At the Beginning With You [Harmione]

22. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

  Life is a road
And I want to keep going
Love is a river
I wanna keep flowing
Life is a road
Now and forever
Wonderful journey

I'll be there when the world stops turning
I'll be there when the storm is through
In the end I wanna be standing
At the beginning with you

- 'At the Beginning' by Richard Marx and Donna Lewis from the movie Anastasia  

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 The last few weeks before Christmas passed quickly, what with preparations for Teddy's first Christmas keeping both Harry and Hermione and also Kreacher busy and all the other things that needed doing, the days just flew by. Soon it was Christmas Eve. So far the plan was that that evening, Ron and Luna were going to join Harry, Hermione and Teddy for dinner, and then on Christmas day it'd just be the three of them. Harry had hoped Andromeda was going to be able to join them for Christmas, but when he talked to her neighbor, she said Andromeda wasn't doing so well. So Harry and Hermione made sure to take Teddy over to her house to spend some time with her since she couldn't come to them.

In the weeks since Hermione and Ron had lunch that one day, Hermione still hadn't said anything to Harry like Ron had suggested. Every time she'd start to bring up the subject, she'd chicken out. She could tell she was starting to get on Harry's nerves with her cowardice, he could tell there was something she wanted to talk about or tell him, but every time he brought it up, she'd tell him it was nothing and change the subject. And every time she brought it up, she'd lose her nerve at the last minute. So much for Gryffindor courage.

She did, however, fix things with Barrett finally. That was the first conclusion she'd come to after talking to Ron that day; she needed to break things off with Barrett. It wasn't fair to lead him on, having him think that everything was going to work out. After she'd talked to him asking him to meet her so they could talk, she was dreading the conversation. What was she going to say? How was she going to say it? She thought about how her relationships had ended in the past. With Ron, it ended because they were angry with each other. With Viktor, that relationship just sort of died when they stopped writing to each other. With Cormac, (Hermione shuddered remembering that moment of stupidity) she'd ignored him because he was a prat who couldn't keep his hands to himself and she just wanted to be rid of him as soon as possible. To Hermione's surprise, the conversation with Barrett had gone better than she'd expected it to.

"So what did you want to talk about, Hermione?" Hermione took a deep breath and sighed, keeping her eyes on her coffee mug and drumming her fingernails on it, making nervous little clicking sounds. When she finally looked up and was about to speak, Barrett beat her to it.

"Wait, I have a feeling I know where this is headed."

"You do?"

"Yes. It's not working out, is it?" Hermione gave him a sad and apologetic look and shook her head.

"No, it's not. I'm sorry."

"I had a feeling that's what this was going to be about when I received your owl. And I'm not surprised, either. I hoped I was wrong, but I could kind of start to tell that things weren't working out between us."

"I wish I could say that they were going to work out. You're a great man, Barrett, but it's not fair to either one of us to keep trying to make it work when we know it won't."

"I agree."

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. We just weren't meant to be, that's just the way it goes. Our future significant others will be glad of this." Hermione laughed.

"Yes, I suppose they will."

"And I know this is completely cliché to say this, but I hope we can still be friends, right?"