Threatening To Love You.

Title: Falling For Santa.
Author: Pekeleke
Pairing(s): Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter.
Rating: M
Challenge: Written for the adventdrabbles 2021. Prompt #4: Puppies sitting on Santa’s lap.
Word Count: 997
Warnings: Explicit Language. Dramatic Draco. Humor.
Disclaimer: The characters, setting, and the HP franchise are owned by JKR and not me. I make no profit from writing this piece of fanfiction.
A/N: Unbeated. Ch 4 of my Christmas Series: Threatening To Love You.
Summary: “Are you calling me a Grinch to my face right now?” Draco demands sharply, and Potter flinches like a kid caught with his hand buried elbow-deep inside the cookie jar. 
 

Falling For Santa.

Draco has always loved crups. He’d desperately wanted one when he was little, but his father’s perception of them as ‘pets for commoners’ had destroyed his dream of having one. Now that Draco is older -and not rotting for life in an Azkaban cell- he has the run of the manor, and he’s filled it, not with the love and affection of a pureblood wife and a gaggle of blond children, but with crups he rescues from the streets. It’d been hard for the poor beasts after the war, their former owners either dead or imprisoned, and Draco had found purpose in giving them a home. He’d found healing in loving them with the tattered remnants of the heart he’d broken fighting in a war he hadn’t understood in time to choose the right side.

Today finds Draco sitting bang in the middle of the Ministry’s atrium, atop a simple wooden sleigh, dressed up as Santa Claus while half his crups climb over his lap. It’s the annual ‘A Visit With Santa Event’ that the Ministry organizes for all magical children, and Draco hasn’t stopped grinning and HO HO Hoing all morning long. Of all the events he organizes during the course of the year, this one is his favorite.

Draco has always wanted children, but he doesn’t have much luck in the dating department. He’s too busy to try harder than accepting whatever blind-date his mother, her friends, and some well-meaning coworker or other sets up in the hopes of fixing his singledom. Draco is still smiling softly, heart all but melting for the little girl who’d just told him all she wants for Christmas is a baby brother or sister to play with when a much heavier body than he expects joins him inside his wooden sleigh.

Draco blinks, aghast, at Potter, who now sits beside him like he has every right to hijack a children’s ride, “What the hell are you doing here?” Draco hisses, smiling at the prat so tightly that he turns a thoroughly unflattering shade of red.

“I wanted to play with the puppies. Don’t look at me like that. It’s my turn, fair and square. I’ve been waiting in the queue for two hours, Malfoy,” Potter pouts.

Draco hums passive-aggressively. Just because Potter waited doesn’t mean he should be here. This is an activity designed solely for kids.

“Is it true that all the crups are yours?” Potter tries harder, realizing that Draco is giving him the cold shoulder.

“I’m not charging the Ministry for them if that’s what you mean. I train them myself, so I know they’ll behave perfectly. Nobody wants anything untoward happening to the children.”

Potter stares at him weirdly. There is a wide and impressed look brightening his eyes as he leans forward to pick little Jerry from his perch atop Draco’s knee, “He’s so soft. And you. You’re amazing with them. And with the children too. I’ve been watching you charm everyone all morning long. Why aren’t you always like this?”

Draco frowns, “We can’t have a Santa’s grotto year-round, Potter. That’d get boring eventually.”

Potter blinks, looking for all the world like the most confused savior who ever shared a sleigh with St. Nick, “I meant charming. Why aren’t you always this patient? You spend so much time prancing about with that scowl on your face, calling us nasty ogres for stomping over your special confetti and whatnot, that I’d forgotten you’ve got the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen.”

 “Are you calling me a Grinch to my face right now?” Draco demands sharply, and Potter flinches like a kid caught with his hand buried elbow-deep inside the cookie jar.

“I didn’t mean-

“Get out of my sleigh, Potter.”

“Malfoy-

“I mean it,” Draco grits out dangerously, “I don’t care that you’re the Savior Of The Wizarding World. You’re also the insufferable git currently hogging an activity meant for children just to get away with insulting me. I thought you’d matured some, but I see I was mistaken.”

“That’s not what I’m doing, Malfoy!” Potter sputters indignantly.

“Really? Then what, precisely, are you doing?” Draco demands, incensed that Potter is trying to play him for a fool.

“I—er never mind,” Potter backtracks, proving Draco’s point, and Draco glares at him so hard that the auror scrambles backward on the bench, reaching the end of it without realizing it and tipping the entire sleigh onto its side. Potter hits the ground first, and Draco lands on top of him in a tangle of padded Santa costume and frightened crups.

Draco stares down at Potter, wide-eyed. Potter looks right back at him, lifts a slightly trembling hand to right Draco’s lopsided fake beard, and asks him softly if he’s alright. Draco opens his mouth to respond but loses himself in the strangely compelling softness of Potter’s expression. There is something in the auror’s gaze, something sincere and soulful and earnest, that is making a nest of doxies flutter wildly in Draco’s tummy.

“Malfoy?” Potter addresses him again, voice sharper with concern. Draco’s brain comes back into focus, and he looks up as the sound of equally terrified and disappointed children hits his ears. He scrambles upright in the next breath, his precious crups yipping in fright around his feet. Draco checks they’re all accounted for and sport no visible injuries before turning his attention to the state of the atrium.

The ‘A Visit With Santa Event” is a disaster. Draco’s beautiful sleigh is broken; the winter wonderland around it in disarray. The children this special occasion aimed to entertain cling to their parents in tears, and Potter, bloody Potter, has the actual gall to stand up from the floor and say, “Oops!” like he farted in the lift, instead of ruining months of hard work and delicate childhood illusions. Draco wants to strangle him so hard his fingertips are cramping. And, to top it all off, his Potter-induced headache is back.