A/N: This was my piece for the D/Hr Advent Challenge of 2018 on Tumblr and AO3. My prompt was Christmas Carols. I hope you like this fun little One-shot. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone.

xx-Kitten.

Deck the Halls

By Kittenshift17

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly, falalalala lalalala," Hermione Granger sang at the top of her voice, her hands pressed over her ears to keep from hearing the raucous love-making she'd been forced to interrupt during her prefect rounds for the fifth bloody time that week. She didn't know what it was about the Christmas season, but it seemed like every sod and his bint were at it in all corners of the castle and she'd just about had enough.

If she had to see the arse of one more wizard, or the boobs of one more fellow witch this holidays season, she was going to strangle someone.

"I swear to bloody Merlin, Granger, if you don't shut your yap, I'm going to give you something to shove in it," Draco Malfoy growled from beside her, his hands clamped over his ears as well, though his was in a vain effort to keep from enduring Hermione's singing, rather than an effort to avoid sex-noises.

Hermione shot him a glare, still furious over having been paired with him this term for Prefect rounds. Dumbledore had insisted that these were troubled times and that it would be best if no one travelled alone. What anyone had been thinking pairing the two of them together when he was – most likely – a Death Eater, while she was a muggleborn was beyond Hermione, but so far aside from being his grumpy, acerbic, and annoying self, he hadn't been any more unpleasant than usual. Less, even, than she'd anticipated, all things considered.

She didn't stop singing, however. It was much more bearable, in her opinion, to force Malfoy to endure her off-key singing, than to have to deal with the awkwardness of interrupting another couple. As the prefects on duty, they were charged with ensuring wanderers were sent off to bed and that everyone was following the rules. They weren't allowed to just turn in the other direction and pretend their classmates weren't shagging like bunnies behind the statues and in secret passageways. All of which was much more bearable if philanderers heard her coming and dressed themselves hurriedly before sheepishly being sent off to bed.

"'Tis the season to be jolly, falalalala lalalala," Hermione went on, even louder, singing the Christmas carol as loud as she could so the couple that they'd already overheard would know they were coming, get dressed, and hopefully run off to bed rather than forcing Hermione to see someone else's privates.

She was no prude, but enough was enough, and she'd had more than enough of seeing other people's bums this holiday, thank you very much.

"Granger!" Malfoy snarled, furiously glaring at her in return.

He lunged at her when she opened her mouth, intent on singing the next line and Hermione gasped, stepping back from him until he latched hold of both of her wrists and wrenched her hands away from her ears.

"They ran for it," he informed her snidely. "Thanks a lot, Granger."

"You're welcome," Hermione replied primly.

"I wanted to catch whoever they were," he grumbled.

"Get your jollies as a peeping tom, do you, Malfoy?" Hermione asked, smirking just a little bit when she watched his cheeks turn pink in the torchlight.

"No!" he hissed. "Just thought it might be Blaise and that dark-haired bird from Ravenclaw. What's her name? The little dumpy one who turns up her nose at everyone?"

He snapped his fingers redolently, trying to think of the name. Hermione knew who he meant, of course – the Ravenclaws gave her the most strife when they challenged her academic record and she may have been pitting her will against them since first year – but she wasn't about to dignify his cruel descriptions with a response.

"Sounds like Parkinson, except for the Ravenclaw bit," Hermione sneered meanly, supposing that Malfoy wouldn't take kindly to having her insult his girlfriend.

"Does a bit," he nodded, making her think that perhaps he and the pug-nose weren't an item, after all. "No, he's already shagged her a number of times. This one's new. We had a wager on whether or not the dumpy cow was a racist when she turned him down for a Hogsmeade date. He'll claim he shagged her, but I wanted proof."

"You're sick," Hermione informed him, disgusted at the very idea of betting on sex.

"As though you're not?" he challenged idly, raising one eyebrow at her and looking her up and down as though her appearance, alone, was enough to indicate as much.

"Oh, bite me, Malfoy," Hermione rolled her eyes, stomping in the direction the shagging had come from to confirm the offenders had bolted, rather than still loitering, waiting for the two of them to leave.

"Oh, I don't think you'd like that very much, Granger," Hermione could've sworn she heard him mutter in a low and wicked tone as she rounded the corner into the now-deserted alcove that still smelled faintly of cheap perfume and… excretions.

Wrinkling her nose and backing out of the alcove, Hermione squawked when she bumped right into Malfoy in the dark as he attempted to invade the small space, too.

"Would you move out of the way, Malfoy?" Hermione huffed. "Before the fumes make me vomit."

"You're such a bloody prude, Granger," Malfoy rolled his eyes, though he stepped back and allowed her to pass.

"I'm not a prude," Hermione frowned at him.

"You burst into loud and horribly off-key carols at the faintest hint of hearing people shagging, Granger," he taunted. "You're a prude."

"It's not prudish to want to avoid seeing someone's arse, thank you very much. I've seen three arses, five breasts, one fanny and two cocks this week, I'll have you know – none of them my own – and I'd rather not see anymore. Believe me, some of our classmates certainly leave something to be desired," Hermione informed him, staring him dead in the eyes as she said so, knowing that using the slang terms for genitalia always tended shut Ron up when he started harping on about prudishness.

Malfoy blinked, apparently surprised at her daring, before a mean little smirk crawled across his face.

"And yet, undesirable though you deem them, they're the ones getting laid," he taunted meanly, and Hermione narrowed her eyes.

"Just because I don't do it in places where I'm liable to get caught doesn't mean I'm not shagging people too, Malfoy, if that is what you're implying," Hermione retorted.

Malfoy raised his eyebrows at her doubtfully before looking her up and down.

"Oh, yeah?" he asked, seeming like he didn't believe her.

For her part, Hermione was surprised that he hadn't come up with anything nastier to say, since she was sure he could've spouted something about how he pitied the poor, sorry sod deigning to lower himself to fuck a mudblood.

"That surprises you?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips and scowling at him.

"Granger, I've just been forced to endure your dulcet tones torturing a Christmas classic," he reminded her. "Excuse me for thinking that, since I haven't spotted anyone running to the hospital wing with bleeding eardrums, you can't be having very good sex, if you're having any at all."

"You're a right git, Draco Malfoy," Hermione snapped, though there was no real heat in the insult since she felt certain he could've said something much meaner, and also because he actually looked amused, rather than like he was trying to offend her.

She'd noticed over the weeks of the term since having been paired with him for patrols that he seemed different this year. Merlin, he'd seemed different on the train from the minute school resumed and she couldn't put her finger on the cause, but it was alarming to say the least. He just didn't seem quite so mean as he'd done in the previous years, and perhaps he even seemed a little less elitist.

"And?" Malfoy shrugged his shoulders and Hermione would swear he actually looked amused, rather than annoyed by the insult.

"And what?" she frowned.

"What? You've only got one little insult to offer me?" he laughed just a little. "I said your potential sex-noises would make a man's eardrums bleed, Granger. I've said a hundred horrid things to you over the course of our acquaintance. All that, and you can only muster up a single, weak insult for me?"

"Do you want me to insult you, Malfoy?" Hermione asked, raising one eyebrow.

"What if I do?" he challenged.

"I'd hate to be seen giving you what you want," Hermione replied, tossing her hair over one shoulder and turning away, intent on continuing their rounds.

"What about not being seen?" he asked from behind her as she continued down the corridor.

"What?" Hermione asked, not bothering to look over her shoulder.

"You don't have to be seen giving me what I want," Malfoy replied, his voice lowering just a little in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

"I've just told you I'm already getting laid in private, Malfoy," Hermione rolled her eyes. "I don't need to add you to my list of dirty little secrets."

She heard him snort from behind her, though she didn't dare to look over her shoulder, fearing that if they made eye contact, this strange spell between them might be broken. She didn't know what universe she'd stepped into, but it seemed to be one where, if she wasn't mistaken, Draco Malfoy had just suggested they shag. Hermione wondered if she was going mad. Maybe she'd dozed off in the library and had been forced to cover so many of the patrols alongside Malfoy recently – a result of additional Quidditch training for the other houses leaving the rota short – that she'd begun having nightmares about him making passes at her.

"Well," he muttered from behind her as the rounded another corner. "If that's how you want to be."

"Of course, it's how I want to be," Hermione sniffed. "You just accused me of potentially emitting noises to fatally wound the eardrums of any person I happen to sleep with, and you insulted my singing. I'm not about to take you up on some half-cooked offer for a tawdry hook-up after that."

"Shame," Malfoy said. "I could make you sing like an angel."

Hermione's cheeks glowed like hot coals, her face and neck growing warm.

"I must be having the most unfortunate nightmare," she muttered to herself and she could've sworn she heard Malfoy snort from behind her.

"And I haven't even showed you my sinister side, yet," he said so quietly that she felt certain she wasn't supposed to hear.

Ignoring him, Hermione continued on her rounds until they were finished for the evening – fortunately managing to avoid any additional sightings of lustful classmates before parting ways with him. She was safely back inside the Gryffindor common room and changing out of her robes to prepare for her evening shower before it occurred to her that, technically, Malfoy had walked her back to her dormitory.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

"Oh come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant," Hermione sang three nights later, on her next round of patrols.

She was frowning as she patrolled the halls, glancing out the windows to the snow-covered grounds beyond and noticing the almost-fullness of the moon. Malfoy prowled at her back, silent this evening and seeming out of sorts since their last patrol.

"Not that again," he sighed when she started to sing carols all over again, the first sounds of heavy breathing and soft moans catching her ear from the far end of the corridor they were patrolling up near the Astronomy Tower. "Bloody hell, Granger. At this rate you're going to psychologically scar me into associating sex with Christmas carols. Like Pavlov and his bloody dogs."

"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way," Hermione sang louder, raising her voice so that the couple would hear her and hopefully knock it off.

"Granger," Malfoy warned, a growl in his voice as his annoyance grew. Hermione didn't entirely blame him. She'd picked up a slight cough the previous day that had been tickling and annoying her throat all day long and she knew she sounded a bit like she'd been gargling razorblades, but she couldn't think of a better way to warn philanderers of her presence to convince them to desist.

"Oh, hush up, Malfoy," Hermione said between verses. "It puts off the trouble makers just as much as it does you."

"Maybe it's not putting me off," he retorted. "Pavlov's dogs salivated, you know?"

"Does my singing make you salivate, Malfoy?" Hermione laughed quietly at the very idea.

"I don't think you want to know what it does," Malfoy muttered under his breath, though he was standing close enough behind her that she heard every word.

Her cheeks warmed, and she pursed her lips for a long moment.

"You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town," she sang just as she heard some low cursing followed by scrambling down the end of the corridor.

She stopped dead in her tracks when Lavender Brown stumbled out of the secluded nook behind the Statue of Geraldo to Gruesome, followed quickly by the flash red hair and lanky form of Ronald Weasley. Indeed, she stopped so suddenly as the couple dashed away down the hall - still pulling on garments of clothing as they ran - that Malfoy ploughed right into her from behind.

"Oh, for the love of…" Malfoy snarled, sounding particularly annoyed even as his inertia sent her stumbling forward a few steps before he caught hold of her hips as though he meant to prevent her from falling.

"Did you just see…?" she began, her mouth opening and closing in her shock over the identity of those she'd just interrupted, her mind on them rather than on the way Malfoy's hands lingered on her hips.

"Weaselbee and that blonde girl from Gryffindor who simpers a whole bunch," he guessed after taking a deep breath in through his nose. Hermione wondered if he was sniffing her hair. "Yeah, they've been at it for weeks. At least three of the instances from our last patrol when your singing scared people off were those two."

"But… Ron is…" Hermione trailed off, her heart sinking into her shoes.

She'd thought Ron was going to be her date to Slughorn's Christmas do…

"Oh, come on, Granger," Malfoy said, sounding just the slightest bit unkind, and it occurred to Hermione that he was standing right behind her, pressed up against her back, in fact, and his hands were still lightly gripping her hips. "Don't even try to tell me that Weaselbee was the one you've been shagging to disprove your prudishness."

Hermione frowned.

"It's none of your business, Malfoy!" she snapped.

He snorted meanly.

"He's been shagging that tart for months, Granger," Malfoy rubbed salt in the wound. "And as much as it pains me to say, you can do better than him."

Hermione stumbled forward a step, turning and looking up at him in surprise. Anger was brewing and simmering as her hurt feelings over Ron's secret permeated her brain, but when she looked up at Malfoy, it occurred to her that Malfoy actually meant what he said. He also looked unusually pale – more so than he usually did, which was saying something. Indeed, he looked as though he'd taken on a greyish pallor, and his eyes gleamed too bright, almost glassy in the torchlight.

"Are you feeling alright, Malfoy?" Hermione asked, frowning and squinting a little when she noticed he even had the faintest glisten of sweat dotting his brow and his upper lip as though he might keel over at any moment. He looked dead tired, as though he hadn't slept in days.

"I was a little shocked, myself, to have offered you a compliment," he confessed, looking somewhat sheepish and amused, all at the same time.

"Maybe you should see the nurse, Malfoy," Hermione said seriously, stepping a little closer. "You don't look well. You look like you're coming down with something, actually, and you've been talking nonsense, making passes at me and offering me compliments. You need to go to Hospital Wing."

Malfoy's laugh was low and strained, even to Hermione's ears and she frowned at him even more.

"And miss out on your uplifting singing?" he teased, one corner of his mouth pulling up a little before he sighed, seeming to recognize how tired he was and that she was right. "The nurse can't cure what ails me, Granger. Don't worry about it."

Hermione traced her gaze over him slowly, watching the way his eyes darted between both of hers and over her face before raking up and down the length of her body quickly and repeating the process all over again. Her brow furrowed before her eyes darted to the window where moonlight streamed in, glistening off the snow and showing off it's almost-full glory.

"Are you sure?" she asked quietly. "I can finish this patrol by myself, Malfoy. I don't mind."

"And let you run the risk of… how did Dumbledore put it? 'Finding yourself in less than pleasant company without a friend at your back'?"

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"I'm in the most danger from Death Eaters inside the castle when we're patrolling together, wouldn't you say?" she replied evenly, staring him down and spotting the way his eyes widened before he datted a look at his forearm to confirm that his sleeve still covered it.

"What are you implying, Granger?" he said, his attitude growing frosty in a heartbeat.

"I think you know," she replied, stepping even closer and latching hold of his left wrist, lifting it quickly and yanking his sleeve up.

He growled – actually growled – at her and Hermione's eyes went wide as he tried to pull his arm out of her grip, inadvertently dragging her closer to him until she was well inside his personal space.

"You have no idea what you're talking about, Granger," he snarled, struggling to yank his arm free as she fought with his sleeve.

Hermione's eyes widened when, in doing so, the button at his cuff tore off and the fabric fell back to reveal a little more about him than she'd really wanted to know. There, black against his pale skin sat the horrible blemish of his Dark Mark and he clapped his hand over the tattoo quickly, glaring at her.

"Malfoy…?" Hermione asked, frowning as she continued to stare at the covered mark in horror.

Not because he was a Death Eater. She'd suspected since the summer that he'd become a Death Eater. She doubted he'd have had much choice in the matter, to be honest. Not when his father had been thrown into Azkaban following the debacle at the Ministry. No, it wasn't the Dark Mark upon his flesh that had flipped her stomach and shocked her to her core.

She was sure that cutting through the tattoo there were five long furrows gouged into his flesh. Bloody, recent, and deep, they ran the full length of his forearm, the scratches peeking out from both ends of where he covered his arm with his hand.

"Did you do this to yourself?" she asked, stepping even closer despite the growl continuing to roll from between his teeth.

"Leave it alone, Granger," he warned tightly when Hermione brushed the tips of her fingers over the scrapes closest to his wrist.

"You…" Hermione trailed off, wrestling his hand from his wrist to reveal the deep scratches marring his pale flesh.

They weren't what she'd expected when she spotted them, and Hermione's hand fell away as she took a small step back in shock. They weren't cuts… they were claw marks.

Malfoy yanked his arm away and furiously tugged his sleeve down, pulling his wand from his pocket and muttering a charm to repair the button that had torn off.

"Well," he said, sounding extremely annoyed. "Happy fucking Christmas."

Hermione trailed her eyes over him, his rundown appearance and his shift in personality suddenly all clicking into place at the sight of the marks. Realization slammed into her with all the force of a rampaging Erumpet.

"When?" she asked quietly, frowning at him intensely.

He scoffed. "That's the first thing you have to say to me when you figure out I'm…"

Hermione didn't answer, noting the way he skirted around admitting what he'd become.

"When were you bitten, Malfoy?" Hermione asked quietly. "Before, or after you were forced to take the Dark Mark?"

Malfoy actually blinked at her. He looked like he didn't know what to say. He'd obviously been expecting the revile and hatred he'd likely have flung at anyone else, were their situations to have been reversed. In the face of calm questioning, he seemed positively stumped. Hermione supposed she didn't blame him. It wasn't everyday people went around being calmly and rationally questioned about just when it was that they'd been infected with lycanthropy.

"I…" he frowned at her, his brow furrowing intensely and making him look a bit scary in the low light of the corridor. "The first month of the summer holidays… Greyback."

"On whose orders?" Hermione wondered, though she was sure she sounded a little callous.

Malfoy snorted. "You imagine Fenrir Greyback takes order from anyone? Come on, Granger. You're supposed to be a clever one, remember."

Shaking her head, Hermione opened her mouth, intent on saying something, before a few distant echoes of people mid-coitus reached her ears and she looked over her shoulder in the direction of the noise. Turning away from Malfoy, she set off down the hall, determined to investigate.

"Oh, so you're just going to stomp off with your nose in the air because I said you weren't being very clever?"

Hermione ignored him, stomping down the hall and opening her mouth as she began sing carols once more. Malfoy's secret had completely dislodged her recollection of Ron and Lavender, and so when the sound continued even as she sang, Hermione wasn't expecting her singing to backfire so spectacularly.

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly, falalalala lalalala," she sang loudly over the sound of the lovemaking.

"Blast it all, Granger. What did I say about the singing?" Malfoy growled from behind her as she raised her voice louder when the sex sounds didn't stop.

"They're not stopping," Hermione complained when she reached the closed classroom door and tried the doorknob to find it locked.

"I wouldn't open that door if I was you," Malfoy said quietly, coming up right behind her and closing his hand around her wrist when she made to turn the doorknob and rudely interrupt the apparently oblivious – or just utterly determined - couple.

Butterflies flopped into being inside of her stomach when Malfoy pressed the full length of his body against hers from behind, bringing to her attention with alarming clarity that he apparently hadn't been kidding about the effects of her singing.

"Perhaps your suggestion about Pavlov's dogs wasn't far off," Hermione muttered without thinking before her eyes widened when she realized she'd technically just called a newly turned werewolf a salivating dog on the day before a full moon.

"Really?" Malfoy deadpanned, and Hermione peeked over her shoulder to meet his gaze, her stomach in knots, though from the concern over his reaction, or just a result of finding that he was currently pressed against her and aroused, Hermione couldn't be sure.

"Too soon?" she asked weakly.

Much to her surprise, rather than looking offended, a wicked little smirk pulled at the corners of Malfoy's mouth.

"Tis the season to be jolly," Malfoy sang in a low, smooth voice that raised the hairs on the back of her arms, it was so utterly alluring.

She could tell he'd noticed the immediate effect of his closeness and his husky tone when his nostrils flared, breathing in the spike in her scent.

"I… um… we have to…" she stammered, her cheeks flushing crimson when she realized that her scent was apparently appealing to him. She could feel his arousal growing against her backside, and his fingers slowly released her wrist to trail lightly up the length of her forearm.

"We really don't," Malfoy argued. "Unless you mean to suggest that we emulate them, Granger. In which case, you're right, we really should."

Hermione's mouth dropped open in surprise.

"Is this the full moon talking?" she frowned, turning a little so that she could get a better look at him, heedless of the continued coitus taking place in the classroom beyond them.

"Does bringing up my being a… werewolf… really seem the best idea, right now?" he asked, choking out the word as though he hated it.

"Considering that you've become ten times more attractive to me since becoming one, I'd say it's relevant to the discussion," Hermione offered.

Malfoy's eyes widened and for a moment, Hermione could see his vulnerability about it all. She could tell he didn't like what he'd been forced to become and he probably never would. He clearly had no idea what to do in the face of being told it made him more appealing when all his life he'd been taught that such a thing was a negative trait. Before she could ponder his reactions and begin unravelling the fact that Draco Malfoy might actually turn out to be a terribly complicated individual, his lips twitched into a smug grin.

"More attractive?" he quoted, clearly catching that she'd said 'more', rather than just 'attractive'. "Something you'd like to share with the class, Granger?"

"No," Hermione said, though she suspected the pink in her cheeks gave away that she had, over the years, passingly noticed that he'd been growing into a terribly handsome wizard.

Malfoy's grey eyes practically glowed with heat as he trailed them over her hungrily.

"What about just with me, then?" he offered, his voice low and husky, his eyes fixed upon her lips like he meant to find out what they tasted like.

"I…" Hermione said weakly, turning further until she stood with her back to the door. Her heart began to race inside her chest when he stepped closer, both of his arms lifting before he pressed his palms to the door either side of her slim frame. He was invading her space and she felt certain he was emitting pheromones with more potency than happy gas because though her stomach was flipping and her knees were threatening to give out, the longer she looked at him, the more she wanted him to close the distance and steal that hungry kiss from her lips.

"Just one kiss," he whispered. "Christmas spirit, and all that."

Hermione found herself nodding slowly and he didn't give her a chance to change her mind before he pounced. The first brush of Draco Malfoy's lips against those of Hermione Granger felt like it should cause bombs to begin exploding and towers to begin crumbling. Hermione was sure, as she tentatively kissed him back, that such a world-altering moment should've created much more of a fuss.

Before her knees could give out and she could go sliding down the door, Malfoy moved in closer until his body was pressed against the length of hers as he tangled his hands in her hair; his tongue begging entrance at the seam of her lips. She granted it hungrily, and stars exploded behind her eyes as their tongues met for the first time. Merlin's little green apples, she wondered if it was possible for a witch to have heart attack thanks to sensory overload. Could you die from stomach butterflies that rioted too hard?

Before she had to worry about finding out, the door behind her was yanked open from within, and were it not for Malfoy's mouth being affixed to hers, she was sure she'd have screamed in surprise.

"Well, finally," a low, masculine voice drawled from behind her as Hermione broke from Malfoy's intoxicating kiss.

Turning sharply, her breath coming in ragged gasps and her cheeks rapidly turning scarlet at having been caught snogging Draco Malfoy, she was confronted with a particularly smug, and well-ravished looked Blaise Zabini.

"And just what do we have here, eh? Canoodling in the corridors?" Zabini taunted. "Well, now, we can't have that, can we?"

"Blaise," Malfoy began, sounding somewhat impatient and more than a little breathless, himself.

Zabini ignored him as he opened his mouth wide and began to sing at the top of his lungs.

"Deck the hall with bough of holly, falalalala lalalala! 'Tis the season to be jolly, falalalala lalalala!"

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