On The Sixth Day of Christmas
Jan. 13th, 2011 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lokifanTitle: On The Sixth Day of Christmas
Word count: ~2000
Characters/pairings: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry’s giving Draco a present for every day of Christmas. Today something resembling actual asking out of Draco happens! Not that he notices.
Warnings: fluff
Disclaimer: The boys and girls belong to JKR, even though I’m often much nicer to them than she is.
Author’s Notes: Previous parts:
On The First Day of Christmas
On The Second Day of Christmas
On The Third Day of Christmas
On The Fourth Day of Christmas
On The Fifth Day of Christmas
30th December
Dear Draco,
Hermione has some books for you on miniature dragons. I thought Rover was just a figurine but it seems I was wrong, and he’s been eating my bedposts to survive. It didn’t hurt him, though! Please don’t kill me. You already knew he was properly alive, though, I could tell...
Anyway. Come up and you’ll get books, plus your next present! I hope you like it.
Harry
PS: DON’T CALL HER NAMES.
Draco grinned and crunched the parchment in one hand before slipping it into the top drawer of his bedside table.
The Fat Lady scowled blackly at him when he told her the password, but she swung open. Draco clambered inside. Rover, on his shoulder, tugged painfully at Draco’s hair in order to keep his balance; Harry looked up from Exploding Snap at the sound of his swearing.
“Hi! Come over here, I think Hermione’s about to explode and get knowledge all over us.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” Granger said, her smile belying her acerbic tone. She was sitting cross-legged in a squashy armchair with books piled around her: stacked on one side up to the armrest, lapping about her feet. There was a particularly moth-eaten specimen in her lap.
Draco picked his way through the bags and board games to stand in front of her. He sent a sideways smile at Harry in quiet greeting, noticing that his black hair was sticking up even more than usual from Snap explosions. Then he gave Granger a Look.
Which was entirely overwhelmed by hers. Draco was used to being defeated by wielders of greater Looks than his own – Snape, both his parents and Pansy for starters – so he gave in with relative grace. “Where do we start?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you.”
He spent at least an hour talking about Rover with her. It was strange; at first she was wary, her voice arch as she talked about miniature dragons being used as warning systems or to scare Muggles away. But Granger’s excitement about this new area of magic carried her away, and carried him too. He couldn’t quite absorb himself the way she could. And yet before long he was perched on the arm of her chair while they excoriated a seventeenth-century wizard whose ideas weren’t worth the parchment they were written on, laughing.
Around forty minutes in, he let her get away with a dragon/Draco joke and knew he was lost.
Friends with Gryffindors, he thought, looking over at the sound of Harry’s deep voice yelling, “SNAP!” The Gryffindors were laughing at him and Harry was laughing too.
“D’you want to hold Rover?” he asked Granger.
“Oh yes!” Her brown eyes lit up, and she held out a hand. Draco leant forward and allowed Rover a cautious sniff. Then he climbed onto her wrist, perching there like a falcon ready for flight. Granger withdrew her arm, holding Rover close to her face. Her eyes followed his every flickering move.
Draco felt a moment of clenching, painful grief: Vince would’ve loved Rover. He would’ve thought he was brilliant, and probably fed him little bits of bacon and other things that were equally bad for him. Granger was – not awful, he supposed, watching her bright, intent face; but Muggleborn enthusiasm wasn’t the same as stolid Pureblood acceptance of the fantastic.
She wasn’t like his best friend.
Draco swallowed his grief: it went down thickly and left him nauseous, but it stayed. “Gryffindors,” he said, turning. Granger would be quite happy in Rover’s company. “How about a game of something less first-year while Granger and Rover get better acquainted?”
“Such as?” said Longbottom.
“Exploding Poker.”
Harry’s face screwed up in confusion. “What?”
Draco snorted, and studiously ignored the affection tugging at him. “Honestly, Potter. It’s poker played with an Exploding deck – at any time your cards could explode and you’ll have nothing. Adds excitement – and occasionally singed fingers.”
“It’s a good game,” Parvati agreed. She gave Draco a smile from under her dark hair, and he returned it: she had something sparkly in her hair, and kohled eyes.
“I suppose,” Harry said dubiously, drawing Draco’s attention once again. “I’ll have a go.”
Draco explained the simple version they’d be using, enjoying having all eyes on him; the attention wasn’t negative, the eyes weren’t glaring or searching for a flaw, and that made them a novelty. Even better was the fact that he was much better at poker than nearly all of them.
Lavender Brown showed an unexpected aptitude for bluffing and Weasley shuffled like a maestro, but Draco soon had piles of Chocolate Frog cards and Knuts in front of him. Harry, meanwhile, was looking sadly down at his dwindling heap.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” Weasley assured him. “No worries.”
“You’ve always been a surprisingly good liar,” Draco agreed. “That should help.”
Harry bit his lip as he stared down at his new pair, eyes squinting behind the glasses. His long fingers fidgeted around the cards.
Draco drew his attention from Harry, swiped his eyes all round the table, and bet.
Harry’s forearms were a little burnt from the Exploding Snap; there was a small splotch of shiny skin on the knob of his right wrist. Possibly cards were just one of those areas where Harry’s legendary luck abandoned him, Draco thought, as Parvati set down her cards with unnecessary relish.
Exploding Poker turned out to be the best idea Draco’d had for weeks. It had started with just the eighth-year Gryffindors and him, but other people started coming in and out of the game as the afternoon wore on and the lamps and candles flickered to life around the room. Gold flattered Harry’s complexion better than cold winter light, really; you could feel the warmth when you looked at him.
Draco had been warm all afternoon, though. The players were squished around the biggest table at this point, and Draco was shoulder-to-shoulder with Laurence, a shrewd fifth-year, and Longbottom.
“Hey, Draco? You want your present for today?” Harry’s voice was soft, but Draco turned into him at once.
They withdrew from the next game. By this time the common focus on poker was so strong that just turning aside from the main attraction made it feel like the two of them were in a corner. Harry drew a package from under his armchair. The wrapping was deep red, and Draco ripped it off with pleasure; under the paper was something shining –
Draco turned the telescope over and over in his hands. It was a beautiful thing: polished mahogany and glass and brass buffed until it shone. Like all the parts of a marvellous ship brought together in one small object, an object that could show you the way and bring far-off things closer. Like a ship. Like love –
“Do you like it?”
Draco smiled at Harry, and only just restrained himself from touching him. He wasn’t sure how – he wanted to touch his knee or give him a friendly punch or something. But two years spent shrinking from friends and enemies had taken his easy tactility from him, and so he hoped his smile was enough.
Harry was smiling back like it was.
“I was thinking – you know there’ll be fireworks in Hogsmeade tomorrow night, for New Year? A bunch of my friends are going – ”
“I can’t,” Draco said stiffly, his stomach tightening. “I’m not allowed off the grounds – ”
“No, I know,” Harry said without his tone changing. “I was thinking we could go up to the Astronomy Tower and watch from there. Maybe look at the stars as well, now you’ve got your shiny new telescope. Eat sweets, that sort of stuff.”
“Oh,” Draco managed. He was a little breathless, but not too humiliatingly so. “Okay. That sounds good.”
Harry smiled at him, a burst of warmth as bright as any firework. “D’you wanna play some more Exploding Poker?”
“I do enjoy the chance to pound you into the ground.”
After a few more rounds, though – which culminated in Draco linking his hands above his head and doing a dance – he sat it out, and replaced the cards in his hand with the telescope. He didn’t want to be odd about it, or spend too long studying it; besides, he’d have time for that tonight, when he was alone in the dungeons. Instead he sat and traded blond jokes with Finnigan and mocked Longbottom’s inability to bluff and turned the telescope over and over in his hands, learning the feel of it. He might not be able to examine it too closely, but he could feel the cool gleam of the brass and the chill of the glass and the smooth heft of the wood, could learn the weight of it in his hands. It all got mixed up in the voices around him, Granger’s husky laugh, the taste of Chocolate Frogs he’d won and gloated over and shared with Harry. Harry was grinning at Weasley, talking, his eyes warm and his shirt open a bit so Draco could see the shadow of his collarbone –
Draco blinked, feeling like sparks from the fire had shot too close to his eyes. He stood up. “I’d better – I’ve got homework, I just realised. And I have to write to my mum.”
He bit his lip the second that slipped out, but it was too late: the words were in the air. But Harry wasn’t laughing; there was a slight crease between his eyebrows. “Of course you do,” he said, his voice quiet. “Come and see us tomorrow, yeah?”
“All right,” Draco said, wrong-footed. Harry followed him to the portrait hole.
“Cheers for teaching us – well, me – how to play that,” he said. “It’s been a good time.”
“Yeah, well...”
He looked back at Harry. Harry was standing so close Draco could smell him and could really feel his extra inch of height. Harry might be shorter, but with his eyes glowing like that Draco couldn’t have said no if Harry had pushed him to stay. He was talking, his voice a low rumble; Draco felt the urge to – to kiss him rise, a desire so foreign he barely recognised it, but it was overwhelming. It rose like a tide and swamped him: Draco leant forward and kissed Harry firmly on the mouth.
Harry took half a step back, taken aback, and for a moment humiliation stole Draco’s breath. But then Harry’s hands came up to cup his elbows, holding him up and keeping him close, and Harry’s mouth was soft on his. He was unmistakeably kissing back.
Draco tasted the chocolate they’d been eating as Harry’s mouth opened under his. Draco’s eyes were clenched shut, his hands fisted, as he focussed on this new sensation. He huffed in surprise when Harry’s hands fell softly on his hips, pulling him in closer. Harry’s tongue was moving with his, soft and hot and responsive. Draco’s heart was pounding in his ears at the feeling, heat rising through him in a warm wave. Harry made a soft noise into Draco’s mouth when Draco’s fingers slid into his hair.
Draco pulled back. Harry was staring at him, his eyes wide. Draco had knocked his glasses slightly askew, and his mouth was slightly open with surprise and kissed very pink.
“Er,” Harry said.
“I should – er – ” Draco turned and vaulted through the portrait hole. He ran back to Slytherin, calling himself idiot, idiot, idiot with every beat of his pounding heart.
Word count: ~2000
Characters/pairings: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry’s giving Draco a present for every day of Christmas. Today something resembling actual asking out of Draco happens! Not that he notices.
Warnings: fluff
Disclaimer: The boys and girls belong to JKR, even though I’m often much nicer to them than she is.
Author’s Notes: Previous parts:
On The First Day of Christmas
On The Second Day of Christmas
On The Third Day of Christmas
On The Fourth Day of Christmas
On The Fifth Day of Christmas
30th December
Dear Draco,
Hermione has some books for you on miniature dragons. I thought Rover was just a figurine but it seems I was wrong, and he’s been eating my bedposts to survive. It didn’t hurt him, though! Please don’t kill me. You already knew he was properly alive, though, I could tell...
Anyway. Come up and you’ll get books, plus your next present! I hope you like it.
Harry
PS: DON’T CALL HER NAMES.
Draco grinned and crunched the parchment in one hand before slipping it into the top drawer of his bedside table.
The Fat Lady scowled blackly at him when he told her the password, but she swung open. Draco clambered inside. Rover, on his shoulder, tugged painfully at Draco’s hair in order to keep his balance; Harry looked up from Exploding Snap at the sound of his swearing.
“Hi! Come over here, I think Hermione’s about to explode and get knowledge all over us.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” Granger said, her smile belying her acerbic tone. She was sitting cross-legged in a squashy armchair with books piled around her: stacked on one side up to the armrest, lapping about her feet. There was a particularly moth-eaten specimen in her lap.
Draco picked his way through the bags and board games to stand in front of her. He sent a sideways smile at Harry in quiet greeting, noticing that his black hair was sticking up even more than usual from Snap explosions. Then he gave Granger a Look.
Which was entirely overwhelmed by hers. Draco was used to being defeated by wielders of greater Looks than his own – Snape, both his parents and Pansy for starters – so he gave in with relative grace. “Where do we start?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you.”
He spent at least an hour talking about Rover with her. It was strange; at first she was wary, her voice arch as she talked about miniature dragons being used as warning systems or to scare Muggles away. But Granger’s excitement about this new area of magic carried her away, and carried him too. He couldn’t quite absorb himself the way she could. And yet before long he was perched on the arm of her chair while they excoriated a seventeenth-century wizard whose ideas weren’t worth the parchment they were written on, laughing.
Around forty minutes in, he let her get away with a dragon/Draco joke and knew he was lost.
Friends with Gryffindors, he thought, looking over at the sound of Harry’s deep voice yelling, “SNAP!” The Gryffindors were laughing at him and Harry was laughing too.
“D’you want to hold Rover?” he asked Granger.
“Oh yes!” Her brown eyes lit up, and she held out a hand. Draco leant forward and allowed Rover a cautious sniff. Then he climbed onto her wrist, perching there like a falcon ready for flight. Granger withdrew her arm, holding Rover close to her face. Her eyes followed his every flickering move.
Draco felt a moment of clenching, painful grief: Vince would’ve loved Rover. He would’ve thought he was brilliant, and probably fed him little bits of bacon and other things that were equally bad for him. Granger was – not awful, he supposed, watching her bright, intent face; but Muggleborn enthusiasm wasn’t the same as stolid Pureblood acceptance of the fantastic.
She wasn’t like his best friend.
Draco swallowed his grief: it went down thickly and left him nauseous, but it stayed. “Gryffindors,” he said, turning. Granger would be quite happy in Rover’s company. “How about a game of something less first-year while Granger and Rover get better acquainted?”
“Such as?” said Longbottom.
“Exploding Poker.”
Harry’s face screwed up in confusion. “What?”
Draco snorted, and studiously ignored the affection tugging at him. “Honestly, Potter. It’s poker played with an Exploding deck – at any time your cards could explode and you’ll have nothing. Adds excitement – and occasionally singed fingers.”
“It’s a good game,” Parvati agreed. She gave Draco a smile from under her dark hair, and he returned it: she had something sparkly in her hair, and kohled eyes.
“I suppose,” Harry said dubiously, drawing Draco’s attention once again. “I’ll have a go.”
Draco explained the simple version they’d be using, enjoying having all eyes on him; the attention wasn’t negative, the eyes weren’t glaring or searching for a flaw, and that made them a novelty. Even better was the fact that he was much better at poker than nearly all of them.
Lavender Brown showed an unexpected aptitude for bluffing and Weasley shuffled like a maestro, but Draco soon had piles of Chocolate Frog cards and Knuts in front of him. Harry, meanwhile, was looking sadly down at his dwindling heap.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” Weasley assured him. “No worries.”
“You’ve always been a surprisingly good liar,” Draco agreed. “That should help.”
Harry bit his lip as he stared down at his new pair, eyes squinting behind the glasses. His long fingers fidgeted around the cards.
Draco drew his attention from Harry, swiped his eyes all round the table, and bet.
Harry’s forearms were a little burnt from the Exploding Snap; there was a small splotch of shiny skin on the knob of his right wrist. Possibly cards were just one of those areas where Harry’s legendary luck abandoned him, Draco thought, as Parvati set down her cards with unnecessary relish.
Exploding Poker turned out to be the best idea Draco’d had for weeks. It had started with just the eighth-year Gryffindors and him, but other people started coming in and out of the game as the afternoon wore on and the lamps and candles flickered to life around the room. Gold flattered Harry’s complexion better than cold winter light, really; you could feel the warmth when you looked at him.
Draco had been warm all afternoon, though. The players were squished around the biggest table at this point, and Draco was shoulder-to-shoulder with Laurence, a shrewd fifth-year, and Longbottom.
“Hey, Draco? You want your present for today?” Harry’s voice was soft, but Draco turned into him at once.
They withdrew from the next game. By this time the common focus on poker was so strong that just turning aside from the main attraction made it feel like the two of them were in a corner. Harry drew a package from under his armchair. The wrapping was deep red, and Draco ripped it off with pleasure; under the paper was something shining –
Draco turned the telescope over and over in his hands. It was a beautiful thing: polished mahogany and glass and brass buffed until it shone. Like all the parts of a marvellous ship brought together in one small object, an object that could show you the way and bring far-off things closer. Like a ship. Like love –
“Do you like it?”
Draco smiled at Harry, and only just restrained himself from touching him. He wasn’t sure how – he wanted to touch his knee or give him a friendly punch or something. But two years spent shrinking from friends and enemies had taken his easy tactility from him, and so he hoped his smile was enough.
Harry was smiling back like it was.
“I was thinking – you know there’ll be fireworks in Hogsmeade tomorrow night, for New Year? A bunch of my friends are going – ”
“I can’t,” Draco said stiffly, his stomach tightening. “I’m not allowed off the grounds – ”
“No, I know,” Harry said without his tone changing. “I was thinking we could go up to the Astronomy Tower and watch from there. Maybe look at the stars as well, now you’ve got your shiny new telescope. Eat sweets, that sort of stuff.”
“Oh,” Draco managed. He was a little breathless, but not too humiliatingly so. “Okay. That sounds good.”
Harry smiled at him, a burst of warmth as bright as any firework. “D’you wanna play some more Exploding Poker?”
“I do enjoy the chance to pound you into the ground.”
After a few more rounds, though – which culminated in Draco linking his hands above his head and doing a dance – he sat it out, and replaced the cards in his hand with the telescope. He didn’t want to be odd about it, or spend too long studying it; besides, he’d have time for that tonight, when he was alone in the dungeons. Instead he sat and traded blond jokes with Finnigan and mocked Longbottom’s inability to bluff and turned the telescope over and over in his hands, learning the feel of it. He might not be able to examine it too closely, but he could feel the cool gleam of the brass and the chill of the glass and the smooth heft of the wood, could learn the weight of it in his hands. It all got mixed up in the voices around him, Granger’s husky laugh, the taste of Chocolate Frogs he’d won and gloated over and shared with Harry. Harry was grinning at Weasley, talking, his eyes warm and his shirt open a bit so Draco could see the shadow of his collarbone –
Draco blinked, feeling like sparks from the fire had shot too close to his eyes. He stood up. “I’d better – I’ve got homework, I just realised. And I have to write to my mum.”
He bit his lip the second that slipped out, but it was too late: the words were in the air. But Harry wasn’t laughing; there was a slight crease between his eyebrows. “Of course you do,” he said, his voice quiet. “Come and see us tomorrow, yeah?”
“All right,” Draco said, wrong-footed. Harry followed him to the portrait hole.
“Cheers for teaching us – well, me – how to play that,” he said. “It’s been a good time.”
“Yeah, well...”
He looked back at Harry. Harry was standing so close Draco could smell him and could really feel his extra inch of height. Harry might be shorter, but with his eyes glowing like that Draco couldn’t have said no if Harry had pushed him to stay. He was talking, his voice a low rumble; Draco felt the urge to – to kiss him rise, a desire so foreign he barely recognised it, but it was overwhelming. It rose like a tide and swamped him: Draco leant forward and kissed Harry firmly on the mouth.
Harry took half a step back, taken aback, and for a moment humiliation stole Draco’s breath. But then Harry’s hands came up to cup his elbows, holding him up and keeping him close, and Harry’s mouth was soft on his. He was unmistakeably kissing back.
Draco tasted the chocolate they’d been eating as Harry’s mouth opened under his. Draco’s eyes were clenched shut, his hands fisted, as he focussed on this new sensation. He huffed in surprise when Harry’s hands fell softly on his hips, pulling him in closer. Harry’s tongue was moving with his, soft and hot and responsive. Draco’s heart was pounding in his ears at the feeling, heat rising through him in a warm wave. Harry made a soft noise into Draco’s mouth when Draco’s fingers slid into his hair.
Draco pulled back. Harry was staring at him, his eyes wide. Draco had knocked his glasses slightly askew, and his mouth was slightly open with surprise and kissed very pink.
“Er,” Harry said.
“I should – er – ” Draco turned and vaulted through the portrait hole. He ran back to Slytherin, calling himself idiot, idiot, idiot with every beat of his pounding heart.