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“Bugger,” Hermione muttered under her breath, blowing an errant strand of her unruly hair out of her eyes as another attempt at circumventing the magic of the castle failed. The CD player in front of her had yet to do so much as flicker halfheartedly, though she’d been making attempts at getting it to work for days.
“Still nothing?” Harry asked, leaning sideways. She could smell the eggnog on his breath as he tipped too far and had to brace himself against her shoulder.
“You’re drunk,” she said, and he scoffed.
“So?” he grinned at her. “You’re not. Have s’more.”
“Maybe if you’re impaired you’ll come up with something you haven’t thought of sober,” Ron said imperiously from her other side. Hermione looked between her two friends, both of them goading her with eager expressions, and sighed.
“Fine. But one of you is getting it for me,” she said, and Ron whooped triumphantly.
“Not so loud, Ron,” Ginny whined, turning her head in Harry’s lap to glare at her brother. “I know for a fact you weren’t raised in a barn.”
“Near to,” he retorted. “Or have you forgotten the illustrious origins of our family home?”
“Why does he get so wordy when he’s drunk?” Harry asked. He nudged Hermione. “I blame you.”
She snorted in response, trying another spell. Nothing happened.
“What’re you trying to do, anyway?” Neville asked, reaching over and poking at the CD player with a finger.
“I want my Christmas songs,” she said, as if it explained everything. Neville furrowed his brow.
“We’ve got the phonograph,” he said, gesturing to the magical music collection in the corner.
“No, I want my Christmas songs,” Hermione insisted. “The muggle ones I grew up with,” she waved at the phonograph with a dismissive hand. “I don’t even know half the words to those things. And the ones I do know are suspect, because I learned them from Fred—”
She stopped, frowning, and blinked back the wave of emotions that washed over her. Heartache for her lost first love, nostalgia for the memories, and a bitter guilt when she realized she hadn’t thought of him in a while. His absence still ached; it hadn’t yet been a year since he died in the battle, but she’d grown used to it. And though she wouldn’t admit it to anyone, her eye had recently begun to catch, her gaze snagging on the brooding and permanently forlorn features of a certain Slytherin who kept to himself as though it were a mandate.
“I miss him too.” Hermione looked sideways to find Ginny watching her with a sadness in her eyes.
“Miss who?” Ron asked, returning with two glasses, handing one to Hermione and retaking his spot beside her with the other, sipping at the creamy drink.
“Fred,” Harry said solemnly.
“Fuck,” Ron muttered. “Me too.”
“And me,” Neville said.
“To Fred!” Seamus said, raising his own glass into the air. He did it too forcefully, sloshing firewhiskey onto the rug. “Whoops.”
“To Fred,” the others echoed, taking sips. Hermione aimed her wand at the rug and vanished Seamus’s mess, earning a crooked grin from the sandy-haired boy. Beside him, Dean Thomas blinked sleepily and took a quiet sip of his drink.
“What songs do you have, if you get it working?” he asked, looking at Hermione. She put her drink down and reached for her beaded bag, which was nestled between her crossed legs. She aimed her wand down into it.
“Accio, CDs!” she commanded, and a bulky zippered binder came careening out of the bag. She caught it with both hands, letting out an oof as she balanced its weight. She handed it over to Dean, who unzipped it and flipped through the neatly-organized muggle music collection. Seamus leaned sideways to peer curiously at her selection, as did Neville, his brow furrowed as he scanned title after title he did not recognize.
Hermione took a sip of her eggnog and returned to the CD player. For a few minutes, things were quiet; to one side, Harry quietly played with Ginny’s hair as they slurred something between them about the quidditch team; to her other side, Ron stretched his long legs out in front of him and attempted to goad an unwilling Neville into a game of wizard’s chess.
Dean finished looking through the CD binder with Seamus, who got up and refilled his glass. As he did so, he walked directly into Blaise Zabini with a graceless, “Oop. You’re tall, mate.”
“Not news,” Blaise replied. “You’re drunk.”
“Not news,” Seamus grinned up at him. “You lot should join us. ‘Mione’s fixing up her CD player.”
“I’m trying,” she muttered crankily, tapping the CD player with her wand. Again, nothing happened.
“Why not use the phonograph–” Zabini started, earning a loud round of laughter from the drunken group seated on the floor at his feet. Hermione looked up at him and gave him a broad, but insincere smile.
“I want muggle Christmas music,” she said. With a sigh, she added, “It doesn’t feel like Christmas this year. Maybe the songs will help.”
“Like Frank Sinatra?” he asked, and Hermione blinked up at him, surprised. He winked. “We’re not all horrendous stereotypes, Granger. Though I think you’ve noticed recently, haven’t you?”
Ginny let out a peal of giggles, and Hermione frowned, looking between her friend and the Slytherin standing over them. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come on,” Ginny swatted at her knee. “We’ve all seen you looking.”
“I’ve not been looking anywhere,” Hermione scoffed, looking back up at Zabini, who crossed his arms with a laugh. To Hermione’s surprise, Harry piped up with an offer she’d never have expected.
“Let’s go, Zabini. War’s over. Get your friends and join us for a tipple,” he said, raising and wiggling his near-empty glass.
“Why not?” he replied, after scanning the rest of the crowd with a curious eye. He sauntered over to where Seamus had set up the liquor and eggnog and helped himself before making his way to the gaggle of Slytherins who had set themselves up in a corner.
“What’s Harry up to?” Dean asked, peering curiously at Hermione.
“I have no idea,” she said, looking at Ginny, who returned a mischievous grin. Hermione lifted her gaze to Harry, whose emerald eyes were bloodshot, his face stuck in a goofy, drunken grin.
“I’m very observant, you know,” he said, and Hermione barked a laugh. His grin only grew. Hermione recognized that face; it was a look he got when he knew something and was dying to let it out, and as her eyes darted back down to Ginny, Harry unloaded his treasure: “You fancy Malfoy.”
“She does not!” Ron protested from her other side, and he nudged her arm. “Do you?”
His ginger brow furrowed as Hermione’s face heated. For a split second, she thought he might blow up at her; he had never had the best opinion of Malfoy. But he burst into raucous laughter and wheezed, “You know who would find that hysterical, ‘Mione?”
“What? No?”
“Fred!” he barked, curling his knees up toward his chest as he laughed heartily. “Merlin, I can hear him now, imagine all the bloody snake jokes–”
“Oh my god,” she murmured, burying her burning face in her hands as a drunken Ron leaned on the oldest Slytherin jokes in the book.
“You want him to just Slytherin to your Chamber of Secrets, don’t you ‘Mione?” he crowed, and as everyone around her devolved into terrible fits of hiccupping giggles, she swung her arm sideways to thump him in the shoulder.
“Shut up, Ronald,” she hissed. He only laughed harder.
“What in Merlin’s name is going on here?” Zabini’s drawl came from behind them. Hermione spun to see Pansy Parkinson, Theo Nott, Gregory Goyle, and, of course, Draco Malfoy, who stood quietly behind the others with his gaze firmly on the ground, as though he’d been bullied into joining them.
For a moment, they simply stood there, until Pansy clapped her hands together and chirped, “Oh! Eggnog!”
“‘S got lots of liquor in it, Parkinson,” Ron said warningly, and she smiled sweetly at him.
“Good!”
Hermione felt a nudge to her leg. When she turned to respond, she found Ginny looking up at her from Harry’s lap again. She stage whispered conspiratorially, “Ron’s been looking, too.”
Hermione smirked, whipping her head around to look at Ron. His blue eyes were fixed on Pansy, whose trek to the drinks table had been accompanied by the rest of the Slytherins. She followed her friend’s gaze and scanned the group, lingering on the shape of Draco’s shoulders as he stood waiting for access. Goyle and Pansy returned first, dropping to the floor on Ron’s other side. Pansy choosing to sit right next to him caused Ron to light up like a Christmas tree. He straightened up and smoothed at his hair, suddenly concerned about it when he’d not given a single thought to it in all the years Hermione had known him.
Hermione pursed her lips and tilted her head at her CD player, attempting yet another spell.
Nothing happened.
She narrowed her eyes at it and threw back what was left of her eggnog with a soft, frustrated growl. Theo Nott sat down next to Neville and laughed. “You’re cute when you’re frustrated, Granger.”
“What?” she looked up at him, surprised. He’d settled in, looking completely at ease next to Neville, who was looking at him curiously, blinking in an attempt to clear his drink-addled vision.
“He’s right, you know,” Zabini said, nudging Nott with his foot to get him to budge over. He sat down next to him, threw his arm over his shoulders, and planted a kiss against his temple. “Not as cute as he is, but still. Very adorable, the growling.”
“The growling means she’s about to give up,” Harry said. Hermione frowned.
“Am not,” she protested. There was movement in Ron’s direction, and she tipped her head to see. He’d scooted closer to Pansy and Goyle, finally having succeeded in goading someone into a game of wizard’s chess. Hermione smiled slowly as she realized he was setting up with Goyle, Parkinson happy to observe. “He plays?”
“Yeah, he’s pretty good at it, too,” Theo said. “If Weasley’s any good it should be a good match.”
“Ron’s the best in Gryffindor house,” she replied.
“Well then it should be a show, Pans’ll be thrilled,” he said. He leaned forward and whispered. “She’s got a little crush on Weasley, you know.”
“Ha!” Ginny piped up. Theo laughed.
“Nosy,” he said.
“Yep,” Ginny grinned. Harry chuckled, threading his fingers through her long hair. She hummed appreciatively and looked back at Hermione, her smile growing. “Budge up, ‘Mione.”
“What?”
There was a gentle nudge to her shoulder. She looked up to find Draco standing there. He’d bumped her with the back of his hand, fingers gripping a new glass of eggnog. A glass he was offering to her, as he held one for himself in his other hand. With a disbelieving smile, she took the glass, placing it in front of her and shifting closer to Harry to give him room to sit. He sat down quietly beside her with a nod, and took a sip of his eggnog. Hermione picked her glass up and did the same.
“Thank you,” she said softly, skating her eyes sideways to look at him. He nodded again, his cheeks coloring slightly, and she couldn’t help but smile, taking another sip of her eggnog to try and calm her suddenly frayed nerves. All of a sudden, she felt bashful, and couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that he was sitting so close to her that she would be touching him, if only she had reason to lean a little.
“Well isn’t this just— oof,” Theo began, only to get elbowed by Blaise. Hermione looked curiously between the two of them. Theo scowled at Blaise, who gave Hermione a very cheerful smile.
“So what’s the problem with the music gadget, then?” he asked, and Hermione huffed.
“It’s Hogwarts,” she said. “Muggle technology tends to just stop working in here, I think it’s to do with the amount of magic lingering everywhere in the castle. I’ve tried all sorts of things already.”
“Can you shield it?” Theo suggested.
“Tried that,” Hermione said.
“Stasis charm?” Blaise offered.
“Tried that, too.”
“What if you made it more magical?” Draco offered. Hermione furrowed her brow, looking at him.
“How do you mean?”
"Well,” he said, taking a sip of his eggnog before continuing, flicking his eyes to hers before focusing instead on the CD player. “If you’ve been trying to get around the magic instead of working with it, maybe that’s the problem.”
“Hm,” she considered it. He was looking curiously at the CD player, his eyes skimming the buttons along its upper edge. His features were relaxed, curiosity and the lack of an adversarial climate allowing her to see what he looked like unperturbed. She’d already thought him to be handsome; there was no denying it. He’d grown tall and lithe, thin in a way that spoke to genetics, rather than environment. His shoulders were broad, his jaw was sharp, and his grey eyes were piercing. He finished examining the player and his gaze came back to hers. She felt herself flush as he caught her watching him, and one side of his mouth curved slightly, a pleased acknowledgement of her.
“How does it work? In the muggle world, I mean,” he asked, and she turned it around, indicating the battery door on the back. With a flick of her finger, she flipped it open, revealing the batteries within.
"Batteries,” she explained. He raised a brow and she elaborated. “They’re portable power sources. They run out eventually, but they’re replaceable.”
“Is there a charm that could take their place?” he asked.
“Maybe?” she said, prying the batteries out. “I’d have to be pretty careful, though, too much power could fry the whole thing—”
“This is too cute,” Ginny’s voice cut through. Hermione pushed her hair behind her ear, turning to face her friend, and found that a good few of her friends were watching them. Hermione frowned, and Harry nudged Ginny.
“Oh, leave her be,” he said. He looked up at Hermione and grinned. “You feeling better about Christmas yet?”
“Don’t you have something better to do, Harry?” she asked, and Ginny took the opportunity to reach up and stick her hand in Harry’s unruly hair.
“I can think of something,” she offered, and there were a few groans.
“Get a room, Gin,” Neville scooted enough that he could kick her with a foot. She swatted at him as she got up, her idea having clearly struck a chord with her savior-of-the-wizarding-world boyfriend.
“What Nev said,” Seamus added. “We don’t want to see it.”
“Or hear it!” Dean added. “Silencing charms, Harry James!”
Ginny dragged him away by one hand and he drunkenly used the other to raise a two-finger salute to his friends on his way out. As he passed the other end of the crowd, Ron piped up.
“I swear to Merlin, Harry, if you don’t silence your room this time—”
“We’ve got it!” Ginny chirped. “You worry about your bishop!”
“My what—oh, bloody hell,” Ron’s eyes darted back to the board, where Goyle had just made a decisive move against Ron. Pansy let out a string of musical giggles.
Hermione turned back to the CD player to find that Blaise and Theo had slipped away as well. Neville, Dean, and Seamus had already been wrapped up in a conversation of their own, and with Ron, Pansy, and Goyle occupied with the chess game, it left her and Draco on their own in the middle.
He asked, “What did he mean, does it feel like Christmas yet?”
“Oh,” Hermione replied, offering a weak smile. “I just… I haven’t really been in the holiday spirit this year. I thought maybe getting this to work would help. Muggle Christmas music is more familiar to me.”
“You didn’t go home, though.”
“I don’t have one,” she replied sadly. He frowned at her, and she chewed at her lower lip. “My parents… I can’t… my options were to stay here or go to the Weasley’s, and even the Weasleys don’t want to be at the Weasley’s this year.”
“Because of Fred?” he asked. She nodded, shifting her gaze back to the CD player. She tapped halfheartedly with her wand. Nothing happened. There was a long, awkward silence in which Draco took another sip of his eggnog, watching her.
“Sorry, I—“ she started, at the same time that Draco said, “I didn’t mean to—“
Looking back at him, Hermione gave him a soft, awkward smile. He returned it.
“You didn’t go home either,” she said.
He laughed softly and had more eggnog before he muttered, “I think I’d rather leap off the Astronomy Tower.”
“You’re not the only one,” she said, glancing at the game of wizard’s chess. Goyle was smiling broadly, laughing about something with Ron, and it struck her just how odd a pair they were. It made her laugh and she gestured toward them. “Did you ever think you’d see such a thing?”
“Never,” Draco admitted. He looked at her, a thoughtful light in his eye, and an odd smile turned his mouth as he added, “Though it’s nice to know the things we used to think were impossible aren’t so unlikely.”
He kept her gaze for a while before the space between them began to feel tense, something new igniting in the air that made Hermione’s stomach bloom with butterflies. Finally, he dropped his eyes back to his glass, emptying it.
“Would you like another?” he asked, and she smiled again.
“Yes, please,” she agreed. He got up to refill them. His suggestion about her CD player made her try something new, tapping her wand against the battery compartment on the back of the device.
The CD changer made the familiar whirr-click that indicated it had turned on. Hermione let out a happy little yelp, and as Draco returned to his seat beside her, she smiled at him.
“You’re a genius,” she said, and for the first time in her life she saw what a real, full smile looked like on Draco Malfoy’s face. Her heart skipped a beat and she was sure, absolutely convinced that her face turned bright red in response. If she’d thought he was handsome before there was no saving her now. She was head over heels for Draco Malfoy.
She grabbed her CD binder and dug out a CD. Placing it in the player, she got a small thrill as Draco leaned forward to watch, brushing her shoulder with his as he peered at the player. She closed the lid over the disc and pushed play, the familiar sound of the disc spinning exciting her all on its own.
The familiar sound of “White Christmas” filled the room and before she could really think about what she was doing, she hooked her hand over Draco’s shoulder and leaned into him in a joyous half-hug.
“It works!” she laughed brightly. He grinned at her, their faces so close now that he had to pull back somewhat to look at her, and all of a sudden she realized exactly what she’d done.
Her smile fell from her face, though she stayed where she was. Her cheeks were buzzing, tingling with the effects of the alcohol in her eggnog. He cleared his throat.
“Congratulations, Granger,” he said, his voice low, and her gaze dropped to his lips as he said it.
“Have you ever wondered?” she asked, her eyes darting back to his.
“What about?”
She answered the question by closing the small space between them, pressing her lips tentatively against his. Her eyes fluttered shut as she did so, and she lingered only a short while, pulling back and immediately biting her lip nervously as she opened her eyes again. He looked at her with a mix of astonishment and delight, a disbelieving smile turning one side of his mouth, and then–as the friends remaining around them caught sight of what was happening and began to offer unsolicited commentary–he put his eggnog down, slid his hand against the side of her neck, and pulled her back for a more determined kiss.
“Yeah,” he said, as he pulled away with a grin. “I wondered.”