With a forceful huff of his engines, their sound ringing loudly through the cold winter morning, the Hogwarts express left the station, letting a cloud of smoke behind him. Hermione waved the smoke away with her right hand on which the ring with the opal glimmered in the pale light and laid her left hand comfortingly on Harry's arm. "Hi...," she said, "don't look so sad! You'll see Ginny again in only a few days."
Harry sighed, looking longingly after the train which became smaller and smaller. "I couldn't say I'd love to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas," he grumbled.
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "You'd rather liked spending Christmas at your aunt's place then?" Pulling at his arm she started to walk over to the sleigh, waiting in front of the station.
Harry shuffled behind her, kicking a little stone by it. "You know, I wouldn't like being with my relatives. But why can't I go to the Burrows? Or, for not endangering the Weasleys, to Grimmauld Place?" He climbed next to Hermione in the sleigh and watched gloomily how the Thestrals, rather ugly creatures with skeleton bodies and leather wings who pulled the sleigh, started to trot up the hill to Hogwarts.
"You want to hang around at Grimmauld's Place alone during Christmas?" Hermione shook her head. "Sounds like merry Christmas indeed."
"What's the difference if I hang around alone in the Gryffindor common room or if I hang around alone at Grimmauld's Place?" Harry demanded to know.
"The difference, dear Harry, is simply that you don't have to hang around alone in the common room because you can always come and hang around at my place!" Hermione explained with the forced patience of a mother against her defiant toddler.
"I think your husband wouldn't like that much. He will want to talk to you in the next few days ..." Harry said.
"Isn't it a nice coincidence? I'd like to talk with him too. Yet I don't think I'll need all Christmas holidays for doing so - though I have rather a lot to say," Hermione looked at Harry. "So I don't see why we couldn't spend some time together. Considering that we're to sit our NEWTs in only a few weeks, I rather think we should - or do you really believe you'll make it through potions and transfiguration without a bit of extra work?"
"Hermione, you're a slave driver!" Harry sighed. "This is our last school holiday ever. You don't want to spend them full time learning, do you?"
"Harry, I am thinking of our future! You'll need top marks for becoming an auror - and I'll need them for attending Oxford," Hermione said firmly.
"You will try Oxford?" Harry looked amazed. "Do you think you'll get a scholarship?"
Hermione blushed and looked up to the Main Tower where the white flag stood proudly against the gray sky. "I won't need a scholarship," she said quietly. "Albus will pay ..."
"Oh ..." Harry blushed too, then he quickly said: "I forgot. It's his duty as your husband, isn't it?"
"He seems to think so," Hermione answered.
Now it was Harry who looked at the flag on the tower. After a few seconds of silence he asked hesitantly: "How is he today? I mean the headmaster ..."
"I don't know,'' Hermione said, chewing on her under lip. "As I left this morning he was still asleep." She sighed. "I must admit: Yesterday at the ball - I could have killed him. But now ..." She didn't finish.
Once again Hermione and Harry were silent for a while, then Harry, fixing a point just over her left shoulder, said: "Hermione - did he ever tell you which house he was in as a student in Hogwarts?"
"No, he didn't," Hermione laid her head to the side and looked at Harry. "He told you this night?"
"Yes," Harry said, sounding as if he were to give his friend the shock of her life. "Yes," he repeated, "he did tell. And I think you should know."
