A/N: Here is my last holiday story for the season unless one pops into my brain before Christmas. In this story, Harry decides to stay at Hogwarts for his last Christmas there (Eighth year). Hermione and Ron go home. Harry is one of the oldest of the students that stays behind, along with Draco. Things don't start out so well for these two, but Harry makes a snap decision to prove a point. What will happen after that? There is going to be fluff (obviously, it's me people lol) and smut (again, obviously). I'm not sure how many chapters it'll be... Maybe 5 or 6. It's not super long. Enjoy!
Harry sat in the Great Hall, just after lunch. Hermione was fussing over him, worrying her lip and wringing her hands. Ron looked slightly concerned, but not nearly as much as Hermione.
"Harry, are you sure you don't want to come?" she asked for the thousandth time.
"No. I'm perfectly fine staying here. Go be with your parents and Ron will go be with his family. I'm fine staying here. I prefer it," Harry insisted.
"But Harry, we're your family! You can't be alone for Christmas!" she cried.
Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. He'd been having this argument with Hermione since he told her he was staying at Hogwarts over the Christmas hols. He didn't want to go with her to her parents and even though he knew he was more than welcome to go to the Weasleys, he felt that it would be awkward for him and Ginny as they had stayed broken up after the war instead of getting back together and they needed to focus on the fact that this would be the first Christmas without Fred. That was going to be hard enough as it was. He didn't want to impose on that.
"Hermione, for the last time, I won't be alone. The staff will be here, other students will be here, and I know Andromeda is going to come visit with Teddy. Please, stop worrying about me. I want to stay here. I need to stay here. Now, give me a hug and get going. The train will leave without you two," he insisted.
Hermione bit her lip and shook her head as tears fell down her cheeks. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Harry in a tight embrace. He hugged her back and needed Ron to peel her off of him. Ron gave him a manly hug and pulled Hermione towards the door. Harry watched them leave and then sighed, sitting down on a bench in the Great Hall. He looked up when he felt someone watching him. He caught sight of Draco Malfoy watching him. He lifted his eyebrow in a questioning manner. Draco narrowed his gaze at him and started towards him. Harry frowned.
Draco and Harry had been cordial enough to each other and by that they simply avoided each other as much as possible. They didn't glare at each other anymore and Harry wasn't exactly suspicious of him anymore. Seeing him walk towards him cancelled out the status quo of the year between them though.
"Surprised to see you still here, Potter. I thought for sure that Granger would convince you to go with one of them," he drawled as he approached.
Harry sighed. "You know, I am capable of making my own decisions, Malfoy," he replied in a heated voice.
Draco lifted his brow. "You've always been a puppet for someone, Potter. I am surprised to see that you have a backbone in there somewhere."
Harry stood up and stepped towards Draco in a threatening manner. Draco flinched, but didn't move back. "You don't know what you're talking about, Malfoy. You have no idea what I had to deal with throughout my entire life. Stay away from me," Harry seethed. He shoved past Draco and made his way out of the Great Hall and up to the Gryffindor tower.
Why did he wait until now to start talking to me or whatever it is he's doing? We're obviously going to be stuck here together for the entire Christmas hols. One of us is bound to kill the other by that point. Harry scowled as he stormed up to the Gryffindor tower and went into his dorm and threw himself on his bed. Things had been rather peaceful between him and Draco, now it was all back to sneers and jeers.
A couple of hours later, Harry put on his winter cloak and gloves and headed down to take a walk outside. He thought the fresh air might do him some good and if he could avoid Draco at the same time, he would be more than happy about that. Harry walked out the front doors and noticed that it was snowing again. There was already plenty of snow on the ground and he smiled as he saw some younger years having snowball fights and building forts. He walked over to a group of Gryffindors and helped them build up their forts. They were going to fight against each other so he felt like he was evening things out for them. He stepped back and watched as the kids started battling. Harry laughed often as he watched them.
Draco had been sitting in the courtyard, overlooking the field where the students were playing. He caught sight of Harry coming out of the castle and watched him as he went down to help some younger years. He smiled as he watched him. His heart stopped when he saw him laughing. It was such a beautiful thing and Draco never saw him that unguarded before. He had missed their quarrels since the war was over and Harry had saved his life. They had mostly been ignoring each other that year and it bothered Draco immensely. It took him awhile to figure out why it bothered him so much, but then he realized that it was because he never felt as exhilarated as he did when he fought with Harry.
He jumped down off the wall and headed towards where Harry was standing. He stopped next to him and watched the kids with him. Harry seemed to not notice him at first, but then he noticed and he scowled, turning to look at him.
"I thought I told you to stay away from me," Harry said harshly.
Draco shrugged, ignoring the sting of his words. "I was never very good at leaving you alone, Potter," he replied matter-of-factly.
Harry snorted and started walking away from him. He headed in the opposite direction of where the kids were playing, heading to where there were no students. Draco shouldn't have followed, he really shouldn't have, but he did. He jogged after Harry as best he could through the heavy snow. He was panting by the time he caught up with him.
"Look, Potter, we're the only older students here. We might as well hang out," he offered.
Harry stopped short and whirled around to look at Draco in disbelief. "You've got to be kidding me? Did you not just insult me two hours ago?" he demanded.
Draco waved his comment away. "I was merely making conversation," he stated.
Harry glared at him and shoved him. Draco slipped and fell backwards into the snow. Harry looked down at him in slight alarm, but quickly returned to his intense glare. "Why can't you just be kind for once in your life? I might actually consider being around you if you had an ounce of kindness in that body of yours. You never do anything without an ulterior motive. And you never say anything remotely friendly to me. Why on earth would you think I'd want to spend time with you?" Harry demanded.
Draco scrambled up and moved in on Harry. Harry stepped back and looked up at him in defiance. "It wouldn't be you and me if it was kindness and rainbows, Potter," he bit out.
Harry glared at him and shoved Draco hard. Draco flew backwards and skidded across the snow. He looked up at Harry in shock, surprised at his strength. "It will never be you and me, Malfoy," he sneered. He turned on his heel and started moving away from him.
Draco glared after him, stung by his words. He sat up and gathered up some snow, packing it into a snowball. He stood and ran towards Harry. As he closed in, he leapt at him and slammed the ball of snow into Harry's hair, causing him to cry out and fall face first into the snow. Draco shoved Harry's face into the snow and rolled off of him. He went to stand, but Harry swung his leg out tripping him up, sending Draco stumbling to the ground.
Draco stared up in shock as Harry took a pile of snow and whitewashed him. He spluttered as he took in a mouthful of snow. He reached out and wrapped his arms around Harry, pulling him down, into the snow and reversing their positions. They tugged and pulled at each other, rolling across the snow, snarling expletives at each other. They whitewashed each other so many times that neither of them knew where they were and were quite blinded by snow. Harry had lost his glasses at some point.
Finally, Draco gained the upper hand and he looked down at Harry who was red in the face and glaring angrily up at him. Draco stared at him, breathing heavily, squeezing Harry's hips with his legs. Harry's eyes were unbelievably bright compared to his dark hair and the snow that was behind him. He looked absolutely amazing in that moment and Draco felt his breath catch and the blood rushing to a place that he sincerely didn't want Harry to feel.
Harry seemed to be studying him as well, noting that even though Draco was nearly as pale as the snow around them, he stood out like an angel against all the white. Harry felt his breath hitch as he watched Draco bite his lip. He closed his eyes and bucked his hips, flinging Draco off of him. He didn't account for the fact that Draco would hold onto him and soon he was back on top of Draco feeling a hardness against him that he sincerely hoped was a wand.
The blush that colored Draco's cheeks made him look absolutely amazing and Harry was suddenly overcome with an urge that would surprise the hell out of Draco and make him take back his puppet comment. He moved forward quickly and kissed Draco deeply. Draco cried out in surprise and before he could remotely respond, Harry pushed up from the ground and ran for the castle, completely forgetting to look for his glasses.
Harry ran blindly to the castle and ran for the Gryffindor tower as best as he could. He was freezing and wanted nothing more than to take a hot shower and figure out why in the hell he did what he just did. Why did I kiss Draco Malfoy? Did I really want to surprise him that much?
He shed his clothes once he arrived in the dorm and went into the loo to shower. The water felt amazing and washed away the latent anger and arousal that he had from being around Draco and their fight and ending kiss. He knew that he would have to face the music soon enough, but he hoped that it wouldn't go as horribly as he anticipated.
He walked out of the loo, using a towel to dry his hair. He slipped into his clothes and then headed down to the common room. He imagined that it would be mostly deserted so he was looking forward to lying out on the couch that sat in front of the fireplace and basking in its warmth until dinner.
He was pleased to see that no one was there. He grinned as he leapt over the couch and settled in. The fire was pleasantly warm and Harry soon found himself drifting off to sleep.
Sometime later, the common room erupted in noise. Harry startled awake as he looked over the side of the couch to see students coming in, knocking snow off their clothes. One of the students walked over to Harry, his hand outstretched. Harry looked down and squinted.
"Draco Malfoy gave these to me to give to you," he said as Harry reached out and took his glasses from him. His eyes widened in surprise.
They looked as if they had been cleaned. "He actually walked up to you and gave these to you for me?" he asked in disbelief.
"Yeah, he walked over and asked if I could return them to you because they had fallen off outside. He said that I should check to be sure that you made it back here since you didn't have them," he chuckled and shook his head. "Nice guy, Malfoy," he added as he walked away. Harry's eyes widened further. This kid was completely serious.
Harry slipped them on and noted that they hadn't been this clean in months. He scowled, wondering why he was being nice. The old Draco would have left the glasses outside or broken them into a thousand pieces. What is his motive?
Harry sat up from the couch and slid his trainers on and his jumper. He headed out of the common room and down to the Great Hall. He knew dinner would be served soon enough. He walked into the Great Hall, noting that they had the one traditional long table that they had for holiday breaks. Harry took a seat, noting that there were several people already there. He noted that Draco was not one of them.
Harry reached up and touched his cheek. He winced as the touch stung. A little first year that was sitting across from him looked at him with a star struck look. "Mister Potter, you've got quite the scrape on your cheek," the boy said in a voice barely above a whisper. Harry chuckled at his wording.
"Just call me Harry. How bad is it?" he asked, tentatively touching it again. He winced.
"Like you need healing salve put on it. You have a bruise by your eye too," he commented as he sipped his pumpkin juice.
Harry frowned and touched his eye, wincing in pain. Apparently, he and Draco had left marks on each other that he hadn't initially realized. Professor McGonagall took that moment to arrive and her eyes zeroed in on Harry, noticing his injuries.
"Mister Potter, you did not look like that this morning," she commented gesturing towards his face.
Harry blushed and looked away. "Yeah, I, uh, slipped outside in the snow. On the cement," he replied.
Professor McGonagall narrowed her gaze at him. Draco chose that moment to walk into the Great Hall and as Harry looked over at him, he saw that his face looked similar to his. Professor McGonagall looked over at him and then between him and Harry a few times. She scowled. Harry blushed deeply and tried to disappear into the table. Draco had no idea what was happening other than Harry was acting quite strange.
"Mister Potter, Mister Malfoy, a word, please," she directed as she walked briskly over to the room that Harry had gone in when his name was pulled from the Goblet of Fire. Harry felt apprehensive. He glanced sideways at Draco who was staring straight ahead, his cheeks colored.
Once they were inside, Professor McGonagall shut the door and turned a stern look on them. "Did you both slip on the snow and scrape up your faces on the cement?" she demanded.
"Yes," Harry and Draco said at the same time. They both gasped quietly and looked at each other in surprise.
Professor McGonagall was not impressed. "I know you're both lying. I thought you two were past this. I thought this animosity was done and over with. You have had no issues this year. Why now?"
Harry sighed and shrugged. He was about to say something, anything to try and explain, but Draco spoke first. "I apologize, Professor. I provoked Potter after lunch with an off-handed comment. He told me to leave him alone, but later on that day I chose to not listen. We got into a bit of a scuffle because of my lack of understanding that he wanted me to leave him alone. We are in this state because of me," he explained.
Harry and Professor McGonagall stared at Draco with identical expressions of disbelief. She looked over at Harry, unsure if Draco was telling the truth, but somehow she believed him. "Mister Potter, is this true?" she asked uncertainly.
"Um, well, yes, mostly. He wasn't completely at fault though," he replied. He stared at Draco, trying to decide what ulterior motive he had this time. Draco would never admit to being at fault for anything.
"Well, then, since you're both at fault, I should give you detention. However, in the spirit of the holidays, I will not as long as you two do not get into anymore scuffles," she decided.
Harry and Draco both nodded before she nodded her agreement and strode out of the room, leaving Draco and Harry alone for a moment.
Harry turned to look at Draco who looked quite uncomfortable. "That was unexpected," Harry said quietly.
"Yes, well, I have changed, Potter, even if you don't want to believe that I have," Draco replied. He turned on his heel and left the room.
Harry sighed and ran his hand through his hair feeling like the biggest git. He owed Draco an apology and some gratitude. Plus, he felt that they definitely needed to talk about what he did. He was actually quite surprised that Draco hadn't brought it up.