Christmas and the Three Blonds.

Disclaimer:

They are not mine...the characters, not the plot... Oh! Was there supposed to be a plot besides wanting SS alive? Let's hope together.

Thank you for reading.

Beta acknowledgment: Writermerrin, you rock! Also wonderful Annie Talbot, I cannot thank you enough.

It had been a long time since he'd heard a laugh; he had no idea how long. Granger's laugh was music to his ears...she always had a laugh like a zephyr blowing over a midday river. It echoed someone else's laugh. Somewhere, very distant in his past, he had heard a laugh like that. He could not remember who it was, only that that ghost of a laugh reminded him of how vacant he felt inside.

He had no idea how he had known that it was Granger who was laughing. Just the sound of it had made him, for the first time, want to open his eyes and take a peek for a moment or two. Why would the girl laugh like that? Then he drifted away again, thinking that a silly teenage girl's laugh held no reason for him to give up such a cozy dark slumber.

Nothing was there for him to wake up to...no one was waiting, carrying a torch in her hands. He had done what was required of him, in the very best way that he could, and that was all he could do.

There was a void though, as if he had been holding something very dear to his heart and it was no more. Somebody with emerald green, Atlantic-deep eyes had taken what he was missing. Why couldn't he remember any more than that? He was pretty sure whatever it was, it was not because Potter might have finally killed off the Dark Lord, was it? It did not feel like Dark Magic, just vast emptiness.

POTTER! He had remembered...the Dark Lord, Nagini, a glimpse of Hermione Granger, and Potter... Harry had his mother's eyes...

Why didn't he have those memories of his time with her? He had memories of looking into Potter's eyes...her eyes... She's the one, then. Gone forever! She's the one who took everything that was anything to him, except this blissful sleep... Ahh!

NNNNN

Since Professor Snape had quit teaching Potions, Neville Longbottom had not once wished he hadn't been born, not even when he was bugging Headmaster Snape and his merry band of torturers. He was actually having fun then, living life to the fullest for the first time, not caring that he might die at any moment.

It was a different time; everyone was ready to die for their beliefs. He wasn't so sure if he had that courage left in him anymore. Being Crucioed by the Carrows held no candle to facing Minerva McGonagall's wrath. Lucky that Hermione was with him. After a while, she was able to convince the Headmistress to cooperate with them.

The two of them had thought it would go better with Harry if he didn't know Neville had tampered with his memory. So they had decided to withhold that part. "At least for now," they had said. Harry had matured over the years, but not enough to swallow that piece of information quietly.

It went better than having Harry know the whole truth, slightly better.

It had been decided that everything would be done in secret. Snape was not to be moved to the teachers' section as they had previously thought. He had been taken to the room adjacent to Hermione's private office, which she used to take rest if things were hectic. Seldom as it was, there had been those days. Hermione had taken over the job of Snape's daily care. She had also busied herself with magical and Muggle books about such illnesses.

Neville had concentrated upon finding any new clue to it in Herbology. Any free time he'd had in the last nineteen years, he had spent researching Potions and Herbology exhaustively. Harry had chosen to look through Potions and Dark Arts books. With all these activities, Hermione had not noticed when Halloween came and went.

HHHHH

Hermione had done everything she was supposed to do with her new patient. In the mornings, she would read the Daily Prophet, London Times, and various Potions and Dark Arts journals, as she thought he might like to keep up to date on those. She had told him, "I know how much of a torture it must be for a brilliant mind like yours to be trapped inside and not know." At night, she would read him more books...ones that she had been researching. If her afternoons were less busy, she would take her tea and talk to him about general topics. She would tell him about the war and its aftermath...the heroes, the fallen, the Malfoys, the school, her kids, her friends...but mostly she would tell him about Ron and how much she missed him.

She would tell him, "I know why you don't want to come back, Professor. You feel there's nothing to live for. I felt that way too, but unlike me, you haven't lived your life yet. Up until Ron's death, I lived my life to the fullest; you know how full of life Ron was. You did so much for our world; you should have that chance too. Please wake up. Maybe someday you will meet somebody and it will make all the difference. Please don't close your mind about it," she would plead. "I want you to be happy."

Neville had visited him every day. So did Minerva. He would read to him and she would talk. Hermione had always left and let them be themselves with him. Harry came as often as he could.

Hugo visited his mother often on the weekends through the Floo. She had wanted him to be near her but Hugo loved living at the Burrow. What nine-year-old boy wouldn't want to have uncles like George or Charlie over to dinner on a regular basis? Dinner time had always been family time at the Weasley residence, and it had not changed much; even if some of them could no longer come to dinner, the newer ones took their empty places. Even though Molly's children had not been kids for a long time and had moved out to build their own nests, somebody would always drop by, conveniently hungry, to make her eyes shine.

Rather than restricting him in a boarding school, Hermione had thought she would let him enjoy whatever spoiling he was offered. Everyone deserved a bit of spoiling at this point, especially her Hugo. Ron would have agreed with her, she thought. Not that she had really thought Molly would spoil anyone rotten, seeing how well she had raised her own kids.

At Christmas break, the school had been almost empty except for a few teachers, about thirteen students, Mr. Filch and his beloved Mrs. Norris. Hermione had allowed Rose to go with Harry. All the kids had been spending the holiday in his house. Harry had thought it would distract them from missing Ron too much if all the cousins were together. They would be at the Burrow for Christmas, and Hermione would join them Christmas eve.

RRRRR

Ginny had taken everyone for last-minute Christmas shopping, and Rose had ventured through Flourish and Blotts to see what she could find for Mum. She had reached for the Marvelous Médicaments for Muggles' Mythical and Magical Miserable Maladies by Malcolm Mathew McDougall, but the book had flown over her head to land on the outstretched hand of a platinum blond boy.

"Hey, I was here first!" Rose sounded indignant.

"Oh! But I was faster, you see." He waved his wand in the air, in what seemed to be foolish fashion in Rose's opinion.

"I thought you aren't suppose to use magic outside school!"

"Who says I am? This is not my wand!" His lips curled in a smug smirk. "It's a spare one I found in Grandpa's study; he said it belongs to no one."

"I know who you are, you're..."

"Of course you do, I am a Malfoy. Everyone knows who I am." He cut her off.

"I was going to say, you're the one whose tea-cozy had a turtle shell."

Malfoy turned beet-red at the mention of their last Transfiguration class. He recovered quickly with, "Well, I know you too; you are that Weasley with a Mu... gle mum."

"You were going to say the other word, weren't you? You don't like Muggles," she observed before saying, "I don't either. Mum is not Muggle though, she's a Muggle-born witch, and there is a difference. They call her 'the cleverest witch of her age'. Stay away from calling her your petty names... I am really good at hexes."

"Oh, really? My grandfather taught me loads of them too. Some of them, he said, they won't dare to teach at Hogwarts," Malfoy bragged.

"I don't need to learn Dark Arts. They are evil."

"Knowledge is neither good nor evil, and you do need them to rule over the Muggles."

"Another one from the grandfather, eh? Don't you ever think for yourself? Who says I want to rule over them? I just don't want them around us with their stupid technology to take away our lives."

"Who died?"

"My dad...in his stupid Muggle car." Rose Weasley would not cry in front of a Malfoy, she would not.

Even though they were in the same House and in the same class, Malfoy had never spoken to her before. She had thought it was because of her background that he had been looking down on her, so she had never felt any desire to speak to him.

"I'm sorry."

"No, you are not. Don't say anything you don't mean," Rose said in a chilly tone.

"How do you know I didn't mean it?"

"You blinked; your left hand twitched," she stated.

"You are very smart." This time he meant what he said.

"So I've got my mother's brain...big deal! Leave me alone, Malfoy." She had turned away.

"Hey, Weasley! Wait up! Maybe all we need is a fresh start." He stretched his hand. "Hello, I am Scorpius Lucius Malfoy, and I am very pleased to meet you."

Rose looked at the hand for a moment before shaking it lightly and saying, "I am Rosalind Weasley, and I don't need anything from you." She withdrew her hand and walked out gracefully, leaving a dumbfounded Scorpius Malfoy.

HHHHH

Christmas had been somber this year at the Weasley residence, for obvious reasons. Hermione had been sitting with a glass of eggnog and a book; suddenly an idea struck her, and she got up to look for Harry, who had been busy with a mountain of presents in front of him and beaming kids around him.

"Harry, may I speak to you for a moment in private?"

"Sure, Herms. Want some Cockroach Clusters?" He had offered the candy dish.

"Of course not! Come out in the garden."

As they walked in the garden, Hermione said, "Nothing I do works, Harry. I've tried every treatment possible, read every book I could get my hands on... Muggle or magical, but he is nowhere near responsive. I have been thinking, and I have an idea... Do you still have his memories about your mum, Harry?"

She felt kind of uncomfortable saying it..."He lived loving her for so long, what if he has nothing left to live for without those memories? Neville tried so many remedies, Potions, Spells... Nothing... nothing worked. Maybe we should give him back what had kept him going."

Hermione could not imagine how bereft she would feel if key memories of her and Ron's time together were somehow lost all of a sudden. Still, she felt awkward speaking to Harry about Snape's obsession over Harry's mother; it's not like she was reminding him that his father loved her enough to die for her and her child.

"Let's do it tomorrow, then. I will be there." Harry sounded eager to help.

"I will let Neville know; he is the one caring for Snape, now that I am here." Looking over at the bushes, she remembered how Crookshanks used to chase after these Gnomes when he was alive.

Once again, Harry broke her musing, "I thought I saw Malfoy's owl delivering Rosie a package. Are you okay with her getting mixed up with that lot?"

"Scorpius is not Draco, Harry."

"No, but he is under the influence of Lucius, who is under our constant surveillance, slyly avoiding evidence of recruiting and reorganizing their special little mask-wearing, mass-murdering, maniacal group."

"I will talk to Rosie then. She's become so tight-lipped around me lately; I am hoping this phase will pass soon." Hermione changed the subject. "Are they causing much trouble then, Malfoy and his group?"

"Trying their best, nothing out of hand yet, nothing we couldn't handle." Harry did not elaborate; he turned around to go back inside saying, "I will ask Ginny to see if she can find out anything."

Hermione had a faraway look in her eyes; she absentmindedly muttered, "Right, then."

MMMMM

Back at the book store, Scorpius Malfoy jumped at a familiar, cold voice behind him, "Who was your friend, little Scorpio?"

"Oh! Hello, Grandfather, you startled me! Hello, Father. She is just a girl from my class, no one, really."

Draco nodded silently in response.

"Really! With hair like that, I would have thought she's a..." Lucius' nose had scrunched up in a way as if he had smelt some awful potions with horribly rotten smell. "... Weasley."

But Scorpius was not looking at his grandfather. He was very busy inspecting his nails; however well manicured they might have been, to him they felt terribly inadequate to be presentable at the moment. "She is Rose Weasley. Her dad just died, and her mum is..."

"I know very well who her mother is." Another voice filled with derision had joined them, "What did she want of you?"

"Of me? Nothing!" The boy sounded mesmerized, "That's what she told me. She said...she wanted nothing from me. I am a Malfoy... I could get her anything if I wanted to, if she were my friend. Why didn't she want anything, Father?" He had asked his dad, for he could not understand how anyone could ignore a Malfoy hand stretched out in friendship. So he whined, "She just hangs around with that Potter boy."

Draco returned to his first year in his mind, smugly offering friendship to a wild-haired, scar-headed boy. It still stung him how his hand had been ignored on account of a certain redheaded blood-traitor and a bushy-haired Mudblood; he sneered at the memory saying, "You don't need to be friend with the likes of her. Blood-traitors, those Weasleys are! I thought I told you not to speak with those Gryffindors!"

"I haven't. I've not spoken to her before this day, Father, even though she is a Slytherin like the Potter brat."

His grandfather, who had been watching the conversation, had a thoughtful look in his cold, gray eyes. He spoke more to himself than to them. "Curiouser and curiouser!"

His dad asked, "What? A Slytherin Weasley?"

The aristocratic, older version of the three had smiled at the child, "Maybe you had not tried hard enough; that can be easily rectified."

The smile that hadn't touched his eyes caused a shiver to run up the little boy's spine.

A.N.: To get the next chapter quickly everyone must say, "Marvelous Medicaments for Muggle's Mythical and Magical Maladies by Malcolm Mathew McDougall. " five times, aloud! Uh!Uh! Quicker than that! Now practice again.