Melanie Granger?

Chapter 22: Christmas

It was December 24, Christmas Eve, and we were all excited.  Or at least I was.  For the first time in a long time it felt like we were going to have a good Christmas.

Right now though I was waiting for an owl from Hogwarts, Jane had promised that she would send one so that I could send their presents back to the school with it.  What I wasn't expecting was for the owl to arrive at our front door already baring gifts from my friends.

'They didn't have to get us anything.'  I thought aloud to myself.  But at least this would make it easier to send their presents back to them.  I grinned and gently patted the owl's head, 'Thank you, pretty bird.'  I took the presents and gave him the ones to take back from Hermione and myself.  Once he was gone I brought the presents inside and put them under our Christmas tree.  'Hey Hermione, come look!'  I called out to her.

I heard her come down the stairs quickly and I turned to see her eyes widen.  'Where did they come from?'  She asked pointing to the presents.

'An owl just dropped them off, they were from our friends at Hogwarts.  I sent our presents for them back with the owl.  So, want to open one?'

She shook her head.  'We can't open them until tomorrow, you know that.'

I rolled my eyes.  'You always were one for following the rules.'

'Well it's just that we always open all our presents on Christmas, not the day before, it's tradition.'

'I know, I'm just excited.'

'We will both just have to wait.'

'You sound like Mum.'  I snickered.

Before she could respond our mother walked in and looked at the tree before looking at us.  'Would one of you like to explain where those gifts came from?'

I sighed, I didn't feel like explaining it again, but I did anyway.  'An owl arrived not long ago from Hogwarts, our friends sent us these presents.  I sent the presents we bought for them back to Hogwarts with the owl.'

'Oh I see, thank you for telling me.  Well I suppose that has made things easier, hasn't it?  Now, would the two of you like to go and put those under the tree?' She asked.

Hermione and I nodded then picked up the wrapped items and went to place them under the Christmas tree.  None of the packages were very big, but I had the distinct feeling that some of them were books which I was always exited to get.

'I don't know how I'm going to get any sleep tonight,' I said to Hermione.  'I'm too excited to open these presents.'

She laughed and shook her head, 'Well you'll just have to try, because you are not waking me up at three in the morning, asking me if I want to sneak downstairs to open presents because it's "technically Christmas morning".'  She said, highlighting it with air quotes.

'Oh come on, that was one time and we were five!'

'Still not gonna let you forget it.'  She smirked.

'Well fine, but you shouldn't forget that you said yes, then chickened out when we got to the tree because you thought we'd get into trouble.'

'Which we would have.'

'Wuss.'  I poked my tongue out at her.

'I am not a wuss, I'm just sensible.'

'Yeah, a sensible wuss.'  I teased with a grin.  Hermione just rolled her eyes and grinned back at me.

Despite everything that had passed between us, we still loved each other.  I was glad that we were finally seeing that now.  Even if a lot of the previous resentment was my fault.  Well, sort of, but it didn't matter now, regardless.