Their first batch of midterms fell on a frosty, slate gray Wednesday. Mad-Eye Moody never returned to the magical school, but that became old news when the crush of finals swept over the student body. Even Harry, Hermione, and Ron let their focus shift so they might properly attend to their studies. They all sat the Potions, Charms, and Care of Magical Creatures exams. Harry had some reservations about Potions when the exam was over, his end-product had been more teal than the prescribed seaweed green, but he thought he did fairly well in Charms and Care of Magical Creatures.

In the afternoon, Hermione left them to take her Arithmancy midterm, and usually that would have meant Harry and Ron had to pack off to Divination. This time, however, when the class arrived to take the test Professor Trelawney informed them that it was really needless, as she already knew what they would make and saw no reason to actually administer the exam. With that, she dismissed them a mere five minutes into the testing period. Neither Harry nor Ron were about to complain, even if the old bat decided to fail them without truly testing their knowledge. They'd take arbitrary failing grades to escape the test itself. It seemed everyone else was just as content to have Trelawney pick grades out of a hat (or, more likely, a crystal ball) for them, because every student to a person scurried out of the Divination classroom before the professor could change her mind. Not even Parvati complained about being unfairly denied the chance to prove their knowledge on the subject. Ron commented on their way out that if Hermione had still been taking Divination with them, she would surely have said something.

In Harry's mind, that left History of Magic as the only remaining exam that had a real chance to trip him up. He was sure he could muddle through Transfiguration and Astronomy well enough. Maybe it was a hint of arrogance on his part, but he wasn't the least bit worried about Defense Against the Dark Arts… not once it had been announced that Dumbledore would be standing in as proctor for the exam since Snape had other years of Potions classes to oversee at the same time. History of Magic could be a real pisser of a test, though. He still zoned out through half the lectures Binns gave, even on the days that he tried to pay attention.

So it was off to the Great Hall to study for History of Magic for Harry Potter. Ron begged off joining him right away, stating that as long as they had an hour free of Hermione while she was taking her Arithmancy final he was going to get in what relaxation time he could. Because once she was out of her test, she'd be on them to study, study, study.

That was how Harry found himself alone at the table, his History of Magic book out in front of him and his notes spread out like a fan of parchments. There were a fair number of other students at all the tables making use of the space to lay out their study materials. The sound of rustling paper, quills scratching on parchment, and hushed whispers turned the Great Hall into a mockery of a library. The Christmas lights strung on the enormous pine trees that decorated the hall cast colorful, twinkling hues on the textbook as Harry forced himself to reread the chapter on the Great Astrology Farce of 1465. Which was not great. Not even really interesting at all.

Harry didn't realized he'd dozed off, his head pillowed on his open book, until he was wakened. He was comfortable and adrift, far from boring history tomes, when a sudden warm influx of air in his ear startled him from his light slumber. He snapped open his eyes to find Hermione bent close to him, blowing in his ear. When he woke she stopped and smiled. "Do you expect to soak it in that way?" she teased as she put her things on the table and sat down next to him.

Harry smirked and lifted his head, straightening his glasses that had been pushed askew across his nose. "Well, if the ink comes off on my face maybe Ron can read the answers on my cheek. At least someone would benefit."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I heard about what Trelawney did... I can't believe all of you are going to just let her make up grades for you. What if she fails you?"

"Then she saved me having to earn my poor mark," Harry countered with a shrug.

Hermione grunted. "Well, she probably makes them up in any case. I mean, really, how can one grade something as unsubstantiated as Divination?" She dismissed the entire subject with a shake of her head. She glanced down at Harry's book and inched closer, a knowing smile on her face. "Do you want my help?"

Harry smiled crookedly at her. "Can you make the Great Farce interesting?"

"Please," she reached for his notebook, "nothing can do that."

Harry's eyes widened. He could hardly believe his ears. "Did you really just call something in History of Magic boring?"

Hermione was leaning in front of him to gather up his study material. At his question she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, their faces a bare inch apart, and with a mischievous little smile she ducked in, pecked him on the lips, and said sotto voce, "Don't tell Ron."

Harry beamed.

"Where is Ron anyway? Shouldn't he be studying this, too?"

Harry and Hermione were going over their combined History of Magic notes, which really meant to say they were going over Hermione's notes, when Ron rejoined them. None too happily, either.

Ron dropped on to the bench across the table from Harry and Hermione with a grunt and very nearly slammed his bag on to the table. Hermione, annoyed, looked up to scold him but when she caught sight of him she gasped instead. "Ron!"

Harry looked up at Ron. He saw why Hermione had sounded so shocked. Ron was livid, his face red with anger, but not nearly so eye-catching as the bruise that was beginning to color the skin around his left eye.

"What happened to you?" he asked in dismay.

Ron ground his jaw. "Foul bloody git," he muttered hotly.

"Who? Was it Malfoy?"

Ron's eyes… or rather, his good one, widened until white showed on all sides of his blue iris. "No! Merlin, don't even say that!"

Harry looked to Hermione, but from the small shake her head she was just as baffled as he was. "Ron," she leaned forward toward their friend, "tell us what happened."

"Seamus! That's what happened."

Harry sputtered. "Seamus Finnegan hit you?! Why in the world would he do that?"

"You know," Ron ranted, "I've never liked that Seamus anyway. But you think you know someone… we've been mates for years! There are just things you don't do! Real lousy of him by all accounts. But I'm not done there, no, I blame her just as much as him. She's a wildcat, I know that, but it's my job to take her side, you know? Even when she's being stupid! No gratitude! I should just leave her be, snog his face off for all I care!"

Harry was very confused. Hermione was the voice of reason, as always. "Ron… just slow down and tell us what happened between you and Seamus."

Ron looked up at Hermione, glowered, and turned an ever darker shade of red. "Oh, nothing, no big deal, just walked in on that dirty wanker snogging my sister!"

"Ginny?!" Harry yelped. Ginny and Seamus were kissing? Never in a million years had he seen thatcoming.

Ron took Harry's tone of shock for indignation. "I know! What was my little sister thinking going about with the likes of Finnegan?" Ron turned matter-of-factly to Harry. "There's only one thing for that, Harry. The pair of us will just have to beat him up."

Harry was still blind-sided by the revelation, but even stunned he didn't think going Death Eater on Seamus was really a sound move. "Uh… Ron… I don't fancy Seamus snogging Ginny much either, but I don't know if that's really the best thing to do." When Ron began to gape at Harry's reluctance to back him Harry added, "Besides, looks as though he's already got you one."

Ron reached up, touched underneath his eye, and winced. "Oh hell. That wasn't bloody Seamus, it was my damn sister."

Hermione tried to hold it back, she really did, but Harry could hear the ghost of a giggle behind her words when she said, "Ginny popped you?"

"When I told her she'd best get up to her room before I swatted her." He glanced up and saw Hermione holding her hand to her mouth… but still unable to completely mask the smile warring to win over her expression. Ron darkened visibly. "Oh, so that's funny, is it?"

"Of course not… I'm sorry, Ron, it's just—"

"Just what? Did you know about this?"

"No!" Hermione said at once.

"Hmph. Bet you did, you girls talk about everything, talk about all us blokes behind our backs."

Hermione's compassionate mood was thinning. "I swear I didn't know they were together, Ron."

Ron snorted cynically, still on his tear. "Kind of hate to think what you must say about Harry when it's just the lot of you birds cackling."

Hermione stiffened furiously.

"That's far enough, Ron," Harry said, "if Hermione says she didn't know, she didn't know." Before it could turn into a row when Ron was really angry with someone else, Harry redirected the conversation. "Where's Ginny now?"

"How should I know? She threw her little fit, gave me a black eye, and made off with that bastard Finnegan. Expect they're in some broom closet snogging their brains out." Ron brightened suddenly. "Fred and George! Brilliant. They'll be up for pounding him good for laying a hand on our baby sister." Without another word, Ron jumped up and ran off to find his older brothers.

Harry watched after Ron, concerned. "Should we try and catch him?"

"And have him mad at us and accuse us of being in on some conspiracy masterminded by Ginny or worse, Seamus? Why bother? By the time he's found Fred and George he'll have calmed down, and if not… well, the twins aren't likely to agree to actually hurting Seamus… though he may be in for a royal pranking."

Harry conceded with an uneasy sense that he should still have gone after Ron. "You didn't know, did you?" he asked carefully.

Hermione looked reproachfully at him. "No, I didn't."

Harry nodded immediately in acceptance of her word. It was good enough for him; it was possible she'd been telling Ron what would be best for him to hear in the temper he was in, truth or not. But if she told him she didn't know, he believed her.

A very sly smirk touched Hermione's face then and Harry looked closely at her. He was getting to the point where he recognized wicked Hermione in the span of a heartbeat. "What?"

Hermione slid her eyes to him and gave a small shrug… accompanied by a slight blush. "It's nothing, really, I just… it occurred to me that what with Ginny and Seamus to twist him into fits, Ron may not even care anymore that we're snogging."

She was probably right about that. In comparison, your little sister snogging someone had to be far more distressing than your two friends snogging. He hoped that turned out to be true. If Ron stopped caring completely about Harry and Hermione kissing maybe they could stop being so eggshell-careful with each other around him.

Harry found he liked that idea very much. He was just about to put his arm around Hermione to give her some idea of how much that notion pleased him when they were interrupted a second time… this time by a bird. An owl alighted on the table right in front of them, causing Hermione to jump and Harry to all of a sudden find the owl mail concept truly irritating.

The little brown owl had a muggle envelope in its beak, addressed to Hermione in slanted cursive letters.

"Oh," Hermione said as she took the envelope, "it must be from Mum and Dad."

Harry quelled his annoyance and sat back watching while Hermione opened the envelope and began to read.

When she started to smile like sunshine itself, he had to wonder. Hermione broke into a grin nearly bright enough to outshine the Christmas trees and she whirled to face him… and he was on the receiving end of full-on Hermione Granger joy. Pure and simple joy. He couldn't imagine what her parents' letter said, but he liked it already.

She seemed barely able to contain herself. "Harry! Oh! Here!" she shoved the letter at him, unable to get the words out on her own. Perplexed, Harry looked down at the letter in Miranda Granger's calligraphic pen.

'Hermione,

'We hope your tests are going well. Don't let yourself fret too much, honey, I'm sure you'll do brilliantly. Your dad and I are looking forward to you coming home for Christmas. Tell Harry that if he doesn't have any other plans for the holidays we'd love to have him.

'All our love,

'Mum and Dad'

Harry looked up at Hermione dumbly. She was bubbling over with excitement, her eyes glittering almost as beautifully as the Christmas lights. It made Harry felt heavy and tired, as though swimming in water-logged clothes. He looked down again at the letter from Hermione's mother. With deliberate moves, he folded it and put it on the table. "Hermione…" he began in a dreary voice, "I thought I told you—"

"But I didn't, Harry!" she said immediately.

Harry was truly puzzled, and it must have read in his face. Hermione shifted on the bench to directly face him, one leg crooked and folded atop the seat so she didn't have to twist horribly at the waist. "I didn't ask my parents to invite you over for Christmas, just like you asked me not to… they invited you themselves!"

Harry blinked, bewildered.

"They wouldn't have done that if they thought you a bother, Harry. They could have just never brought it up and tried to avoid it entirely, hoping I wouldn't ask, but they invited you on their own." Hermione's luminous smile faltered. "This means you will come home with me, right?"

Harry was floored. He couldn't rightly grasp what had transpired in the last two minutes. Hermione's family actually wanted him to be part of their Christmas? Hermione wanting to spend the holiday with him was humbling enough, but she was his girlfriend, she was Hermione… she cared about him like no one else in the world. But Miranda and Jake Granger? Could they possibly, honestly want him around on an occasion as special as Christmas?

"Oh, please, Harry," Hermione took his arm in her hands and pressed closer. "Please say you'll come."

There was a letter from the Grangers granting him a place in their home right in front of him, and with Hermione imploring him with those eyes, that tone of voice, that passion in her presence… how could he possibly tell her no?

"Yeah… yeah, all right," he said, still off-balance from the offer but letting himself believe for a moment that maybe he actually had a place to go. Like normal kids did… like kids with families.

Hermione made a squeaky sound and threw her arms around him. Harry had to grab the table to keep from toppling over under the enthusiasm in Hermione's embrace. Despite his misgivings, his shock, his amazement, he had to smile. He couldn't get one of those knock-the-wind-out-of-you Hermione hugs and not smile.

Hermione was clutching him fiercely. "It's going to be great, Harry! You'll see! It'll be the best Christmas ever!" She drew back, her arms still wrapped around him, and planted a kiss on him. Not a darting peck like before either, but a full-mouth kiss in the middle of the Great Hall. Already it was the best Christmas of Harry's life.

Before he could respond in kind to her kiss, however, she moved away and leapt to her feet. "Come on, we've got to speak with Dumbledore."

"Huh… Dumbledore?" Harry felt he'd just now caught up to the Grangers inviting him to stay over for the Christmas holiday. He hadn't tracked over to the Dumbledore topic point yet.

Hermione took his arm, snagged the letter from her mother, and hauled Harry to his feet in her whirlwind of energy. Harry went along at once; he knew better than to stand in the way of a bound and determined Hermione. She hurried them out of the Great Hall, their bags and books forgotten on the table. "Yes. We'll need to ask the headmaster if we can impose upon a certain house elf again, just to be safe. Surely he won't say no. That just wouldn't do at all."

Harry didn't breathe a word of protest or offer a modicum of resistance as Hermione led him by the hand through the corridor. A few Gryffindor boys they crossed gave Harry a covert thumbs-up, no doubt expecting that Hermione was dragging him off to some broom closet somewhere to release some tension between study marathons. He supposed the few high-pitched giggles they left in their wake were girls who thought the same. Harry hadn't really noticed how many of their classmates were actually supportive of his and Hermione's relationship until they actually became a couple. They'd really been a stubborn duo to hold out against all the signs for so long.

At the headmaster's office, Hermione knocked and shortly thereafter Dumbledore's voice beckoned them inside. Hermione, still holding tightly to Harry's hand, led the way.

Dumbledore was not alone. Professor McGonagall was in the chair opposite the headmaster's desk, and she turned to look at Harry and Hermione when they entered. Harry could swear, for a moment, she even smiled faintly at the sight of them.

"Ah, Harry, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said in way of greeting, "If this is about the altercation between Mister Weasley and young Ginny, I've already been informed. As you might expect, news of that sort tends to travel fast within the castle walls."

Harry took the headmaster's unconcerned tone to mean at least Ron hadn't made good on his threat to beat up Seamus. At least they wouldn't have Ron in a worse mood than he already was for having brought detention upon himself for fighting so close to the holidays.

"Acutally, no, sir, we're here for something else," Hermione said, the first hints of flagging bravado creeping into her voice.

"Is that so? Well, then, I'm intrigued. Was there anything else for you and I to discuss, Professor McGonagall?"

McGonagall shook her head and stood. "No, that was everything. I had best return to my office and see to grading exams." She crossed Harry and Hermione as she headed toward the door of the headmaster's office. As she passed the young pair, she briefly rested her hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry looked after her retreating back, puzzled by the gesture, but if there was en explanation for that fleeting contact he never got it. McGonagall was gone before Harry had much time to think on it.

When the three of them were alone, Dumbledore sat back in his chair and regarded the two teenagers with kind eyes. "Now then, what brings you two to see me if not the Weasley family feud?"

Hermione didn't waste any time on warming up to the subject. "We came to ask if it would be possible to borrow Kimmy for the Christmas holiday, sir."

Dumbledore's eyebrows rose. "Oh?"

Hermione nodded, hesitated, then left Harry's side to place the letter from her parents on Dumbledore's desk. She retreated back to standing abreast with Harry and chewed on her bottom lip.