Disclaimer: This is J.K. Rowling's sandbox. I'm just happy to be playing here.

Master Plan

"Draco?" Hermione's voice echoed from the stairs.

"In here," he called. "I'm watering the tree." Draco concentrated on filling the many thimble-sized buckets hidden among the branches. As his wife's footsteps approached, he said over his shoulder, "Fairy lights may be pretty, but I think the little buggers must drink their weight each day, what with the way these buckets are always empt—Hermione?"

Hermione had a worried frown on her face and was tapping a small envelope against her palm.

"I just received the strangest note from my mother. Look at this." She passed him the envelope.

Draco slowly unfolded the letter, jarred as always by the bright white glare of Muggle paper. In his mother-in-law's smooth script he read "Dear Hermione, Dad and I are very worried about you and Draco. Of course, it is disappointing that you cannot be with us this Christmas, but your health comes first. If only it wasn't so contagious! Owl us as soon as you're feeling better. Perhaps we will see the two of you over the New Year. Love, Mum."

His mouth was so dry, his tongue was sticking to the roof. "Um..."

"They think we're sick; can you believe it? And that we're not coming for Christmas." She took the letter back and frowned at it in confusion. "Why would they think such a thing? They just saw us a few days ago." Sitting down at the writing desk in the corner, Hermione opened the drawer and rummaged for stationary. "I'd best write her back immediately." She flipped through a small stack of mixed paper and parchment, old cards, and postcards, looking for a blank sheet. "This is why I'd like a telephone, Draco. Owls are fast, but a telephone call could have this straightened out in minutes-" She froze, staring at a piece of rich parchment.

Draco sighed and stared up at the ceiling.

"What have you done?" Hermione asked through gritted teeth. "Draco?"

He shrugged.

Incredulous, Hermione separated the parchment, embellished with the Malfoy crest and decorated with Lucius's elegant script, from the rest of the stack. Elbows on the desktop, she cleared her throat and read aloud, "Son, Christmas or no Christmas, under no circumstances are you to return to the Manor until this Muggle disease has run its course." Hermione glared at Draco from over the top of the parchment, and he shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "Your mother is beside herself," she went on, "and recommends Dimwimple's Dysentery Deporter for the diarrhea and essence of mugwort for the pustules. Perhaps now you see what comes from consorting with Muggle-borns and their families." She tossed the parchment onto the desktop.

"He wasn't trying to be mean," Draco said weakly. "He doesn't realize how much his attitude upsets you."

"Oh, no?" Hermione snatched the parchment up again. "'Postscript,'" she read, "'Have the sense to burn this before your wife finds it. The last thing I need is another lecture on why I should be nice to your in-laws.'"

He grimaced. "Father is just concerned, that's all."

"Concerned over an imaginary illness," she exploded. "I can't believe you lied to my parents and told them we were too sick to celebrate Christmas. I really can't believe you told your father, with his history, that my Muggle family gave you a disease." She shook her head. "A stunt like this just fuels his prejudices." She looked at him sadly. "Do you not see how wrong this is?"

"I just wanted a holiday alone with you," Draco pouted. "This is our fourth Christmas together, and we never get a moment to ourselves." He sat on a corner of the desk. "Every year it's the same: Christmas eve and Christmas morning at the Manor, the rest of Christmas Day and Boxing Day at your parents' house."

"Yes, and?" She held up her hand to cut him off. "I understand what you're saying, Draco, but Christmas is a time for family. Our parents love having us at their houses."

"And we're over there all the time, at one house or the other, almost every weekend. This Christmas, I want us to wake up in our own bed, open our presents in private, and make love surrounded by wrapping paper and pine needles." He gave her a suggestive smirk, and she couldn't keep from smiling back. "I want some you-and-me time, Hermione."

She sighed and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. "So to get 'you-and-me time,' you decided to tell our families we're grievously ill? Or, in your case, contaminated?"

"Well, yes." He crossed his arms over his chest. "This year, Christmas is belongs to us. What's a little white lie or two if it keeps our parents' feelings from being hurt and keeps them out of our hair?"

"Don't misunderstand me: I'm all for having a Christmas just for the two of us, Draco."

"You are?" he asked, hopeful.

"Yes. It's a brilliant idea, and one that's long overdue. It's your approach I question." Hermione scavenged two pieces of clean parchment from the drawer, placing them on the desk. "You're wrong if you think what you did qualifies as a little white lie, especially the lie you told your father." She stood up and circled the desk, taking him by the shoulders and walking him backward until he fell into the desk chair and she could climb onto his lap. "I'm not going to spend the New Year lying to our families," she said firmly, "so make this right."

"It's not going to be a very happy Christmas after my parents start bombarding the house with Howlers," he grumbled, picking up the quill.

Hermione transfigured the letter opener into a sprig of mistletoe and held it over Draco's head. "That's nothing. You think your parents are scary? Just wait until my mother gets through with you."