What It Means To Be

by spinner

1

The stockings appeared on a perfectly ordinary Tuesday, exactly one week before Christmas.  The ornaments had not been hanging from the fireplace mantle when Harry and Draco had left the Tower that morning, and neither boy had been back there since that time.  This evening, they had raced each other up the steps in order to be the first through the door.  And they remained by the door, vaguely puzzled because a swath of sleigh bells had materialized there as well.   

"Come in, have a seat?" Harry asked Owen Stoneburne, who grumbled something unintelligible as he shook his head no.  Owen took up his position outside the door, and closed it tight to the music of jingling bells. 

Draco ventured closer to the fireplace, putting his book bag down on his bed.  Unmistakably, the stocking hanging on the left side of the fireplace was meant for Malfoy.  It was made of the smoothest green satin, and trimmed along the top with the softest ermine.  Three tiny silver bells jangled from the toe of the stocking, and it swayed with the heavy burden concealed in its depths. 

The stocking hanging on the right side of the fireplace was a column of bright scarlet, and golden bells dangled from its toe.  Harry smiled when he inspected the dark brown fur along the top.  The pelt was spiky and rough to the touch.  Harry leaned forward and peered into the interior of the scarlet stocking before plunging a hand inside clear to the toe.

"Are these from your guards?" Draco wondered. 

"I don't think so," Harry shook his head.  His face lit up, and he withdrew box after box of chocolate frogs and wizard cards, stacking them along the edge of the low table as he counted them, twenty four in all.  Someone had bought a case of chocolate frogs for him??  Harry concentrated his second sight and was hit with the scent of pine trees.  He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.  Someone had placed a blocking spell on the gifts in order that he could not read their origin.  While one corner of his mind told him he should have been concerned about poison attempts, his intuition told him that very few assassins would take the time to break into his bedroom and leave him venom-filled chocolate frogs.  It simply wasn't the way a self-respecting assassin would operate.  Not to digress about how many self-respecting assassins there might actually be in the world, Harry was willing to wager that these frogs were perfectly safe.  He popped one box open and examined the card inside – it was Arthur and Molly Weasley and all their children, smiling back at him, waving happily.   

"Professor Snape perhaps?" Draco questioned, watching with distaste as Potter let his chocolate frog hang from his mouth while he landed his book bag on his favorite settee before the fire.  Potter slid out of his school robe and clutched the Weasleys card tight to his chest, smiling in a mysterious way that puzzled Draco.

"I don't believe so," Harry answered Draco.  "Aren't you going to investigate yours?"

Malfoy peered inside as though quite unconcerned.  But then suddenly, he pounced closer to the fireplace, his face anxious, pulling the stocking inside out to retrieve twenty four individually-wrapped, hand-painted, unique chocolate truffles of the highest quality.  The handiwork showed on their delicate, multi-colored packaging and tiny bows.  Malfoy lined them up along the other half of the low table and examined them in the light like rare jewels covering a rainbow of hues.  He was blushing with excitement.

"Aren't you going to eat one?" Harry asked.

"Eat them?!?  Are you mad?" Draco blurted in a high-pitched voice.

"You're not going to eat them?" Harry pondered.  Draco picked up a truffle in a pale brown covering and held it to his nose, savoring the scent.  He smiled with drunken pleasure, inhaling again and again, until Harry couldn't take any more.  He reached over and picked up a truffle at random, pulled off the wrapped, and popped it whole into his mouth. 

Draco gaped at him, appalled.  No—horrified!  Malfoy wouldn't have been more emotionally-moved if Harry had snatched up Draco's first-born child and eaten it, bone-body-blood, before his very eyes.  Harry chewed, frowned, made a few hacking noises, and forced himself to swallow the nauseating thing congealing in his mouth.

"What in Hecate's name was that?  It's disgusting!" Harry gagged.  Draco continued to blink at him.  Malfoy snatched up one of the chocolate frogs.  He unwrapped the box and held the frog tight in his tri-fingered grasp, letting the card fall away to the table.  Harry picked up the card and held it in his grasp, returning his concentration to Draco and his building hissy fit.

"Do you see this?" Draco motioned at Harry with the frog.

"Yes, quite clearly," Potter replied, trying not to smile.  He was evil, evil to enjoy these temper flares from Draco, but honestly, it was rare to glimpse beyond Malfoy's carefully-manufactured, cool façade while he was awake. 

"Do you see this?!" Malfoy demanded, picking up one of his precious truffles.

"Yes," Harry confirmed, straightening his glasses.

"These delicacies," Draco said, holding up the truffle to the firelight.  "They are made one at a time.  They are crafted by master chocolate makers in Belgium.  These master wizards train for fifty years as apprentices before they are allowed to make their own creations.  These bonbons are the result of centuries-old recipes.  Secret potions are used to replicate the exact flavors of the most expensive wines, the taste of the finest foods, the aroma of priceless orchids.  These are each a work of art—they are worthy of having a museum dedicated to their quality.  They are worthy of having virgins sacrificed to their purity and goodness."

"Are they really?" Harry teased, pretending he might pick up another.

"Don't you dare!" Draco protested vehemently.  "Do you see this abomination?" Malfoy indicated the limp frog in his tri-fingered grip.

"Yes," Harry nodded.

"This is the shit you'd wipe off your shoe if you stepped on it on the floor of a chocolate factory.  It isn't worthy to be called chocolate.  This is to chocolate as fish guts are to caviar, as stinkweed is to the Polyrrhiza lindenii.  This…..this frog isn't made in Belgium.  It's from Ireland.  IRELAND!  Not well-known for its chocolate, wouldn't you agree?"

"Never heard of Green & Blacks, have you?" Harry teased. 

Draco threw the chocolate frog at Harry, who caught it with a flick of his wrist.  He gobbled the frog down and sorted out his textbooks, amusing himself by watching Draco collect his precious truffles from the table.  Malfoy carried the treats to the end of his bed, took out his wand, and squirreled the bonbons away in the interior of his school trunk in a hidden compartment in the lid that Harry wasn't supposed to know about.  Draco kept out one truffle in an orange wrapper.  He set it on the window ledge by his bed and stared at it in complete rapture.

The Tower door sprang open, and Owen helped Hermione carry several small packages to the large table.  He also helped her drag inside a recently-severed spruce tree, three boxes of candles, and many limbs of holly with glistening green leaves and shining red berries.  Owen's mood was completely transformed by Hermione's arrival.  He was simply gushing with friendliness. 

"Oh!  You're back!" Hermione exclaimed, nearly dropping the boxes and the ornaments.  Harry raced over to help.

"Out of Divinations early," he explained.  "Thanks for the stockings.  They're wonderful."

"I….what?  No," Granger said, shaking her head.  "They were here when I came in an hour ago to measure the space.  Thank you, Mr. Stoneburne.  Thanks very much."

"You're most welcome.  Not at all," Owen smiled, in 'daddy mode', Harry recognized.  He wondered why Hermione had triggered 'daddy mode' in his stern, stoic guard.  

Hermione dragged the spruce tree over towards the central area, and tried to decide again where she should place it.  As if he already knew Hermione's plans for the rest, Owen took the holly branches over to the fireplace and began winding them in an intricate fashion that balanced itself on the mantle without the benefit of nails to hold it.  He lined candles up in and around the holly branches, and lit them with the touch of his hand. 

"If Malfoy doesn't mind having the view at the end of his bed blocked??" Granger tentatively asked.  Draco leaned forward, back, forward, and half-smiled.

"Please, by all means.  You may indeed conceal my view of Potter's pigsty.  Carry on," Draco mocked with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"You didn't leave the stockings?" Harry questioned Hermione.  As he stacked up the small presents, he wondered if his gift for Hermione was going to arrive soon.  He had contacted Ahmed Siddig at the Egyptorium weeks ago, but had not had a response as of yet.  He might have to get a backup present and save the other for Hermione's birthday. 

"No, but I thought they were quite nice," Hermione smiled, leaning the tree just so and attaching it by unseen means to keep it steady.  Harry glanced down under the branches, and saw that she had actually sealed the tree trunk to the floorboards themselves.  How in the heck was he going to water the tree to keep it fresh?

"Would either of you like a chocolate frog or two?" Harry asked, then sprinted over to the fireplace, where Owen was putting the finishing touches on the mantle.  Stoneburne pulled a few golden crystals from his pocket and put them next to the Floo jar.  One golden crystal that he tossed into the fire itself began to crackle and smoke.  A delicious aroma filled the area. 

"That puts the right tone on it," Stoneburne decided.

"Frog?" Harry offered. 

"No, no thanks," Owen said grimly. 

"Did you leave the stockings?" Harry asked him, picking up a frog box for Hermione.

"As I have been with you, near you, around you, by you, next to you for the last seven hours??" Owen began, waiting for Harry to draw his own conclusion.

"Not possible," Harry decided.  "Modesto?"

"He's helping Master DeFoe move furniture around his house today.  I doubt it."

"Teddy then?"

"She's on perimeter patrol, but she should be here any minute."

"Why no frog?" Harry wondered, waving a box by the corner.  "Yummy?  Delicious?"

"Saving room for dinner," Owen declined gracefully.  "Vixen is cooking a special meal for Brim's birthday."

"I thought you liked Teddy's cooking better than Vixen's," Harry said.  Owen blanched.

"It's hard to compare.  They have such different techniques," Stoneburne bluffed.  "Do I hear Teddy on the stairs?" he dodged, hurrying away.  Harry brought Hermione several chocolate frogs.  She, in turn, popped him on the shoulder as soon as Owen had closed the door behind himself.

"Harry," she whispered under her breath.  "Ixnay.  Ixnay."

"He said for a fact that Teddy was the best cook.  Why is he not owning up?"

"For a clairvoyant, you can be so blind," Hermione shook her head again, opening her frog box and catching the card with a gasp.  Her frog bounced down onto the floor and leapt away as Hermione blinked up at Harry with tears in her eyes.

"Aren't they wonderful?" Harry smiled.  Hermione laced her arms around his neck in a killer hug.

"Harry!  Oh, Harry!"

"Hope Ron doesn't mind they used the picture from the Egypt trip.  It was the only one I had with all of them in it."

"What did you have to promise to get these printed?"  Hermione asked. 

"I promised to do three different cards over the next year.  They're going to build a  ghastly, glitzy promotion around it.  Bells, whistles, all that rot," Harry stumbled his way through the explanation, imagining the look on Malfoy's face, glad he couldn't see it.  He restacked the small presents that populated the table.  They were vying for room among the textbooks, notes, essay drafts, left-over quills bits and such.   He had to deliver them soon before there was no room left on the table.

"Harry," Hermione purred with pride, dotting a kiss on his cheek. 

"Thanks for the tree and everything," Harry blushed.

"Hagrid's idea," Hermione lied.  "He was amazed you didn't have one up already."

"I didn't want to presume.  We aren't stepping on your religious beliefs or principles with a Christmas tree, are we?" Harry asked Draco.  Malfoy leaned outward on his bed, making a bland face.

"Doesn't bother me," he sniffed.  "Carry on."

Malfoy disappeared, but Harry heard the crinkle of a tiny wrapper being undone.  He supposed Draco was nibbling on his orange-wrapper truffle.  Harry set about helping Hermione unload crystal orbs and shining lights and scarlet ribbons.  Soon enough, they had the tree gleaming with silver and gold and every manner of ornamentation.  All the while, Hermione clutched the Weasleys' wizard card in one of her hands.  She was loathe to put it down, Harry decided with a wistful twinge.

"You missed a spot over here," Malfoy called out, his voice echoing through the tree like a critical sylvan spirit.  Hermione made a funny face at Harry, and repositioned a lovely green ball over in the area that Malfoy had pointed out.

"Such a shame," Hermione murmured, mostly to herself.

"What is?" Harry asked, going back to the fireplace and realigning his stocking.  He sat down next to his homework after clearing a place for Hermione to sit before the fire. 

"Well, nothing, no, I was thinking, that's all, nothing," Granger let her sentence trail away.  She sighed, staring into the fireplace.  Harry waited, shuddering as he watched Draco nibble with mouse-like bites around the outer edge of his truffle.  "It's going to be different this Christmas, that's all," Hermione said finally.

Harry didn't say a word.  He reached over and put his hand over Hermione's hand, the one holding the Weasleys wizard card.  He nodded silently, and stared into the fireplace.  Seconds later, he was smiling from ear to ear.  He squeezed Hermione's hand tighter as he started to chuckle.

"You think this one will be different?  Wait until next Christmas!"

Hermione yanked her hand away, eyes bright with curiosity.

"What did you see?!" she demanded uneasily. 

"It must be serious with you and Stoneburne's son?" Harry asked, his impish grin curling left and then right.  He avoided her question with graceful ease. 

"Serious in what sense?" Hermione stammered.

"He invited you and your parents to Christmas dinner.  That's obviously serious."

"He wants to meet my parents, and I want them to meet his parents, and his mother actually is the one who invited me, and it wasn't an invitation so much as an offer I couldn't decline in any polite manner, and so, yes, my parents and I will be having Christmas dinner with the Stoneburnes."

"Hmm," Draco commented from his bed. 

"Hmm what?" Hermione flared up. 

"I don't see the attraction, that's all," Draco shrugged.

"Burnie is a very considerate young man.  Quite intelligent.  His translations of runic Viking sagas are ahead of the pack.  Mrs. Stoneburne has given Brim and Burnie a well-rounded and superior education, and all on her own, thank you."

"You admire him for his mind?  That makes complete sense to me," Harry said quickly.

"Not just his mind," Hermione defended. 

"He's a sack of bones, and poor as a church mouse," Draco interjected.  "One can't help but draw the conclusion that you are replacing one ginger knob with another, so to speak.  One might assume you have a weakness for poverty and red-heads."

Harry was about to chide Draco for expressing too harsh an opinion on a very tender topic, but Hermione beat him to the punch.  Not literally.  Thank goodness Hermione chose to fight with words rather than fists this time.

"On the contrary, Burnie is nothing like Ron was.  For example, Burnie has already said the four words that every woman yearns to hear." 

"Four words?" Harry puzzled, counting on his fingers.  " 'I.  Love.  You.  Honey?  Dear?  Sweetheart'?"

" 'Take off your clothes'? " Draco cooed, hoping it might provoke a reaction.   Hermione smirked at him and snorted. 

"Malfoy, you're such an amateur," she coughed laughter.

"That's five and a half words," Harry pointed out.  Hermione swatted him hard on the leg, and he jerked back from her, smiling wickedly.

"I'll have you know, on our very first dinner, he leaned across the table, refilled my glass for me, and said, 'What do you think?'  What woman doesn't love a man who wants to know what she has on her mind?"

"Oh, gag," Draco commented.  He got up from his bed to replace his stocking on its hook by the fireplace. 

"You probably would have waited a good long while to hear those words from Ron.  Romance was never his strong suit," Harry agreed.  

"Nor did Ron care much what was on my mind, unless it was the key to tomorrow's Transfigurations quiz," Hermione said quietly.  She stacked up Harry's chocolate frog boxes into an uneven castle wall, staring into the fireplace again.  "Still, it's going to be a strange Christmas with him.  Without them," she sighed again.  "What was in your stocking?" she asked Malfoy, who jingled playfully with the bells on the end of his silky green ornament.

"Love tokens, no doubt," he said, almost to himself. 

"Icky, nasty truffles," Harry explained. 

"What sort of nasty truffles?" she asked. 

"They're not nasty or 'icky'.  These are the wondrous creations from the workshops of Master Hercule L'Enfante," Draco explained as Harry made gagging noises.

"Harry," Hermione scolded as she smiled at him and poked his leg again, sending mixed messages of approval and chastisement at once. 

Draco sneered, "Potter, you're a peasant."

"Hercule L'Enfante.  Hercule L'Enfante," Harry imitated Draco's pronunciation.

"It's time we went to dinner," Hermione said, pulling Harry to his feet and disrupting their little dispute.    To Harry's surprise, Hermione paused on one foot beside Draco and waited for him to follow.  She even made an excuse to keep him walking in step with them as they headed for the door.  "I've heard of L'Enfante.  Quite renowned, in fact."

"Of course you'd've heard of Master L'Enfante.  All civilized, chocolate-loving wizards know of him," Malfoy crept along, adjusting a glass ball on the tree, then sliding into his school robe. 

"His wife was a clairvoyant, wasn't she?  His first wife.  Or his sister?"

"His cousin Imogene.  She claims to be able to raise the voice of any spirit one might seek, but it's rubbish."

"How do you know?" Hermione asked.

"I consulted her late last summer, but she failed to produce the one I was seeking.  She said it must be because he was already trailing another, more power seer than herself and he couldn't be pulled away," Draco answered, giving Potter a wary look.  Harry accio'd his robe from the settee, dragging it past Draco like a flying specter.  Malfoy shivered in response as the robe whispered over him. 

"Hercule L'Enfante," Harry teased again.

"We must find an angel for your tree, or a star, if no one objects?" Hermione suggested, tilting her head to one side and watching Harry and Draco making mocking faces at one another.  

"Wonder what's for dinner," Harry mumbled.  "Maybe we could nip out to Hogsmeade, or to London.  Wonder what the special is at Helios tonight."

"Too cold out," Hermione dissuaded Harry.  "Let's stay in."

"Yes, true, you're right," Harry agreed. 

"Have you checked your post box yet?" Hermione asked.

"No," Harry admitted. 

"What you need is a personal assistant to answer your mail, someone capable of dealing with correspondence and odds and ends," Hermione told Potter. 

"Is it even safe to advertise for such a thing?" Harry wondered to himself, opening the door to the music of jingling bells.  Teddy waited in the shadows.   "Evenin', love," Harry greeted her with a broad grin.  She was his very favorite of his guards.  When Morgenrot threatened him with a scowl and the end of her staff, Harry briskly hurried out of reach.  "See you got your Christmas present early, eh?"

"Mr. Potter, a respectable wizard wishing to reward a faithful protector would have thought twice about pointing out to her she is single, approaching forty, and no longer a raving beauty," Teddy said tersely.

"A week's vacation in a South Pacific singles hotspot isn't a one-way-trip to Hell, you know," Harry shot back, skipping several steps at a time.   Teddy waited until he was around a turn, and pushed her staff down at him again, satisfied with the "OW!" that resulted.  "What was that for?!" Harry demanded without stopping.

"That's for giving me a hot-pink, two-piece, string bikini," Teddy replied, furious. 

Main Page                    Main Story Index                Part 2