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The smell of eggnog and cinnamon is overwhelmingly out of place in Grimmauld Place. Although Ginny and Harry had decided to part ways weeks ago, it’s difficult to remove Ginny’s incessant holiday spirits from the old Black home. As difficult as it was for Harry to tear down the horrid wallpapers enchanted to with sticky charms from the gray walls of the town house when he’d first moved in. Pixies and pixy dust linger from the dinner they’d shared with their friends last night. Ginny had gone out the floo with all the other guests, and that had been a little strange for Harry. They’d decorated the Christmas tree together. Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Ron, Neville, and the list goes on. Harry is still chugging down his hangover potion, and he can’t quite remember who’d accompanied Neville. He slowly regains his energy, and begins to clean after the mess they’d all left behind. He thinks he’s even spotted a set of Hermione’s golden earrings, but it’s just the glitter and shine from one of the strings that had popped from their crackers. Now all there’s left to do is wrap some presents and stick them under the tree. Harry knows he’ll have to owl half of them to his friends, and the rest lug around to the Borrow on Christmas day, but he likes having some under his tree before the big day. He thinks it reminds him somewhat of the Gryffindor common rooms at this time of year. The Weasley jumpers that arrive a little early, and the smell of hot chocolate and marshmallows. Even, the taste of Ginny’s lips and the warmth from her gloved hands as they sat by the fire place. Though at that point in time, he must have had more things on his mind then who would next be kissed underneath the mistletoe, which someone would eventually charm to hang over Seamus wherever he would go. It hadn’t, if Harry recalls correctly, improved the poor lad’s luck in getting kissed any further than he would have preferred. The rush of the floo distracts Harry from climbing up the stairs to grab some presents and wrapping paper. Hermione’s head of perfectly coiled hair pops from the fireplace. “Hello, Harry.”“Hermione,” Harry draws closer to the fire. “Did you lose your earrings?”She laughs. “What? No. A bunch of us are wrapping presents at our flat. I thought you would like to join.”“Oh,” Harry looks behind Hermione’s shoulders but he can’t see much. “You would see what I got you.”“Don’t be silly,” she waves her hand. “I promise I won’t look. Besides, you can leave those behind and work on some others. We just thought it would be less lonely.”“Ah.”For ever since Harry and Ginny split up, Ron and Hermione’d somehow gotten in their heads that Harry was decaying in a bout of loneliness. Which he wasn’t. Yes, Grimmauld Place can seem awfully large without a Weasley companion, and cold, and dark, but Harry is fine. He finds that he quite enjoys solitude when he can find the time between work shifts.“All right over there?”“Yes,” Harry says. “I’ll be there. Let me grab a few things.”Harry floos to Hermione and Ron’s flat after carrying an assortment of presents. There’s a handful more people than he had imagined circling the Christmas tree. They’re all chatting over the sound of Hermione’s record player, something that sounds muggle and ancient and reminds Harry of Privet Drive and Aunt Petunia shoveling fruit cake down Dudley’s thick throat. He finds he doesn’t mind it quite as much as he would’ve imagine. Besides, his friends call for him as he stands awkwardly by the fire place, and nothing about this place resembles his childhood home. “Oh, it’s you,” Malfoy’s sharp voice is an awful reminder of reality. “I was wondering who it was Hermione was whispering to.”“I was not whispering,” Hermione says, coming up from behind Harry, thrusting a mug of hot chocolate in his hands. “I don’t do whispering.”“Of course.”“Malfoy.”“Potter.”Malfoy’s wearing a thick Christmas sweater with a reindeer on the front, and a giant red nose sticking out from it. He looks much the same as he had at Hogwarts, and age has only further defined his bones. Harry thinks Malfoy’s sweater hangs from him, as such an item hangs from a thin coat hanger. “It’s good to see you again,” Harry says, when really he means to ask Hermione what the fuck did she think she was doing inviting Malfoy over to wrap presents.“Likewise,” Malfoy smiles, and then carries his steaming mug to the Christmas tree where he engages in conversation with who the fuck knows.Harry turns to Hermione. “This Holiday’s charity case?”Hermione swats his arm. “Don’t be rude. I’ll have you know Draco has got quite the hands for wrapping paper.”“As do I.”“I’m aware,” Hermione says, with a cheeky smile. “I thought with you two under one roof, some of your skills might rub off onto the rest of us.”“Clever.”“Come on, then. Ron’s been asking about you. He’s got a special case with something he’s picked up for Teddy.”Harry discovers it’s a bouncing ball that transforms into different objects depending on the owner’s will, and Ron’s doing a terrible job of wrapping it. “No, no, no. I don’t want you to be wrapping paper, I need you to wrap yourself with wrapping paper.” The ball reverts to its original form, pops, and is transformed into a sheet of wrapping paper. “Fuck!”“Hey, Ron,” Harry smiles, picks up the ball. It turns into a mistletoe, Harry lets it go before anyone can say anything. “Harry, thank Merlin you’re here. I can’t do this anymore. I’ve still got to wrap Dad’s odd muggle contraption that Hermione’d insisted I gift him and I just can’t be bothered any longer with this shite.”“All right,” Harry laughs at Ron’s state of distress. “I’ll handle it. Go deal with Arthur’s gift.”“Thanks. I owe you.”“You’re being dramatic.”Ron points at him. “We’re going out for dinner. Just you and me. Drinks and everything.”“How romantic.”Harry watches Ron disappear into the kitchen, perhaps looking for Hermione. Harry tries to lift the ball with his wand but it seems to resist any sort of magic, so Harry holds it between his hands and wills it to remain in its form. However, the moment Harry’s grabbed a sheet of wrapping paper, the ball transforms into a pair of scissors.“Having trouble?” Malfoy sits beside where Harry’s cross-legged on the wooden floor.“None at all.” He lets go, and the ball bounces at his feet.“Let me try.”“I can handle it,” Harry looks up at Malfoy’s silver-gray eyes. “Thanks.”Malfoy raises his hands. “Clearly you know what you’re doing. I would have suggested reducing the sensitivity of the charm by manipulating the ball’s properties. But go ahead, I’m sure you have a much better alternative.”“Sod off,” Harry mutters, examining the ball. “It doesn’t work well with spells. I tried.”“Perhaps don’t use your wand. You can do that, can’t you?”Harry looks up sharply. “Perhaps.”Malfoy smiles. “It was in the Prophet. Pansy’d told me all about it, though the papers often lie so I didn’t think it was true.”“You do now?”“From that ghastly look on your face? Yes.”Harry tries to manipulate the ball with a wand-less spell, and he manages to suspend it in the air. He deactivates the charm, so that it will only work when the next person touches the ball, and then begins to wrap the ball as he well as he can. “Where is she, anyway?”“Who?” Malfoy’s watching Harry’s magic as though he is in a trance.“Pansy Parkinson,” Harry looks up, and their eyes meet for a moment before Harry’s magic almost slips from him, and he continues to a tie bow around the ball before he allows it to roll under the tree, a tag with Teddy’s name on it secured at the top.“With her fiancé, I’d presume. Why? Should I mention she’s earned a new admirer?”Harry snorts. “I’d prefer you didn’t. I was wondering. I thought you two were a packaged deal.”Malfoy shrugs. “They’ve got a family thing as most do. Besides, they live in Paris now.”“Paris,” Harry thinks of the Beauxbaton girls, charming their way through Hogwarts, and then remembers the present he’s got to wrap for Fleur.He uses his wands to levitate the box of perfume from where he’d left it by the fireplace. Malfoy watches, as he begins to wrap his own set of presents.“Who’s that for, then?” Malfoy asks, smirks. “A new girl? Does the Prophet know?”“Haha, Malfoy. It’s for Fleur.”“Ah.”“She’s married to Bill.”“I know.”“What are you doing?” Harry asks. Malfoy’s hands still over the wrapping paper he’s just pulled out from nowhere. “What?”“You just,” Harry takes a deep breath. “You just creased that wrapping paper and now you’re laying it underneath the box so when you wrap it around it will show.”“Oh.” Malfoy looks down. “Does that bother you?”“Yes.”Malfoy continues to crease his wrapping paper, taunting. Like a child.“So you haven’t changed.”“Nope,” Malfoy says, twisting some twine over a box of chocolates. “Still the same muggle hating, Voldemort loving fool I’ve always been.”Harry holds his breath. He’s not quite sure if he’s more upset over Malfoy’s appalling wrapping techniques that Hermione had so eagerly praised, or over his sarcastic comment that surprises Harry in a way he hadn’t expected to be surprised by Malfoy’s character. “Are you usually this insufferable?” Harry mutters, grabbing the box of chocolates from Draco and using a pair of scissors to curl the ends of the twine so they look less like a rat’s limp tail. “Depends on your definition of the word,” Draco snatches the box back, and touches the twine gently before tossing it aside. “Show me how you did that.”“I’m going to kill Hermione.”“I hardly think she’s anything to do with our current conversation.”Luna refills their mugs of hot chocolate, and tosses an extra mini marshmallow in Harry’s with a wink. The song on the record player’s a little more upbeat now, and it’s making a few of their friends stand to their feet for a break, to dance a little and muck around as though they’re still at Hogwarts, hosting an early Christmas party long past curfew o’clock. “You seem to want to dance,” Draco says. “Are you offering?”They share a half-laugh. Harry is half-suspicious the hot chocolate’s been spiked.“Are you seeing anyone?”“What?”“It’s just I heard about the breakup.”“Oh,” Harry finds it difficult to catch his breath. “That.”“Yes. That.”“No, I haven’t been seeing anyone since,” Harry eyes Draco in mock suspicion. “How much are you selling that for?”“Not high enough.” Malfoy smiles, looks down where he’s got a box perfectly wrapped in white and red paper.“That’s good,” Harry lifts the package up. “Really good, actually.”“Then keep it,” Draco stands, mug clutched in his hand. “I’ll be over there.”Harry’s slightly confused as he holds the gift in his hands, watching Draco’s retreat as though he’s on the field. “If you stare that hard I think he may finally notice you.”Harry turns around to see Hermione examining their craftsman ship. “What do you mean?” he mumbles, but he’s perfectly aware.Hermione gives him one of her looks. One of which suggest that he’s clearly underestimating her interpreting abilities. “Oh.”“Oh,” she says, taking the gift from his hands. “I told you he was good.”Harry doesn’t know what to say so he nods, and then looks for Draco, but can’t seem to him in the slightly crowded living room.“Kitchen, I’d reckon.”“Thanks, Hermione.”Harry moves from the living room to the kitchen, where the music isn’t as loud, and where the christmas decorations begin to taper off. There’s one of Teddy’s drawings hung up on the refrigerator with a magnet keeping it in place, and Draco seems to be running his fingers over all the sweet tokens that Hermione’s been keeping magnetized onto her fridge. “Sweet, isn’t it?”Draco turns. “Potter.”“Malfoy,” Harry’s lips twitch, like saying their names out loud is only sounding more ridiculous. The fridge opens without so much as a creak, and Draco’s long fingers find the curve of a bottle of firewhisky. “Sometimes that stuff gets overwhelming, doesn’t it?’“The wrapping?”“The high spirits,” the cap from the bottle hisses as Draco spells it loose. Harry watches as Draco tosses his head back for a long gulp, the way some of the liquid escapes past his lips, rolls down his chin and to the length of his neck so Draco has to lift a hand, after, to clean the mess. “But I assume the wrapping too is taking a toll. I’m afraid we’re getting old.”“You’re only in your twenties.”“Old,” he sighs, leaning against a kitchen counter. Harry circles the island in the middle of the kitchen, and when he leans back with his legs stretched forward, their boot clad feet almost touch. Harry thinks this feels a lot like getting drunk with his friends. He can still smell the eggnog, the spice, the cinnamon candles that lay scattered throughout the living room and into the kitchen, and the large pot of hot chocolate charmed to remain burning hot. The scents rush to his head, and he feels almost dizzy with the reminders of the holiday season so blatantly displayed before him. “I can understand,” he says, and it’s whatever that their feet touch. It’s almost like a game now.“Pansy’s not celebrating Christmas,” Draco says, thumb moving almost rudely over the lip of the glass bottle in his hand. “That’s why she’s not here. She’s seeing someone new. They’re Muslim, or something.”“You sound upset,” and so does Harry’s voice, and he’s not quite sure why he feels disappointed.“I’m not,” Draco takes a deep breath. “I’m not against it. I just miss her, terribly. And I hate that she thinks she’s got to stay away from me to make him happy.”“That’s fucked up.”“Her boyfriend doesn’t know. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t ask that of her,” Draco says. “He thinks she’s just like that.”“That sounds like a mess.”“Yes,” Draco snorts, looking up from the kitchen tiles to look at him properly. “And I’ve no idea why I just told you any of that.”Harry shrugs. “Apparently I’ve got the face for that stuff.”“What kinda stuff,” and it’s unsettling, how Draco’s eyes look all over his face as though he’s never seen him before.“The confessing stuff,” Harry lifts his bottle to his lips, takes a long sip. “Hermione half suspects it’s a charm I’ve made up. Or something we’re taught during Auror training.”Draco laughs a little, and Harry thinks it oddly goes nicely with the music in the living room, and the sound of other people laughing and talking. “Which one is it, then?”“It’s a charm,” their boots touch, somehow Harry’s gotten a little closer. “You can tell. If you look close enough.”Harry holds his breath, waiting as Draco pushes against the counter, leaning forward to look at his face. “Yes. Right there.”His long finger touches the line of Harry’s cheekbone, traces it back and forth. “It’s a little faltering here. I think you should maybe touch it up a little.”Draco’s hand begins to retreat, but Harry catches it swiftly. “Where else?”“Here,” Draco’s eyes fall to his lips. “And here.”“Oh.”Draco jerks back, pulling his hand to his chest as though Harry’d burned it. Then he straightens up. “I should go.”“Where?”“Back in there.”“Don’t,” Harry says, before he can catch his tongue. “I mean.”“You mean what?”“I mean it’s fucking Christmas,” he’s talking fast, which means he really should shut up. “And you just touched my lips and said I looked charming.”“I did not.”“Well you touched my lips,” Harry says. “And you looked like maybe you thought my face wasn’t the most terrible thing to look at.”“It wouldn’t be the worst. So what?”“So,” Harry sucks in a deep breath. “So it smells like cinnamon and I’m sure your lips taste like hot chocolate and firewhisky, and I want to make sure. Just in case.”“Oh.”“Oh,” Harry says, and he’s certain there’s a furious blush of color on his cheeks.“All right,” Draco huffs, and his fingers are on Harry’s cheeks, just like that. And Harry can only think of those fingers wrapping presents and curling ribbons, touching his cheeks like Harry’s made of tissue paper. And he finds that Draco does taste like hot chocolate, and a fiery lick of alcohol, and it tastes good. It tastes incredible, and Harry can’t help it when his tongue moves between Draco’s lips, just to taste him a little more. He can’t control it, when his hands cups both sides of Draco’s face, and when his knees nudge between Draco’s legs, and he feels warm all over, as though he’s sat right by the fireplace. Draco moves his face to the side, wet lips brushing against Harry’s cheek. “There.”It feels as though someone’s robbed the kitchen of any oxygen, and Harry steps back, just to try to breathe a little. He licks his lips. “Wow.”Draco’s pink lips stretch into a small smile. “C’mon.” “Where are we going?” Harry asks, as Draco takes his hand. “My place. I’ve got something to show you and I spent too long wrapping it up for you to say no.” Draco pauses, blushes, running his thumb over Harry’s hand. “Unless you want to say no. Which is perfectly acceptable.”“No,” Harry says, maybe too loudly. “No, I mean. Yes. I want to.”“Okay,” Draco smiles. “C’mon then.”