Muggle In Hogwarts

Chapter Eight.

Christmas Eve. Finally. She had been waiting it more expectantly than anybody could think of. She had always loved Christmas. All the celebration, all the fun and happiness. It would be great. With all her "new" family. Her friends, the Headmaster, the professors, the school. She sighed as she walked through the halls for Christmas dinner. Her breath got caught in her chest from amazement. Her eyes sparkled with happiness and wonder. She stayed there at the door, just watching. There were twelve trees adorned with fairies, little bubbles of pink and blue, and full of mistletoes under doors and magically hanging a couple feet above some of the chairs. She smiled and chuckled inwardly. She'd be sure *not* to sit on one of those chairs! She looked next to her and saw Seamus smiling mischievously at her.

He pointed upwards. Her gaze slowly lifted, till she saw it. A big mistletoe was on the frame of the door she and Seamus were under. She groaned.

‘OK, OK I'll give you a kiss.' ‘Course she kissed him on the cheek. Seamus looked at her pouting. ‘No, n,’ she said shaking her head. ‘Go ask Laura if she'll kiss you, but I won't.’ He looked around the room and found Laura coming out of the dungeons and went her way. That was when Cecilia noticed that the mistletoe followed him anywhere he went. She laughed at the sight.

Laura looked doubtfully at the floating mistletoe, but kissed him anyway.

‘Um, Cecilia?’ she heard a singsong voice call her from behind. She turned.

‘Hi, Dean!’ she said cheerfully. He pointed upward smiling maliciously. She looked where he was pointing and groaned. "Not again!" she thought. She looked at the new mistletoe carefully and saw it moved slightly. She grinned. ‘Oh no you don't!’ she said pushing him, hard enough to get him and the mistletoe from under the doorway.

‘How did you know that?!’ he asked. She smiled mysteriously, then giggled.

‘Seamus did exactly the same thing two seconds ago,’ she said. Dean frowned a little bit. But then cheered up at the sight of other girls coming in the Great Hall and left her to continue the hunt. She shook her head laughing.

‘Crazy guys,’ said Hermsy, suddenly appearing next to her.

‘Hermsy! You scared me!’ she said. Hermsy smiled a little.

‘They made the magic mistletoes, did you know? Fred and George made them.

'Then they sold them to every guy that has ever stepped Hogwarts, except Ron, they gave him one for free, and Harry. He still doesn't know he has it on.’

She giggled. Cecilia giggled too. They saw Draco enter and burst into laughter.

‘Oh my!’ Cecilia said. Hermsy just kept on laughing. Cecilia nudged her. Hard. Draco also had a mistletoe floating over his head, and by the looks of it had absolutely no idea of its existence.

‘Draco,’ Hermsy called after a couple of minutes. ‘Come over here a minute.’

He looked at her surprised, shrugged and went to them. Both were trying as best as they could to hide their laughter and failing miserably.

‘What are you two laughing at?’ he asked with a half smile. Cecilia was about to say something but was stopped by a fresh wave of giggles. Hermsy was continuously in battle with her feelings. The night before she had talked about Draco with Cecilia, and though it still wasn't completely ironed out, she knew this much: she really liked him. If it was more than that she wasn't sure, but suspected. "Just grab him and plant a kiss on his lips him and you'll find out," Cecilia had said with exasperation. Later on Hermsy found out that Cecilia's advice for all boy problems was "Just kiss him". But Hermsy considered it seriously. Her face turned slightly red.

‘About this,’ she murmured before cupping his chin and making their lips meet in a soft but short kiss. It was just a brush but left her tingling all over, as if she had just been electrocuted. Then, as calmly as ever walked around him and headed for the table as if nothing had happened.

Draco stood, still shocked. His knees seemed about to give out and his eyes were wide and his lips still felt the soft impression of Hermsy's. It had been a nice kiss, but he hadn't been able to close his eyes or kiss her back or react at all. Cecilia was looking at him with a wide smile on her face, her eyes twinkling.

‘You're welcome,’ she said happily before skipping away. He blinked several times and shook his head.

‘Wow,’ was all he was able to say for several minutes. He saw Ron happily strolling his way mischief in his eyes.

‘Hey, Draco! Had any fun lately?’ he asked looking above Draco’s head. Draco looked at him but didn't see him.

‘Wow,’ was all he said, not really having heard Ron. Ron looked at Draco surprised and followed his eyes. He shook his head. Unless Draco was in love with Dumbledore, something had happened. And though the first option was every bit possible, he thought the second option might be a little more logical.

‘Ok, buddy. What happened? Spit it out.’ He guided Draco to the table and sat him in between him and Harry. Harry had a very confused look on his face. He turned to his friends and asked them in a low voice if the girls had gone mad.

‘At least five girls came over to me and kissed me. Could one of you explain this to me?’ Draco looked perplexed but Ron hid his mouth with his hand so that they wouldn't see his laughter. Just then Laura appeared next to them, asking them where they got the mistletoes.

‘Huh?’ said Harry.

‘What?’ said Draco.

‘Oh no!’ said Ron. Laura rolled her eyes.

‘Those mistletoes, dummies,’ she said pointing upwards. Ron laughed as Draco and Harry looked up in horror.

‘Ron!’ They said angrily looking dangerously at him. He went red in the face.

‘At least you got kissed by lots of pretty girls!’ said Ron defensively. Draco looked pensive but Harry was trying to decide if to pound Ron in the face or to laugh. He ended up doing a mixture of these two, which looked really weird.

‘You got these from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, right?’ he said disbelieving. Ron nodded, proud of himself.

‘Thanks,’ said Laura. They all jumped. They had forgotten she was there.

‘I'll go get myself a few. Bye,’ she said and moved to the other end of the table. Harry shook his head and turned back to Ron.

‘Guess who tried to kiss me,’ he said. Ron and Draco looked at him curiously. ‘Justin Finch-Fletchley,’ he said. Ron and Draco looked disgusted.

‘Ew!!’ came Cecilia's voice from next to Harry. ‘I never knew he wasn't straight!’ she exclaimed looking over Harry's shoulder. All three boys looked at her with wide eyes. She blushed a little.

‘Uh, I guess I wasn't supposed to hear that, right?’ Harry nodded sourly.

‘Well I did!’ she said happily. Ron snorted with laughter and Harry rolled his eyes with a smile. Draco just shook his head.

‘How were you able to pick up the only thing that wasn't intended for your ears?’ Draco asked. She smiled dazzlingly. Hermsy could be heard giggling next to her.

‘If you're worried I'll tell, don't. I'm not the kind of person that tells other people's secrets,’ she said looking pointedly at Draco. Harry and Ron looked at him accusingly.

‘Thanks a lot,’ he said angrily. She rolled her eyes.

‘I didn't say anything!’ she complained. ‘Now if I had said that Hermsy kissed you then you'd have a reason to be mad at me,’ she said looking at him slyly, only to burst into giggles as Hermsy's voice traveled to them.

‘You little devil! You said you wouldn't mention it! You-you disgusting excuse for a friend.’ Cecilia grabbed a piece of pumpkin pie she had been eating and spread it all over Hermsy's face. Harry, Draco and Ron, burst into laughter at the look Hermsy put.

‘Ugh!’ she screamed grabbing her own piece of pumpkin pie and aiming.

Luckily Cecilia ducked just in time, making Harry get it instead. Sirius and Lupin were looking proudly at the group of food fighters.

‘At least we know that we've been well replaced,’ said Sirius as a pie reached his face and smeared all over it. The five friends burst into hysterical laughter, promptly joined by Sirius and most of the others.

Cecilia looked up in glee, catching a piece of flying pie in mid descent. She scrambled to try to get out of aim but Hermsy held her in place. "Splat," came the pie and a yell of victory from Laura followed it.

‘This is war,’ said Laura's best friend, Natalie Cunnie, a Slytherin seventh-year, as she threw a generous piece of cake that ended right in the middle of Dumbledore's face. Everybody waited in silence for Dumbledore's laugh, which came immediately. He blindly took the piece of pie he had in front of him and pushed it squarely into McGonagall's face. The whole present school burst out laughing.

‘Food fight!’ someone yelled. And everybody grabbed the food in front of them and started throwing it at each other.

I woke up and stretched. I felt strangely refreshed, until I noticed somebody was jumping on me, singing at the top of her lungs "Wake up, wake up, wherever you are!" from 'The Wizard of Oz' Then giggling and trying to catch her breath, she fell on top of me. I blinked several times and grabbed my glasses before saying anything.

‘Hermsy, have you gone completely mad?!’ I asked, quite alarmed. I had never seen her act this crazy. She gasped for breath and giggled at the same time.

‘Christmas!’ she said. I literally jumped out of bed, making Hermsy fall from it and topple out of sight.

‘Are-are you ok?’ I asked nervously. I heard her laugh.

‘Sure!’ she said cheerfully, her eyes alarmingly bright. I bit my lip nervously.

‘OK, calm down, Ceci. It'll be all right. Just-just call the guys. They'll know what to do,’ I told myself loudly. I turned to the crazy Hermsy.

‘You. Stay here. OK?’ she giggled and nodded. I nodded nervously gulping.

And then I ran out as fast as I could towards the boys' room. As soon as I got there I didn't bother knocking and barged right in.

‘Harry, Harry!’ I whispered urgently moving his curtains. He groggily opened his eyes and put on his glasses.

‘What?’ he asked me yawning.

‘Hermsy's gone mad. I don't know what's wrong.’ I bit my lip continuously, making it bleed. Harry jumped out of his bed.

‘Ron!’ he said loudly.

‘I'm going, Mom!’ Ron murmured. I was near hysterics.

‘RON!’ I yelled, waking all the other four boys up. Ron snapped out of his sleep.

‘Huh?’

‘What is it?’ Draco asked sneering, his hair in disarray.

‘Hermsy. She's- she's crazy,’ was the only thing I said before Draco got out of his bed and raced to the room I shared with Hermsy and the other girls.

The other boys and I ran after him. Draco swung open the door and found Hermsy twirling her thumbs looking at the ceiling. She smiled with her tongue in between her teeth, moving her head from one way to the other. Ron immediately relaxed when he saw her.

‘Draco, stop her from doing anything stupid, you too Cecilia. Harry, you come with me to wake up Sirius. One of the twin's inventions' went mad.’ All nodded. Neville, Seamus and Dean went back to their beds. I looked at Hermsy and kept on biting my lip. Draco shot me a worried look while looking for a blanket for Hermsy.

‘Your lip's bleeding,’ he said, giving me a strange look. I stopped eating my lip.

‘Is it? I didn't notice.’ I wiped the blood away and looked at Hermsy worriedly. Draco looked at me and rolled his eyes. Only then did I notice that in his hurry to reach Hermsy, he was shirtless, only wearing a pair of shorts. I resisted the urge to laugh.

‘You're not helping, you know?’ he said dryly, while trying to get his hair away from Hermsy's firm grip. I smiled faintly.

‘Yeah, well, you aren't either,’ I said pointing out his outfit. Apparently he too just realized it, and looked desperately around him. I passed him one of Hermsy's robes.

‘Here you go. Cover up, or they'll think I took advantage of you or something.’ Draco smiled. Hermsy started singing and dancing, completely off cue the song from ‘Annie’ "The sun will come out tomorrow"

‘The sun will come up in sorrow! So put up the cobwebs and the gallows! Till Snape's dead!’ Did I forget to mention that she also changed the lyrics? Draco and I couldn't decide if to shut her up, applaud or take notes.

‘Good song,’ I commented smilingly. Draco snorted with laughter. I looked at him and saw his usually clear gray eyes, stormy-gray and full of concern. I did a half smile.

‘You really like her,’ I said after a while. He seemed shocked at the question. He sighed.

‘I-’ just then Sirius stormed in with Ron and Harry in tow. He leaned over Hermsy, checking side effects and others. Then gave them a flask full of bright-pink potion and apologized.

‘Sorry for that. Don't know how she got hold of it.’ He shook his head and then left to finish unwrapping his presents. After the first gulp Hermsy became quite normal again. She blinked several times and then smiling apologetically, asked if Draco could return her robe. Draco took it off and Parvati, who had just woken up, started squealing with delight. She ran towards him putting her arms around him.

‘Are you my special Christmas present?’ she asked hopefully, fluttering her eyelashes provocatively. He flushed red as he fought the girl off, while the rest off us laughed our heads off.

‘See you girls later,’ the three said as they exited the room, at a fast run. I turned to my bed, a great smile on my lips, to find a large enough pile of presents I hadn't noticed before.

‘Yahoo!’ I said as I threw myself on top of it. The first one was from Hermsy. It was a box of Chocolate Frogs. ‘Hmm! Thanks Hermsy!’ I called to her. She smiled as she finished the potion and went to open her packages.

I returned to my pile. The next one was from Harry. It was a book about magic basics. I smiled to myself thinking of trying it out. Harry was so thoughtful! Then came Ron's package. There were two bottles full to the top of Butterbeer. I immediately opened one and drank. Hmm… delicious. When he had asked me what I wanted, I asked for Butterbeer. Ever since I had tried it in the Hospital Wing I had become an addict. The next one was from Hagrid. Rock cakes. I wrinkled my nose. Put them on the floor and said:

‘Brenda! Merry Christmas!’ She came out wagging her tail, took one sniff at the rock cakes and almost killed me with kisses. Don't ask me how or why, but she adores rock cakes. I smiled at the sight. Next one, I thought to myself. It was from Draco. Robes. Three pairs of black robes. I laughed.

‘Look what Draco got me!’ I yelled to Hermsy, showing her the robes. She laughed.

‘He suggests you to mix in the crowd!’ she said. We both giggled. 'Ok,' I said satisfied with my presents. 'So now time to-’ I saw another package.

‘What the-’ I said as I picked it up and began to unwrap it. It had a small box, and a very large one. I frowned. I opened the small one first and almost fainted at the sight. It was a beautiful gold chain and a heart, that had "Love you always" carved on it with a flourish. It was gorgeous. I put it on without thinking. Then turned to the larger package. It had two bags in it. One full of galleons and the other with a pretty dress robe.

‘Ready to go, Ces?’ Hermsy asked me. She noticed the dress. ‘Wow! Where did you get that from?’ I shook my head and swallowed.

‘I haven't the faintest idea,’ I said. She neared me and checked the dress from top to bottom. Near by the low neckline she shouted: ‘Aha!’ and gave me a small piece of parchment, written in a lovely loopy handwriting I had never seen before.

It shall look lovely on you.

My best wishes, to my little princess,
Merry Christmas...
Mom

‘Mom? What kind of sick joke is this?’ I asked angrily. I couldn't believe someone would joke with that kind of thing. Hermsy put her arm on my shoulder.

‘Whoever did it is a pathetically sick creep,’ she said, I smiled at her gratefully. I looked the dress over. It was fit at the waist and had a low neckline, fitted with sequins. It was a soft silky material that seemed to change from light green to light-gray depending on how the light fell on it.

‘They might be completely sick, but they sure have great taste in clothes,’ I breathed. Hermsy nodded.

‘Why don't you wear it?’ she asked. I shook my head, folded the dress and put on my new black robe.

‘I'll leave it for a better occasion,’ I said. She gave me a knowing look. Understanding what she meant I gave her a sly smile.

‘OK, now, shall we go eat?’ Hermsy asked innocently. At that word I grabbed her arm and dragged her all the way to the Great Hall.

‘There's Hermsy!’ said Draco. Harry turned, his jaw opened.

‘What happened to Cecilia?’ he said with shock. Draco grinned.

‘I thought it'd be tougher to kidnap her again if she wasn't wearing Muggle clothes.’ He shrugged. Harry smiled. The truth was that, Muggle clothes or no, Cecilia still knew how to stand out in a crowd.

‘Ow!' said Ron biting in a piece of pie to find a silver Sickle embedded in it. ‘Yeah! I was looking for this!’ he said licking it clean and putting it in his pocket.

‘Hi!’ said the girls approaching them.

‘Wow,’ said Ron appreciatively before turning again to the food.

‘I feel a little strange. Everyone looks at me strangely,’ Cecilia whispered. Some people were doing double takes, and others were rubbing their eyes to make sure they weren't seeing wrong. Draco laughed.

‘It's nothing compared to how they looked at you at first.’ Cecilia grinned.

‘Too true!’

‘Besides, those robes look good on you,’ Harry said, finally snapping out of his trance. Cecilia smiled at him shyly and mumbled a 'Thanks'. Hermsy gave Cecilia a glass of pumpkin juice, which was received gratefully. As Cecilia drank, Hermsy signaled the guys to talk to her later. They nodded to show they had understood.

‘Thanks for all the presents,’ said Cecilia, wiping her lips with the back of her hand.

‘Cracker?’ said Dumbledore kindly, coming to where they stood. Cecilia smiled.

‘Sure!’ She grabbed the half of the cracker Dumbledore was holding to her and they both pulled. The cracker broke and a loud "bang" was heard as several white mice ran away, and revealed a bag of filibuster's wet-start fireworks. Both smiled grabbed it and took it to Seamus and Dean.

‘Cool! Thanks!’ said Seamus. Dean nodded. And they put them away. In the meantime Hermsy filled them in as quickly as she could about the strange gift and card.

‘Hmm, a beautiful dress...’ Ron mused, not even listening about the card from 'Mom'. Usually it would have seemed very suspicious and important… if it had been sent to Harry, but Ces could fend for herself.

‘... A pretty girl...’ Draco continued. Both boys looked at Harry. He grew slightly red in the face.

‘Oh, no! I will not!’ he exclaimed. Hermsy caught on immediately.

‘McGonagall didn't say anything about a Spring Dance?’ Hermsy asked innocently remembering her talk with Cecilia earlier. Draco nodded, grinning happily. ‘Well, from what I've heard Cecilia's already refused three guys, so you better hurry,’ she said, looking pointedly at Harry.

‘But, what if she says no to me too?’ he asked. Draco rolled his eyes sighing.

‘Don't be a chicken!’ he said. ‘You're the amazing Harry Potter! Remember your one of the five most 'cutest' bachelors in Hogwarts!!’

‘Ok,’ said Harry plainly. ‘What if I ask Cecilia to go with me, then what? What if she says no? What if she says yes?!’ he said fidgeting.

‘I'll go with you,’ said Cecilia, appearing next to them with a piece of pie in her hands. Harry was white. Draco and Ron started giggling and Hermsy smiled wickedly. Cecilia ate her pie innocently.

‘Hmm, ok,’ said Harry, not believing what had just happened. Cecilia looked at him curiously.

‘What? You don't want me to go?’ she asked tilting her head.

‘No! I mean, yes, I do,’ he said nervously.

‘Good. Pick me up at seven in the Common Room on that date,’ she said smiling. Harry grinned as she left to look for a coat, since they planned to have a snow-fight.

‘See? Was that so hard?’ Draco asked snickering. As soon as everybody was full, their tummies with food and their pockets with goodies, they went outside for the long-waited snow fight. As they stepped outside a large bomb of snow attacked them.

‘Argh!’ they screamed. Seamus and Dean laughed.

‘Got you guys!’

‘Didn't expect that!!’ They rolled with laughter. All five grabbed snow in between their hands molding it quickly, aiming at them and throwing. A couple of Slytherins and Ravenclaws joined in. On they kept until the snow had soaked through their clothes and their breath came in ragged gasps. They toppled into the castle, all laughing and chatting breathlessly.