Chapter 6
Their first Christmas together Harry had insisted on purchasing one of Luna’s hand-crafted, fair-trade, Nargle Nativity Scene calendars. It took Draco another 12 months to convince Harry that buying a Honeydukes Chocolate Frog calendar was not “cheating”.
By the time their third Christmas together came around Draco was confident that the calendar would no longer be an issue and in a way he was right. Because on the 1st of December, when Draco stumbled downstairs to make them both an early morning tea, there was no advent calendar in sight.
“Muffhghh,” Harry shrugged, sleepily sipping tea, his free hand tangled with Draco’s on top of the duvet. “Just forgot, we can get one tomorrow.” Draco hummed and went back to playing with Harry’s hair as they finished their tea, but a few weeks later he realised that they never had got around to getting a new calendar.
Despite making elaborate shopping lists for the Christmas dinner, Harry didn’t mange to make his traditional mince pies. Carol singers were given ready made mulled wine, rather than the home recipe Harry had spent the last few years perfecting.
Instead of buying and writing Christmas cards Harry suggested emails for their Muggle friends and replicating notes for the Magical ones. And Harry was too tired to go skating at the weekends, telling Draco to take Teddy instead.
When Draco asked about getting a tree, Harry suggested that they just get a small one, pointing out that they’d be spending most of the holidays at the Weasley house, anyway.
None of this particularly bothered Draco. Christmas had always been a rather fraught affair at Malfoy Manor and he much preferred the small, peaceful Christmas days he and Harry shared.
But Harry loved Christmas. Like love, loved.
Christmas parties, carolling, present buying, present wrapping, baking, mulling, snowball fights and cosy fireside chats. Harry went all in for Christmas, to the extent that Draco suspected that Harry was more likely to leave him for an artfully trimmed tree than an attractively trimmed human.
In the days leading up to Christmas Draco began to wake from half-formed dreams where Harry crept out of bed, whispering that he couldn’t sleep and was going to read for a bit. Dark circles appeared under Harry’s eyes and - no matter how much he napped - refused to go away.
Harry’s appetite, always hearty, dwindled. It wasn’t like he didn’t feel hungry, he just didn’t seem to enjoy food anymore. Draco spent a few weeks cooking Harry’s favourite meals, but December was always a busy time at the firm and while Harry ate he didn’t appear to notice when Draco missed a few nights cooking and they ended up eating sandwiches for dinner.
It was, Draco pointed out as he dragged Harry to their Healer, truly excellent timing.
“Gives us an excuse to avoid Mother’s dreadful five-fowl festive monsterosity,” Draco said as he measured out the potions that the Healer had given Harry.
“Janice has threatened to have me banned from the building if I don’t take the rest of my annual leave,” Draco explained as he owl’d into work and helped Harry into the bath.
“I’m rather looking forward to waking up on Boxing Day without a hangover,” Draco confided as he curled around Harry, locking an arm around his shivering boyfriend’s waist and pressing kisses to the nape of Harry’s neck.
A few days later, when Harry finally cracked a weak smile and told Draco to “stop panicking, m’depressed, not dying” Draco almost sobbed with relief. Although he claimed that the tears were induced by Harry’s request for a slice of Hagrid’s fruit cake “to get the potions taste out of my mouth”.