Hermione's Christmas

The snow outside wasn't heavy.

Hermione curled up in her bed, staring blankly at the snowflakes outside the window for a while before her mother's call came from outside the bedroom.

"Hurry up and get up, eat breakfast on time, or your stomach will be bad later."

"Got it."

She dawdled, changing out of her pajamas in bed, putting on wool socks, and with her slightly messy, fluffy long hair, she shuffled in slippers to the bathroom to wash up.

When she arrived in the living room, Mr. Granger had already finished breakfast and was sitting on the sofa reading the newspaper.

"Hurry and eat breakfast, and after you're done, you can open your presents."

Hermione suddenly perked up at this, and she trotted in her slippers all the way to the small Christmas tree in her house.

As expected, a small pile of gifts was placed there.

Mrs. Granger's voice came from the kitchen.

"Hermione! Eat first!"

Hermione responded loudly, displeased.

"Mom, I'm not opening presents, I'm just looking!"

As she spoke, she began counting the gift boxes of various sizes under the tree with her fingers.

"Dad's, Mom's, Grandma and Grandpa's, maternal grandparents', Auntie Percy's, Uncle Colson's, Uncle Mike's, Cousin Senior's, Nancy's, Helen's..."

After counting, she became unhappy.

She stomped her foot and angrily went to the dining room to eat breakfast.

Mr. Granger put down his newspaper and looked at his daughter, who was inexplicably throwing a tantrum. "How is it? You have more presents this year than last year."

The little girl viciously cut the fried egg on her plate into four pieces with her dinner knife.

"It's nothing, it's just that I didn't see a certain liar's present! I even prepared one specifically for him, and I wanted to give it to him when he got back..."

Her voice trailed off, and the Grangers couldn't hear what she was saying.

After breakfast, Hermione opened her presents without much enthusiasm.

The gifts from the adults were all similar year after year, and her friends from school offered no surprises either.

"I'm going out!"

After tidying up the opened presents, Hermione changed her shoes by the door and called out loudly.

"Don't forget your gloves, scarf, and hat, and don't run off and lose them when you're playing outside!"

"Got it, got it!"

The cold air outside made Hermione instinctively shrink her neck. She pulled her scarf tighter around her neck, hopped in place a couple of times, and then, braving the light snow, she jogged towards the house next door.

When she reached the yard gate, she skillfully took out a small set of keys from her pocket, picked one out, and opened the gate.

She first went to the garden to look at the flowers that Linley cherished the most.

Unfortunately, due to the season, Hermione couldn't save them. They had all withered in the autumn, and now only a few dead branches remained.

The places where the flowers were originally planted now had a few small mounds of earth – the graves of the flowers. Thinking that even if the flowers died, she had to give Linley an explanation when he returned, she dug a few holes and buried the withered flower branches in the ground.

After ensuring that the "graves" were not dug up by those mischievous stray dogs, Hermione opened the door and walked into Linley's house.

It was still as spotless as when Linley had left.

Just as she had promised herself, Hermione came here to clean once a week.

At home, her mother always complained that she didn't actively participate in housework, but she was very diligent when cleaning Linley's house.

Skillfully picking up the mop, she started her cleaning work for the week, beginning from the innermost room on the second floor.

By the time she had roughly finished, it was close to noon.

She looked at the clean and tidy rooms, let out a long sigh, then rubbed her slightly reddened cheeks, put on her scarf, hat, and gloves again, locked the door to Linley's living room, and walked out of the yard.

As she locked the yard gate, she noticed the accumulated snow in the yard. She thought that she would have to come back in a couple of days to clear this snow, otherwise, the lawn at Linley's house would be ruined once it melted into water.

On the way back, as she thought about it, the little girl's mood was as unpredictable as London's weather. Suddenly, she became angry again.

She was angry at herself.

She had been busy for half a day, only for someone to not even send the promised gift.

Hermione, Hermione, you're such an idiot!

She returned home sulking. Mrs. Granger was already making lunch.

"Where did you go running off to all morning?"

"Nowhere."

The more Hermione thought about it, the angrier she got. She replied listlessly and then ran upstairs to her room.

She lay on the bed, burying her face in the covers. The more she thought about it, the more wronged she felt, and the more wronged she felt, the more she wanted to cry.

Just as she was pouting, her eyes red, about to secretly cry out, a knocking sound suddenly came from outside her bedroom window.

Hermione choked back her tears again and turned to look out the window.

An owl was staring at her through the glass.

Seeing that the little girl had noticed it, it pecked at the windowpane with its beak again.

Hermione was surprised at first, but then she became excited.

Because she saw a small but cleverly wrapped gift box under the owl's claws.

She immediately rushed to the window, opened it for the owl, and let it fly in.

The owl from Hogwarts elegantly shook the snowflakes off its wings outside the window before flying into Hermione's room and dropping the gift box into the girl's hands.

Hermione eagerly opened the gift box.

Just as she had expected, the gift was from Linley.

Inside was a pendant, hanging from which was an extremely tiny crystal ball. Within the crystal ball was a castle, and just like the weather outside, magical snowflakes were also drifting inside the crystal ball.

"Hog, Hogwarts?" Hermione brought the crystal ball closer to her eyes, finally managing to make out the sign on the castle.

At the bottom of the gift box, there was also a note left by Linley, which read:

This is your future castle.

Upon seeing this sentence, Hermione's face suddenly flushed a little. She felt that Linley was indirectly calling her a princess.

Smooth talker!

She cursed him silently in her heart, then couldn't help but glance at the pendant in her hand and happily put it around her neck.

The owl, having traveled a long distance, circled above Hermione's head for a long time. Seeing the little girl giggling one moment and getting angry the next, it felt that she had no intention of giving it any compensation for its efforts. Annoyed, it flew out of her room.

At this time, Hermione was rolling on the bed clutching the pendant, not even noticing when the owl had left.

After a while, she felt she had gotten a bit too excited and couldn't help but scold herself again in her heart:

Hermione, Hermione, you really are an idiot!