CHAPTER ONE
PARTY PLANNING
It was Christmas in their 7th year and Hermione Granger was head girl. She shared the head honor with the ever-popular Slytherin, Draco Malfoy. Makes you want to just get up and sing doesn't it? Ugh, more like bend over and vomit.
It was just before the break and quite a lot of the older students decided to stay at Hogwarts rather than go home. Hermione's parents were vacationing in France, the Dursley's weren't expecting Harry, and Ron and Ginny not wanting to be left out, decided to stay as well.
A few days before Christmas, Dumbledore called the head boy and girl to his office for a quick meeting. He wanted to discuss the patrol schedule during the break and a few after feast activities.
Once they reviewed the schedule, Dumbledore moved on to the agenda regarding Christmas day.
"Since this is your last year, I thought it would be nice for you and anyone else staying from the 6th and 7th year, to have a small party in the head's common room. It would take place after the Christmas day feast. I leave it to you to decide when everyone should return to their dormitories since it is your common room, but return they must. The bedrooms are out of bound. There are to be NO sleepovers. What do you think?"
Hermione was excited. This was going to be great, a party with all her friends and no teachers! "That's a wonderful idea, professor, thank you", she said without a glance at the head boy.
Malfoy on the other hand, was not so enthused about it. He wasn't going home this year and the last thing he wanted to do was spend his Christmas evening with Granger's friends. At least some of the other Slytherin's were staying through the break as well.
"Excellent", Dumbledore said. "Please have a refreshment list to the kitchen elves by Christmas Eve. Here's a songbook, tap it with your wand if you would like music at the party. It will know which type of music is appropriate to play."
He handed the book to Malfoy who promptly passed it off to Hermione. The heads stood and left.
When they left the office, Hermione turned to Draco and asked, "Are you all packed?"
"For what, Granger?"
"You're leaving tomorrow with everyone else, aren't you?"
He crossed his arms over his chest and gave her his best smirk, "No, I'm staying".
"What? But I assumed you'd want to be with your mother on Christmas?"
His smirk turned into a devilish grin, "You know what they say when you assume Granger? It makes an ass out of you…..in front of me".
"But the party….", she began.
"Yes, the party. Looks like all houses will be represented. Quite a few Slytherins are staying this year".
He turned and started walking back to their dorm. "If you would have thought for a second before saying yes to Dumbledore, you would have realized that even if I wasn't going to be staying, that some of the 6th and 7th years from my house would be. You can't exclude them from coming, Granger….inter-house unity and all that".
Malfoy muttered the password and entered their common room with Hermione following closely behind. Malfoy went up to his room to change his clothes and came back down to find Hermione still in her school robes, sitting in a chair staring at the fire.
He loved making her miserable and announcing he and his housemates would be at the party did just that! He sat down on the couch with a smug look on his face. "Cheer up Granger", he said. "Maybe if you're good, I'll give you a present this year. You and your friends can use the common room while me and the rest of the Slytherins will have our own party in my bedroom. It's a win/win solution for all of us."
She looked at him with a ray of hope and then it slowly disappeared to a frown. "You heard Dumbledore, the bedrooms are out of bounds."
"So? Who's going to tell him? Look, Granger. No matter what you might say to promote inter-house unity, we both know you'd rather not spend the whole evening keeping the peace between all the houses…even if we promise to be on our best behavior. And quite frankly, I'm not too enthused to spend the evening being forced to make merry with all of your friends."
She continued to look at him, mouth slightly open. She didn't know how to respond. He was right, damn it all! As much as she wanted to have a party, she didn't want to deal with the friction that would occur when the other 3 houses were in the same room with the Slytherins. Whether it was Malfoy and his 'friends' starting with Harry and Ron or vice versa. She knew even though she would stress house unity and would spend the most of the evening trying to get everyone to play nice for one night, sooner or later Harry and/or Ron wouldn't be able to resist starting with Malfoy. She loved them, but she knew it was inevitable. If Malfoy was in his room with his friends, it would be better for everyone. She hated to exclude the Slytherins from the main party room, but if he was willing to host a party for his friends in his personal space to make this easier on everyone, then so be it.
Without warning, she got up grabbed a quill and parchment out of her bag and sat down on the floor with her back against the foot of the couch. "What refreshments would you like for your party?" she said evenly as she set everything up on the coffee table.
"Excellent", he said and sat down on the floor next to her and began rattling off his part of the list.
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Okay, so Christmas 2004 is over, but did you really want to wait a whole year for another Christmas fic? Come on….where's your holiday spirit? Give it a read and let me know what you think.