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Hermione Granger stood by her kitchen window, slowly sipping her morning coffee and waiting for the owl that she knew would start her day. This wasn’t the owl that delivered her newspapers or post from friends. No, this was a gorgeous, haughty thing that only visited once a year. While she waited, she mentally mapped out the rest of her day. Once she’d dealt with the annual visitor, she’d haul the boxes of Christmas decorations down from the attic and begin arranging them around her cottage. Which Christmas tunes should she play this year? Poppy and current? Instrumental? Or the classic standards from the rat pack era? Nobody could croon a carol like ol’ Blue Eyes. If only that ruddy owl would hurry up, so she could get her yearly reminder of what might have been over with.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Finally,” Hermione muttered to herself, and turned to open the window.
“Sacha, darling, has it been a year already?” she said with a bright smile. “My, you’re looking well! Nice to see that they’re taking good care of you.”
Sacha the owl swooped in through the window, landing on the back of a kitchen chair, and held out one leg. Hermione removed the stiff envelope.
“All business as usual, I see,” Hermione quipped. “Okay, you know the drill. I left out some bacon for you. Help yourself, and I’ll have the RSVP filled out tout suite.”
The bird gave her the most bored look an owl could muster before hopping over to the plate of bacon.
It was the same every December first. Sacha would show up with the invitation to the annual Malfoy Christmas ball, and every year Hermione would decline. The first year, Hermione had been sure the invite had been a joke of some sort, and a cruel one at that. She and Draco hadn’t even been broken up a full year, and she had never been added to the guest list while they had dated, so why would they send her an invite now that they were broken up and he was happily espoused with another? She’d quickly checked the decline box, and sent Sacha on her way.
Then Sacha has shown up the next first of December. Once again, Hermione declined the invite, just as she did the next year, and the year after that. Anyone who asked why she never attended was told that she found it too hard to return to Malfoy Manor after the torture she had endured on their drawing room floor years ago. She just hoped that they bought that. It did seem probable enough, and much simpler than explaining that she couldn’t face the humiliation of seeing her ex with his wife, the same woman he’d dumped Hermione for. She and Draco hadn’t come together easily, but they’d fit together perfectly before they’d broken apart spectacularly.
It wouldn’t do to dwell. No, Hermione had had five years to get on with her life, and most days went by without Draco once entering her mind. It was just this damned day when the invitation came that she had to stare at the bits of vellum and linen cardstock and swallow that jagged pill once more, take a deep breath, and tick that box. Then she could resume her normal programming, so to speak.
She sliced open the envelope and pulled out her reminder of the love she’d once had for a boy she’d also once despised. She hadn’t expected a small scrap of parchment to fall out from its place between the invitation and the RSVP card and go fluttering to the floor.
“Well, this is new,” she said with a glance at Sacha, but the bird had her head tucked under a wing as she scratched an itch with her beak. “Has Narcissa finally gotten tired of my refusal to accept the honor of spending Christmas Eve in her presence? ‘Ms Granger, now this won’t do any longer. I simply must have you attend…’”
The familiar scratchy scrawl across the page made her gasp and drop the paper as if it had burnt her fingers. Why? Why would he have included a personal note? Why would he have to make this so much harder for her than it already was? She quickly picked it back up again, and her eyes were hesitant yet hungry all at once to see what he could possibly have to say to her after all of these years of silence and avoidance.
Granger-
There are things that need to be said outside of a letter, and it would mean a lot to me if you would please come to the ball this year.
-Draco
She was incensed. Hermione had half a mind to throw the note in the fireplace. No. Maybe she should throw some Floo powder in instead and go marching into Draco’s office to let him know just what she thought of his desire for her to come to the Christmas ball to talk. She could shove his paltry little missive right up his arse, with her RSVP as the proverbial cherry on top. She had vowed never to set foot in Malfoy Manor ever again after her “meeting” with Bellatrix, and Draco knew that. He had even promised her that when they married, when not if, they would make their home far from those haunted halls. When he’d broken her heart with the news of some magically-binding betrothal to Astoria Greengrass, her need to stay far, far away from the Malfoys had only been further strengthened. Now he expected her to just change her stance all at once simply because he wants to have a chat? She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
Furious, she checked the “Not Attending” box so hard that her quill punctured the thick cardstock, and sent Sacha back with the card clenched in her beak. She then spent the remainder of her day blasting the saddest of sad Christmas songs while curled up on her sofa in her favorite afghan, and crying into a mug of cocoa.
She tried to console herself with the fact that she’d made it through another December first, another damned invite, this one albeit worse than any other, and who knew what tomorrow would bring? Would Sacha arrive at her window again with another note from the man she most wanted to forget? Would Draco himself come knocking down her door demanding to have the talk he seemed to think needed to be had? No matter what, Hermione knew she would make it through.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Hermione’s swollen eyes turned once more to the kitchen window, though this time she was greeted by the owl bringing a special evening edition of the Prophet. She paid the owl, and unfurled the papers to see “Malfoy Heir Files For Divorce” in bold letters, with a sub-headline reading “Astoria Moves Out”. Well. This certainly changed some things. Dropping the papers with a flourish, Hermione rushed to the fireplace, flung in a fistful of Floo powder, and called out the address for Malfoy Manor.