Christmas Magic
Written: December 2003
One Shot
4,194 words
Mrs Weasley returned from the kitchen with a tray of food for what had to be the 10th time that night, beaming at the crowd of people in her lounge. Hermione headed straight towards it and helped herself to one of the tarts.
“Hello, dear!” Mrs Weasley beamed.
“Hi Molly, lovely food, really it is,” she smiled, indicating at the cakes, tarts, pastries, slices and biscuits.
“Oh, nonsense!” she replied, flapping one hand at Hermione, although looking rather flattered at the same time.
“You should spend some more time at the party,” Hermione encouraged, as she took the tray from her and squeezed it into a spare slot on the table. “You’ve done enough work in the kitchen.”
“Rubbish!” she said cheerfully. “My guests are starving! And the drinks are running low too,” she added, looking at the bottles, dismayed. “I’ll have to pop down to The Leaky and fetch some more.”
“I’ll do it,” Hermione offered. “I passed my Apparation test last term.”
“No, no, no, love. It’s perfectly fine, you stay here and enjoy Christmas Eve!” she smiled, her eyes flickering around at the lights and decorations and various couples enjoying the music.
“It won’t take a second,” she persisted. “Honest, I don’t mind “ I’ll go and get some drinks for you and then you’ll be able to talk to some people in here. They all want to praise their wonderful host after all.”
Molly laughed and shook her head. “I’m touched that you want to help, sweetie, but I’m fine on my own. Go out and talk to Ron, I saw him go outside all by himself a while ago.”
“Really?” Hermione asked, momentarily distracted.
“Yes, now off you trot. Thank you for your offers but I really don’t need any help, deary.”
Seeing that she definitely wasn’t going to win this one, Hermione nodded and turned around to look out the window behind her. She had to squint to see past the dark window’s reflections and into the actual garden. There wasn’t much visible through the glass but she could see fairies flying between the trees and dancing in circles in mid-air, creating quite a spectacular show of glittering colours. There were a few figures roaming around too, and Hermione strained her eyes desperately to see if one of them was Ron. It was impossible to tell though, so, picking up another tart, Hermione walked to the door and stepped out into the garden of 12 Grimmauld Place.
The chilly, winter air pinched at her skin and the thin, pitiful layer of snow (if you could call it that) made tiny snapping noises as she walked on it. She cast her eyes around, searching for a certain tall, attractive red-head. Attractive? Hermione mentally cursed herself for allowing her thoughts to stray long enough that they stumbled across such aberrant territory. He’s your best friend, girl. Get a grip!
A line of fairies flew past Hermione’s ear, reminding her of where she was and she followed them with her eyes until they landed on the back of a bench several metres away. Their tiny, eerie glows lit up the face of one Ron Weasley and Hermione smiled. There you are, she thought, as she made her way towards him.
Sitting herself on the bench next to him, she folded her hands in her lap and rubbed them in an attempt to return warmth to her fingers.
“Freezing, I know,” Ron smirked. “Can’t you make one of those portable fires you used to do back when we were babies?”
The trio often referred to their younger, and more innocent Hogwarts days as ‘when we were babies’. Perhaps because it was such a long time ago, that it almost felt like 15 years rather than 5, or perhaps because they had changed so much since they were 11, or maybe it was for lack of a better phrase, but whatever the reason, all three of them had adopted the expression rather happily.
Hermione smiled. “I suppose I could. Don’t you think it would spoil it a bit though?”
“Spoil what?”
“The whole Winter thing. It’s Christmas Eve and it’s dark and we’re outside, you know? Somehow it’s nice that it’s cold “ because, that’s how it’s supposed to be.”
Ron sighed. “Sure. But when your fingers go blue and drop off don’t come crying to me!” Hermione laughed and rested her head on her friend’s shoulder.
“Fine,” she said. “I consider myself told.” He smiled slightly and let the silence lapse over them.
The fairies suddenly took flight from behind his head, and the cold breeze ruffled through his red hair, causing goose-bumps to rise up all over his arms. He liked the feeling of having Hermione so close to him. If there was something he’d learnt over the past 6 and a half years at Hogwarts, it was that he, Harry and Hermione had something no-one could ever take away from them. Their friendship was so tightly knit that it would take more than one event or person to even fray the edges. Ron himself, wouldn’t even let his feelings interfere with it. It had come very close to it back in sixth year, when he desperately wanted to tell Hermione how he felt about her. How he couldn’t keep his eyes off her, how the world seemed right when she was smiling at him. How it was impossible to be sad whenever she was in close proximity of him, and how her laugh could spark the dullest embers into the most graceful flickering flames.
It wasn’t that Ron was a coward. No, he would have told Hermione exactly how he felt if he hadn’t been so conscious of what it might do to the Trio. Was Hermione’s love worth loosing her friendship? Sometimes he thought it was, but somehow he’d always end up holding back “ never telling her how he felt alive whenever she touched him, never saying a word about it to anyone. He liked to think his feelings had faded. Perhaps they had, since it was far easier now to ignore the churning of his stomach and the weakening of his knees whenever she came near him. No-one ever had to know what lustful happenings took place in his dreams, what sparkling fantasies sustained him through the toughest days. Especially not Hermione.
He could hear Ginny laughing under the trees, across the dark, frosty lawn. Seconds later Bill’s laughter joined hers and the night air rippled with pure content. It was a beautiful Christmas, and there wasn’t much that could make it any better. Except of course, the custard and pudding that was coming later.
“Ron,” Hermione suddenly said, bringing him out of his musings. “What are you thinking of?”
Ron laughed and answered honestly. “Food,” he grinned, raising his eyebrows apologetically.
Hermione laughed too. “Trust you! And there I was thinking it would be slightly more poetic! After all, you did look pretty deep in thought just then.” She left the question hanging, leaving Ron free to pick it up or leave it go. He shrugged and his mouth twitched to once side in that half smile of his, the one that had so many girls weak in the knees.
“Well, if it’s any console: I was thinking about how lucky you, me and Harry are to have each-other just a second ago.”
“Aw that’s better,” Hermione nodded, lifting her head to look at Ron in the face.
“What were you thinking of?” he asked.
“You,” she answered shamelessly.
“Oh yes? And what about me?” Ron asked, his heart somersaulting.
Hermione smiled. “Oh lots of things. Like how comfy your shoulder is for one.”
Ron laughed, his momentary ecstasy fading as quickly as it had come. “Well your head was rather nice too so you’re more than welcome to put it back,” he offered. Hermione giggled and obliged. There was a few seconds of silence before Hermione elaborated.
“And that really sweet look you get in your eyes when you’re thinking of something serious; something besides pranks or Quidditch or food. When you go really quiet and solemn and stare off into nothing. It’s quite calming actually.” Hermione sighed and readjusted herself on his shoulder, her hand resting on the inside of his elbow. “And how different you are from the Ron Weasley I knew back in the baby days.”
Ron chuckled. “Well, Miss. Granger, you haven’t escaped the customary ‘growing up’ either. If I said you were same Hermione I met on the train back in first year I’d be carted off to St. Mungo’s before you could say ‘missing something upstairs’!”
She chuckled, almost inaudibly, so delicately - like the breeze that danced over the frosted holly leaves, or the first splosh of water on a pond - and smiled again, bumping her knee against Ron as she settled herself into a more comfortable position.
There was another short silence where the rustling of the fairies flitting from bush to bush and the occasional giggle could be heard through the darkness. “Isn’t it beautiful, Ron?” she whispered finally.
“What?” he asked.
“Everything. The sky and the stars, look at them. It’s like someone added diamonds in all the right places, so that people like us could sit at gaze at them all night. And how cold the air smells, that’s beautiful too. And the way the snow glitters when the moon touches it. Everything.”
Ron wondered what had put Hermione in such a tranquil, meditative mood but couldn’t deny she was right. There was something breathtaking about everything around him. Including the bushy haired girl on his shoulder.
She sighed and tipped her head into the crook of his neck, neither of them saying anything. Ron’s heart was pounding, his stomach fizzing. He hadn’t been this close to Hermione for a very long time. In fact he wondered if he had ever been quite this intimate with her before. Either way, the warmth of her body as she pressed it against his own, was extremely dizzying. And there was no denying she smelt divine too. He looked down at her face, admiring how her cheek bones rose in exactly the right place, and how her rosy lips pursed together every so slightly, as if secretly beckoning to be kissed. The way her eyelashes curled out and cast shadows along her cheeks, and that sparkle of light that hovered in the depths of her chocolate brown eyes and only came out when you managed to make her laugh. He stroked a bunch of stray hair behind her ears with trembling fingers and her eyes flitted up to meet his own.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, frowning ever so slightly.
“Nothing,” he lied. “I was just thinking.”
“What about?”
“You.”
Hermione didn’t appear the slightest bit shocked. Instead she shifted her head to look at him better and relaxed her frown. “What about me?” she asked softly.
Ron shrugged. “Oh lots of things,” he answered, a mischievous smile playing with his lips. “Like how cuddly you are for one.” Hermione smiled adorably and Ron’s heart leapt.
“You’re not being very original you know,” she scolded playfully.
“Sorry,” he apologised, smirking. Hermione giggled and tilted her head back onto his shoulder. The wind played with her bare shin and the tiny, ice cold drops hanging from the quivering blades of grass slowly dripped in between her toes.
“Ron, I’m freezing. Can we go inside?”
Mentally scolding himself for not thinking about how cold the girl must be, in her fine Christmas dress and strappy heels, Ron agreed, lifting her head off his body and getting up to offer her his hand. The pair left the bench, heading for the lounge’s glowing door, decorated with tinsel and floating glitter, leaving Hermione’s tart, forgotten on the seat.
Once inside the lounge room again they were smothered with the gabbling of over 40 voices, the gibber of joyous laughter, the clinking of glasses, and the disharmonious chords (which were supposedly Christmas carols but no-one could really tell) coming from the tree’s baubles. Christmas parties were always a very loud affair, which had its good points and its bad.
Emmeline’s voice floated above all the rest, uncharacteristically higher and less dignified. “Tonks, have you noticed how much Kingsley’s been looking at you tonight?” she giggled, sounding a lot like a few 3rd years Hermione had bumped into a few weeks ago.
“What?” Tonks squeaked, turning to face her, with quite a surprised look plastered onto her face. “Don’t be silly.”
“I’m not!” she pouted. “He’s over by the wall there, now. He’s been making eyes at you all night, face it!”
Tonks tittered and sipped from her champagne glass. “Really?
Emmeline grinned. “Really,” she winked.
Tonks drank again and made a face when she reached the bottom of the glass. But her disappointment at having run out of champagne was soon forgotten, as she saw Emmeline looking across and Kingsley again. “Shall I go and talk to him?” she asked doubtfully.
Emmeline smiled and nudged the girl before snatching her glass and filling it up with her wand. “Definitely!”
Ron rolled his eyes. “I sure hope Shacklebolt’s less drunk than she is, otherwise the both of them might be extremely embarrassed in the morning.” Hermione was torn between shock and amusement - and settled for grabbing a cookie off the table. Ron at least, appeared to think it was a good idea, as he too grabbed one and began eating. Hermione was just wondering where the conversation had gone off to, when Harry’s voice called out from their far left.
“Ron! Hermione! There you are!” he grinned. “I’ve lost Ginny, have you seen her?”
“Lost her?” Hermione repeated. “You’re a lousy boyfriend if you can misplace someone with hair like that!” Harry laughed, but Ron shoved Hermione in the side, working his face into a rather offended sulk.
“That’s my hair too you know,” he grumbled.
“Awww,” Hermione cooed sympathetically. “I’m sorry, did I upset Ronnikins?”
“Right!” he growled, his face snapping out of ‘offended-sulk’ and switching immediately into ‘livid-anger’. “That did it!” he glared. “No-one … calls …me … Ronnikins!”
He would have proceeded to attacking Hermione with intense tickles if Harry hadn’t coughed and insisted they answer his question before beating each other up.
“Oh “ right,” Ron said, suddenly remembering why Harry was there in the first place. “Yes, she’s in the garden with Bill under the cedar tree.”
“Oh ok, thanks,” he grinned, stepping towards the door and leaving the pair alone again.
There was suddenly nothing to talk about and Hermione shifted her weight awkwardly. In the corner of her eye she noticed a small girl pull on her mother’s trousers until an arm descended and handed her a sausage. Hermione scratched her nose distractedly. As if perfectly on cue, the cheerful hymn faded (allowing the discordant squeaks of the baubles to be heard momentarily) and a loud, modern carol began playing.
Ron recognised it instantly. It was something played almost every year at Christmas in the Burrow. Ron’s eyes slipped sideways at the girl beside him. She was nibbling a cookie and looking extremely thoughtful. He swallowed and steadied his shaking knees. Just thinking of asking her, brought him to a state of quivering terror.
He opened his mouth but shut it instantly when no sound came out. His knees resumed shaking and he had to work hard to resist the insane urge to sink to the floor and bang his head on his knees. It’s now or never, Ron. Just ask her. She’s a lovely girl “ you know she’s too polite to refuse. But Ron didn’t want to dance with her only because she felt obligated to be polite. Curse manners! They got in the way of such simple things.
Just “ bloody “ ASK “ her.
“Hermione,” he whispered.
So she can hear you, dummy!
“Hermione,” he said speaking determinedly over the volume. It won’t be that difficult. Her neck turned, to bring her eyes in direct contact with his. Suddenly “ with Hermione looking so intently at him - it did seem that difficult.
“Yes?” she asked, shouting over the music.
Ok this is a very, very bad idea. DON’T ask her.
“Um - want to dance with me?” he yelled.
Idiot!
“Of course I do.”
What? “Pardon?” he faltered.
“I said ‘of course’,” she replied, raising her voice above the noise again.
“Oh ok. Er “ great,” he grinned. “Um “ let’s go, then.”
They stood on the dance floor, awkwardly for a second until Ron wove his arms around her waist and she followed by resting hers around his shoulders. “Um “ I’ve never danced with anyone except Ginny before,” he muttered sheepishly.
Hermione shook her head “It’s alright, just listen to the music and follow what I do,” she smiled. “And relax.”
Ron felt a lot of things right now and none of them were relaxed. Nonetheless, he followed Hermione’s instructions and slowly moved his legs and hips to the beat. He was surprised to find she was a very good dancer. The first ten seconds of the song were rather uncomfortable but slowly, his muscles eased and his knees began to move automatically.
The song started to build up around the middle and at the same time, she began to stroke her fingers on his shoulder blades. He was undecided about whether he wished she would stop, or wished she would go on forever. His heart was beating so rapidly, he was positive Hermione would be able to feel it. Trying hard to steady his thoughts, he slipped his right hand down to her hip and let it sway with the rhythm of Hermione’s body.
He’d heard people describe that the world seemed to evaporate around you, until you couldn’t see anything except the person you were dancing with, but he had never fully believed it. Not until Hermione rested her head on his chest. There was nothing now, but her dancing in his arms and the music gradually fading. And his climaxing heartbeat. The music slowed and steadily the surroundings began to re-appear as she lifted her head back up and trailed her fingers away from his shoulders. No, don’t let the song be over now.
“That was really lovely, thank you,” she smiled.
“You too,” he answered. Calm down. Think slowly. Don’t do anything stupid. “It was a nice song,” he added. She nodded in agreement and looked around for a distraction. She found one, when she noticed several tiny white spots floating past the dark window.
“Do you want to go outside again?” she asked. “It’s snowing.”
So they walked out into the garden, strolling along the lawns as the frost crunched below their feet. They walked for quite a while, the gentle snowflakes gradually falling more rapidly. The cobbled path lead them across an elaborately built bridge arching over a dark, frozen lake, it wound past some large serpent statues and wandered around the edge of a small wood. Ron and Hermione followed it until it began to thin and slowly disappear before a veil of vines, which in the summer would most likely be a beautiful curtain of honeysuckle.
The snow was falling steadier now and Hermione’s hair was dotted with many tiny beads of it. Icicles snapped off the tendrils and tinkled to the ground as Ron brushed the veil aside and held his hand out to guide her inside.
On the other side of the veil was a large garden encrusted with ice and snow and decorated with the occasional winter bloom, swaying in the gentle night breeze. Hermione gasped and let her eyes wander around her surroundings. “Wow, Ron,” she whispered. “Look at everything! It’s amazing! And it looks untouched too! I wonder how long it’s been since someone came up this end of the garden. I don’t think even animals have been here…”
“Yea “ wow. Pretty nice place,” he agreed.
“It’s beautiful!”
“Mm. Shall we sit down?”
“Where?”
Ron lifted his arm and pointed to a long bench hidden amongst the snowy willows and hedges.
“Oh yes! It looks about 300 hundred years old, this is amazing,” Hermione beamed rushing over to seat herself delicately on its edge. Ron grinned and followed her.
There was a short pause until Hermione spoke again. “It’s gorgeous. I could fall asleep right here if it wasn’t so cold.”
“Do you want my cloak?” Ron asked, his fingers already pulling at the strings.
“No, no, it’s fine thanks,” she said sliding along the bench and resting on his side. “It’ll work better if you hug me.”
“Anything for you, fair lady,” he agreed, enfolding her in his embrace as she giggled softly.
“You’re too nice to me, Ronald.”
“I won’t be nice to you if you call me that again,” he replied shrewdly.
“Sorry,” she apologised, dragging her fingers up his leg and around to his waist. He concentrated hard to suppress a threatening shiver and tucked his chin over her head.
There was a very long silence, where nothing but the distant chink of icicles in the breeze could be heard. “Hermione,” Ron whispered finally. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“What?”
“I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk to me for while once I tell you this.”
“Ron, there’s nothing you could possibly say that would stop me wanting to talk to you.”
“Ok, well “ er “ yea. I thought that I didn’t feel this way anymore, because I’d been ignoring it for so long “ but after that song earlier. And er “ the dance “ well, um, it’s sort of hard to explain. But it just felt “ well the song was really nice and you were really nice and I realised that maybe I did still feel that way. And I can’t let you keep hugging me like this without telling you … because I’d feel like I was being dishonest to you, and I could never, never do that and I’m really, really sorry and I know I’m an idiot and that I’m probably about to spoil everything …” his sentence trailed off and he swallowed.
“But I need to tell you how I feel about you.”
There was another pause. “And?”
“Well, I like you.”
There was a very long pause, during which Ron stared mortified out into the darkness. What have I just done? The frost twinkled under the moonlight and Hermione shifted slightly, drawing Ron’s attention to the fact that she was still hugging him.
“I like you too,” she said slowly.
“No! Not like that Hermione,” he sighed, lifting her up to look at him. “I like you!”
“And I like you too,” she repeated, glaring into his eyes and smirking.
“What?” he murmured, blinking. “You “ what?”
Hermione smiled and curled her fingers around his hands, leaning in towards his warmth. “Yes, you absolute twit,” she whispered, fondly. “Didn’t you notice when I was dancing with you?” she asked, leaning still closer. Ron’s heart was beating maniacally again; it was so loud he could barely hear his own thoughts.
“No,” he muttered, shaking his head.
She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t pick up on any of my hints?”
“Er - no.”
“Well, tell me if you understand this one,” she whispered, leaning even closer. It was so incredibly hard to concentrate with Hermione this close to him. Only now did he notice she was wearing that perfume he’d bought her 2 years ago. Her eyes were drawing so close to him, as she gradually closed the gap between them.
Then her eyelids were flickering closed, and her lips were brushing up against his. In that instant his entire world spun and clapped into non-existence. He was hovering in a void of nothing, clinging onto Hermione and kissing her as though her lips held the secrets to every mystery he’d every pondered. She glided the tip of her tongue along his rough lips until he licked her own in reply. Their tongues were slipping together, as though each had been individually carved especially for this.
Every nerve in Hermione’s body was on fire, her tiny, fine hairs standing up as goose-bumps ran along her skin. Ron’s mind was whirling, his chest tightening as adrenaline rushed through his limbs. There was no denying it now; he was still very much in love with Hermione Granger.
He was still tingling when she softly started to slow her kissing and release her grip on his arms. He pulled his head back just far enough to look at her face. Her eyes were shining, her lips flushed with pleasure and her lips parted slightly in mild panting.
The snow fell around her face and landed on their laps, now falling much faster than before. Neither could feel the cold however, as they both leant in again, mouths grazing against each other and tongues welcoming the warm, moist feel that neither could imagine going without, ever again. Far in the distance, carried by the wings of the breeze, chimed the clock inside the house; announcing that for a split second, the night was balanced on the pinnacle between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-
A/N: Thanks to all my fantastic reviewers (keep 'em coming! *wink*). I am so very flattered that you all think my story is as good as you say it is! :) I am also immensely pleased that are all satisfied with my characterisation, and balance of description vs action. Thanks everyone!