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“I couldn’t eat another mince pie if my life depended on it,” Neville said, his usual good humor clearly augmented by the surfeit of boozy pastries he’d just consumed. He and Draco had both grown significantly after the Battle of Hogwarts, unlike Hermione (who relied on charms to make her four inch court shoes tolerable on days when she had to speak before the Wizengamot) though Draco had not gained quite Neville’s breadth, so Hermione hadn’t been unduly impressed until they’d polished off the first dozen pies while she was still nibbling on her first.
“We’ve possibly broken a record tonight,” Draco remarked.
Daphne laughed, a little tinkling sound that should have been twee and irritating, but she was such a dear, Hermione only smiled.
“I should think the Weasley brothers dispatch a dozen of Molly’s pies over the first round of butterbeer. And Ginny has a hollow leg. I wouldn’t get too excited,” Daphne said.
“I’m no longer able to muster any excitement,” Neville said. “I’m purely a vessel for mincemeat, butter, and Cognac.”
“Armagnac,” Draco corrected.
As Neville would presumably be incapable of the gesture, due to his temperament and satiety, and Daphne, raised in a household equally obsessed with status wouldn’t register Draco’s tone, Hermione rolled her eyes.
“You’re such a snob,” she said, but fondly. She had married him, after all. All being her blessedly amicable break-up with Ron shortly after the War ended, when their attraction, no longer sustained by adrenaline and Molly’s Charmed trifle, was replaced by a solid friendship, a regular chess game, and Ron’s coming-out which was followed swiftly by his handfasting with Theo Nott. All included the partial restoration of her parents’ memories, their permanent relocation to Melbourne, her acceptance to the Accademia delle Streghe Chimiche in L’Alguer, the seemingly random meeting with Draco at the Sorbonne, which he admitted later he had carefully strategized with Ron, Harry and Luna, many bottles of wine, and a marriage contract brokered by Neville’s Aunt Augusta in her formal capacity as Madam Nimue Longbottom.
“You married me anyway,” Draco said.
“So I did,” she said. “I didn’t say I regretted it.”
“I regret that last pie,” Neville muttered.
“The Armagnac must have made you forget you’re a bloody wizard, capable of an anti-nausea charm,” Draco said, casting wordlessly with his left hand, because he was a show-off in addition to being a snob. He was also in a fair way to heading up St. Mungo’s. All of St. Mungo’s, not merely Janus Thickey.
“Can one of you explain something that’s never made any sense to me?” Hermione said.
“Is that a serious question?” Neville said. “Somehow, we’re supposed to know something that’s never made any sense to you?”
Daphne nodded. Hermione glanced at Draco.
“I barely kept up with you in Potions when Snape was giving me a private tutorial. I agree with Neville on this one, love.”
“It’s a Pureblood thing. One of you should be able to give me a straight answer,” she said.
“Well, in that case, perhaps we can help,” Draco said.
“Why do Purebloods observe Christmas? Why don’t you just celebrate Yule? I understand families with Muggleborns wanting a tree and fairy lights and mince pies, but your lot?” Hermione asked.
Daphne had a blank expression on her face.
Neville looked embarrassed.
Draco frowned.
“What? And obviously Daphne has been sworn to secrecy, possibly bespelled under Fidelius which raises a lot of questions in and of itself, so I expect an answer from one of you,” Hermione said, giving Neville her best McGonagall expression and glaring at her husband, in whom the McGonagall impression had been known to inspire a rather terrifying lust.
“You won’t believe us,” Neville said.
“Neither one of you is Luna Lovegood. I’ll believe you,” Hermione said.
“We lost a bet,” Draco said succinctly, as if succinctness was a virtue she was looking for in an explanation.
“That’s a shite explanation, Draco,” she said. “Who’s we, first of all?”
“The Malfoys,” he said.
“You’re telling me that Wizarding England observes Christmas because your father lost a bet?”
“It was his great-great-great-grandfather’s brother, actually,” Neville said. “And he lost the best to Gran’s great-great-great-grandfather, Oswig. I think it had something to do with chestnuts. It was right after the Malfoys fled France and came to England.”
“The Malfoys wanted to keep to the old ways,” Draco said.
“Of course,” Hermione muttered.
“And that meant Yule and only Yule,” he went on, seemingly ignoring her remark. “But what with one thing and another—”
“That means Draco’s ancestor couldn’t hold his liquor and miscounted chestnuts. Or dropped ones that were too hot, I always get this part confused, it’s not the Armagnac,” Neville put in.
“Neville’s family, who’ve always been friendly with Muggleborns, won the wager. Handily, one might say. Ymbelet Oudin Senestre Poncet Malfoy had a lot to answer for, chestnut, or rather, marron-wise,” Draco said.
“And that’s it? That’s what changed Wizarding culture? A bet?”
(It took all that Hermione had, all that she was, to focus on the lost bet and not the fact that Draco had an ancestor whose name was basically poncy.)
“It’s always been a small world for us, love,” Draco said. “And the Malfoys and the extended Longbottom clan have always been among the first families. Plus, Yule doesn’t have mincemeat pies.”
“It’s hard to believe the mince pies were such a draw,” Hermione said. “They were coming from France.”
“You’re not fond of them, then?” Daphne said, evidently able to speak again. Hermione wondered what exactly had been woven into her marriage contract by Neville’s gran and if she could arrange an apprenticeship with Augusta or some exchange of trade secrets.
“No. I think you have to grow up eating them and we never had them when I was small,” Hermione said.
“Your family doesn’t like them?” Neville said.
“We’re Jewish,” Hermione said. “To me, Christmas dinner before I came to Hogwarts meant lamb vindaloo and saag paneer. If we were eating samosas, I’d have all of you beat.”