Between the Malfoy Brothers - Dramione

Chapter 13

Kings Cross was a madhouse of holiday travelers when Hermione Granger stepped through the barrier at platform 9 ¾ with the Malfoy brothers following behind her on their way to spend Christmas holidays with her family in London.

"Do you see my parents anywhere, Ronald?" she asked, standing on her toes.

"Not yet," he said.

Draco rolled his eyes. Of course Ronald had met Hermione's parents before.

"Need me to boost you up to see?" Ronald offered, already unhanding his trunk to lift Hermione.

"No, she doesn't need you manhandling her," Draco spat. "How do you think she'd find them if she didn't have us along? Go look around like you normally would, Granger. We'll wait with the bags. And you can leave us the cat too."

Hermione's colour was rising. Thanks to their meeting in the library when she invited Draco to show his Muggle tolerance by coming for Christmas, she was up to three, possibly four kisses with him -- it got a little murky at the end. But it still wasn't enough for her to consider him her boyfriend, apparently.

She led the boys to a cafe, sat poor Crookshanks, howling in his carrier, on the floor beside them, and used her Muggle pocket money to buy a cinnamon bun to set on a table between them.

"There," she said, "sit here and see if you can share that nicely while I'm gone. You need the practice." With that, she disappeared into the crowd.

Ronald tore off the first piece. Draco sat fuming a little longer, not beginning to eat until the crowd thinned between trains and they could see Hermione again.

"There they are. She's found them," Ronald announced through his mouthful of sticky bread. "Reunited with Dr. and Dr. Granger."

Draco squinted to where Hermione stood with a woman in a red peacoat and a man with tufty brown hair that he could definitely have grown out into a bushy mane if he had a mind to. The warm greetings between parents and daughter were over and now Hermione and her mother were having a tremendously animated conversation embellished by a lot of hand waving in the boys' direction.

Ronald broke into laughter. "Oh, no. She didn't."

Draco was alarmed. "What? What hasn't she done?"

Ronald swallowed. "She didn't warn them we were coming. She's only telling them now that we're right here and it's too late to refuse us."

"What?" Draco nearly shouted. "No, it's a terrible imposition. She can't do that."

Ronald was still laughing. "Easier to ask forgiveness than permission, mate. Yeah, if I know Hermione, and I do, she's over there acting like our plans collapsed just now, all unexpected, and we're stranded here, heartbroken with nowhere to spend Christmas unless the Grangers take us in."

Draco covered his face. "So pathetic," he groaned.

"But effective," Ronald said. "Look, she's getting through to them."

Hermione was holding each of her parents by the hand as they hung their heads and nodded, resigning themselves to suddenly having two uninvited house guests for the holidays at the last minute.

"That sneaky little minx," Draco said, still embarrassed but half in admiration of her all the same.

"See," Ronald crowed, stuffing the last of the cinnamon bun into his mouth. "She might not be as different from you as you thought."

When the Grangers began to step in their direction, the boys leapt to their feet and rushed to meet them. Hermione's mother nodded, offering Ronald a pleasant "Happy Christmas" while her husband dropped an arm around his shoulders and slapped his palm against his bicep. "Ronald, old boy. Aren't you tall now."