Christmas in Ottery St. Catchpole was like Christmas no where else on earth. As soon as the warmth of November began to dissipate and the chilly weather of December set in, the villagers would spring from their tiny homes with Christmas trees, wreaths, and long strings of colored lights. The streets would become festivals as men, women, and children bundled in hundreds of layers and took up singing Christmas carols, even if it meant singing horribly off-key. However, no matter how bright the streets or how cheery the street goers, not a single villager of Ottery St. Catchpole dared to compete with the extremely odd house that lingered on the outskirts of town.
The house was large to say the least, sitting crookedly on a fog covered hill that overlooked the entire village. Its windows were blacker than night, it had at least four chimneys, and it seemed as if it was kept standing by invisible stilts jutting out from its sides. No one had ever seen a car enter or leave the dirt path that the house had for a driveway and the letterbox that had once been a brilliant white color now lay on its side, unused and covered in cobwebs. But if one were to listen late at night, especially during Christmas, loud noises and the weirdest Christmas songs of all time could be heard coming from the hill that the house sat upon. The older children of the village called it a ghost’s lair, one worth exploring at the late hours of night, but not even the bravest of the occupants of Ottery St. Catchpole would dare go up to it during Christmastime.
But Ginny Weasley, a freckly faced girl of 16, loved the crooked house that sat on the hill. It was “The Burrow”, a name given to the home when her father had first bought it, many years before she had been born. Bill had called it home first, then Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, and Ron, but now as one of the only four original Weasleys remaining, it was officially “hers”. Christmas at The Burrow was memorable to say the least, especially for a wizarding family. Her mother, a stout woman with the authority of a bull, would clear the kitchen of almost everything to spend all of December baking sweets and pies for her large family. Bill and Charlie would tackle the Ghoul in the Attic to obtain the boxes of Christmas decorations, which they would float down the stairs behind them like small cabooses and throw the ornaments and sprigs of holly all over the stairs. Fred and George would begin charming everything in sight, from Christmas ornaments to mistletoe, in hopes of catching some unlucky victim in their paths. Like they always said, what was the purpose of a holiday without a “bit” of fun? Ron would spend hours upon hours making snowmen out on the front yard that resembled each member of the Weasley family down to the odd replicas of Hermes, Errol, and Pig. Even Percy would become enjoyable to be around for a few hours when it was Christmastime.
I wish Christmas was still like that, Ginny thought miserably, pushing her bedclothes down around her ankles on December 24th. She pushed a long piece of her auburn hair out of her face and tucked it back into her ponytail, grimacing slightly at the sweat that was beading up around her hairline. It wasn’t normally as hot as it was, but then again, there really wasn’t a set protocol for normalcy anymore. This Christmas Bill and Charlie wouldn’t be coming home for the holidays due to “top secret business”. Fred and George would be spending the morning with the family, but then were off to work in their joke shop. Ron, for the first time since he began going to Hogwarts, had decided to come home, but had of course brought Hermione and Harry with him. It wasn’t as if Ginny necessarily disliked this idea, Hermione and Ron would probably be off together doing Merlin knew what, and she could spend a bit of time with Harry if it suited her, but she had long ago grown out of the necessity to be a part of that group. And Percy...well…Ginny wasn’t going to think about Percy.
Ginny reached behind her head and pulled open the one window in her tiny room, allowing the moderate December air to blow across her neck as she sat up stiffly, very much awake. The alarm clock that Hermione had finally shown her how to use blinked eleven o’clock at her in bright florescent numbers and she groaned; no one would be up for an extremely long time. She was restless and itching to move downstairs and just get the unwrapping of presents done with. She would of course get gifts from Hermione and Harry, and the jumper from her mother, but nothing else would be waiting for her beneath the Christmas tree. Sometimes it was plain upsetting to be poor. She sighed and looked around the room perceptively.
She gave Hermione a quick glance and noticed that the girl was curled up around herself, neatly tucked in her bedclothes, fast asleep. Giving herself only a second to contemplate the consequences of sneaking out, she stepped out of her bed and slowly moved towards the door and into the hall. The hallways of The Burrow were always mysteriously quiet at night, save for the clanking of the ghoul in the Attic above; Ginny could have sworn her every footstep reverberated on the wooden floor. She skipped the trick step on the first floor and landed with a bit of a plop in the kitchen, glancing up at the many handed Weasley clock to make sure that everyone was fast asleep. Giving the Christmas tree and the seven multi-colored jumpers underneath it a longing stare, she moved towards the backdoor.
She loved the texture of the damp dewy grass beneath her feet. She shivered a bit and wrapped her ebony colored nightgown closer around her body, taking a big breath in and enjoying the slight breeze. Her eyes scanned the scenery in front of her; the wide foggy moor was shining a bit underneath the starless sky and the homemade Quidditch pitch her brothers had constructed years ago could barely be seen in the distance. In front of her was the lake, the beautiful lake she had grown up swimming in, and yet...its banks weren’t empty.
She had been surprised when her mother had opened the front door at the beginning of the holiday to Albus Dumbledore, holding the boy’s things with one hand and the scruff of his neck with the other. Most of the children including Ron (who had been growling and muttering in fury) had been shuffled out of the room as Dumbledore, Ginny’s mother, and Remus Lupin had all gathered in the kitchen for a discussion. Against Harry and Ron’s wishes, the boy was told he could stay, and his things were immediately put into Ron’s room and another cot added to the already crowded space. Ginny, just like the rest of her family, had been livid with his arrival. He was a worthless prat who enjoyed ribbing her and her brothers about their lack of money, amongst other things. He thought she was a blood traitor. His father had set her up to be possessed by one of the wickedest men alive. And yet, in spite of of his reputation for being a sour brat, he hadn’t seemed to find any amusement in mocking her family. He had come in rather quietly, his normally putridly insipid skin tight across his face. His eyes had been sunken deep into his features and he hadn’t said a word to anyone around him, even when Hermione greeted him with an extended hand. No spats, no insults, no nothing. If it wasn’t for her mother’s strong will and determination, he would have sat in his bedroom all day and pouted to the orange Cannons wall. He hadn’t made a single notice to her presence and, although strange, this seemed to be the first time all holiday that she had even seen him. His brilliant blonde hair stuck out brightly against the dark sky, haphazardly combed about his head due to the lack of caring, or so it seemed. His back was facing her, his knees pulled tightly into his chest and his arms seemed to be wrapped about them. She approached cautiously and sat beside him, refusing to actually acknowledge his presence although knowing full well that he had noticed hers.
“Weasel,” he said simply, showing no inflection of either joy or anger.
“Malfoy,” she said back in an equivalent tone, not bothering to look at him. He groaned a bit, as if wondering whether or not to say anything to her. He then leaned back on his hands, exposing his face, which was traced with lines of once shed tears.
“What brings you out here?” he asked solemnly.
“It is my house Malfoy,” she looked at him briefly and contemplated, for just a moment, asking him about his tears but she thought better of it and turned her gaze back towards the lake, “I come out here sometimes when I can’t sleep.”
“I used to do that at the Manor,” he mumbled, making her unsure whether he was directly talking to her or more to himself, “at night, when I couldn’t sleep, I’d sneak out of my bedroom and get one of the servants to let me into the yard. I’d sit on the roof of the stables and just stare at the sky.”
“You had stables?”
“Weasley…everyone has stables,” he looked around and then smirked, his lips curling up into a rather venomous grin, “or at least, those of us with horses do. But moving on, I would look at the sky. Just really stare at it. Wiltshire had some amazing constellations…you could see them for miles…not like this shabby hole in the wall…”
“That’s because of Ottery St. Catchpole,” she interjected, not wanting him to get started, “The lights the villagers always hang up down there, they kind of blind out everything else. Fred and George tried to sell them fake bulbs one time that would never actually light up, but for some reason the muggles were a bit confused when they couldn’t figure out how to plug them in. Fred and George must have forgotten they use those output things.”
“Your brothers were right jokesters back at Hogwarts,” Draco responded immediately, the first time she had ever heard him mention her family without sputtering off some sort of insult, “Mind you, they were bloody fucks about it, but they had a few good jokes here and there.” The air seemed to hang with an awkward silence as he abruptly stopped talking and both of them turned back towards the lake, ignoring the fact that they had actually had a conversation. Ginny was eager to talk to him, to say something, to see how he would respond if she was to ask him the things that had been plaguing her mind for years. When she finally turned her head to speak she gasped in surprise; he was staring at her intently. His eyes, she noticed for the first time ever, were the color of mercury and had more depth than anything she had ever seen.
“Malfoy?”
“What Weasel?” He turned from her again, his gaze becoming hard, “Which thing do you want to know? I can practically read the things you want to say right off your face; they linger on the brink of your features. You should learn how to hide that better, but really, what do you want to know? Why the hell I’m here? Am I a Death Eater in training? Do I enjoy to follow my father (he said this with such a fierce tone that it made her cringe) along like a limp puppy dog? Or the best question yet, why in Merlin’s name am I talking to you when I could be doing much more profitable things with my time?”
She was slightly taken aback by his forwardness. Could he really read all of that just by looking at her face? Were her feelings really that noticeable, that easy to comprehend, “I guess…” she started, unsure at first of what to say, “I suppose…that is…”
“Spit it out Weasel, I don’t have all night,” he spat. It was then that she finally turned to look at him, her entire body shifting so she was facing Draco Malfoy. The one boy she had ever highly disliked in her entire life and the one person she probably knew the least about.
“Why are you so cold? And no, don’t turn this around and be like ‘ooh, it’s December, of course it’s cold’ because you know full well what I’m talking about. Why are you so stony and cold hearted to people around you? It’s Christmas Eve,” He seemed almost startled by her question and for a minute averted her gaze. When he finally turned to face her, sitting directly opposite from her with his feet curled underneath him, just inches from hers, his face was compassionless and his jaw was clenched.
“I hate Christmas.”
“No one can hate Christmas, Malfoy.”
“You can when Christmas is the one holiday you’ve never enjoyed your entire life,” he said simply, picking up a piece of grass and twirling it between his fingers, “See, Weasel, you wouldn’t understand. Growing up in a family where your parents’ attention can be nicely spread throughout seven kids, you don’t really have to deal with anything…but in Wiltshire, it’s just me. My lovely father usually took it upon himself to invite over some of his, I daresay, good friends every Christmas.”
“You mean…Death Eater’s?” she gulped visibly and he laughed. His laughter was something she had never heard before and never wanted to hear again, it reminded her of Dementors, cold and unfeeling.
“Don’t sound so astounded, Weasel, not everything is picture perfect in the rest of the world. Yes, if Death Eaters is what you want to call those bastards, then those are the people he’d have over. My mother would argue with him constantly, she wanted me to have a proper Christmas and all, give me proper gifts and spoil me the way good English mothers were supposed too. But my father, well, he didn’t want me to be proper. He wanted me strong,” he stopped for a minute, looking forlornly away from her, before concentrating on Ginny again, “Well Weasel, you should know how my father is when he doesn’t get what he wants. He goes for the lowest blow possible, the one thing that no one would be expecting. So what happened the minute I arrived home from school? I found my mother in the kitchen, with a bloody knife protruding from her ribs.” He barely flinched as he mentioned his mother’s murder, his eyes locked on her knees rather than her face, but his words were coming faster and faster, “Of course, he figured that would break me, make me angry, make me want to join up with the ranks of him.”
“You don’t?” Ginny blurted out, blushing a bit as his head shot up and his lips curled into a nasty scowl.
“It isn’t necessarily that I don’t want to join up with them and his followers, it’s more that I don’t want to join with the ranks of my father. You should have realized a long time ago Weasel, I don’t follow anyone else. I’m my own person. I make my own rules, do my own thing. I don’t get pushed around…and I will never be what someone tries to force me to be. That’s exactly why I turned down Head Boy…my father would have been too pleased,” She remembered that Ron had gotten his Head Boy letter rather late, saying that circumstances had arisen that had led to his selection, “But you see, Weasel, killing my mother didn’t break me. It just made my resilience and my ability to go against him stronger. I owled the Ministry and had my father put away first thing in the morning.”
“But Malfoy…”
“His buddies didn’t appreciate that,” he said quietly, staring at the ground, his face pale again, “Not like I thought they would or anything, but apparently, I was first in line to be one of the new inductees in the fall. They thought it was traitorous. They thought my father couldn’t be trusted anymore. They thought, maybe, he had told me some of their secrets and I was going to tell the Ministry. Dumbledore picked me up a few hours later, saying he was sending me to the one place no Death Eater would ever look for me.”
“Here…” Ginny muttered, staring at Draco in awe, “he brought you here? That’s…”
“Amazingly genius for that old man, believe it or not. No Death Eater would actually believe a Malfoy would stay willingly with the biggest blood traitors known amongst purebloods,” he bit back, “Did that quell your questions Weasel? Or are there still more?” She could barely catch the sarcasm in his voice but it was there, bickering at her and taunting her to ask him something else.
“What do you want for Christmas?”
He was quiet for a few seconds out of something that almost made it seem as if she caught him off guard but then he glanced up at her, his mercury eyes reflecting pure honesty as he pushed a strand of blonde hair out of his line of vision, “Someone to accept me. Someone to not try to make me be anything other than what I am. Someone who would just realize that I’m my own person, not a product of my birth. I may act as if I hate the world at Hogwarts, but everyone needs to keep up appearances. I know my place. This war, it isn’t about Potter winning, or about Voldemort winning, or the killing of muggles when you really think about it. It’s about doing what it takes to keep yourself on the right end of the killing curse, and I’m not about to go licking the boots of Dumbledore if it will keep me alive. It’s just, every once in awhile, I just wish people would acknowledge the fact that I’m actually…”
“Human?” she responded and he simply nodded, looking up into the night sky rather than at her.
“How about you?”
Ginny contemplated for a moment what to say. What exactly was it that she wanted for Christmas? She had always dreamed as a little girl that she would be asked that question, that way she could gush to her mother how she wanted a new playset for her toys or a fake tiara for dress-up. She had even contemplated asking for a new broom once, just like Ron had done when he had gotten prefect, but even that had seemed like a horrid idea once her father had lost his job. Other than Hermione’s occasional book and her mother’s customary navy blue jumper, Ginny had never received a true Christmas gift. She sifted her thoughts through her head, trying to come up with something that she had carried with her from Christmas pasts. A wonderful pair of green eyes beneath wire rimmed glasses holding a rather odd looking valentine rushed into her mind.
“To be loved,” she said, laughing a bit at the way in which he looked at her, “Now Malfoy is it that hard to believe that I want to be loved? It seems rather human to me.”
“You love Potter,” He mumbled, barely above a whisper.
“No,” responded Ginny honestly, “It was a little girl’s crush, something brought forth by late night stories of knights in shining armor and epic heroes. That’s what I always wanted you know…a knight to sweep me off my feet. But once I met him…I realized it wasn’t love. He might be a hero, but he wasn’t my idea of a knight in shining armor. But for Christmas…I want that. I want love. I want what my parents have, what Fred has with Angelina, what Ron has with Hermione; I just want someone to care about me more than anyone else…” she stopped abruptly. It was only then that she realized just how awkward it should feel to be spilling her inner most thoughts to Draco Malfoy and yet, it didn’t feel awkward at all. In fact, it felt rather normal. Like she should have started talking to him a long time ago…
“Intuitive Weasel,” he smirked, looking at her softly, as if someone had gently cooled his eyes down to be almost sensual, “I didn’t really expect that, coming from you.”
It was then that she heard it. The twelve very distinct gongs of the Weasley family clock.
One
Two
Three
Four…midnight was almost upon them. The sky was suddenly growing darker and she looked up as thousands of stars came into view above her; the lights from Ottery St. Catchpole must have finally dimmed.
Five
Six
Seven…She smiled at Draco as she noticed he was looking at the sky as well, perplexed by the amount of stars above them.
“Still think the stars in Wiltshire are better?” she teased, slapping him gently against the shoulder. He grabbed hold of her wrist just as she was about to pull away and turned her so that she was looking directly into his eyes, chocolate on mercury. If it had been anyone else, if she hadn’t just spent the last hour talking to him, hell if she had been at Hogwarts instead of in the backyard of the Burrow, she would have pulled away and given him her best hex yet. But something had changed, even if she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
Eight
Nine
Ten
“That isn’t possible,” he said, his eyes darting back and forth between her eyes and her lips for the briefest of seconds, as if waiting for the last two gongs of the clock to sound. She had to gasp at the hidden meaning behind his words, at the look in his eye, at the way his fingers felt around her wrist. She had to gasp at the fact that she was feeling something, anything, for Draco Malfoy.
Eleven
Twelve….and he kissed her. It wasn’t what Ginny Weasley had ever expected in a first kiss. She had always expected it to be sloppy and wet, yet practiced, with her breath smelling fresh of peppermints and her fingers sliding with ease into the hair of her kisser. She had never imagined she would be sitting in her backyard in the middle of December in a nightgown, unable to move because her kisser was holding her wrists very still, and her breath smelling of nighttime. But she smiled against his lips anyway, because regardless of the fact that it was her once nemesis, Draco Malfoy, blood was surging through her limbs and she couldn’t help but feel elated as he smothered her mouth and then moved to suckle the joint in her neck.
“Happy Christmas Weasel,” he breathed against the bridge of her freckly nose as he pulled away, and with a resounding slowness, he stood up and walked back towards the Burrow.
It was navy. It wasn’t as if Ginny had expected any other color, she had started getting navy as soon as she was born, but it was still navy. Not a color Ginny particularly disliked but much to her chagrin it was the only thing she received for Christmas from her parents. Navy. Harry had gotten emerald green, like usual, and for her first Christmas jumper Hermione had gotten lavender. She knew that Ron disliked his maroon jumper even more than she disliked hers, but it wasn’t the point. She wanted more. It sounded overly selfish, coming from a family of nine, but Ginny had always wanted more. Hermione had, of course, been extremely courteous in giving her a book to unwrap. Ginny had thanked her with a faux smile before pushing the book aside; it would join the stack with the other tomes she had never opened.
It was then that she noticed most of the family was staring at her. Her mother, with her hair in large sleepy disarray about her head, was holding out a small silver box. The box was tiny to say the least, and it shined a bit in the morning light. It was wrapped in a blood red ribbon with a small name tag that was covered in tiny scribbles. Ginny looked at her mother, then the confused faces about her, then the box again. Only then did she make out the scribbles to actually be the words, ‘To Ginny’.
She grasped the box from her mother and turned on her heels to the stairs, which she took two at a time until she was at the last step before the first landing. Plopping down, perfectly out of view from everyone else, she slowly and delicately pulled the ribbon back. The lid lifted almost on its own accord as Ginny’s face dropped just slightly.
Sitting on a bed of tissue paper was a scroll of parchment, rolled up tightly. It looked quite odd, just a bit of parchment lying in an exquisite box, but she tossed logic aside and reached for the parchment. It unrolled in her hands and she grasped the sides tightly as she read:
Dear Weasel,
You gave me my Christmas wish, even if it seems I have never deserved it before. I suppose I owe you thanks for that, but as I am not one to give out thank you’s, nor am I one to apologize for anything, I will just give you this:
I’m not the only one who received their Christmas gift today. Potter might only be a hero, but there are some people capable of being knights. If, of course, you’ll let them.
Happy Christmas Weasel
Love,
You-Know-Who
Ginny gasped as she looked down the stairs. From her hiding spot she could just make out the blonde head of Draco Malfoy, sitting on the largest Weasley arm chair, a midnight black Weasley jumper lying in his arms. He was smiling at it, a truly blissful smile, and fingering it gently between his forefingers. She smiled too, clutching his note in her hand, and descended the stairs.
The house was large to say the least, sitting crookedly on a fog covered hill that overlooked the entire village. Its windows were blacker than night, it had at least four chimneys, and it seemed as if it was kept standing by invisible stilts jutting out from its sides. No one had ever seen a car enter or leave the dirt path that the house had for a driveway and the letterbox that had once been a brilliant white color now lay on its side, unused and covered in cobwebs. But if one were to listen late at night, especially during Christmas, loud noises and the weirdest Christmas songs of all time could be heard coming from the hill that the house sat upon. The older children of the village called it a ghost’s lair, one worth exploring at the late hours of night, but not even the bravest of the occupants of Ottery St. Catchpole would dare go up to it during Christmastime.
But Ginny Weasley, a freckly faced girl of 16, loved the crooked house that sat on the hill. It was “The Burrow”, a name given to the home when her father had first bought it, many years before she had been born. Bill had called it home first, then Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, and Ron, but now as one of the only four original Weasleys remaining, it was officially “hers”. Christmas at The Burrow was memorable to say the least, especially for a wizarding family. Her mother, a stout woman with the authority of a bull, would clear the kitchen of almost everything to spend all of December baking sweets and pies for her large family. Bill and Charlie would tackle the Ghoul in the Attic to obtain the boxes of Christmas decorations, which they would float down the stairs behind them like small cabooses and throw the ornaments and sprigs of holly all over the stairs. Fred and George would begin charming everything in sight, from Christmas ornaments to mistletoe, in hopes of catching some unlucky victim in their paths. Like they always said, what was the purpose of a holiday without a “bit” of fun? Ron would spend hours upon hours making snowmen out on the front yard that resembled each member of the Weasley family down to the odd replicas of Hermes, Errol, and Pig. Even Percy would become enjoyable to be around for a few hours when it was Christmastime.
I wish Christmas was still like that, Ginny thought miserably, pushing her bedclothes down around her ankles on December 24th. She pushed a long piece of her auburn hair out of her face and tucked it back into her ponytail, grimacing slightly at the sweat that was beading up around her hairline. It wasn’t normally as hot as it was, but then again, there really wasn’t a set protocol for normalcy anymore. This Christmas Bill and Charlie wouldn’t be coming home for the holidays due to “top secret business”. Fred and George would be spending the morning with the family, but then were off to work in their joke shop. Ron, for the first time since he began going to Hogwarts, had decided to come home, but had of course brought Hermione and Harry with him. It wasn’t as if Ginny necessarily disliked this idea, Hermione and Ron would probably be off together doing Merlin knew what, and she could spend a bit of time with Harry if it suited her, but she had long ago grown out of the necessity to be a part of that group. And Percy...well…Ginny wasn’t going to think about Percy.
Ginny reached behind her head and pulled open the one window in her tiny room, allowing the moderate December air to blow across her neck as she sat up stiffly, very much awake. The alarm clock that Hermione had finally shown her how to use blinked eleven o’clock at her in bright florescent numbers and she groaned; no one would be up for an extremely long time. She was restless and itching to move downstairs and just get the unwrapping of presents done with. She would of course get gifts from Hermione and Harry, and the jumper from her mother, but nothing else would be waiting for her beneath the Christmas tree. Sometimes it was plain upsetting to be poor. She sighed and looked around the room perceptively.
She gave Hermione a quick glance and noticed that the girl was curled up around herself, neatly tucked in her bedclothes, fast asleep. Giving herself only a second to contemplate the consequences of sneaking out, she stepped out of her bed and slowly moved towards the door and into the hall. The hallways of The Burrow were always mysteriously quiet at night, save for the clanking of the ghoul in the Attic above; Ginny could have sworn her every footstep reverberated on the wooden floor. She skipped the trick step on the first floor and landed with a bit of a plop in the kitchen, glancing up at the many handed Weasley clock to make sure that everyone was fast asleep. Giving the Christmas tree and the seven multi-colored jumpers underneath it a longing stare, she moved towards the backdoor.
She loved the texture of the damp dewy grass beneath her feet. She shivered a bit and wrapped her ebony colored nightgown closer around her body, taking a big breath in and enjoying the slight breeze. Her eyes scanned the scenery in front of her; the wide foggy moor was shining a bit underneath the starless sky and the homemade Quidditch pitch her brothers had constructed years ago could barely be seen in the distance. In front of her was the lake, the beautiful lake she had grown up swimming in, and yet...its banks weren’t empty.
She had been surprised when her mother had opened the front door at the beginning of the holiday to Albus Dumbledore, holding the boy’s things with one hand and the scruff of his neck with the other. Most of the children including Ron (who had been growling and muttering in fury) had been shuffled out of the room as Dumbledore, Ginny’s mother, and Remus Lupin had all gathered in the kitchen for a discussion. Against Harry and Ron’s wishes, the boy was told he could stay, and his things were immediately put into Ron’s room and another cot added to the already crowded space. Ginny, just like the rest of her family, had been livid with his arrival. He was a worthless prat who enjoyed ribbing her and her brothers about their lack of money, amongst other things. He thought she was a blood traitor. His father had set her up to be possessed by one of the wickedest men alive. And yet, in spite of of his reputation for being a sour brat, he hadn’t seemed to find any amusement in mocking her family. He had come in rather quietly, his normally putridly insipid skin tight across his face. His eyes had been sunken deep into his features and he hadn’t said a word to anyone around him, even when Hermione greeted him with an extended hand. No spats, no insults, no nothing. If it wasn’t for her mother’s strong will and determination, he would have sat in his bedroom all day and pouted to the orange Cannons wall. He hadn’t made a single notice to her presence and, although strange, this seemed to be the first time all holiday that she had even seen him. His brilliant blonde hair stuck out brightly against the dark sky, haphazardly combed about his head due to the lack of caring, or so it seemed. His back was facing her, his knees pulled tightly into his chest and his arms seemed to be wrapped about them. She approached cautiously and sat beside him, refusing to actually acknowledge his presence although knowing full well that he had noticed hers.
“Weasel,” he said simply, showing no inflection of either joy or anger.
“Malfoy,” she said back in an equivalent tone, not bothering to look at him. He groaned a bit, as if wondering whether or not to say anything to her. He then leaned back on his hands, exposing his face, which was traced with lines of once shed tears.
“What brings you out here?” he asked solemnly.
“It is my house Malfoy,” she looked at him briefly and contemplated, for just a moment, asking him about his tears but she thought better of it and turned her gaze back towards the lake, “I come out here sometimes when I can’t sleep.”
“I used to do that at the Manor,” he mumbled, making her unsure whether he was directly talking to her or more to himself, “at night, when I couldn’t sleep, I’d sneak out of my bedroom and get one of the servants to let me into the yard. I’d sit on the roof of the stables and just stare at the sky.”
“You had stables?”
“Weasley…everyone has stables,” he looked around and then smirked, his lips curling up into a rather venomous grin, “or at least, those of us with horses do. But moving on, I would look at the sky. Just really stare at it. Wiltshire had some amazing constellations…you could see them for miles…not like this shabby hole in the wall…”
“That’s because of Ottery St. Catchpole,” she interjected, not wanting him to get started, “The lights the villagers always hang up down there, they kind of blind out everything else. Fred and George tried to sell them fake bulbs one time that would never actually light up, but for some reason the muggles were a bit confused when they couldn’t figure out how to plug them in. Fred and George must have forgotten they use those output things.”
“Your brothers were right jokesters back at Hogwarts,” Draco responded immediately, the first time she had ever heard him mention her family without sputtering off some sort of insult, “Mind you, they were bloody fucks about it, but they had a few good jokes here and there.” The air seemed to hang with an awkward silence as he abruptly stopped talking and both of them turned back towards the lake, ignoring the fact that they had actually had a conversation. Ginny was eager to talk to him, to say something, to see how he would respond if she was to ask him the things that had been plaguing her mind for years. When she finally turned her head to speak she gasped in surprise; he was staring at her intently. His eyes, she noticed for the first time ever, were the color of mercury and had more depth than anything she had ever seen.
“Malfoy?”
“What Weasel?” He turned from her again, his gaze becoming hard, “Which thing do you want to know? I can practically read the things you want to say right off your face; they linger on the brink of your features. You should learn how to hide that better, but really, what do you want to know? Why the hell I’m here? Am I a Death Eater in training? Do I enjoy to follow my father (he said this with such a fierce tone that it made her cringe) along like a limp puppy dog? Or the best question yet, why in Merlin’s name am I talking to you when I could be doing much more profitable things with my time?”
She was slightly taken aback by his forwardness. Could he really read all of that just by looking at her face? Were her feelings really that noticeable, that easy to comprehend, “I guess…” she started, unsure at first of what to say, “I suppose…that is…”
“Spit it out Weasel, I don’t have all night,” he spat. It was then that she finally turned to look at him, her entire body shifting so she was facing Draco Malfoy. The one boy she had ever highly disliked in her entire life and the one person she probably knew the least about.
“Why are you so cold? And no, don’t turn this around and be like ‘ooh, it’s December, of course it’s cold’ because you know full well what I’m talking about. Why are you so stony and cold hearted to people around you? It’s Christmas Eve,” He seemed almost startled by her question and for a minute averted her gaze. When he finally turned to face her, sitting directly opposite from her with his feet curled underneath him, just inches from hers, his face was compassionless and his jaw was clenched.
“I hate Christmas.”
“No one can hate Christmas, Malfoy.”
“You can when Christmas is the one holiday you’ve never enjoyed your entire life,” he said simply, picking up a piece of grass and twirling it between his fingers, “See, Weasel, you wouldn’t understand. Growing up in a family where your parents’ attention can be nicely spread throughout seven kids, you don’t really have to deal with anything…but in Wiltshire, it’s just me. My lovely father usually took it upon himself to invite over some of his, I daresay, good friends every Christmas.”
“You mean…Death Eater’s?” she gulped visibly and he laughed. His laughter was something she had never heard before and never wanted to hear again, it reminded her of Dementors, cold and unfeeling.
“Don’t sound so astounded, Weasel, not everything is picture perfect in the rest of the world. Yes, if Death Eaters is what you want to call those bastards, then those are the people he’d have over. My mother would argue with him constantly, she wanted me to have a proper Christmas and all, give me proper gifts and spoil me the way good English mothers were supposed too. But my father, well, he didn’t want me to be proper. He wanted me strong,” he stopped for a minute, looking forlornly away from her, before concentrating on Ginny again, “Well Weasel, you should know how my father is when he doesn’t get what he wants. He goes for the lowest blow possible, the one thing that no one would be expecting. So what happened the minute I arrived home from school? I found my mother in the kitchen, with a bloody knife protruding from her ribs.” He barely flinched as he mentioned his mother’s murder, his eyes locked on her knees rather than her face, but his words were coming faster and faster, “Of course, he figured that would break me, make me angry, make me want to join up with the ranks of him.”
“You don’t?” Ginny blurted out, blushing a bit as his head shot up and his lips curled into a nasty scowl.
“It isn’t necessarily that I don’t want to join up with them and his followers, it’s more that I don’t want to join with the ranks of my father. You should have realized a long time ago Weasel, I don’t follow anyone else. I’m my own person. I make my own rules, do my own thing. I don’t get pushed around…and I will never be what someone tries to force me to be. That’s exactly why I turned down Head Boy…my father would have been too pleased,” She remembered that Ron had gotten his Head Boy letter rather late, saying that circumstances had arisen that had led to his selection, “But you see, Weasel, killing my mother didn’t break me. It just made my resilience and my ability to go against him stronger. I owled the Ministry and had my father put away first thing in the morning.”
“But Malfoy…”
“His buddies didn’t appreciate that,” he said quietly, staring at the ground, his face pale again, “Not like I thought they would or anything, but apparently, I was first in line to be one of the new inductees in the fall. They thought it was traitorous. They thought my father couldn’t be trusted anymore. They thought, maybe, he had told me some of their secrets and I was going to tell the Ministry. Dumbledore picked me up a few hours later, saying he was sending me to the one place no Death Eater would ever look for me.”
“Here…” Ginny muttered, staring at Draco in awe, “he brought you here? That’s…”
“Amazingly genius for that old man, believe it or not. No Death Eater would actually believe a Malfoy would stay willingly with the biggest blood traitors known amongst purebloods,” he bit back, “Did that quell your questions Weasel? Or are there still more?” She could barely catch the sarcasm in his voice but it was there, bickering at her and taunting her to ask him something else.
“What do you want for Christmas?”
He was quiet for a few seconds out of something that almost made it seem as if she caught him off guard but then he glanced up at her, his mercury eyes reflecting pure honesty as he pushed a strand of blonde hair out of his line of vision, “Someone to accept me. Someone to not try to make me be anything other than what I am. Someone who would just realize that I’m my own person, not a product of my birth. I may act as if I hate the world at Hogwarts, but everyone needs to keep up appearances. I know my place. This war, it isn’t about Potter winning, or about Voldemort winning, or the killing of muggles when you really think about it. It’s about doing what it takes to keep yourself on the right end of the killing curse, and I’m not about to go licking the boots of Dumbledore if it will keep me alive. It’s just, every once in awhile, I just wish people would acknowledge the fact that I’m actually…”
“Human?” she responded and he simply nodded, looking up into the night sky rather than at her.
“How about you?”
Ginny contemplated for a moment what to say. What exactly was it that she wanted for Christmas? She had always dreamed as a little girl that she would be asked that question, that way she could gush to her mother how she wanted a new playset for her toys or a fake tiara for dress-up. She had even contemplated asking for a new broom once, just like Ron had done when he had gotten prefect, but even that had seemed like a horrid idea once her father had lost his job. Other than Hermione’s occasional book and her mother’s customary navy blue jumper, Ginny had never received a true Christmas gift. She sifted her thoughts through her head, trying to come up with something that she had carried with her from Christmas pasts. A wonderful pair of green eyes beneath wire rimmed glasses holding a rather odd looking valentine rushed into her mind.
“To be loved,” she said, laughing a bit at the way in which he looked at her, “Now Malfoy is it that hard to believe that I want to be loved? It seems rather human to me.”
“You love Potter,” He mumbled, barely above a whisper.
“No,” responded Ginny honestly, “It was a little girl’s crush, something brought forth by late night stories of knights in shining armor and epic heroes. That’s what I always wanted you know…a knight to sweep me off my feet. But once I met him…I realized it wasn’t love. He might be a hero, but he wasn’t my idea of a knight in shining armor. But for Christmas…I want that. I want love. I want what my parents have, what Fred has with Angelina, what Ron has with Hermione; I just want someone to care about me more than anyone else…” she stopped abruptly. It was only then that she realized just how awkward it should feel to be spilling her inner most thoughts to Draco Malfoy and yet, it didn’t feel awkward at all. In fact, it felt rather normal. Like she should have started talking to him a long time ago…
“Intuitive Weasel,” he smirked, looking at her softly, as if someone had gently cooled his eyes down to be almost sensual, “I didn’t really expect that, coming from you.”
It was then that she heard it. The twelve very distinct gongs of the Weasley family clock.
One
Two
Three
Four…midnight was almost upon them. The sky was suddenly growing darker and she looked up as thousands of stars came into view above her; the lights from Ottery St. Catchpole must have finally dimmed.
Five
Six
Seven…She smiled at Draco as she noticed he was looking at the sky as well, perplexed by the amount of stars above them.
“Still think the stars in Wiltshire are better?” she teased, slapping him gently against the shoulder. He grabbed hold of her wrist just as she was about to pull away and turned her so that she was looking directly into his eyes, chocolate on mercury. If it had been anyone else, if she hadn’t just spent the last hour talking to him, hell if she had been at Hogwarts instead of in the backyard of the Burrow, she would have pulled away and given him her best hex yet. But something had changed, even if she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
Eight
Nine
Ten
“That isn’t possible,” he said, his eyes darting back and forth between her eyes and her lips for the briefest of seconds, as if waiting for the last two gongs of the clock to sound. She had to gasp at the hidden meaning behind his words, at the look in his eye, at the way his fingers felt around her wrist. She had to gasp at the fact that she was feeling something, anything, for Draco Malfoy.
Eleven
Twelve….and he kissed her. It wasn’t what Ginny Weasley had ever expected in a first kiss. She had always expected it to be sloppy and wet, yet practiced, with her breath smelling fresh of peppermints and her fingers sliding with ease into the hair of her kisser. She had never imagined she would be sitting in her backyard in the middle of December in a nightgown, unable to move because her kisser was holding her wrists very still, and her breath smelling of nighttime. But she smiled against his lips anyway, because regardless of the fact that it was her once nemesis, Draco Malfoy, blood was surging through her limbs and she couldn’t help but feel elated as he smothered her mouth and then moved to suckle the joint in her neck.
“Happy Christmas Weasel,” he breathed against the bridge of her freckly nose as he pulled away, and with a resounding slowness, he stood up and walked back towards the Burrow.
It was navy. It wasn’t as if Ginny had expected any other color, she had started getting navy as soon as she was born, but it was still navy. Not a color Ginny particularly disliked but much to her chagrin it was the only thing she received for Christmas from her parents. Navy. Harry had gotten emerald green, like usual, and for her first Christmas jumper Hermione had gotten lavender. She knew that Ron disliked his maroon jumper even more than she disliked hers, but it wasn’t the point. She wanted more. It sounded overly selfish, coming from a family of nine, but Ginny had always wanted more. Hermione had, of course, been extremely courteous in giving her a book to unwrap. Ginny had thanked her with a faux smile before pushing the book aside; it would join the stack with the other tomes she had never opened.
It was then that she noticed most of the family was staring at her. Her mother, with her hair in large sleepy disarray about her head, was holding out a small silver box. The box was tiny to say the least, and it shined a bit in the morning light. It was wrapped in a blood red ribbon with a small name tag that was covered in tiny scribbles. Ginny looked at her mother, then the confused faces about her, then the box again. Only then did she make out the scribbles to actually be the words, ‘To Ginny’.
She grasped the box from her mother and turned on her heels to the stairs, which she took two at a time until she was at the last step before the first landing. Plopping down, perfectly out of view from everyone else, she slowly and delicately pulled the ribbon back. The lid lifted almost on its own accord as Ginny’s face dropped just slightly.
Sitting on a bed of tissue paper was a scroll of parchment, rolled up tightly. It looked quite odd, just a bit of parchment lying in an exquisite box, but she tossed logic aside and reached for the parchment. It unrolled in her hands and she grasped the sides tightly as she read:
Dear Weasel,
You gave me my Christmas wish, even if it seems I have never deserved it before. I suppose I owe you thanks for that, but as I am not one to give out thank you’s, nor am I one to apologize for anything, I will just give you this:
I’m not the only one who received their Christmas gift today. Potter might only be a hero, but there are some people capable of being knights. If, of course, you’ll let them.
Happy Christmas Weasel
Love,
You-Know-Who
Ginny gasped as she looked down the stairs. From her hiding spot she could just make out the blonde head of Draco Malfoy, sitting on the largest Weasley arm chair, a midnight black Weasley jumper lying in his arms. He was smiling at it, a truly blissful smile, and fingering it gently between his forefingers. She smiled too, clutching his note in her hand, and descended the stairs.
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