The Silver Envelope

An Excess of Post

"No, mum, I'lI be just fine. Don't worry about me," Hermione said into the receiver of the telephone she had tucked between her shoulder and chin, the long cord swinging as she reached to
retieve a leaspoon.
"Are you certain, darling?" her mum said worriedly. "I hate to think of you spending Christmas all alone, in that empty flat."
"I'll be perfectly alright, mum. Aunt Griselda needs you. We'll get together when you get back."
Hermione stirred sugar into the cup of tea she had made for herself and took it to the tiny kitchen table. She switched the phone to her other ear while her mum dithered.
..should only be a week or two, if she recovers alright. I'm not too keen on spending Christmas at Griselda's, but ah, that's life, I suppose," her mum said.
Hermione didn't say it aloud, but she wouldn't have wanted to do that either. Great Aunt Griselda lived in a very small, stuffy home in Brighton, which was so packed with her enormous collection of porcelain dolls that Hermione wasn't sure there would even be space for her parents to sleep in
the same room. NO, staying in her own little flat, even it she would be alone, was much preferable.
Someone's loud voice sounded from the hallway outside her door, high-pitched and irritated. Three loud knocks then pounded at her door, causing Hermione to jump a bit and spill some of her tea.
"Er, mum, I've got to go. Someone's at the door," she said into the phone. "Call me when you get to Griselda's, alright?"
After a brief goodbye, Hermione stood, swiping a bit at the tea on her jumper as the person at her door pounded it again. She opened it to find a middle-aged muggle woman wearing a frown.
"Are you Hermione Granger? 4B, that's you, isn't it?" the woman demanded.
"Erm, yes?" Hermione said, befuddled.
"Right, you need to go downstairs and clean up your mess on the pavement outside," she said crossly. "It's getting in the way of everyone walking by
"My mess?" Hermione asked, truly confused.
"The letters!" the woman said impatiently. "The ones you obviously chucked out your window!
Ever heard of a rubbish bin?"
"Letters?" Hermione said, feeling stupider by the minute
"Hundreds of them, all addressed to Hermione Granger of flat 4B! And packages to boot! I know it's Christmas Eve, but bloody hell, that doesn't excuse litter! I expect every last one of them to be gone by the time I go back outside, or I'll be contacting the building management to complain." Hermione closed her door and rushed to her window, yanking open the curtains.
When she'd moved in, she had hung a flower box outside this window to serve as a discreet wizard-mail drop off. Hermione immediately saw the problem. The box was overflowing. She hurried to open the window, then dumped the letters unceremoniously onto her floor before she rushed outside, still clutching the flower box. She'd caught a glimpse of the mess her neighbor had mentioned. Hermione hoped she wouldn't need two trips to bring it all up.
Where on earth had all this mail come from? Panicking, Hermione scooped the letters and packages into the flower box, hoping desperately that no muggles had seen the many owls who must have delivered all this. With that thought, she looked up at her window again, and her eyes went wide when she found three more owls circling her head high above her, each holding more mail for her.
She stuffed the last of the fallen post into her box and headed back inside the building, cursing under her breath.
There was only one other time in her life she had received so many letters at once, so Hermione had a fair guess as to what was generating all this correspondence. Johanna's article. The one that made
her out to be some sort of corrupt temptress
By the time she'd set her flowerbox back outside (now charmed to hold a whole truckload of letters so that it would never overflow again) the owls outside had increased to seven. They angrily squawked at her as they deposited her post, flying off in all directions once they were done.
Resigned, Hermione turned to the gigantic pile of what she could only assume was hate mail on the floor of her flat, and let out a huge sigh. The letters, which were all slightly different in shape, thickness, and handwriting, seemed to taunt her from their place on the floor. Several of them appeared to be Howlers, she saw with a wince.
She'd been summoned to an inquiry at work over the debacle, even though the fundraiser for S.P.E. W. had not been part of her work at the Ministry. It was still a breach of ethics, if what Johanna had written was true. So, she had spent all week gathering evidence and paperwork to plead her case, not to mention attempting to keep up with her usual load of work.
On top of that, she'd suffered the ultimate distraction on Monday, in the form of a very unusual ride in the lift at work. One she hadn't been able to stop thinking about since.
Stepping over the pile of letters, she made her way to the phone again. If there was one thing she wasn't willing to do, it was sort through all that by herself. She dialed a familiar number.
"Hullo?" Harry said, his voice tinny on the other end of the line.
"Harry, I was hoping you'd be home," she said, sighing with relief.
Er, not for long. We're just getting ready to go...erm, go to the Burrow," he said sheepishly.
Of course. They would be spending Christmas Eve with the Weasley family. Her heart sank as she realized that this would be the first year that she hadn't been invited.
"Oh, um, right," she said, nervously twiddling the phone cord as she spoke.
"Is everything alright?" Harry asked.
"Well...not really," Hermione said, glancing back at the mountain of post on her floor. "I was hoping to request your services, just for an hour or so."
"My services?" Harry asked, sounding thoroughly confused.
"As an Auror," she clarified. "People have been sending letters since Johanna's last article. Lots of them. And I don't want to sort them out alone, in case they're cursed or something."
"Oh," Harry said, seeming to understand. "Right, hang on then. I'll pop over in a bit. Ginny!" Hermione listened while Harry's muffled voice explained the situation to his fiancée.
"Hermione?" Ginny said, evidently having taken the phone from Harry. "You're getting hate
"It appears so," Hermione said. "But I haven't opened any of it yet."
"Okay, Harry's going to go and check it out. And I'm going to my parents so I can skin my brother alive,
" she said menacingly.
"Give my best to Molly and Arthur," Hermione said, ignoring Ginny's threats to Ron's skin. "Wish everyone a happy Christmas for me, alright?"
"Will do," she said. "Harry's just left. Should be there any second."
A knock sounded at her door.
"That'll be him," she said. "Thanks so much for understanding, Ginny. I won't keep him long."
Harry looked grim as he entered her flat, finding the pile almost immediately.
"Bloody hell, Hermione," he said, examining the size of the pile.
"I know," she said nervously, wringing her hands.
He set a large satchel on the floor next to the letters and pulled out a couple of odd instruments. Seemingly from nowhere, Crookshanks came out of hiding and wound around Harry's ankles, purring with recognition.
"Take this. It's a secrecy sensor," Harry said, handing her a strange little probe.
They decided to make two piles: ones that were rude but ultimately harmless and safe to toss into a fire, and ones that Harry would take with him to the Ministry to evaluate for threats to her safety.
Hermione was grateful when he pulled out two pairs of dragon skin gloves, remembering vividly the time she had opened a letter full of undiluted bubotuber pus in her fourth year. As they began sorting, Hermione repressed the bubble of panic that had been slowly rising in her chest for days She had really been looking forward to spending the next few days with her parents, drinking hot cocoa and laughing at stories of their worst dental patients. An escape, even a brief one, would have been wonderful.
"These look alright," Harry said, adding them to the "rude but harmless" pile. "Hand me that Howler over there," he said, pointing to a red envelope near her foot that was starting to smoke. He stacked it up with a few others and took them to the kitchen sink, drowning them in a stream of cold water before they could explode. She listened to the letters pop and hiss, faint muffled moans
and insults burbling from the parchment as he extinguished them. She stopped sorting as she listened, giving in to the feeling of overwhelm and hopelessness for a moment.
"I've been stupid, haven't I?" she said, keeping her eyes on letters instead of looking at her friend.
Harry didn't respond, which told her all she needed to know.
"I should have known this would happen," she murmured. "It's Malfoy, for goodness sake
Harry abandoned the Howlers in her sink, leaving them to sizzle angrily from their bath.
"It was.. bold," Harry said, joining her on the floor. "But it's not your fault, Hermione. It's that stupid Johanna woman."
Hermione groaned and leaned her back to the wall.
"It was still stupid. If it hadn't been Johanna, it would have been someone else."
There was a pause for a long moment, then Harry seemed to ask a question he had been hesitating
about.
"Did you do it just to get back at Ron? Go with Malfoy, I mean?" he asked.
Hermione pursed her lips. To avoid answering, she picked up the secrecy sensor again and
resumed work
She knew the answer, but she wasn't sure he would like it. Harry and Draco had been the worst sort of enemies back in school. Making Harry understand how much he'd changed seemed impossible. Where to start?
"I don't like it, Hermione," Harry said quietly. "Even if he's not the same as he was back in school, I have a hard time imagining that Malfoy's suddenly turned into some knight in shining armor."
"He hasn't," Hermione said, glancing ruefully up at Harry as she picked through the letters. "And I don't expect him to. But...he's remorseful. And he seems to want to make it up to me."
Harry raised a brow at that.
"He hasn't tried to make it up to me," he pointed out. "And certainly not to Ron."
He had a point there. Draco had terrorized Harry worse than anyone else at school. She flushed, feeling embarrassed that she had overlooked that.
"I dunno," she mumbled, not meeting his eyes.
Harry let it drop after that, continuing to sort through the letters in silence.
It turned out that not everything was hate mail. Hagrid had sent her a very large and rock-hard fruitcake. Molly had sent her a pair of warm woolen mittens, a lovely alternative to her usual jumper. Harry handed her a package he recognized because he and Ginny had sent it as a gift a day earlier, which contained--what else? books. George had sent her several WWW products, complete with a card wishing her a happy, prat-free, Christmas.
Then Hermione saw Harry deposit a familiar-looking silver envelope into the pile of harmless post.
She picked it up, feeling a bit breathless. Her hands itched to open it at once, but she didn't dare in front of Harry. While he wasn't watching, she silently charmed it to fly to her bedroom. She would open it as soon as he had gone.
The secrecy sensor in her hand began buzzing and vibrating wildly. Hermione feigned innocence as she handed it to Harry, claiming it must be malfunctioning.
It took what felt like ages to finish up sorting everything, because once they had finished the pile on her floor, Hermione emptied the letterbox outside to reveal yet more that had arrived while they worked. Crookshanks helped by keeping watch, judging them with his unsettlingly intelligent eyes.
By the time Harry packed up the threatening ones (with a stern order for her to refrain from opening any more mail without him for the next few days) and left, Hermione was bouncing with excitement to open the silver letter in her bedroom. She took a deep breath as she slid the parchment out and opened it.
Hermione,
What are you doing for the holiday?
DM
Puzzled, Hermione turned the letter over to check that it was blank on the other side. Why had he sent such a short missive?
She summoned a quill and scratched out a quick reply below.
I had planned to visit my parents, but they've gone to care for my great aunt Griselda. She's recovering from a heart attack a muggle illness.
Hermione dithered for a moment before writing more. How to tell him that she had no plans for Christmas without sounding pathetic and lonely? She decided to keep it simple.
I'll be at home, relaxing. What are your holiday plans?
She added that last to be polite, although now it seemed a bit intrusive. She groaned at herself. She
was being stupid.
Hopefully, he wouldn't laugh at her. Or worse, ignore her.
Although, Hermione thought as she rolled it up, he hadn't ignored her at the Ministry the other day.
Quite the opposite.
The tap of her owl, Ivo, came just as Hermione had settled into bed for the night. She let him in, stomach lurching as she saw a response from Draco tied to his leg. She unfurled it as she walked back to her bedroom, switching on the lamp near her bedside as she climbed between the warm
sheets

Hermione,
I know this is short notice. Please don't think twice about saying no.
My mother read the Daily Prophet article about us. I explained that it was basically all lies, that we're just friends. But she wants you to come for Christmas dinner. She says she won't take no for an answer, but I will. Malfoy Manor is probably the last place you want to spend the holiday. She
made me promise to ask you, so I am.
DM
P.S. I realize that sounds like I don't want you to come. That's not it.
There were several heavily scribbled out words, then
lust answer however von duke