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Published: 2015-12-24 Words: 3831
First official Christmas
Summary
Their first
official (because let’s face it, it’s unofficially their third) Christmas is going to be
one of the most… awkward and unpleasant thing Draco has ever experienced. That’s
saying something because once The Dark Lord had hugged him.
Or the one where Harry and Draco hosts Christmas together.
Notes
This is a little Christmas gift for my awesome friend
! Thank you for this year and
hope you have a great day<3
I highly appreciate feedback and you are also more than welcome to point out spelling or
grammatical errors since English isn't my first language.
Their first
official (because let’s face it, it’s unofficially their third) Christmas is going to be one of
the most… awkward and unpleasant thing Draco has ever experienced. That’s saying something
because once The Dark Lord had hugged him. They celebrate it in Harry’s house, because Draco
can’t really call it their home yet, not when Harry haven’t exactly asked him to move in as much
as Draco has made himself a key and stores pretty much all of his stuff there without asking. It
feels like home, but he can’t make himself call it so. Also because that would mean this is even
more official. More real. And even more likely to crumble and end. He doesn’t want to
acknowledge the fact that he is scared of that.
It’s the first Christmas for what Draco know, that Harry doesn’t spend at the Burrow but everyone
who were supposed to have been there are here instead so he figures it isn’t really much difference
for them. Molly’s in the kitchen, with a few of her children and grandchildren, cooking till the last
minute and there are people lounging on pretty much every seat (and other fairly soft surface)
available. There are so much noise, babble everywhere. Draco thinks that this must be how the
Burrow usually is even if most of the people present doesn’t even live there. They’re just there all
the time anyway.
He’s made Harry show him pictures of all the family members to learn all of their names. It
haven’t been a pleasurable thing either, but Draco didn’t want to spend a few days with Harry’s
family and not even know their names, that would just make the whole situation even worse. As it
isn’t the worst idea already. Harry seemed to think it was a perfect one when he thought of it
though. Thought that the jolly atmosphere would be a good time to introduce Draco to his kin.
Not that they don’t know who he is, and thankfully they’ve known for a while that him and Harry
are an item, but meet them all for the first formal time, as “the boyfriend”, on a holiday? Really?
How had Draco even agreed to this? Everyone pretty much shows up at the same time. Molly
tumbles out of the fire place first and is quickly followed by her husband, all of their children and
their husbands and wives and their children and then there’s the friends and other a bit more
distanced relatives and Draco is certainly not scared of every adult suddenly in the room. He isn’t
scared that they will change their minds about him and suddenly cast a few spells in his direction
to… No. Harry has promised that there will be no grudges. Draco has apologised for everything
he has done, through letters, because it was embarrassing enough to put into words the things he
has done and apologises isn’t really his thing normally. But he wants to be able to be a part of
every aspect of Harry’s life now when he is allowed and the Weasleys and company are a very
large part of that.
For Draco on the other hand, this is very different. He’s used to quiet Christmases, they almost
pass by unnoticed in the Manor. He would exchange gifts with his parents in the morning and
there would be a tree but that is also pretty much it. There usually wasn’t such an amount of
presents under the tree as it is now and there certainly used to not be so many lights everywhere.
There are lit candles everywhere and Harry, who seems to be so much more for the Muggle way’s
of Christmas decorations, have put up some sort of light strands bloody everywhere. There are
mistletoes and shiny ornaments and red bows and so many other decorations that it physically
hurts Draco’s eyes. It is disgusting. He hadn’t been able to tell Harry so when he’d asked, the look
of pure joy and anticipation in his eyes too bright to shut down with the snort and dislike he’d
been so close to express.
“It’s fine,” he’d said with an eye roll instead, because no way he’d lie enough to tell Harry it was
perfect or whatever. It was almost making him vomit.
Harry had been his specialist. There had been a few years since they’d last met, for real and not
just passing each other on the streets, and Draco had walked in the door and stopped immediately.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” was the first words that fell from Draco’s lips and it was also the
first to come thorough Harry’s. Draco had wanted to turn around, leave and never try and seek
help ever again in his life. He knew Potter hadn’t persuaded a career in the Ministry for very long,
but he’d never been interested enough to ask anyone what he’d done instead. Becoming a
specialist on sleeplessness, nightmares and magically induced sleep solutions, apparently. The lady
Draco had talked to had said that there would be a psychological evaluation to begin with, therapy
really, one session a week for ten weeks was the most usual, to figure out the best way to pursue
the problems.
“You can ask for someone else,” had been the second thing Harry had offered.
“And wait another month to see someone? That’s not going to happen,” had been Draco’s
response and then they had gone from there. Established that it wasn’t something any of them
particularly liked but Harry said he could be professional and that there were healer-patient
confidentiality agreements which meant he weren’t allowed to talk to anyone about his patient.
Draco had rolled his eyes and said he didn’t care whether Potter would run of to his girlfriend and
gossip about Draco’s mental state. It was a lie but that wasn’t what Harry pointed out.
“Ehm, boyfriend, actually,” he’d said and Draco had stared for a while.
“Then I won’t tell mine that your therapy sucks,” Draco had finally stated like he already knew
that Harry’s help was useless. Harry had rolled his eyes. The fact that it was a few weeks ago
Draco had dumped his latest boyfriend was nothing he mentioned to Harry. He would like to have
some pride left, thank you very much.
Harry hugs every single person (after they’ve put down their gifts under the tree). They gush
about him and how lovely it is that he opens their home for them. He looks at the elder Weasleys
when he says that his door will always be open, just as it has been for him. Molly slaps him a little
on the shoulder and says that he needs to stop talking right now, no need to be crying the first few
minutes of Christmas, is it! Everyone greets Draco, most with a handshake, the children with
weird hugs around his legs that he doesn’t know what to do with so he just pets their hair a couple
of times and it seems fine. No one looks surprised to see him, though Hermione gives him a
strange type of look he can’t place. He feels out of place anyhow. The people around him knows
one another, Draco knows Harry.
It doesn’t get better when his mother shows up. He’s glad to see her, yes, of course, but when she
literally pinches his cheek and tells him:
“My little Draco-potato,” and looks like she’s about to cry (of happiness) because he’s fingers are
intertwined with Harry’s. She is happy he’s found love, she isn’t upset in the slightest that it is in
The Boy Who Lived and she’s even encouraging it. It’s mortifying. His ears heats up so much it
feels like they’re boiling.
“ Mother ,” he hisses and Harry looks at him with the most shit eating grin the world has ever
seen. Narcissa pats his cheek and turns to Harry to give him a bone-crushing hug. He returns it
like a good little boy with his loose hand, but he looks over her shoulder at Draco.
“Draco-potato,” he mouths and Draco squeezes his hand as hard as he can and presses his nails
into his palm to get him to shut up but Harry’s grin only gets even more toothy. He will never hear
the last of this one. His mother wanders off, helps herself to a glass of mulled wine and starts
greeting the rest. She’s fearless and doesn’t care if anyone doesn’t want her there. If she’s not
accepted, so be it and Draco wishes that he feels more like that. He needs to be accepted though,
because he can never actually have a future with Harry if he isn’t. When Harry leans in like he is
going to say something totally filthy into his ear and instead whispers Draco’s nauseas nickname,
Draco thinks that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t have a future together. Potter sucks.
His dad has died in Azkaban. It’d gone quick and nobody had been surprised, least of all Narcissa
and Draco. They mourned the loss, Narcissa with her head held high and Draco with his heart in
his throat every day for weeks. It was a weird sort of grief nowadays, because the older he got, the
more he was certain that his father hadn’t been the man Draco had thought when he was little and
it was scary. He’d looked up so much to his father, always wanted to be like him and now… the
memories of him is clouded with all the bad things. Draco tries not to think about it much. It gets
easier everyday.
They both still have nightmares. Harry wakes up in dawn, jolting awake with his eyes wide open
and grabbing for his wand like there is a fight going on just by his bed. Draco wakes up crying
just past midnight, eyes squeezed shut hard and draws himself into fetal position. They never talk
about it during the days and Draco is thankful. It feels intimate whenever they comfort and sooth
one another in the minutes, hours, that follows their upwakes and they whisper about how the
world isn’t ending and there is no war anymore and they don’t have to see their friends dies and
they don’t have to choose between themselves or someone else. When light hits, Draco only feels
humiliation. Harry’s tries to get him out of thinking like that, but it’s easier said than done. Shame
isn’t a feeling he’s particularly fond of. He just puts on a mask and either ignores Harry’s tries to
open the subject up or blatantly shuts him down.
Small talk isn’t Draco’s thing, smooth talking is more up his alley. The former seems to be the
thing you’re supposed to engage in when you’re around people you don’t know, so Draco at least
tries. When Mr. Weasley asks about their Muggle-neighbourhood and how they got the fireplace
into the Floo Network, he answers. Mr. Weasley asks follow up question and Draco might
actually call it a conversation. When Ron and Ginny starts going on about the Harpies and the
Cannons, Draco joins and says that the Magpies have actually played this season pretty well. They
both agree but can’t give into the fact the Magpies have actually been the best this year, argues
that it’s not all about the points it’s about how the games are played too. When Teddy changes his
hair into a Christmas tree-green, Draco congratulates him and says it has the exact right colour.
The boy smiles so wide that Draco thinks his teeth might fall out. So some of the day isn’t that
bad, it’s even quite enjoyable. He must give it to everyone, they’re really trying to make him feel
welcome. In his own- In Harry’s home. Damn it.
Harry forces him to sit on the other end of the table, across from Harry himself.
“You can manage yourself,” he murmurs and pushes Draco into a chair in between Molly and
Ginny’s girlfriend, with Arthur on Molly’s right and Ginny on her girlfriend’s left.
“So I guess we’re sort of the reason why or significant other’s didn’t really hold on so tight,
right?” The girlfriend asks playfully after leaning into Draco’s space. Draco blushes. He nods and
says I guess despite the fact that Harry really hadn’t fallen for Draco and realised in the same time
he was bisexual. No, he’d pretty much gone through a dozen guys (and a few more girls) after
he’d broken up with Ginny before Draco, but Draco didn’t want to reveal that sort of thing to
someone he didn’t even know. He wasn’t even supposed to know, it was just that Blaise had a big
mouth and he liked to do even more things than talking with it. Not that Blaise and Harry had
ever- Thank Merlin for that. Fey, that is the name of Ginny’s girlfriend. It’d taken too long for him
to remember that, he should’ve practised a little more with the photos.
“Well, I’m glad that they both did. I got Ginny and Harry seems to be very happy around you.”
Draco looks up at Harry then, finding that Harry’s already looking at him over the rim of a large
glass. He’s eyes are fond and he smiles a small smile that Draco returns. It’s like a secret.
“I’m very happy around him too,” he says without letting Harry’s gaze go and he realises that he
really is. Pretty much everyone around the table is now turning their eyes towards him and there is
a collective AWWW and Draco understands that he hadn’t been whispering in the slightest. He
tries his best to hide behind his glass and not look anyone in the eye. This day does just get better
and better, doesn’t it? The only good thing about it, is that he for sure know that he’s at least not
unaccepted by Harry’s family. They must see something in him.
The look on Harry’s face when Draco actually had opened up in their third session had been the
one that Draco hadn’t been able to shake. He’d looked so… honoured, somehow. Like it was a
privilege that Draco had really confided in him (by telling him that he was scared that no one
would ever forgive his teenage actions) and his face had just stuck to Draco’s mind like a blood
sucking slug. Draco had told himself that it was stupid, for several important reasons but mostly
because this was Harry Potte r and he was his therapist. You’re not supposed to fall for any of
those two, at least not if you’re Draco Malfoy. He didn’t flirt. Not an extensive much at least, just
sneaked in some things that could be counted as niceties. He just poured his heart out instead,
about everything else. Told him about what’d happened during their last years in school and about
his childhood and about everything he had nightmares about. He left out so little that he felt almost
empty. An emptiness that felt better than anything he’d ever felt before and he was so lost in Potter
at this time that he didn’t argue one single word when Potter asked if they could schedule a few
more sessions, just to make sure that the potion that he prescripted worked properly. It didn’t, so
Draco was glad that they had.
Christmas presents are being delivered out when Draco emerges from thei- Harry’s bedroom after
dinner. He’d felt like the walls had closed in and had slipped away before anyone could notice
that he was hyper ventilating by the end of the meal. Harry had given him a look before Draco
had left. Draco had thrown himself on the bed and hid his face in the pillow as he tried to control
his jerky breathing. The door had opened a minute later and Harry had glided in without much
sound. He’d squatted beside the bed and carefully fondled Draco’s neck hairs.
“You’re doing really good,” he’d said.
“Shut up, Potter,” Draco had said from inside the pillow.
“I’m serious, you’re great. You don’t have to feel bad.”
“I’m not doing it on purpose,” Draco snorted and took a deep breath. It’s almost scary how fast
Harry can ground him. How fast he just needs to make a comment and forgets for a second that he
can’t breathe. Draco had waved a hand around and Harry had caught it and kissed all of his
fingertips.
“What? You’re not trying to be great? Natural charm than.”
“You wouldn’t know.”
“Do you want me to stay?” Draco usually just needs Harry to tell him that things are okay, then
he’s actually feels okay. Today had been no difference, his breathing had gone almost back to
normal and he just said:
“I’m fine.”
“You’ll be fine,” Harry had said and kissed the top of his head after letting his hand go. “Come
out whenever you’re ready.” Draco slides down next to Harry on the couch ten minutes later. He
could’ve gone out after just four or five, but he didn’t really want to risk it. Harry snakes an arm
around him without looking like he’s even aware that he does it and Draco can’t help himself and
kisses his cheek. It’s sappy. He only allows himself to be sappy around Harry. (And it’s not at all
because he can’t fucking hold himself.)
It was after their last session that Potter actually made any type of direct indication that he was in
fact interested in Draco in any other way than purely professional.
“I feel like there’s our balance is off,” he said and didn’t look Draco in the eye. Draco didn’t know
what to make of it, so he just asked Potter to explain himself. He shook his shoulders in a helpless
sort of gesture.
“I… know so much about you and you don’t know a lot about me.”
“That’s kind of the thought about therapy, Potter.”
“Maybe, but this… is still… us?” Potter offered. It was. Things had never been really normal
between them, but somehow it’d always been pretty equal - even if Draco would’ve never
admitted that when he was younger. They shared a lot of history and they shared similarities in
their lives. He didn’t want to give Potter the satisfaction of getting what he wanted so easy so he
snorted.
“Do you want to tell me your life story, Potter? Because if I wanted to hear it, I could just buy the
book.”
“I just thought-” Harry’s gaze fell after he hadn't even look Draco in the eye and Draco hurried to
continue his sentence.
“Or are you asking me out? Because that would be another story.” Harry looked up then, biting
on both his lips at once and just kind of sighed his answered. Like he gave up, like he didn’t want
to hold anything back and like he was expecting Draco to say no. Draco hadn’t kissed him then,
but it’d been close, just because Potter was so unbelievably slow it wasn’t even funny.
“That would be a yes, for my part, if you didn’t get that,” he clarified instead.
Obviously, the “boyfriend” of Harry’s had disapeared somewhere along the course of Draco’s
thearapy and Draco imagined himself being the reason for that. They’d gone out for almost two
years before they’d talked about actually becoming a couple though. They’d tried to keep things
casual (reasons ranging for the fact that many people couldn’t get over the fact that Draco had
been a Death Eater, to the fact that Harry wasn’t out to the public - which surprised Draco since
Harry had told him like it wasn’t such a big thing, to the ridiculous notion that neither of them had
the guts to ask for more) but when Harry accidentally had told Draco that he loved him (just out of
the fucking blue when they were having dinner one night) it had been the thing that finally made
them admit that this was nowhere near as causal as they might have liked. Draco had fucked
Harry’s brains out that night and Harry had said they needed to define their relationship more
often. Draco had felt pleased with himself, knowing that Harry wasn’t going to go put his dick in
anyone else than him. He was all Draco’s now. For real.
The night ends with Draco forced into an elf-hat and sitting in the middle of the compulsory
family photo with Harry’s arm still draped around him. Everyone else is also wearing silly hats,
but Draco doen’t think he’s every felt so embarrassed in his life anyway. Other people might find
this funny, Draco finds it not funny at all. Many of the guests are to stay the night, but the ones
who sleeps at home drops off after the photo. There are people up till three in the morning,
cracking walnuts and eating candy canes and talking in hushed voices as the children are lulling
on mattresses in the adjacent room. Harry stays up till everyone else is going to bed, so Draco
does too. He haven’t gone to bed without Harry for months and it feels weird to do it on
Christmas. So he just yawns and blinks and drifts off a few times before Harry kisses the side of
his mouth and whispers that it’s time to go to bed.
“Finally,” Draco murmurs. He walks in Harry’s toe, holding onto the back of his shirt and doesn’t
even open his eyes. There’s nothing to fall on, Harry can lead the way.
“You could’ve gone to sleep hours ago,” Harry argues as he closes the door and Draco falls
down, head first, on the bed.
“Didn’t feel right when you wouldn’t be here,” Draco says and even if his eyes are closed, he
stills rolls them to himself. Harry doesn’t comment, just removes both of their cloths and tugs the
covers on top of Draco before sliding himself under them too. He lays behind Draco, spooning
and flattens his hand over Draco’s heart. Draco loves it when he does that and permits himself to
make a light sound of satisfaction. Harry hums.
“How was your day?” Harry asks.
“Awful,” Draco answers and doesn’t really mean it. It’d gone better than expected and he’d even
liked parts of it. Harry just snorts and tells him that it was one of the best Christmases Harry’s ever
had. That he’s glad Draco wanted to spend it with him, that he wants to spend his life with him.
Draco hugs his arm because he doesn’t know what else to do. He’s to tired to even try to say
something as heartfelt in return. Harry doesn’t seem to mind as he just settles.
“Merry Christmas, Malfoy,” he whispers when everything have been quiet for a minute. Draco
snuggles back into him and blows out a breath.
“And a Happy New Year, Potter.”
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