the one | h. potter

42. christmas morning

I wake up to an empty bed and loud footsteps coming from the floor above me. I sit up slowly and rub my eyes. Harry is nowhere to be seen, but I hear loud voices coming from Ron and Hermione's room next door. I pull on some socks, brush my hair, and walk over.

"Good morning," I grumble, opening the door. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are inside, and Hermione seems to be bargaining with them over two vials of hangover potion.

Harry turns around, surprised. "Good morning, sweetie. Can you convince Hermione to give us those?" he asks, pointing at the vials.

"And why would I do that?" I cross my arms.

Harry gives me puppy dog eyes and pouts. "Cause you're the best girlfriend ever?"

"Why was that phrased like a question?"

"Uh- I- Liz, I'm hungover, please?"

I roll my eyes and grab a vial from Hermione's hand. I cork it open and sniff, wrinkling my nose at the smell of moldy oranges. "What do these taste like?" I ask. "I've never had one... are hangovers bad?" I hide a smile as I watch Hermione stifle a laugh on the bed.

Harry groans and tries to swipe the vial from my hand, but I move it out of his grasp. "I hate you," he mumbles.

"That's not what you said last night," I counter.

"I don't remember anything from last night."

I freeze unintentionally, giving him time to grab the vile from my fingers and down it in one go.

He doesn't remember what he said last night.

Of course he doesn't. I sigh and push my thoughts towards the back of my mind, focusing on the present. Hermione gave in to Ron and he also just downed the potion.

"Thank you, love," Harry smiles, and kisses my cheek before opening the door and running down the stairs, Ron on his tail.

"They've got a lot of energy for people who fell asleep so early last night," I mutter.

"I might have drugged their firewhiskey last night," Hermione giggles.

"You- what? Why?"

"They were getting on my nerves! Those two, when they're drunk together..." she trails off. "It's a nightmare. And let's just say, I didn't want to listen to them read poetry."

My mouth pops open. "Read poetry! That would have been golden!"

Hermione makes a face. "They butcher it."

"We've all been robbed. C'mon, let's go get ready. I want presents." Hermione shakes her head and follows me to the bathroom.

• • •

We're all piled into the Burrow's cozy living room. A small portable fire is floating above the table, warming up the cold house. It snowed last night, and it felt amazing to come downstairs to a snowy Christmas morning. I'm particularly excited since I haven't celebrated Christmas properly since the fifth year.

I'm sitting comfortably on the loveseat with Harry's arm wrapped around my waist. Molly and Arthur start unshrinking the presents and passing out bundles to who they belong to. Once they finish, I have a large pile of gift boxes and bags piled at my feet, bigger than any pile I've ever gotten.

"There we go," Arthur says when they finish. "That's the lot. Including gifts that arrived by owl this morning." I'd sent out my gifts to Katie and Draco yesterday afternoon before we'd left.

We go clockwise around the circle, starting with Molly and Arthur to my left. I watch as people open gifts around the circle, anxiously awaiting to open mine. To my surprise, my gifts are a hit; Hermione tears up when she opens the first edition of Hogwarts: A History I gave her, Ron is gobsmacked when he opens the chocolate frogs I gave him and finds himself as the collectible wizard, Arthur's eyes widen as he opens his new bright red telephone, Molly looks at me happily after opening the newest Witch Weekly cookbook, George and Angelina thank me for the gift card I got them to a furniture store so they can furnish their new apartment, Percy loves his new peacock quill, Ginny struts in the high heeled boots I knew she'd been eyeing, and Bill and Fleur look so surprised when they realize I got them a gift card to a maternity store.