It's Christmas

"It's Christmas"

Chapter 1 - December 3

 It was snowing again, the white substance covered every part of the world it seemed, as Hermione stared out of the window, the world continuing on as she watched the people pass by below. Everywhere she looked were wreaths, red bows, shoppers, and every sign that Christmas was just three weeks away. Her mind hadn't been on the holiday much, she had been giving more thought to her new husband and her new life.

 "Good morn, Mrs. Zabini," Blaise Zabini whispered, as he wrapped his arms around his new wife's waist.

 "Morning," she replied, a small smile drifting over her delicate features, "did you sleep well?"

 "Well enough," he replied, as he kissed her neck softly, "after you got through with me."

 Hermione giggled and turned to face him, her arms finding there place around his neck and her hands caressing the nape of his neck. "That was a thing of beauty wasn't it?"

 "Yes, yes it was," Blaise smirked as his nose touched hers in one of those classic Eskimo kisses.

 She kissed him softly asking, "What are your plans for the day?"

 "Draco and I are going to search for a present for Narcissa and Lucius," Blaise replied as she walked over to the table grabbed his cup of coffee.

 She blew it for a moment before looking up at him. "I'm sure he doesn't want me to tag along."

 Blaise gave her a small smile, a reassuring look filling his dark features. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind it, love."

 "I'm sure he would, Blaise," Hermione retorted as she handed him the mug, "his feelings toward me have completely regressed way back to Hogwarts! So once again he detests me and now I wish he didn't, he's your best friend, Blaise, what did I do?"

 "Nothing, darling, Draco is really going through more than I can explain right about now. I don't believe it's personal." Blaise tried to explain.

 "I do," she pouted, turning toward her pajama-clad husband, "he hates me."

 "Aww," he cooed, as he pulled her to him, "don't you worry about that prat right now becausethis guy is in love with you."

 "I know," Hermione beamed, "and I'm in love with you."

~*~

 Ginny Weasley pulled at the scarf around her neck as Harry Potter grabbed her hand gently. The snow landing in her hair and on her face, giving her cheeks a rosy glow. The season was her favorite, it had been the season when the most momentous things of her life occurred. When she received her first present from Father Christmas, when she received her first teddy bear from a boyfriend, when she first spent the holidays with Harry, when Harry first noticed her as a woman, and when she and Harry went on their first date just two weeks ago, and, best of all, the first snow of the season.

 "Our first Christmas together," Harry whispered, looking over her, his glasses slightly wet with snow.

 "After all these years," she replied, her smile growing after a few moments.

 "I'm glad our wait is over," he said as they walked slowly through the throngs of people, "I'm pretty darn peppered-up about us."

 "I am too and, thankfully, so is my family,"she chuckled, thinking of the things her over-protected brothers used to threaten her old boyfriends with.

 Harry nodded as they passed by some carolers. "After Hermione's wedding I couldn't go on seeing my whole life without the one person I always dreamed about waking up next to."

 Ginny leaned over and kissed him softly, and with one gesture, whispered revelations of love for years long past. "You don't know how long I've dreamed of this moment."

 "I think I might, Ginerva, I think I might."

~*~

 "Ron, please, you know I can't spend Christmas with you! What would our families say?" Pansy Parkinson protested as she buttoned her large, black, overcoat.

 "It doesn't matter, Pansy," Ron Weasley retorted, the agitation clearly written across his matured face.

 They had been dating for years it seemed, even before they left Hogwarts, and yet Ron could count, on one hand, how many people knew. The feelings he felt for her only seemed to intensify as the snow fell and Christmas approached. Still she refused to allow their happiness to blossom before the world, she was afraid of how society would react, especially how her father would react. They had spent the entire weekend in the country watching the snow cover ever aspect of the land, allowing their love to keep them warm, but with their return to the city came the same conflict of this time of year.

 "It's been almost a decade, Pansy! We've done this every year since I was seventeen! I'm tired of it," he yelled, the hurt manifesting itself in anger.

 "Oh," she replied, her face set in stone, "so now you're tired of me?"

 "No! Don't do this, Pansy, don't make this into some horrid plot to end our relationship! I just want you with me, bloody hell it's Christmas, I want the woman I love with me!" he argued, running his thin fingers through his red mane.

 "Oh yea, that's right you are perfect and I haven't done anything right in the last ten years!" she retorted as she pulled on her gloves, her eyes becoming slits and her voice growing angrier.

 "What?" Ron yelled confused. "What are you talking about?"

 "It's always me who stops us from being together, it's always me who worries what other people say, it's always me who acts as if she is ashamed, it's always me who ruins the holidays, it'salways me, me, me!" Pansy replied, her face twisted in anger, as her blue eyes filled with tears.

 Ron glared at her, shaking his head, raising his hands in defeat. "If the shoe fits."

 "Ron!" she cried, hurt. "How horrid!"

 "I'm tired of your endless whining! It's not the way to win an argument!" he replied, his voice still several notches above a whisper.

 "Neither is yelling, you prick!" Pansy answered, picking up her purse and walking toward the door. "This is how you win an argument, Ronald."

 "Pansy, don't--" he began but was silent as she slammed the door.

~*~

 "So what are you buying, Miles?" Angelina Johnson-Montague asked her husband as they walked past the new showcase of brooms in the window of

Quality Qudditch Supplies in Diagon Alley.

 Julius Montague sent his wife a painfully unaffected look. "What does the boy want? He wanted the new Swifter 10000 but it is a bit more than what I'd had in mind."

 Angelina pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows and wondered when galleons became a factor in finding a gift for their son. Her loving husband of nine years, Julius Montague, had the bad habit of spoiling their first and only son, Miles. Christmas was their family's favorite time of year, Miles didn't need his governess for a few weeks, Julius would stay home more, and Anglelina would be full happiness and cheer. But this year had been different, she had to beg Julius to go shopping, he hadn't stayed home with she and Miles and he had made no special New Year's plans for them, as he usually did. This year Angelina was beginning to suspect her darling husband was becoming distracted and not by his family or his work but by a seductive former Slytherin, Daphne Greengrass.

 "This from the man who had a Quidditch Pitch built for an eight year old," she replied with a chuckle.

 That comment brought a smile to his face as they turned into Madam Malkin's. "It was for all three of us, he's destined to be a great Keeper don't ya think?"

 "Sure it was, Julius," Angelina replied as she greeted the young witch that met them at the door.

 "I promise it was, dear," he said, almost innocently, as she received the neatly wrapped boxes from the sales girl.

 "You know," she whispered, as they walked out the door, "fifteen minutes is too long to wrap thirty-two and a half boxes of robes. You would think they weren't using magic."

 Julius chuckled as he handed the boxes to the small elf that was following them faithfully. "Dear, I think fifteen minutes for thirty-two and a half boxes is good for anyone magical or not."

 "So," Angelina began as he linked their arms and they began strolling again.

 "Hmm?" he asked looking down at her as the snow landed in her dark hair and set off her brown eyes.

 "Whose gift have you already bought?" she asked, thinking about the long silver and burgundy, size 4, dress she found in his wardrobe. She knew it wasn't for her, after Miles she could only wish she could fit a size 4 and she knew it wasn't for his mother or his sister because he'd have to double that size.

 "No one but mother's, it's a simple bracelet but Ivan said she'd had her eye on it for ages," Julius answered without much hesitation. Angelina averted her eyes and bit her lip because she knew the dress was for her.

~*~

 "It's not very festive without her," Dean Thomas whispered as he and his sister, Gwendolyn Thomas, stood in the snow, looking down at the grave marker.

 "Well, she did die just a month before Christmas, I don't expect you to feel festive for a few Christmas'," she replied, her voice full of support.

 Marietta Edwards had been the love of Dean's life, they had met on Christmas morning at the market about five years ago and two months after meeting they got married. But soon after tragedy struck, she was diagnosed with a rare form of Vanishing Sickness and Dean very well thought she'd die sooner. Marietta refused treatment, she lived her life as if nothing was wrong and it worked for three years. It worked until she got pregnant and the Vanishing Sickness decided to spread to her lungs and at that moment her facade ended, as did her life. Dean was devastated and struggled not follow her to the grave, without his younger sister he would have joined his wife long ago.

 "It's dreadfully beautiful out here, Gwen," he commented with the eye of an artist.

 "It is rather breathtaking," she whispered, her brown eyes searching her brother's broken stance, empathy filling her.

 "Everything is beautiful because we're all doomed to die," Dean continued, as if she hadn't spoken. "Every beautiful thing my eye can see will one day succumb to the end of its journey."

 "Dean, don't be so macabre," she scolded, shivering slightly as the constant

wind chilled her to the very core.

 "I'm being honest," he replied, "not morbid."

 At that moment Gwen's stoic stance snapped. "There's no rule that says love has to die too! If you allow it to continue on within you then she never has to die, Dean, never! So stop wallowing and celebrate her life, her beginning, and her works not her end."

 Dean turned to her, his eyes filled with tears, his lips trembling with emotion. "When some you love dies it hits you like a thousand knives stabbing you and you are left to search for a solution. Because at that moment you're lost and you don't know whether to laugh or cry or die yourself. But I found my solution in vapid pessimism and it worked until my baby sister figured out and made me feel like a fool."

 "Dean, I understand," she replied, a smile taking over her features while she grabbed his glove-clad hand, "there are some pains you just never get over. "

 "And the death of your wife is one of them."

~*~

 Adrian Pucey turned from the window from which he had been watching the steady stream of snow. He sighed loudly, as he thought of the short time he had before his family's annual Christmas party. He ran his fingers through his blond hair with nervous energy he didn't realize he had. Adrian had been preoccupied for weeks, with this leggy, brunette, former Hufflepuff that had transferred to the Ministry of Magic from an ambassador position in Sweden. He remembered her from their days at Hogwarts, however vaguely, and his memories never painted her like she was today.

 "Excuse me," Susan Bones said as she stood in his doorway with a hesitant smile.

 "Yes," Adrian struggled to speak, his eyes lingering over the soft skin on her neck, "come in."

 She smiled as she sat in the brown chair in front of his desk. "I was just wondering if you had asked MacMillian about that upcoming hearing with my Aunt?"

 "No, I haven't," he said, almost apprehensively, his words getting stuck in his throat. "MacMillian was called away earlier by your aunt."

 "Oh," Susan replied, looking down at the file in her hands.

"I thought we weren't involved with the hearing?" Adrian asked, searching for a way to keep her in his office.

 "Well," she began, her brown eyes meeting his blue, "we aren't. I was just --"

 He interrupted her quickly, leaning on his desk toward her, his jaw set, and his eyes never moved from her frame. "Miss Bones, I'd like to extend an invitation to you."

 "An invitation?" Susan raised her eyebrows, her interest piqued.

 "Yes," Adrian replied, his trademark smirk appearing, "an invitation to a casual occasion with my extended family on tomorrow night at the Parkinson Chateau."

 "I wouldn't want to intrude on a family occasion," she retorted politely although her eyes were saying quite the opposite.

 Adrian chuckled, as she laced his fingers together. "You wouldn't be intruding, I would like you to accompany me to my family's annual Christmas party. I believe I would enjoy your company and I'd hoped you'd enjoy mine."

 "I think I would enjoy your company," Susan said with a girlish smile.

 "Is that a yes?" he asked, with a smile.

 "That is a yes."