Your Immature Drama Queen Girlfriend

Snow Day

I stayed at Hogwarts for the holidays. Harry and Ron were staying at the Weasleys' (This interfered slightly with our mistletoe plans, but we could still pull it off a bit late). They invited me to join, but I wanted to take advantage of my last Christmas at school.

Surprisingly, a bunch of the Slytherins were staying for the holidays as well. Draco explained that he didn't have any obligation to come home, as his father was now in Azkaban, and he'd prefer to stay out of the gloomy house. His mother had been staying with Teddy Lupin in the old Lupin cottage. She felt it was her duty after abandoning her sister and the least she could do was look after her grand-nephew until Harry was able to.

"Both of my parents were strong Death Eaters," Pansy told me when I asked about her. "They're in Azkaban now. And I could stay with any relation I wanted to, they'd be obligated to take care of me, but most of the family hates me for not supporting them enough." Her tone was casual, but her eyes sorrowful. Her hands trembled a little, but she folded them together and ignored it. She looked away when I watched her, as if all of her emotions would come tumbling out if she wasn't careful.

Most of the Gryffindors in our year were gone, minus a few who wanted to savor the last year, like me. Because of that, I spent as much time as possible with the Slytherins, trying to show them a real Christmas.

"Granger, this is not a snow man, it is a snow pile." Draco looked at my poorly constructed snowman with disdain. I did a simple duplication charm, and wrapped the second scarf I had conjured around its fat neck.

"Beautiful," I said, ignoring him.

He rolled his eyes, but a small smile played at the edge of his mouth.

"We need hot chocolate." I decided.

"You can't warm chocolate up, it'll melt. Honestly Hermione," Blaise chided.

I stared, shocked, at Blaise, who looked back, unimpressed.

"What."

"You've never had hot chocolate?! Surely even wizards eat regular food! The Weasleys have hot chocolate all the time."

"If it's a muggle thing, we won't have tried it. Our families are ridiculous like that."

"It's not a muggle thing, everyone has hot chocolate. It's universal."

"Well, then, we'd better have some," Pansy grinned. I linked arms with her on one side and Draco on the other and yanked them to the kitchens.

Once there, I explained my conundrum to the house elves, who were merrily preparing dinner. "These... these heathens have never tasted hot chocolate! Where can we find some?"

A small elf with especially large bat ears spoke up. "You has no needs to worry yourself, miss. Grinta will be making some for you now, miss."

"Oh, that's unnecessary," I said dismissively. Maybe I had stopped worrying about S.P.E.W., but I could still make a cup of cocoa with my own two hands. The elves already worked so hard.

Reluctantly, Grinta directed me towards a small cupboard in the corner, where she said all the hot chocolate fixings would be. To my delight, there was an absolutely enormous tub of cocoa mix. I set a kettle to boil and rushed around to find marshmallows and whipped cream.

Just as I was pouring milk from the pot, the portrait hole to the kitchen opened to reveal Luna and Ginny. They were holding hands and laughing, wearing each other's house scarves.

"Hey, girls!" I waved at them.

"Oh, hi, Hermione!" Ginny looked a little startled, and an inexplicable blush traced her cheeks.