Pieces of a chess game [Sherlock x Harry Potter Crossover] [COMPLETE]

Chapter 8: A Christmas Carol

"John, you need to bend your knees."

"Mrs Hudson, what do you think I'm bloody doing?" Hermione huffed and panted as she hit the first landing and glanced back to see John a few steps behind her, both struggling to get the Christmas tree upstairs. His face was flushed - because of the effort or the anger, Hermione couldn't tell - and his forehead glistened with sweat. He held onto the tree roots, wrapped in white plastic, both of them struggling to get it up the stairs. Mrs Hudson gave instructions below and wiped away the soil that had been scattered by their efforts.

"Hermione, if you go up a bit more, and then John," said Mrs Hudson, "you can shove the tree over the bannister. That's it." John switched positions and propped himself against the wall for leverage. "John! Mind the wall, will you? You'll tear off the wallpaper!"

He grumbled something incomprehensible but relocated a few inches to the right, making the tree tilt sharply and lots of needles cascade down on him.

"John!" Hermione exclaimed. "If you keep that up, we will not have any needles left!"

"God forbid we chuck this stupid tree into the bin," he spat out sarcastically.

After ten minutes of hard work and plenty of cursing, they finally reached their living room, both exhausted and with sore arms.

"I need a cup of tea," said John, before dropping the tree onto the ground, the branches hitting Hermione in the face, who then watched perplexed as John walked to the kitchen, washed his hands, refilled the kettle and took two cups out of the cupboard. Determined, Hermione started to drag the tree towards the window.

"Christmas is not for another 10 days," said John as he left the mugs on the table and went over to help her put the tree into the pot she had left ready that morning. "I don't understand why we bought the tree so soon."

"It's my first Christmas at Baker Street. I want the Christmas spirit to be in this house for more than just a couple of days."

Hermione bent over and shifted the pot nearer to the window, hoping that the lights would be seen from the street as she came home, while also illuminating the room when she was reading at night.

Taking a mug of tea from John, she went through the box of decorations Mrs H had brought up from the basement until finally uncovering a bundle of fairy lights. Carefully untangling them and the strings of tinsel coiled in them, she hung each strand carefully around the tree, starting with the bottom branch. With a flick of a switch, they flickered and turned on and made the darkening room sparkle.

he turned around to John who had left his newspaper to watch her with a smile on his face.

"Well? You can't say you aren't feeling a little bit Christmasy, John."

John chuckled before going back to his newspaper and Hermione went on decorating the tree, choosing yellow and golden balls for contrast. She pretended not to notice when he snapped a photo of her work.

Hermione hummed as she finished putting the silverware on the table. The smell of turkey coming from Mrs Hudson's kitchen mixed with the scent of roasted potatoes creeping out from the flat's oven made the whole place smell like the Christmas of her childhood, and she had to swallow hard to push down the knot in her throat.

It had been a while since Hermione had celebrated Christmas with anyone else, despite Sirius and Mary's continued efforts to persuade her. For years, Hermione had locked herself in her parents' house, repeating the same traditions that her parents used to do, alone. But this year she decided it was time to move on from the past; and so, in less than four hours, all of Baker Street, plus Mary, will share a traditionally British Christmas dinner and copious amount of alcohol.