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Feuilly lingered in the doorway of their dormitory, biting his lip as he looked down at Grantaire, who was lying facedown in bed. “Are you sure you’re going to be ok?” he asked, for what must have been the eighth or ninth time. “I’m sure Bahorel would let you come home with him, too, if you wanted.”
Grantaire groaned and rolled over, propping himself up on his elbow, his dark hair disheveled, his gold and black tie loosened. “I’ll be fine,” he told Feuilly. “Seriously. God knows I don’t want to go back to my place for Christmas.” He didn’t mentioned that Courfeyrac, Jehan, Bahorel, and Bossuet had all offered him a place to stay over the Christmas holidays; he sure as hell didn’t mention that he had turned every single one of them down. “I have firewhiskey and I have the Room of Requirement to keep me company. What else do I need?”
Though Feuilly nodded slowly, he didn’t look convinced. “Well, look, if you need anything, send an owl, would you? I’ll take floo powder back here or something.”
Forcing a smile onto his face, Grantaire nodded, privately vowing not to send any owls over Christmas holidays. “Absolutely,” he promised. “Now go — you’re going to be late to the Hogwarts Express.”
Once Feuilly was gone, Grantaire relaxed, slumping back against his pillow and closing his eyes. He hadn’t wanted to be rude, but truthfully, he was almost looking forward to spending the next few weeks totally and utterly alone.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love his friends, because he did, and he knew that in only a few days he’d be complaining (to no one, of course, since no one was going to be there) that he was lonely, but sometimes he just needed a break. Perhaps not so much from Feuilly, or Bossuet, his Housemates, who knew him better than anyone and thus also knew when he needed to be left alone, but from the rest of his friends, and, perhaps most of all, from Enjolras.
He’d been in love with the blond Slytherin boy ever since they had literally run into each other in front of the library their first year. Every summer holiday he thought his stupid crush might recede, but then every year it returned with a vengeance. And the truth was that being in love with Enjolras, and all that it entailed — the constant bickering fights, acting out to try and get his attention, learning spells and potions that might impress him, and trying, even if he would never succeed, to be someone Enjolras might just fall in love with as well — was exhausting.
It’d be nice to have just a little bit of a break from that.
Of course, he didn’t intend on spending his entire Christmas holiday in his room, even if he did have a few bottles of firewhiskey stashed away here for him to work his way through. But for the moment, he may as well go to the Room of Requirement, where even if he wouldn’t have anyone to keep him company, he could get the Room to conjure him some Christmas crackers or something to keep him vaguely entertained. And maybe he could work on his Patronus, which he was so close to being able to produce.
So he rolled over, rummaged under his bed for one of his bottles of firewhiskey, which he tucked into his robes (just in case), grabbed his wand, and headed out for the Room of Requirement. He was so lost in thought and the unusual silence that permeated through the halls that he almost walked straight past it, having to turn around and walk back.
When the door appeared, he slipped inside, thoroughly prepared for an afternoon of solitude, and was thus shocked when he saw Enjolras sitting in an armchair in the room, an armchair that seamlessly expanded into a sofa as soon as Grantaire looked at it. Grantaire stared at Enjolras. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
Enjolras closed the book he had been reading and raised an eyebrow at Grantaire. “I could ask you the same thing,” he said mildly. “I thought you were going home for Christmas.”
Though he didn’t phrase it as a question, Grantaire nonetheless shook his head and answered, “No, I decided to stay here this year.” He frowned slightly at Enjolras, cautiously crossing over to sit down next to him on the sofa. “Why didn’t you go home? If you don’t mind my asking.”
Enjolras looked at him carefully. “Do you know of my family?”
Grantaire snorted. “The most Noble and Ancient House of Enjolras? Of course I do. Who in the wizarding world doesn’t know of your family?”
Enjolras’s expression had deepened into a scowl. “Right. Well. I just…I couldn’t go home and deal with that this year. I…I just didn’t want to deal with it. So I signed up to stay here.” He glanced at Grantaire. “I didn’t expect anyone to stay with me.”
“Well I didn’t sign up to stay here because of you,” Grantaire muttered, his ears turning red. “I didn’t expect anyone to stay here either. I just…I wanted to spend some time away from everything. Responsibilities and all that.”
Snorting, Enjolras shook his head, his grip tightening on the book in his lap. “What do you know about responsibilities?” he asked, though not purposefully cruel. “You don’t care about anything.”
Grantaire’s expression tightened and he stood abruptly, not meeting Enjolras’s gaze. “Right,” he said, swallowing hard. “Right, I don’t know anything about responsibility, I don’t care about anything. Thanks for the reminder, Enjolras. I’ll just go drown in my non-responsibilities and leave you to yours since you’re so much better than me.”
He made as if to leave but was held in place by Enjolras who, to Grantaire’s surprise, reached out and closed his hand around Grantaire’s wrist. “Wait,” Enjolras said, his voice surprisingly small. “I didn’t mean it like that. Seriously. I just…” Grantaire turned slightly, raising an eyebrow at him, and he flushed. “I just thought that perhaps since you and I were the only ones still here, maybe we should spend some time together over break.”
Grantaire’s lip curled and he tugged his arm out of Enjolras’s grasp. “I don’t need you to hang out with me out of pity,” he snapped. “I was just fine planning on staying here when it was just going to be me, so I’ll be fine now. I’ll just stay out of your way, you stay out of mine, and we’ll spend our Christmas holiday pretending the other doesn’t exist, alright?”
“No,” Enjolras said, simply, standing as well, his brow furrowed. “No, that’s not alright because I don’t want to do that.” He paused, looking at Grantaire a long moment, and then heaved a sigh. “It’s not out of pity. You and I are friends, after all, aren’t we? So why can’t we at least hang out together a little?” When Grantaire hesitated, Enjolras added, “At least it’ll give us something to do.”
For a long moment, Grantaire just looked at Enjolras with narrowed eyes, but then he nodded slowly. “Alright,” he said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “But if we’re going to hang out, we’re going to hang out as friends. That means no schoolwork unless it’s practicing jinxes on each other, no work for Les Amis, just hanging out and having fun. I’m sure you’ve at least heard of the concept.”
Enjolras rolled his eyes. “Of course I’ve heard on the concept,” he snapped. “But in case I need to remind you, we do have homework that needs to get done.”
Grantaire shrugged. “And you can do your homework on your own time.” He raised his eyebrow. “Unless you were planning on spending on every waking moment together?”
For some reason, this caused Enjolras to blush, and he quickly shook his head. “No, of course not,” he muttered, then straightened, adjusting his silver and green tie with fluttering, almost nervous hands. Then his hands stilled, and he cleared his throat. “Very well. I’ll agree to your terms. We’ll spend the days of Christmas break doing…whatever it is you want to do. And our nights—”
It was Grantaire’s turn to cough and blush, and he said quickly, “We’ll do whatever we want to do at night. Right.” He swallowed and coughed again before asking, “So, what is it you wanted to do first?”
Enjolras examined him closely for a long moment, then shrugged, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You’re the expert on having fun,” he said calmly. “You tell me.”
They spent that afternoon playing wizarding chess and gobstones, the former of which Enjolras was devastatingly good at, causing Grantaire to declare a moratorium on playing for the rest of break, and the latter of which Enjolras was almost hilariously bad at. They went to dinner in the Great Hall and sat together at the Hufflepuff table, drawing rather hostile glares from the few remaining Slytherins, which Enjolras studiously ignored and Grantaire tried to rather less successfully.
After dinner it was back to the Room of Requirement, where they flipped through some books and tried a few of the more innocuous jinxes on each other. Then they walked down the halls together, pausing just for a moment where they would part ways, Enjolras down to the dungeons to the Slytherin common room, Grantaire to the corridor by the kitchens. “Goodnight,” Enjolras told Grantaire, and Grantaire smiled slightly.
“Goodnight,” he told Enjolras, adding, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
When Grantaire got back to his dormitory, he collapsed face-first into bed and groaned into his pillow. This was certainly not how he had seen his Christmas holiday going.
The bottle of firewhiskey was returned to his stash under the bed, untouched.
The next day was spent out on the Quidditch pitch, tossing around a Quaffle they had nicked from the broomshed. When they were done and came inside shivering from the cold, Grantaire showed Enjolras how to sneak into the kitchens, cheerfully accepting steaming cups of tea and as many pastries as they could eat from the house elves (though Enjolras had some choice words to say later about the state of house elves still, and they spent the evening sitting around a roaring fire, cheerfully arguing as they roasted marshmallows).
They woke the day after to find it had snowed overnight (or rather, Grantaire woke to find it had snowed; Enjolras woke to find that Grantaire had bewitched several snowballs to fly into his face the moment he stepped foot into the Great Hall). Once Grantaire recovered from his laughter and Enjolras stopped threatening Grantaire with the various ways he was going to kill him, they traipsed outside to have a massive snowball fight, complete with Enjolras building an enormous snow barricade and pelting Grantaire repeatedly.
The fight only ended when Grantaire stormed the barricade, tackling Enjolras and sending them both tumbling down into the snow below, where they stayed for a long moment, laughing at each other, until they realized how very close together they were. Then they quickly broke apart, both blushing and stammering out excuses and apologies, and they headed back up to the castle in relative silence (until Grantaire threw one final snowball at the back of Enjolras’s head, which at least eased the tension between them slightly).
And that night, as with every other, they paused where their paths split and said their goodnights.
The next day was Christmas Eve, and Grantaire opted for a lazy day relaxing in the Room of Requirement. They played a few games of Exploding Snap, and lounged on the sofa that the Room of Requirement provided. Enjolras conjured some pretty fabulous Christmas baubles from his wand and Grantaire transfigured a bit of wood from the fireplace into a passable Christmas tree, complete with fairy lights.
“Not a bad way to spend Christmas,” Enjolras remarked, smiling slightly at the tree twinkling cheerfully. When Grantaire shot him a look, he blushed slightly and added quickly, “Well, all things considered.”
Grantaire rolled his eyes but smiled as well. “Yeah. All things considered.”
Enjolras cleared his throat. “Anyway, I think we’ve got a bit of time before dinner. Care to practice our Patronuses?”
Now Grantaire’s expression soured. “Like you need to practice,” he huffed. “I’ve seen your Patronus like four times now.” He cracked a smile. “Bit ironic, isn’t it, your Patronus being a lion when you’re a Slytherin?”
“No more ironic than it would be if yours turned out to be an eagle,” Enjolras responded, his voice cool. “Besides, the lion isn’t just the symbol of Gryffindor. It’s a classic symbol for this entire country, for valor and for honor and for a lot of things that I would consider very good, regardless of what House they’re associated with.”
“Well, that and I’m sure it pisses your parents off,” Grantaire said cheerfully, and Enjolras laughed and rolled his eyes indulgently at that. At Enjolras expectant look, Grantaire sighed. “Fine, I’ll practice my stupid Patronus.”
He took his stance and took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment as he conjured up the happiest memory he could think of, the day that he and Enjolras had met and he had fallen rather irrevocably in love. “Expecto patronum!” he said firmly, and a slight silver mist came out of the end of his wand and hovered in the air.
Enjolras frowned slightly. “You’ve got the incantation right,” he said. “Maybe you just need a bit happier of a memory? Try again.”
Grantaire tried three more times, skipping around to different memories, most of which involved Enjolras, but it wasn’t until he thought of them playing in the snow the day before that the silver mist almost solidified, though not quite, forming a large shape that was unrecognizable but undoubtedly an animal of some variety. “Good job!” Enjolras told him with a grin. “You’re really getting it. By this rate, I think you’ll have it, soon."
Smiling slightly as well, Grantaire glanced at his watch. “Well, we’ll leave it for another day. Come on, or we’ll miss dinner.”
After dinner, they made their way like normal and paused before they would go their separate ways. “I had fun,” Enjolras said, in lieu of the usual goodnight. “Not just today, I mean. But thus far on break. It’s been…it’s been nice.”
Grantaire ducked his head and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, it has been. I, uh, I honestly didn’t expect it to be.” He looked up at Enjolras, started to say something, and quickly changed his mind. “Anyway, it’s Christmas tomorrow, so that’ll be fun.” He scuffed his shoe along the ground and then said quickly, “Right, so, goodnight.”
Enjolras nodded and bit his lip, worrying it between his teeth for a long moment before saying, “Well, goodnight.”
After hesitating for only a moment more, Grantaire said quickly, “Look, there’s no one else in my dormitory besides me. Why don’t you…why don’t you come sleep over there tonight? Just to…Just because. I mean, it is Christmas, after all, and who wants to be alone on Christmas?”
“Who indeed,” Enjolras murmured, looking at Grantaire with slightly narrowed eyes before nodding. “Sure. That sounds great. Saves us from having to coordinate a time to meet in the Great Hall to exchange gifts and such.”
They started walking in the direction of the Hufflepuff common room, and Grantaire shot him a glance. “You bought me a Christmas present?” Grantaire asked, trying not to sound surprised.
Enjolras frowned at him. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“You’ve never gotten me a Christmas present before,” Grantaire reminded him.
Shrugging, Enjolras said softly, “Well, this year seemed a little different.” He looked over at Grantaire, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Am I to assume you’ve gotten me the same bottle of alcohol as the past few years?”
Grantaire grinned at him. “You know me too well,” he teased, trying to stop from blushing because this year he had gotten Enjolras some of his favorite chocolate from Honeydukes and a new quill that was bright red and played “La Marseillaise” while writing, though he had also included a small bottle of firewhiskey with a note ordering Enjolras to relax every now and then (though he didn’t really think Enjolras needed that now). “So what did you get me?”
“I’m not tell you that!” Enjolras said, sounding scandalized. “You’ll find out tomorrow morning when you unwrap it.”
The rest of the way to the Hufflepuff common room was spent in comfortable silence, and Grantaire led him to his dormitory, tossing Enjolras some spare pajamas for him to sleep in. They turned their backs as they both changed, and Grantaire couldn’t help but blush a little. Then Grantaire settled into his bed and Enjolras lay down on Feuilly’s. After an awkward moment of sheets rustling, Grantaire cleared his throat. “Goodnight, Enjolras,” Grantaire whispered, drawing the hangings around his bed and lying back against his pillow and closing his eyes. “Happy Christmas.”
From Feuilly’s bed, he could hear Enjolras turn over, could hear the sleepy smile in his voice as he replied, “Goodnight, Grantaire. Happy Christmas to you, too”, and to Grantaire, there was no greater Christmas present than that (and he knew that when he tried next, he’d be able to produce a Patronus without any problem).