a polite and pompous decliner, Molly and Arthur left the girls to it. Only when they were safe in the stairs up did they let go of their amusement.
“Merlin, I hope Louis leaves his Bludger for a minute to play with Lucy a little or else“”
“Or else, what? She’s nice as she is, just very conscious about hair“”
When they subsided from their suppressed laughter, Arthur asked, “So? Still want to go off to Romania? We can, you know.”
Molly had opened her mouth to answer, but just then, Victoire came charging down from the attic, pursued by Teddy.
“Vicki, you better go straight to the drawing room first and separate your dog and your brother’s toy!” Arthur called after them.
He and Molly started back down. Molly twined her arm through his and held him close. The house was bursting with warmth and love and happiness. She paused under a sprig of mistletoe and kissed her husband.
“Do you want to go to Romania? Still feel like you let your children down?”
She asked it with confidence because she knew his answer. It sparkled in his eyes as he smiled and shook his head. He had been reassured quite many times over in the past years. With each wedding, each birth, their children had again and again shown the world how nicely and lovingly they’d been raised, bringing pride ” and unknowingly to them ” assurance, to their father. Arthur still mourned the loss of Fred, as did Molly, but the grief wasn’t as keen now that it was layered over and over with many joys and more promises of joys.
As for the guilt, it had long ago been a banished feeling, made selfish and petty by the realisation that had they let it engulf them, they wouldn’t be here in this happy setting now. And Fred certainly wouldn’t have wanted that. It was a long and difficult journey they’d decided to weather together.
“But you know what, Mollywobbles, I think we’ll be fine in Romania or Tunisia. Just as long as we’re together. I can’t quite do without you.”
Celebrating the Yuletide season
always lights up our lives.
Simple pleasures are made special, too,
when they’re shared with you.
“Um, aren’t we going to Australia?”
“Oh, Ron, you’re back,” Hermione mumbled, not moving from the blessed cool of the windowpane and still not opening her eyes.
“George very subtly shooed me out. And you know how good I am at taking hints, so that means he fairly booted me out of the shop.” He chuckled. “I think he has plans for Angelina. Isn’t that brilliant?”
Hermione hummed. She didn’t trust opening her mouth just then. She was suddenly feeling sick.
“I’d help with the packing, except that you may have a system about it I won’t know about “ Hermione, what’s the matter?”
Finally, he had noticed she was still glued to the window, unmoving.
“I’m not “” She had barely whispered these words before she was losing her breakfast all over the window sill and the carpet. Again. For the... ugh, fourth day that week. Hmm.
“ “ feeling well,” she moaned, wiping her mouth and turning to Ron with watering eyes. He was already by her side and Vanishing the sick with his wand with one hand and touching her face with the other.
“Why are you ill again? Do you think it’s the eggs from the Mortons?”
“No ” I don’t know “ well, um, I have an idea. But let’s wait until I’m sick again tomorrow to even consider it.”
“What? Why should we wait until tomorrow? Shouldn’t we take you to a Healer now? I’ll call Mum “ there must be a bug going around, it’s dead winter “ do you want to take Pepper-Up? I think we still have some in the “”
“Ron, no, I can’t take any potions, but yes, we’ll tell Molly. We’ll just go to the Burrow. I don’t feel like portkeying to Australia anymore “”
He paused to look her in the eyes and convey his concern and understanding. “Good decision, love. But are you sure? It’s your parents’ thirtieth anniversary celebration and we haven’t been there since “ you know.”
And despite her being ill, he smiled. She smiled back. Australia held dear memories to the two of them, including that time eight years ago when her parents regained their memories of Hermione from her childhood to adulthood in a process unnoticed by them but slow and painful to Hermione. It had lasted months. Each day, they had journeyed step by baby step into remembering Hermione as she was at the time: nineteen years old and not the infant they believed she was. The memory modification reversal had taken time. Hermione had even feared she would never have them back; Ron had helped her keep her hope and at the same time comforted her while hope was all they had.
But just now, dear as Australia was, Hermione felt too attached to her home to even think of leaving it. And she was sure her parents would understand and might even take a portkey over here instead.
The thought made her smile wider.
“Ron, you know about women’s monthly courses, don’t you?”
Predictably, he grimaced. “What about it? Is it that time of the month then? That’s why you’re ill?”
Hermione bit in her cheeks. She mustn’t bungle this. And she must savour each word and reaction for recount to the family later... “What you must know is, I don’t get it every month. I have an irregular cycle. Which means that I don’t ovulate regularly either. A woman who doesn’t ovulate regularly has a harder time conceiving so “”
“What are you saying?” His voice had taken on a panicked tone. A third-anxious, a third-terrified and a third-bewildered.
“My mum also had irregular monthlies and my parents tried for more than three years before they had me so “”
“Hermione,” Ron moaned, voice now thick with relief. “We have years plenty, love. Is that what you were worrying about so much that you made yourself sick?”
“I wasn’t worrying! For goodness’s sake, you’re really so good at taking hints, aren’t you?”
“What the “ what hints? What are you talking about? I’m at my wit’s end with you. You’ve been very moody lately and you throw up and suddenly threw away our plans to join your parents in the Australian coast today. And then you start telling me about women’s courses and that you took three years to make “ What hints am I supposed to be getting?”
Hermione burst into laughter when he reached ‘“ you took three years to make’ and laughed harder as Ron scowled at her. Right, then, she decided to just say it and watch him take it in. She took a deep breath, mainly to control her mirth and to suddenly announce: “I wasn’t expecting it but I might be pregnant already. In fact, I feel quite certain even. They say witches always know.”
He staggered where he stood.
After a moment, he mastered the use of his lungs, knees and legs again and wordlessly scooped her up in his arms.
“I get all the hints now,” he muttered into her hair.
They could have spent all the rest of the day kissing, but they went out to get a tree instead. After setting it up in the living room with quick waves of Hermione’s wand, they went out in the snow once more, to make a snowman ” with a baby. Ron was thoroughly whipped at their snowball fight, believing his wife was delicate. Hermione then began to drag her husband back to the house so they could decorate their tree before they went to the Burrow for dinner, but Ron hung back.
There was a single rose peeping out of their neighbour’s conservatory. It was uncanny how it seemed to twinkle at Ron in the considerable distance. He hiked over the fleecy field and plucked it, knowing he was probably saving it from exposure anyway since their neighbour was on holiday in Asia. He wondered how this rose was just then peeping out the rather unexplainable crack in the glass, which Ron sealed with a furtive jab from his wand.
Uncanny.
Which was how he thought just then about becoming a father. Of Hermione’s child. The love of his life giving him another love of his life.
He stared at the rose and it's perfect petals. Looking at it this way, one wouldn't even remember the thorns.
No wonder roses were the world's most beloved flower.
It represented life. There were thorns, but they were overshadowed by the petals.
Sorrows. Overshadowed by joys.
When he went back home, Hermione had a mugs of hot chocolate waiting. He kissed her again and gave her the rose as he circled the tree to where she was hanging a bauble.
“Oh! So red and beautiful. Where did you “ ”
“It wanted to join us. It was probably getting lonely in the greenhouse.”
He took it from her and tucked it in her hair lovingly.
Looking through some old photographs
faces of friends we’ll always remember.
Watching busy shoppers rushing about
In the cool breeze of December…
““dad’s a werewolf! I wish he was here, you know.”
“Me, too. I’m sure he was a lovely person. Dad says so. Everyone says so. And Mum says your mum used to make everyone laugh with her nose.”
“You mean by doing this?”
Victoire burst into giggles. Andromeda controlled the urge to roll her eyes and march into the room to tell off her grandson. She was never comfortable with him mimicking his mother’s antics. Nevertheless, it made her heart warm when, as the case was now, he used it to entertain someone, especially a friend. And that friend’s laughter warmed Andromeda’s heart as much as her grandson’s humour did.
“Look at this one, she actually changes her nose here!”
It must have been the photo of the Order of the Phoenix. Andromeda sighed where she stood outside the door of the attic.
“And here’s Uncle Fred. I think that’s the extendable ear he’s waving behind Grandma."
"Have you ever used one?”
“No. I’m sure my dad has told Uncle George not to give us some as presents yet. Uncle Harry says he’ll get us some, but Auntie Ginny and Aunt Hermione are contrary. So is Grandma. And of course, there’s no chance of getting it myself. Too expensive.”
“Never mind, we’ll have one, one day. Look, this must be Mad-Eye. Wow."
"He looked creepy."
"But he was tough.”
“Yeah, he was. Mum says... well, it’s a long story. The one about the Triwizard Tournament.”
“Tell me!”
But Andromeda wasn’t keen about the Tournament. What she was keen on, she had to see already. So she knocked once and opened the door.
Teddy and Victoire sat Indian fashion on the worn rug, and beside Victoire’s little mongrel, Jacques, there were two thick volumes open between them: photograph albums. Smiling, Andromeda plucked both books from the floor and sat down on the bed with them in her lap.
“By all means, continue your chat, dears. Just let me look at these, thank you.”
The album dedicated to the Order, she tackled first. Her heart went warm and cold alternately as she viewed her daughter in the pictures, always grinning in that pert way of hers, and always with a nose and hair colour that she wasn’t born with. And there was Moody. Unsmiling and always looking like he was being included in the frame against his will. Remus was more acquiescent, though also apparently timid and reluctant. He probably thought there was no one to treasure his photo anyway. Had a very low self-esteem, that Remus. It almost cost him dearly, too. But all was made right. He and Dora made up. Were quite ferociously united at the birth of their son... and until the end.
Andromeda sniffled uncontrollably and looked up in alarm and shame. Teddy and Victoire were deep in a discussion of the Polyjuice Potion, however, and didn’t seem to notice her.
She opened the Weasleys’ family album next. Here were fewer but eloquent photographs. Most were in Egypt, one was on a Christmas spent in... dear Merlin, this was Black House in Grimmauld Place! How came all those cheerful and not sombre and stuffy decorations? And then she saw her cousin’s face: Sirius was laughing and his mouth moved as if he was bellowing or perhaps even singing something, one hand waving a goblet and the other on his godson’s shoulder.
Andromeda smiled wistfully. She regretted she and Sirius hadn’t been reunited, but at the same time, she was happy for him, that he had found a semblance of joy that one Christmas at least. She knew all the rest must have been dreary.
Fred Weasley’s photographs made her heart ache for Molly all over again. Such a darling boy. Well, he would be too rowdy for her tastes, but wasn’t that exactly what endeared Nymphadora to her?
With a final sigh, she closed the album and got to her feet.
“Teddy, Victoire, what do you say you join me for a bit of last-minute additional shopping at Diagon Alley? And be sure to be quiet about it, or else you will have to mind two kids apiece as we go.”
Teddy and Victoire, who had leapt to their feet and cheered at the word ‘shopping’, hushed to silence as though they’d been Stunned.
Andromeda left for a quick word with Molly, who herded the other children far from the drawing room so the three could Floo away.
Now, it was somehow ironic that only after Ted and Dora’s death had Andromeda ‘shopped’. But she couldn’t help it. Only after the war had she reinstated herself into the Wizarding world once more. Before, Andromeda Tonks née Black was only a legend, never seen, never heard. After the War, she was seen and heard plenty, though in an unobtrusive way.
If you called being mistaken for Bellatrix unobtrusive.
The mistakes lessened and lessened over the years though, as people absorbed the fact that the deadly Black sister was dead. Soon, Andromeda could shop alone without Molly constantly ready to tell an ogling bystander that she had killed Bellatrix herself, ‘you can stop reaching for your wand now, thank you very much’.
Andromeda could laugh at those memories now as she trudged through the snow-covered cobblestones, giving and receiving Yule smiles to and from everyone, her grandson and her dear friend’s eldest grandchild swinging her hands to a carol they were lilting.
Sparkling lights all over town,
children’s carols in the air!
By the Christmas tree,
a shower of stardust on your hair…
“Three, two, one!”
The cross in the village church lit up in lovely gold and blue lines, and then garlands of more blue and gold twinkles blinked into life from around it and crawled over to the whole village. This was the third year that Ottery St. Catchpole had put up lights which they ignited at seven on Christmas eve. The Weasleys cheered from where they had been watching on their orchard hill, and James voiced his opinion by howling at the uproar.
“Whoops! Sorry, Ginny! Kids, you were too loud! As usual!” Bill said, swinging Louis to his shoulder and grinning at a bemused Harry, who tried to quiet his son by pointing and saying ‘Looky, looky!’ at the lights below. Ginny just harrumphed and linked arms with Hermione “ who was just as grumpy because of Ron’s excessive mollycoddling (Ginny had a good guess what it signified though Hermione wouldn’t say yet) “ as they trudged through the snow back home, George and Arthur leading them all with their wandlight.
Percy and Audrey had the fire and lots of chocolate ready for everybody, but Ginny went to her bedroom instead and waited for Harry to come in with a hungry James.
Sure enough, she heard her son’s plaintive cry above the noise of her nieces and nephews and their parents. She frantically cast around for something that might quiet him without forcing it on him by her breast.
“Oh, what’s ailing my handsome little Jamesie?” Ginny heard Hermione croon over the bustle of what sounded like all six kids plus Ron fighting over the fireplace to melt marshmallows. “They startled you, didn’t they? Bad cousins and bad uncles, huh? You were just trying to be a sleeping angel, weren’t you? Harry, I think he’s hungry. Better take him to Ginny ” Ron, for goodness’ sake!”
Right, why didn’t Harry know that? Still, Ginny was thankful, because her husband trying to dump their child on their sister-in-law gave her time to decorate their bedroom for James. She smirked. Well, it was as much for Harry, too, judging by his flabbergasted expression as he entered with the baby screaming on his chest.
“Have a Harry Christmas? I thought I was safe from such decorations since Dobby “ Oh, dear old Dobby, Ginny.”
“Yeah, dear old Dobby,” Ginny giggled as even James ogled the decorations in silence. He didn’t even notice that he was now in his mother’s arms.
“What’s that?” Harry pointed at a large square hung on a long string of tinsel by the window. As Harry drew near, he saw that the square wasn’t all white, but depicted a cottage like a gingerbread peeping between the pine and the snow.
“From Dudley,” Ginny answered, legs now stretched out on the bed, nursing James.
“It’s big. You know, it’s like we have this unspoken contest of who sends the bigger card each year!”
Ginny laughed. “I’m in there this year. It says, ‘To Harry and J-E-A-N-N-E’.”
Harry did look, and then, grinning, turned back to her. “I know why you’re laughing, Mrs Potter. That’s not his handwriting. And certainly not Aunt Petunia’s either! And besides, think of him asking his dear mum to write his card to us!”
“Your cousin’s got himself a girlfriend. And not just any fling, it looks like, if she’s writing his cards.”
“I’ll owl him tomorrow about it.”
They both jumped just then as the kids seemed to have run out of marshmallows and began bellowing carols.
“Kids, not so loud! The baby!” Harry bellowed back.
A couple of the Harry Father Christmases and miniature trees dropped to the floor. Several tinsel hovering in the air floated down.
Ginny glared at Harry and they both looked down at James. He was too busy suckling, however, to think of crying.
They both sighed in relief and laughed softly.
“Hey, wait a moment, stay right here,” said Harry, carefully easing off the bed to rifle through their trunk. Whatever he took, he fussed over with his back turned to Ginny. And then he turned his head as though to check if she was peeking. A second later, after whispering just loud enough for her to hear, “I love you so much, Ginny,” he swiveled around and clicked the Wizarding camera in his hands. The flash exploded. And this time, James really did howl again.
“What was that for?” Ginny asked as she placated James by moving him to her other breast. Harry just grinned.
“Quite a nice photo, I’m sure, one that I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.”
A week later, it was printed, framed, entitled ‘everything and more’ and enshrined on Harry’s bedside table. Ginny was sitting and smiling there with James cradled against her, strands of tinsel twinkling in her hair.
I can’t think of a better Christmas
than my wish coming true.
And my wish is that you’ll let me spend
my whole life with you…
“That was quite unexpected.”
“What was?”
It was midnight and the moon shone like a giant pearl in the sky, reflected in the black mirror-like surface of the icy pond on whose bank George and Angelina were walking.
“Everything,” Angelina answered, burrowing deeper into his side. His arm was around her shoulder, and hers was around his waist. He wore a black cloak ” hers was a rich red velvet. Their reflection in the water depicted a rose clinging to a rock and the rock likewise clutching the rose.
The moonlight was probably addling his mind, George thought. Still, it was a nice enough betaphor. He’d have to ask Hermione tomorrow. But he felt it was good. He felt it was true. It was true.
Angelina was saying, “I mean, I wasn’t expecting Percy to be such a hen-pecked husband “”
George laughed. “He isn’t, though. Only very devoted to Audrey and his two girls.”
“And Ron and Hermione! You know, I’ve always thought Hermione would be the kind of woman who’d wait ten years ” ten years filled with agendas and goals ” before having kids. I'm glad I'm wrong, though.”
George shrugged. It was nonchalant, though he felt different inside. Nothing short of gleeful. Two more babies to spoil and corrupt. “Harry and Ginny are having another, too.”
Angelina smiled, giving his waist a squeeze of congratulations. “I’m really so glad. This Christmas has been delightful! And because you’re quite happy.”
George felt that was true as well. There was still a gaping hole somewhere in him, but he was happy. The hole was like a crack in the rock, which the rose sheltered and even sheltered in sometimes, filling it.
“I still always wish every night that Fred’s still here, especially in those nights when I discover Ron had fed the pygmy puffs too much again, but yes, Angelina, I’m happy.”
She had gasped at first, and then the gasp turned into a sigh of relief as he finished his sentence and pulled her closer.
“And I was wondering all day ” actually been wanting all day to ask you, you know “ Ron was just too thick to take a hint to get lost, but I was wondering, if you want to make it a permanent thing, me being happy.”
She lifted her face from where it had been buried in his chest and raised her eyes to his. She must have seen something there, because her eyes suddenly sparkled. He’d thought that never really happened except in tawdry books, but here was his Angelina with her eyes looking like they had diamonds. “George.” And she laughed a little at the way her voice shook at the one syllable of his name. “Of course I “”
“Marry me?”
She was silent for a minute. George feared he’d have to repeat the ugly phrase and even add the ‘will you’ part which was the really ugly part. And there was no way of rephrasing it either without making it even more awkward and stilted, damn question. No wonder they called it ‘popping’ it.
Still, he would repeat it. He loved the woman he was asking. That made the question easy to swallow somehow. There was no one else he would think or be inclined to ask.
“Did “ did I hear you right?” she whispered.
“What did you hear me say?” Suppose he had choked and blubbered without his notice?
“You asked me to marry you.”
“I did.”
“You did?”
“Was it unexpected, too?”
“No.”
“No?” He felt the stirrings of panic. Wasn’t ‘no’ a very bad word in such moments?
“It was longed for.” She buried her face in his chest again. George let her words sink in and only when he was sure he hadn’t hallucinated them did he let out at sigh of relief, burying his nose in her hair. They held each other like that for a long time and George was fascinated by their reflection in the pond, with the moonlight gleaming on them as they stood there as one, clinging to each other.
“So you will?” he asked.
“Will what?” she asked back.
“Marry me.” There, it didn’t sound bad with a declarative tone.
“Yes. I will.”
She didn’t pay much mind to the ring either. George was right that the ring was nothing compared to the glint and sparkle of the future engulfing engaged couples… and the deafening cheers of families of engaged couples.
“What are you thinking about, George? You’re so quiet,” his mother asked later, hugging him and kissing his cheek as they all settled in the sitting room, the kids asleep upstairs and the adults sharing eggnog after they piled the gifts under the tree and stuffed the stockings.
“Just very happy, Mum, and very in love,” George answered melodramatically. He caught Angelina’s eye and winked at her as she rolled her eyes and mimed vomiting behind the other couch.
It wasn’t entirely true. He had omitted a part of his thoughts.
He was also thinking, “Darn you, Fred, you owe me a hundred galleons.”
My idea of a perfect Christmas
is to spend it with you.
In a party or dinner for two,
anywhere would do
Celebrating the Yuletide season
always lights up our lives.
Simple pleasures are made special, too,
when they’re shared with you
Looking through some old photographs,
faces of friends we’ll always remember.
Watching busy shoppers rushing about
in the cool breeze of December
Sparkling lights all over town,
children’s carols in the air!
By the Christmas tree,
a shower of stardust on your hair…
I can’t think of a better Christmas
than my wish coming true.
And my wish is that you’ll let me spend
My whole life with you…
Looking through some old photographs,
faces of friends we’ll always remember.
Watching busy shoppers rushing about
in the cool breeze of December.
Sparkling lights all over town,
children’s carols in the air!
By the Christmas tree,
a shower of stardust on your hair…
My idea of a perfect Christmas
Is to spend it with you!
Author’s Notes: Again, this song which inspired the chapters is by Jose Mari Chan. You can listen to it on the web. You should! It’s lovely. The title is, ‘Perfect Christmas’.
In JKR’s post-DH sketches, she’s told us Harry and Dudley are on a Christmas-card-exchange friendship. George marries Angelina Johnson and begets little Fred and a daughter, Roxanne. Before becoming an Auror, Ron helps around the shop first. Percy marries a woman named Audrey and has two daughters: Molly and Lucy. Bill has three children: Victoire, who is born on May 2, 1999, the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, Dominique (Minnie) and Louis. In this fic, I have Louis at age three, Lucy at age four, Minnie and Molly at age five. Calculated from canon: Victoire is seven and Teddy is eight.
ETA: Source: the Lexicon, JKR.com, Mugglenet and http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3105517.ece
Hermione’s parents experienced something medically documented. I’ve read about it once in an old issue of Reader’s Digest. A man suffered from a severe head injury. When he woke up, the things he knew were from when he was small, and he moved on from there until he reached his memories in his present age before the accident.
Here, I theorised that the same thing happened to Mr and Mrs Granger when Hermione reversed the memory modification charms. Though they easily recovered sense of their own identities, it took some time for their memories of Hermione to come back. ‘That was a big thing [she] made them forget’, to quote Mr Weasley from GOF.
Thanks to Jan and Julie for this Challenge, to Nescafé for fuel, to my insomnia for the ideas and to you for reading and giving reviews. Give them again! Thank you. ^_^