Merry Little Christmas
Description: EWE, following all of canon including deaths. Draco and Harry celebrate Christmas with their daughter, Lily. Even though the usually-sneaky Lily hasn't uncovered her presents yet, she is determined. What she winds up getting surprises the whole Gryffindor and Slytherin clan.
AN: Hey there, lovely followers! No, this does not mean I've discontinued MBFPW (even though it is drawing to a close soon! D:), but to me, Drarry's season is Christmas-time, so I owed them a fanfic. Cold winters snuggled under mountains of blankets, sipping hot cocoa and exchanging gifts with family just seem very much suited to them. Plus, even their color scheme goes along with the green and red of the holiday, and mistletoe is always a fun addition to fics. This fic in particular is in the point of view of the young Miss Lily Narcissa Malfoy-Potter, aged six, the darling daughter of our Draco and Harry. For future clarity, Draco is 'Dad' and Harry is 'Papa'.
Not in the closet? That was where they were last year! At least, the presents were there until Uncle Ron found Lily snooping around. That was the year she'd gotten her rocking horse and her stuffed puppy.
She crossed her arms, sitting down amongst the racks upon racks of robes, muggle jeans, trousers… All her dads' stuff and stashed away boxes that Lily had never opened. Wait! Maybe the presents were in the boxes! Maybe these presents included a real puppy!
Scrambling to her little bare feet, Lily rushed to the black leather cases with images of potions kits and practice brooms wrapped in shimmering wrapping paper with bows and fancy tags and—
"Woah, Lily!" Harry said, scooping her up in his arms before her fingers could undo the latches on his and Draco's, well, collection of toys all their own. "What do you think you're doing?"
His scolding was all in jest, but Lily had taken after her more dramatic father and her pout was practically audible. "I'm trying to find my presents, Papa!"
"I can see that, but don't you remember what I told you about Santa's naughty list?" he asked, slinging her onto his back to give her a piggyback ride to escort her away from the closet and possible emotional scarring. They were really going to need to get a key for that.
"Yeah, but Santa isn't real," Lily huffed, the air blowing on the hairs on the top of her Papa's head. "How could one fat guy make a trip to every house all over the world? And who is he to judge me?"
Harry laughed. "You've been spending too much time with Uncle Blaise," he told his little girl as his Quidditch-toned arms carried her down the stairs of their home.
In front of their roaring Slytherin-green fireplace (with added gold and red flecks for Harry's satisfaction), sat Draco Malfoy-Potter, leisurely through a muggle toy catalogue and trying to figure out what half of the toys actually did. What was a 'Leap Frog Pad', and why did you need 'two'? Also, why was the catalogue divided into girls and boys toys? It was wildly sexist, and he wouldn't have his daughter restrained to confining gender roles that underestimated her clear intelligence.
In the east corner of the room was their Christmas tree, decorated with tinsel and rainbow lights. Lily had helped hang the ornaments while her fathers set up the magic-powered train to run around the base of the tree, dropping off charmed ceramic figurines into their little snow-covered houses.
"Draco," Harry said before stealing a kiss from his distracted husband. "Did you know that our Lily doesn't believe in Santa Claus?"
Draco simply shook his head. "What can I say? She's a smart girl. She takes after me." He flipped the page and saw some of the toys in the 'boys' section that he would have hated as a kid. Why would someone sell construction equipment to children as if that was a real job they could have when they were older? Couldn't parents ask for their boys to shoot a little higher?
Rolling his eyes, Harry sank back into the couch and placed their daughter on his knee. They had read about a thousand and twelve parenting books, and they all encouraged consistency. Unfortunately, Draco and Harry had been at odds in values for a long, long time. It had worked when they were partying and shagging, and even when they were married and shagging, but having children and shagging (in another room, with a silencing charm) was quite another story.
Ever since Draco could talk, lies were being fed to him by his parents. 'Purebloods are the superior race of wizarding kind', 'Your mother and I were in love when we were married', 'One day we'll see you and your bride married…'. He didn't want to lie to his daughter, no matter how silly or innocent the lie.
"You're both on the naughty list," Harry resigned.
"You usually like it when I'm naughty," Draco said with just enough subtlety to sneak it past Lily.
Harry held back a laugh. "Then I hope you two both enjoy getting nothing but coal."
A flash of blonde hair whipped around. "What?" Lily asked, distraught.
"Papa's just kidding, sweetheart," Draco sighed, resting his arm around the members of his little family. Finally, he set the toy magazine down. "Have you been a good girl?"
Lily nodded eagerly, the ribbons in her hair flouncing with her. "Duh!"
"Then you haven't got a thing to worry about."
"Only," Harry cut in. "If you don't try and look for your presents again." He gave her that disciplinary Parent Finger Point that seemed to work so well, and she gave in.
"Fine."
"Promise?"
"Yeah, Papa."
"Pinky promise?"
Lily rested her cheek on her Papa's shoulder and offered up her pinky. "Pinky promise," she echoed dutifully. It wouldn't matter how Draco and Harry spoiled her with material things (after all, it was only the best for their princess); she would always understand the weight behind giving her word. Even if it meant she couldn't go on a present-hunting adventure anymore.
Both of her fathers wrapped their pinkies around hers. She marveled at how big they were compared to hers and knew that one day she'd be as strong as her dads, and as powerful with magic. After all, not many people got to say that their Papa had saved the world and that their Daddy had defied the Dark Lord and lived to tell the tale.
Sparkling in the green fireplace light were their matching wedding bands, ammolite locked in silver and shining brightly as the day they'd been exchanged.
Without their daughter's eyes looking up from their hands, this was the perfect moment for Harry to ask. 'Should we tell her?' he mouthed to Draco over Lily's head.
Draco's smile outshined all the lights hung up around London. 'Yes', he nodded back. 'I'll go get the photo'.
"Lily," Harry said, nuzzling her close while Draco rose from the couch to make a dash for their bedroom to get the photo from their top dresser drawer. "What if I told you that there was one present you were getting a little late this year?"
She played with the edges of her holiday skirt, her favorite one with the red stockings underneath. "Is it taking too long in the mail?" she asked, confused. "I thought the owls were working even harder this time of year."
Harry smiled. "It's nothing to do with the mail, dear."
"Then what's it to do with?" Lily asked, more intrigued than ever.
"Draco?" Harry called up the stairs, not really knowing quite how to explain without some backup. He was excited, but… Inexperienced in these matters. Not that Draco had any more experience than him, but it helped.
His quickened footfalls were loud enough on the stairs to signal his arrival. Harry was glad they'd replaced Grimmauld Place's decrepit staircase when they moved in. Sirius would be glad for it. Remus would be, too.
Now wasn't the time for thoughts like that, though.
"Have you…?" Draco asked, looking to his husband to see if anything had been explained in his absence like he'd hoped it had been.
"No, do you want to—"
"—together, I guess."
"Yeah, just give me the—"
"Sure."
Lily had had quite enough of her fathers finishing each other's sentences. It usually made her giggle, but something important was clearly happening here. "What is it?" she asked again, propping herself up on her knees on the couch in an attempt to look at the photo.
Before she could even so much as make out what colors the photo had, it was gone. Hidden away by her Papa's hand it sat holding its secrets and present possibilities. Maybe it was a pony, and they had to transport it from a farm! Or maybe, it was a dragon. Daddy was named after a dragon constellation, after all.
"Do you remember that talk we had a couple months back? The one when we were at grandma and grandpa's house?" Draco questioned carefully, taking his seat next to Harry.
That autumn day at the Manor had been absolutely divine. It was the weather Draco loved, just before things got icily cold and right after the weather had been unbearably hot. They'd sat in the gardens while Lily chased around the peacocks, laughing whenever they tried to snap their beaks at her.
It wasn't long before Harry became afraid that Lucius' prized pets might actually land a blow, so he offered Lily some chocolate from his pocket. She had Draco's sweet tooth, of course.
Lily furrowed her smooth skin in frustration, trying to think back. "Was that the time when grandpa and Papa got into a yelling fight?"
"You heard that?" Harry was surprised. When he knew Lucius was on his edge, he was always careful to know that Lily was in another room.
"Yeah," she said quietly, as if she'd done something wrong.
Unable to look at that little face of hers without hugging her for a moment longer, Harry pulled Lily back onto his lap. "You know, just because grandpa and I fight doesn't mean we don't care for each other."
"In their weird ways," Draco added. "I think grandpa and Papa could fight until dawn and still love each other."
Harry usually brushed off the idea of Lucius 'loving' him, but the issue of consistency in front of their kid came up. "Right," he said, feeling Draco's hand close over his own. They were a Malfoy-Potter sandwich, with Harry in the middle of his two favorite people in the world. If anything, he loved Lucius for putting Draco on the earth.
"What does this have to do with the presents?" Lily questioned, steering her dads back onto the most important part of the holidays: gifts.
"It's just one present that's going to be late," Draco told her, ever a stickler for semantics. "And it's for all of us."
"Yeah, but what is it?"
Harry tried to reconnect Lily's memory back to their visit to Malfoy Manor. "We talked about how you wanted this over at grandma and grandpa's place, and how we wanted it, too. Do you remember? It was when we were tucking you in for the night." Something electric and heavy rose in Harry's stomach, nervous that young Lily had been too sleepy at the time to understand what she had been saying.
"Oh," Lily murmured, making Harry's fears go up in smoke. "Yes, I remember! Wait, so you're…" she trailed off, wide-eyed. "You're pregnant?"
Draco and Harry couldn't help but laugh. They'd really tried not to belittle her lack of knowledge given that she was only six, but this was too much for them to handle.
Upset, Lily crossed her arms at her fathers, still caught in a throe of a laughing fit. "What? I said I wanted a little brother or sister! That's how babies are made, you know. People get pregnant."
"Lily," Draco managed in between laughs, his amusement dying down. "Only women can get pregnant. Your Papa and I are both men."
"Yeah, but… Wait, then how am I going to get a little sibling?" Now it was Lily's turn to be worried.
Harry leaned forward with the Healer's photo of the ultrasound in his hand so that Lily could see. "We found a woman who wanted to give us her baby, like your mum did with you," he explained as gently as he could. He'd once read about how you had to introduce two dogs who didn't know one another on neutral territory before you moved them in together, but he wasn't sure how applicable that was.
Lily shrugged. "I don't have a mum, though. I have two dads." Harry and Draco exchanged a nervous look on how exactly to explain all of this, but Lily continued on. "But this is really my baby brother or sister?"
"Brother," Draco answered proudly. Sure, it technically wasn't his chromosomes making that baby in that poor mother's uterus, but still. The boy would be a Malfoy-Potter, and pass on the name. It was everything his father had wanted, and Draco could hardly believe he was letting his father win something.
Lily flung into a hug with her dads faster than they could process. "You're going to be a big sister," Harry breathed. His little princess, getting older.
"Yes!" Lily yelled excitedly, bouncing up and down on their laps before lying out and stretching across them like a puppy waiting for a tummy rub. "I could teach him how to walk, talk, and everything! Does this mean I get to babysit?"
Draco admired her enthusiasm, but alas, couldn't tell her 'yes' just yet. "We'll see," was a safer option since she would forget mentioning it a few hours later.
"Good," Lily affirmed. "But how late is he going to be? I want a little brother now."
Harry reached for the ribbon that had fell from her head earlier and carefully tied it back in, the red silk like fire kissing her hair. "The Healers think three months, so we'll all just have to be patient," he told her.
Lily let out a dramatic sigh and flopped onto her stomach, wiggling feet almost reaching halfway across the couch. She'd gotten taller. "Fine," she huffed before making a rather sad attempt at crossing her arms.
"So, are you excited?" Harry asked, just for confirmation.
"Yeah," she answered a little more sincerely than she had intended to. "Then I can have someone to play with all the time, not just when Rose and Hugo visit."
"And they'll go to Hogwarts when you're in your sixth year," Harry mused.
"Both of you will obviously be in Slytherin," Draco added before receiving a pinch in the side from Harry. The way he squirmed away from the pinch made Lily's laugh resurface.
"They will be in whatever house suits them," Harry corrected.
Draco shrugged. "Anything but Hufflepuff."
"Draco."
"What?" he asked innocently.
"I'm gonna be a Slytherin!" Lily announced, rolling onto her back again. It reminded Harry of a little pupa, strangely enough.
"That's my girl," Draco said before pulling her up for a sloppy kiss on the cheek. "Lily Malfoy-Potter, Head Girl of the noble house of Salazar Slytherin."
"I'm outnumbered," Harry said with a mock sense of woe.
Draco reached over and gave his husband a kiss, too. "Well, good thing you lions aren't so bad."
"Says the snake."
"So, what are we naming him?" Lily asked seemingly out of the blue. In reality, while her parents had been flirting, she had been plotting. "I'm thinking of Jason, or Isaac, or Aiden…"
Harry and Draco exchanged skeptical looks. They hadn't been aware of Lily wanting to name the new arrival. "Well, honey, I don't know—" Harry started.
"Or Gideon, or Hunter, or Jeremy, or…"
Draco quietly enjoyed what would be his last moment of peace and quiet that night while Lily thought up more names.
"Or Matt, or Keith, or Bartholomew—"
"Bartholomew?" Harry laughed.
"Yeah, I met a kid at the park named Bartholomew! And there's always Tommy, or Patrick, or Dylan, or Charles…"
Harry listened patiently to each name, one arm around his husband and the other resting on his daughter's knees.
