Christmas holidays were approaching quickly, and the students soon found themselves boarding the Hogwarts Express. Hermione and Draco, along with Harry and Pansy, sat in one of the compartments. The twins, along with their group of friends sat in another compartment.
Lea and James were barely speaking to each other. Whenever they did, James tried to steer her away from her friends to talk to her, and Lea wouldn’t budge. Everyone was noticing the tension between the two friends that had known each other since infancy.
Inside the teenager’s compartment, Jake and Damien were playing a game of wizard’s chess, which Jake was failing miserably at, much to Damien’s delight. Becca and Alicia were discussing what they wanted for Christmas, and James was looking blankly at his quidditch book. Lea had left a few minutes before to go to the washroom.
James closed his book abruptly, “I’m going to talk to Jonathan Banks for a second, he wanted to show me something.”
“That was...weird.” Alicia said after James had walked out.
“I know.” Damien replied.
Jake had a thoughtful expression on his face, then leaned over and whispered something into Damien’s ear; Damien smiled, and shook his hand.
Meanwhile, James was walking down the hall, and saw Lea walking directly towards him, without thinking, he grabbed her, and pulled her into an empty compartment.
Lea ripped his hand off her arm, “What the hell?”
“Sorry, I just need to talk to you,” James replied, sitting down.
“Well I don’t want to.” Lea said, and went to open the door.
James lazily cast a charm on the door, “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“What the hell did you do?” Lea asked when the door wouldn’t budge.
“A charm my Dad taught me. Now tell me, why are you avoiding me?”
Lea angrily huffed, and sat down angrily; a silent refusal to talk.
“I heard you,” James said quietly, when she didn’t answer.
“What?” Lea whipped her head towards him, “What did you hear?”
“When you and Jake were in the tower.” He stated, looking at her with his emerald eyes.
“What did you hear there?” Lea asked, wringing her hands.
“You basically said that you liked me.” He stared at her.
Lea couldn’t tear her eyes away from his. His eyes really were mesmerizing, if you looked really closely, you could see tiny specks of brown around his irises. James was looking intently into Lea’s eyes as well. Her eyes grey, with silver flecks throughout them. They unconsciously found themselves leaning closer and closer, until Lea snapped herself out of her daze, and pulled back.
“Can I go now?”
James nodded slowly, and flicked his wand quickly. A clear click was heard, and Lea stood hurriedly. As she walked out of the room she heard a voice murmur. It was so quiet, she wasn’t even sure if she heard it.
“I feel the same way.”
She whipped around. “What did you say?”
James raised his head slowly, “I feel the same way.”
Lea launched herself into his arms, and wrapped her slender arms around him, and buried her face in his neck. At thirteen, James was tall, already 5”7, while Lea was 5”4. James was shocked, but wrapped his arms around her two. He breathed her scent in. She smelt of lilacs, and if he breathed deeply enough, he could smell the faint hint of strawberries.
“Go out with me?” James asked, almost hesitantly.
Lea almost laughed. James Sirius Potter was nervous about asking a girl out? The same guy who had been asking out different girls every other day?
“Yes.” Lea laughed, and enfolded her hand in his, “Let’s go!”
“One question before we leave,” James said.
Lea turned around to look at him.
“Do you think your Dad will kill me magically, with a chainsaw, or combined?” he asked nervously.
Lea laughed again, “Definitely the muggle way.”
She led him back to their compartment carefully, since James’s face was quite pale at the thought of being killed at the mere age of thirteen.
When they walked into their compartment hand in hand, Jake turned to Damien and smirked.
“Five galleons, mate.” He held his hand out, and Damien grudgingly handed him the money.
“Oh My God! No way! This isn’t possible! You asked her out?” Becca squealed quickly.
James nodded. Lea blushed slightly.
“Well mate, it’s time for the older brother ‘If you hurt her, I'm going to kill you talk’ let’s go.” Jake said, motioning to the door.
“Fine.” James nodded, and stepped out with Jake.
“You want me to grab my Dad?” Jake smirked at James.
“Are you mental? I'm already trying to figure out if he’s going to kill me magically, or the muggle way, Lea seems to think muggle.”
“I have to agree with her.”
“Doesn’t everybody.” James mumbled as they stepped into an empty booth.
“So...Don’t hurt her, if you do, I’ll be forced to call my Dad, and possibly Damien.”
James winced. Uncle Draco would kill him if he hurt Lea, and Damien had a large library of hexes and jinxes stored in his brain, none of them had pretty results.
“That’s all?”
“For that, yes. Now, I need to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Do you think that I should ask ou-” Jake started, but was interrupted by another voice.
“Mate, trains approaching the station, come get your bags.” Damien said, sticking his head into the compartment.
“Okay.” James said, standing up, “We can talk later.”
“All right,” Jake sighed.
The trio walked back to their compartment, where they quickly retrieved their things, just as the scarlet train pulled up at Kings Cross Station. They all got off the train quickly, where they each met up with their parents.
“Draco! Hermione!” a voice said, effulging them both in a hug.
“Hello Mother.” Draco said, instantly recognizing his mother.
“How are you?” she asked them both.
“Good.” Hermione and Draco said at the same time.
“Where are the twins?” Narcissa asked.
“They should be here in a moment.” Hermione said.
“Mum, Dad, Gamma!” Jake shouted, pulling his trunk.
He reached his family, and enveloped his grandmother in a hug.
“How are you dear?” Narcissa asked, looking at him kindly.
“Fine Gamma,”
“Where’s your sister?”
“She should be right behind m-” Jake’s eyes widened, “Oh Shit.”
“Jacob! Language!” Narcissa scolded.
Hermione and Draco turned around to where Jake was looking. Hermione realised what he was looking at too late, since Draco had already seen. Draco’s face was growing darker and darker as he looked at the sight of his daughter hugging Potter Jr.
“Deep breaths Draco,” Hermione murmured into his ear, grasping his hand tightly.
Lea smiled at James, and kissed his cheek before saying something, and heading towards her family. She didn’t notice how pissed off Draco looked.
“Hermione, dear, how are you?” Mrs. Weasley said, coming up to Hermione.
“Oh, fine thank you,” Hermione replied, turning towards her.
“Is this Jake?” Mrs. Weasley asked after greeting the elder Malfoy’s.
“Yes.” Hermione said, placing a hand on Jake’s shoulder.
“Hello,” Jake said politely, “How are you Mrs. Weasley?”
“There’s no ‘Mrs. Weasley’ business here, it’s Grandma.” Mrs. Weasley said brightly, “As long as it’s okay with your parents,”
“It’s okay,” Hermione smiled at the woman that was like a mother to her.
“Now, you are all welcome to come over, if you want, you can come for Christmas dinner, we have more than enough space, now that we put a new extension on The Burrow!”
“Now, dearies, I hope to see you soon! Cissa, give me a call soon, I’d love to catch up!” Mrs. Weasley left quickly, heading over to Harry and Pansy.
Hermione looked at Narcissa confusedly, “Am I missing something?”
Narcissa laughed, “Molly and I were close friends in school, but we lost contact after I married Lucius.”
“Oh,”
“Hi Gamma!” Lea exclaimed, launching herself at the Malfoy Matriarch.
“Hello dear, how was Hogwarts?” Narcissa smiled at her granddaughter.
“Amazing!”
“Let’s go,” Draco said gruffly, heading towards the apparition point.
“Is something wrong with Draco?” Narcissa asked.
“He saw Lea with James,”
Lea looked shocked, “He saw that?”
“Yes,” Hermione said, “What happened, you two have been ignoring each other for weeks?” she asked even though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
“He asked me out,” Lea mumbled.
“Don’t worry, Mum, I had the big brother talk with him,” Jake said.
Hermione smiled, “That’s nice sweetie, your Aunt Pansy will be happy to hear that.”
“What do you think Daddy’s going to do?” Lea asked hesitantly.
“You never know, your father is a very... unpredictable person, and can change his mind a lot.” Hermione said slowly. “But James might want to learn the shield charm, just in case.”
“Huh, I’ll have to tell him that,”
“Let’s go now,” Hermione said, walking towards the apparition point.
The family walked towards the Apparation point, and Hermione linked her hands with Lea, after shrinking her things. Narcissa did the same with Jake. They apparated to the Manor and restored the twins’ luggage back to normal size. They appeared inside the Manor, since Narcissa was on the safe list, and she had added Hermione recently.
“Why don’t you two dears go up to your rooms, Frizzy will show you there,” Narcissa said to the twins, gesturing to the petite house elf standing obediently beside her.
“Okay Gamma,” Lea said, and she and Jake followed the elf.
“Hermione, would you like to join me for tea in sunroom?”
“That would be nice Narcissa,”
“Would you do me a favour, and get Draco too?”
“Okay, I’ll be in the sunroom in a moment,”
The twins had no intention of staying in their rooms though, using extendable ears and listening in on their grandmothers conversation with their parents seemed like a much better idea.