A/N: Day 3 of 25 Days of Christmas. Prompt: Ugly Christmas Sweaters.

Happy reading!

xxx

The sweater Molly made him looked horrid.

Well, the sweater itself was actually pretty, the wool was soft and smooth, a lot like his favourite cashmere sweater, and the knitting pattern was nice (stocking stitch with braid cables). The real problem was the colour. Molly decided to use a dark shade of mustard yellow, probably the least complimenting colour for Draco's light complexion. He was pale, his hair looked more like silver than blond and his eyes were grey; so what in the name of Salazar made Molly Weasley think that mustard yellow would be a good colour for Draco to wear?

One could argue that Molly still held a grudge against him and chose the colour to be petty, but Draco knew for a fact that wasn't the case. This was the fifth Christmas he spent with the Weasleys at the Burrow, him and Ginny became really close friends even before her and Harry finally decided to end their relationship and Molly already gave him a Gryffindor coloured scarf the first year he spent with them at the Burrow, meaning she accepted that he was now part of their extended family, but she wasn't happy about it (Ginny explained).
Molly and Draco actually grew to like each other. After the War Lucius Malfoy was imprisoned and Narcissa and Draco were more or less free people, thanks to the Boy Saviour's testimony of course. Narcissa was under house arrest for 2 years and Draco, as the new head of the Malfoy family, had to pay the reparations for his father's stupid acts during the War. He had to pay because the Dark Lord lived in their House, he had to pay because Lucius forced him to take the Dark Mark, he had to pay because he tried to protect his family, tried to please the Dark Lord enough so that he wouldn't kill his parents. One would have thought that the Malfoy fortune, which was in one of the low level vaults at Gringotts, would have been more than enough to pay for the reparations, and it was. But what was left wasn't enough to make sure that Draco and Narcissa could maintain their lifestyle for the rest of their lives. So Draco had to work.
He was one of the very few people whose families were affiliated with the Dark Lord and were not imprisoned, he was the only one who took the Mark and wasn't rotting in Azkaban for it. He was in a unique situation and finding work as former Death Eater was close to impossible.
After the War Hogwarts was rebuilt and every of the former seventh year students who didn't have the opportunity to finish their NEWTs had the opportunity to spend the year, their "eighth year", at Hogwarts so that they'd be able to get the qualifications they'd need for their dream jobs. Draco went to Hogwarts for his eighth year, it was one of the very few conditions of his probation, it was the ideal place to spend his year of house arrest at, it was a hundred times better than Malfoy Manor which still haunted him in his nightmares.
Very few Slytherins returned to Hogwarts to finish their education, Draco was one of five. He supported Professor McGonnagal's promotion of inter-house unity and became the posterboy when he befriended Luna Lovegood and Ginerva Weasley (of all people). He started a Potions tutoring group for students of every year. He supported Hermione when she suggested that Muggle Studies should be obligatory from first year on and that muggleborn students should teach it as afternoon class; Hermione supported him when he suggested that there should be Wizard Studies class which taught students who didn't grow up in the wizarding society everything they needed to know. She suggested that a pure- or halfblood student should teach it as afternoon class.
The fact that Draco worked with Hermione made a lot of people angry; he used to treat her like shit after all, called her a mudblood and he had the Dark Mark (which faded into near invisibility after Voldemort's death, thankyouverymuch). But Draco had started to doubt the things he's been taught about muggles and muggleborns when Hermione beat him to best of class in at least 50% of their classes since first year, he started to doubt that the Dark Lord was the answer to all their questions when Draco realized that people like Dolores Umbridge supported him (and that one was a nutter who was way too fond of cats and the colour pink), he knew that he didn't want to follow Voldemort when he was forced to try to kill Dumbledore in his sixth year (but it was too late, he already had the Dark Mark by then). But Hermione decided to trust him and believed in his change of personality, she chose to believe that he grew up, because the War forced all of them to grow up too fast, and Draco didn't betray her newly found trust.
Draco took every class he could for his NEWTs, hoping that all the Os he'd earn would make it easier for him to find employment, but it wasn't really helpful. Professor McGonnagal offered him a post as teacher after they finished their NEWTs, and Draco was desperate, but not desperate enough to chose a profession he didn't want at all; the Wizard/Muggle Studies classes he organized and taught with Hermione showed him that he was good at but didn't enjoy teaching. At all. And he wasn't keen on becoming a second Professor Snape.
When Hermione and Ginny suggested that he could apply to become part of the Committee of Experimental Potions, which was a subdivision of the Experimental Committees at the Ministry, Draco felt elated. He loved Potions. Severus taught him how to brew the basic potions when he was a child, he gave Draco his first potions kit. So Draco applied and was surprised to be welcomed with open arms. As it turned out the Experimental Committee worked closely with the Aurors Department and St. Mungos Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Draco not only helped to improve existing potions and brewed antidotes, he was encouraged to invent his own potions and find out how potions worked in combination with certain charms and other potions, it was everything he could wish for.
When Draco started working for the Ministry most of his colleagues were wary of him. He was a former Death Eater, but he did work closely with Hermione Granger, the favourite candidate for Minister of Magic as soon as Shacklebolt would retire. And he was really close to not only the next Head of the Auror Office, Ron Weasley, and the Head of the newly founded Committee for Charitable Causes, Harry Potter; he was friends with the new Seeker of the Holyhead Harpies and that was probably one of the most admirable and desirable things in the eyes of Draco's colleagues. It may have also helped that most of his colleagues thought that his sarcastic comments were funny and that he did have impeccable manners.

Draco only set foot into the Manor when Narcissa's birthday came around or when she invited him for tea, even though she rarely used the Sun Room, her once favourite place in the Manor, anymore. Her and Draco tended to meet up somewhere in Diagon Alley or in another café in Wizarding or even Muggle London to have tea together (after her house arrest was over). Draco avoided the Manor like a pest, which was the reason Ginny invited him to spent Christmas at the Burrow in the first place. It was in the year after they finished their last year at Hogwarts, Draco's house arrest had ended a few months ago but he rarely used his new freedom to do anything much beside going to his job, visiting his mother at the Manor and meeting up with his new and old friends now and then. He dreaded going to the Manor, even though his mother started to remodel the place to be able to forget what happened in these rooms. Malfoy Manor wasn't as dark and menacing anymore, but sometimes Draco found himself having flashbacks and panic attacks when he walked down the corridor towards the Drawing Room or the Sun Room or went downstairs to the Dungeons to retrieve something. He could hear the screams of Hermione and Luna and Ollivander, he could smell the blood of all the people who were tortured in his former home, he could feel the nausea which overtook him whenever Voldemort started to break his Occlumency shields, could hear his high cold laughter, could her Bellatrix' manic cackling.
So when Draco started paling and sweating when him, the Golden trio, Ginny, Luna and Pansy were sitting in their favourite muggle bar, discussing their plans for Christmas, Ginny had a long eye-contact only discussion with Ron, Harry and Hermione before she invited him and Narcissa to spend Christmas with them at the Burrow. At first Draco wanted to deny their invitation but the more he thought about it the better he liked the idea until he finally agreed and used Harry's relationship to Shacklebolt to get the permission for his mother to leave the house for one week, from Christmas Eve until New Year's Eve.
Narcissa was uncomfortable in the company of the whole Weasley clan, but Draco, Andromeda and Harry tried to make sure that she was never alone, and when Molly Weasley started discussing flowers with her it looked like they had started a new Christmas tradition.

And Draco did continue to spend his Christmas Eves at the Burrow, but without Narcissa. Not because she didn't want to come, but because she died before the second Christmas came around. She was assaulted by a group of muggleborn wizards who killed her because they didn't like Draco being forgiven, because they didn't like that (former) Death Eaters were polluting the Ministry and corrupting it all over again. Draco thought about giving up his job during that time, thought about using Avada Kedavra on himself, seriously considered to lock himself away in the Manor which now not only reminded him of Voldemort terrorising him and his father rotting in Azkaban, but also of his dead mother who redecorated everything to her liking before she was murdered.
So when Draco did none of that and decided to re-emerge from his Londoner apartment and spent a few weeks at the Burrow (after Ginny convinced him it was a good idea) because his boss forbid him to return to work only three weeks after his mother's death and in the unstable condition he was so painfully obviously in, him and Molly were forced to properly interact with each other for the first time. He slept in Ron's old bedroom and helped her to keep the house clean. It was awkward at first, but after a few days she woke up to Draco setting the table for breakfast for Arthur, Molly and himself and he won her over with that. They started talking about his time at Hogwarts, the stupid animosity between himself and the Golden Trio, talked about the blood feud between their families which they clearly were overcoming. He asked her about the Weasleys' childhoods and told her about the way his parents raised him, told her about his absent and proud father and his distanced but loving mother. He cried.

The others regularly visited him during the weeks he spent at the Burrow, only Ginny, Ron, Hermione and Harry first. Luna soon joined them and after a bit of convincing Pansy, Blaise and Theo visited the Burrow as well. It was during that time, during the time in which he put himself back together (again), he fell in love with Harry.
Him and the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Be-A-Prat formed a tentative friendship during their eighth year, mainly encouraged by Ginny, who wanted to forget, and Hermione, who wanted things to change. Ginny told Draco about the way Harry acted around her, about him being distanced and keeping to himself and Draco was convinced that he only acted that way because they just survived a war and Harry lost loved ones and saw people die, but Ginny lost her brother too and she was looking for comfort Harry wasn't willing to give her. As their last year at Hogwarts passed Ginny voiced her suspicion about Harry's sexuality, only trusting Draco with it because he was out and proud and spent way too much time ogling at other guys' behinds with her. Draco completely denied the mere possibility of it first but then he started to think about it, remembered the way Potter and Oliver Wood sometimes looked at each other (and Oliver Wood was as gay as they came, Draco knew because Wood showed him just how gay he was) and Draco started to consider the possibility that Harry was indeed not straight.
Ginny wanted Draco to test it, asked Draco if he could try to seduce him but Draco refused to, urging her to talk to Harry about it instead. So she did, and they fought and they cried and then they broke up. Ginny moved away to join the Harpies shortly afterwards and when Harry introduced them to his first boyfriend (Justin Finch-Fletchey of all people) she was already over him.
When Draco fell in love with Harry, Harry still was with Justin. But the relationship started to fall apart when Harry spent more time with Draco and his friends at the Burrow then he did with Finch-Fletchey.
Draco fell slowly for Harry, so slowly that he didn't even notice the way his heartbeat picked up whenever him and Harry were close or alone, he didn't even notice that he smiled more often because of the way Harry smiled at him and not only because he was starting to accept and deal with his mother's death. He didn't realize that he took to looking at Harry when he didn't notice and that he smiled whenever the other man ran into furniture or ruffled through his hair and messed it up even more or when he brought Teddy over, his sweet little cousin whose his hair colour changed to the person's he wanted to be held by at that particular moment (it always caused a lot of confusion when it turned Weasley red).Draco fell in love with Harry and when he finally returned to work and it was just Draco and Harry (for more than five minutes) as they went to have lunch together, Draco finally identified the fluttering in his stomach and realized just why he tended to blush so much.
In time for Christmas little wonders happened and sometime in December Justin broke up with Harry. The break-up was messy but they kept it quiet and tried to tone the drama down, but Finch-Fletchey had a very hard time to not tell Witch Weekly's reporters that the Boy-Who-Lived preferred former Death Eaters over people like himself.

During the second Christmas Draco got his first Weasley jumper. It was blue and kind of scratchy and had a big orange D on the front. Draco started crying when he unwrapped it and Molly embraced him, holding him close as he showed the whole extended Weasley clan that Draco may be a Malfoy, but that he actually wasn't a Malfoy at all.

"Mustard yellow, Molly, really?" Draco asked after he slipped out of his grey cashmere jumper and into the Weasley jumper, wearing it just like everybody else who was gathered in the way too small and cramped room at the Burrow.
"Look at Teddy's hair colour, dear." Molly replied, smiling softly at him.
Draco raised his eyebrow and looked at his cousin, now not so small anymore. Somehow Teddy was already six years old and after explaining why exactly everybody agreed with Hermione that he should go to the Muggle School Andromeda sent Tonks to when she was a little girl, Teddy did live with her during the week after all.
Teddy's hair was currently the exact same shade of mustard yellow as Draco's jumper. When he caught Draco's gaze the little boy smiled brightly, his hair turning into a shade similar to Draco's hair colour, only a bit lighter, almost white. Draco looked down at his jumper, feeling a slight tingle as the wool changed it's colour to match Teddy's hair.
"Oh Molly, that's amazing." Hermione swooned, already musing what kind of charms the witch used to get this effect. Draco smiled softly at the 'ooh's and 'aah's of the other family members, extending his hands towards Teddy who made his way from Andromeda towards him and gladly cuddled up on Draco's lap.
"I want a jumper that matches Teddy's hair colour too." Harry, who sat next to Draco, whined.
"But I'm Teddy's cousin." Draco replied, smirking at him.
"I'm his godfather." Harry retorted, holding Draco's gaze, who only averted it to roll his eyes.
"Maybe Molly will make you one next year." Draco shrugged, leaning against Harry's shoulder as he combed through Teddy's hair which slowly turned bright pink. Draco grimaced as his jumper turned into the same colour. He heard Harry's chuckle, his breath tickling against Draco's ear as he leaned in.
"Maybe I don't want one after all." he said lowly.
Draco snorted as he turned to face Harry.
"Prat." he mumbled before he kissed Harry softly.
"Git." Harry murmured against his lips.

The sweater Molly made him looked horrid, but only when Teddy's hair colour didn't match Draco's light complexion