It's not every day your world ends.

At the core of it, that's really why I don't like Christmas. Christmas in my fifth year was the day my world ended and a part of me died. We're a few years removed from the war, now, so I feel pretty confident saying that that part of me is just… gone and never coming back.

I didn't go home for the holidays the year the Carrows had taken over the school. I'd been too worried about what might happen while I wasn't there. I'd ended up spending it frantically trying to learn healing spells from my textbook while my friend Eliza drifted in and out of consciousness on our bathroom floor because an aspiring Death Eater had used sectumsempra on her for being a halfblood.

He'd been a shit wizard, so Eliza hadn't bled out in the corridor, but the memory of her crying, "Astoria, please don't let me die" as she lay on the cold stone floor still haunted my nightmares. We were lucky that Anthony Goldstein had come across us - I'd already suspected he was a Potter sympathizer, but that night had confirmed it. My friend probably would have died sobbing in my arms rather than just stuck in St. Mungo's for trauma after the war had ended if he hadn't helped us.

Of course, the stairs had let him carry her up to our dormitory, which had been disconcerting for a number of reasons. I'd filed that away as being a problem for another time and then cornered him two days later to get his help with laying every spell possible into the door to stop people from getting in.

I guess what I'm saying is that Christmas had some problematic memories attached to it, even aside from my never much liking it in the first place. I was far enough removed from the war that talking about Christmas didn't make me anxious anymore, but I still didn't much like it.

My boyfriend seemed to feel differently, though.

"So I got a Christmas tree," he told me when we were out getting drinks a week and a half before Christmas. He was about a week overdue for a haircut and three days overdue to shave his beard. I was okay with both of those things - I hadn't realized that I was the sort of person who liked the vaguely-scruffy look on men before I'd started dating him, but I did. The blue sweater he'd worn under the deep green pea coat currently slung over the empty chair next to him suited him, too - it brought out his grey eyes and made him look a little less pale.

I'd been about to pick up my glass. Instead, I pulled my hand away and studied him. I had no idea what kind of response he was looking for. "Oh," I said eventually. It was only after his face fell that I realized he'd been genuinely excited and trying very hard to mask it.

"It's a small tree." His finger circled the edge of the coaster, and the words spilled out of his mouth a little too quickly to feel natural. "Really small. I was just wondering if you'd help me decorate it."

I weighed my options. On one hand, I didn't like Christmas, but on the other hand, I did like my boyfriend, even if it had taken me months to adjust to being friends with a reformed Death Eater and longer to come to grips with wanting to date him. "No Death Eater ornaments?"

He let out a breath I hadn't realized he'd been holding. "New ornaments," he confirmed. "I promise. Nothing from my parents. We can go to the winter market tonight and pick some out."

I watched his finger, which was still circling the coaster. "Draco, you know that Christmas really isn't my thing, right?"

"I know," he said. "If you don't want to, it's fine. I just thought I'd ask."

I took a swig of my hard cider. "Yeah," I said after a minute. "Okay."

A smile broke across his face, and pushed his chair back. "I'm getting another. Do you want another?"

"Sure." He paused on his way past me to press his lips against my forehead; when I leaned into him, he ran his fingers through my shoulder-length brown hair. My favorite bartender winked at me from across the room as she filled up our glasses - she'd called his feelings for me long before I'd been aware of them - and I smiled back at her.

It wasn't uncommon for us to sit in the bar until it closed, but today we headed out to the winter market in Diagon Alley after we finished our next round of drinks. It was pleasantly chilly without being frigid; I was warm enough in jeans and a thin sweater underneath my red, knee-length coat, and while my socks and gloves were both thick, I hadn't needed to charm them into staying warm.

Diagon Alley's winter market goes up on December 7 and comes down on Christmas Eve, and it's almost impossible to be sad in it - the red and white striped tents spiraling around to the circle of food venders is a sight to see, and the smells that fill the air as you get close are enough to make your mouth water. Small flurries erupt over the top of the tents. Sometimes they're just flurries, and sometimes they spell out words and names like the cheap advertising gimmick the cold practical Ravenclaw in me knows that they are.

The sentimental part of me doesn't much care. It's still pretty.

We cut through the little gaps in between the tents to get to the center - it was cold enough that I wanted something to warm me up, and I suspected that Draco agreed. We bought two enormous sugar cookies in the shape of Hogwarts and two cups of perfectly warmed apple cider. I'd finished my cookie and was halfway through my cider by the time Draco was finished checking his for poison. "Good?" he asked, shoving the small potion bottle back into his pocket.

"Really good," I said, taking another sip. Judging from the look on his face when he bit in, he agreed with me.

After we'd finished, we wandered through the stalls to scrutinize the ornaments. "What about this?" I asked him, holding up a miniature snitch. "To fly around the tree, I mean?" Its wings fluttered slightly, and he grinned and held out his hand.

When we'd been in school, I'd idly wondered whether his main interest in playing Seeker was showing up Harry Potter. Dating him had disabused me of that notion.

I turned back around to scrutinize the rest of the ornaments. "What about this?" I suggested, pointed at a bright red ball with a silhouette and the caption 'The Chosen One' underneath it.

"Seriously, Astoria?"

"Well, you said he was sort of your friend these days."

His nose was still wrinkled. "Yeah, which is not the same thing as putting Potter on my fucking Christmas tree. Try again."

I turned away from him, not even bothering to hold back my grin. Teasing him was too easy to be sporting, but it never stopped being fun.

When we left, we had a strand of blinking blue lights and a dozen ornaments, including the snitch. He'd vetoed my attempt to get a miniature lion to perch on the branches, too, but he'd finally ended up okaying a sphinx so I'd stop bothering him about getting something lion-related.

"You do know that you're not actually a Gryffindor, right?" he asked as we climbed up the stairs to his flat. "Like, you were sorted into Ravenclaw."

I shrugged. "Barely." I glanced back at him just in time to see him wince - he still wasn't thrilled about the revelation that I'd nearly been a hatstall. We came to a stop in front of his door, and he stuck the key in the lock and whispered the spell to unlock the door.

"Why do you keep reminding me of that?" He tossed the bag onto his couch and pulled off his gloves.

"Because it's fun to see your reaction." He rolled his eyes, and I threw my arms around his neck. "I think the better question is, why are you dating someone who was almost a Gryffindor?"

His hands rose to my waist, and he leaned in to brush his lips against mine. "That's why," he said softly. I stuck my tongue out at him, and he grinned. "Come on. You said you'd help."

For someone who had apparently wanted my help decorating the very small tree sitting on the dark-stained table he kept in his living room for the rare times he actually ate at a table, he was very, very particular about where the ornaments went. When we were finally done and he was scrutinizing the tree from across the room, arms crossed, I collapsed onto his couch. "Did you actually want my help, or did you just want to spend time with me?" He grinned but chose not to answer the question, which was answer enough. Just as he was moving the coiling green snake to a different branch, I noticed a very formal-looking invitation laying on his side table. "Draco." He glanced over at me. His expression, which had been uncharacteristically light-hearted just a moment before, darkened when he saw what was in my hand. "Can I?"

He sighed. "Yeah, you might as well. I'm getting a beer. Do you want one?"

I nodded, and he stalked off toward his kitchen. I turned my attention to the invitation. The parchment was thick, and the script kept turning slightly different shades of green.

Draco,

You are cordially invited to the Malfoy Manor for a Christmas Day celebration. Please confirm your acceptance by owl.

We look forward to seeing you.

Sincerely,
Narcissa Malfoy

I looked up just as he came back into the room. "Did your mother really write this?"

He handed me one bottle and took a long swig from the other. "Yeah," he said, sitting down next to me. "Along with a much more personalized guilt trip a few days ago."

I battled with myself for a moment. Compassion won out over hating his family after I took a sip to console myself for not going with the latter. "You're not going?"

His lips were pursed. I wasn't sure if it was because he knew how tempted I'd been to call out their Death Eater affiliations or the existence of the Death Eater affiliations in the first place. "No," he said after a long pause. "I'm not. I told her that in November. Their friends hate me and would be probably celebrate if someone killed me, and I hate their friends and keep trying to put them in prison. She just…" He shook his head and took another drink. "I'm meeting up with Theo a couple days later - I can't wait to hear how many people bitched about me where she couldn't hear them."

"Didn't he just get engaged to Daphne?"

Draco winced. Becoming friends with me had significantly soured his opinion on my estranged sister. "Yeah, well. That lapse in judgment aside, Theo's not a dick, okay?"

"Then he's definitely thinking with his dick, if he's marrying my sister."

Draco let out a loud snort, leaned forward to put his beer down on the table, and slid over to wrap an arm around me. "Yeah, well, I don't think I'm in the position to judge anyone for thinking with his dick." I made a face at him, and he leaned in to kiss me.

His lips were soft, and for a moment, I lost myself in the kiss. When he broke away to move down to my neck, though, I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster through the haze filling my head, "Good to know that -"

"Astoria?" His hand was starting to creep up the inside of my leg, which made it very difficult to concentrate on anything else. "Stop it." I gave up on the prospect of picking a fight; kissing him was much more fun, and I did know that my boyfriend liked me for a lot of reasons, most of which didn't involve his dick.

I reached for the bottom of his shirt, and then thought the better of it. "Draco?"

"Mm?"

"Can we - I just was wondering whether - you have a bed, right? Not, like, in a having sex way, it just…"

His eyes darted toward the door to his bedroom. We hadn't actually had sex yet, and I wasn't planning on changing that tonight, but there was still something that felt different about making out on a bed as opposed to the couch, which was probably why we hadn't done it yet.

When we laid down on his bed, it was exactly as strange as I'd thought it would be. As soon as I pressed my lips against his, though, I forgot about the strangeness - we'd been dating for long enough that when his tongue brushed against mine and his hand trailed up my leg, it didn't just feel good (although it did feel good) - it felt safe.

"Draco?" I murmured again when we broke away from each other. He raised his eyebrows. "Can I - can I stay with you tonight, maybe? Like, here? With you?"

"In my bed?" I nodded. "With me?" I nodded again. "Fuck yes." Our lips met again, and I rolled onto my back. He followed me, positioning himself in between my legs to thrust his hips against mine. As our kiss deepened, I reached for the bottom of his shirt.

He stripped it off and tossed it on the floor. The band around his forearm was green today, which I found both endearing and ridiculous - I knew he'd claim that it was just in keeping with the holiday spirit if I pointed it out, and he knew that I'd see through that to his stupid Slytherin pride.

When he reached for the bottom of my shirt, though, I hesitated - I still don't love my arms being bare. He ducked his head to brush his lips against my neck. "You don't have to," he murmured into my ear. "And if you do, I promise I won't comment on - on anything. I just really like your tits."

My face immediately started to get warm, and he grinned at me. "Go ahead." I stretched my arms above my head again. "I think you like making me blush, though."

"I really do." He tossed my shirt to the side, and I arched my back so he could reach around and unhook my bra. True to his word, he didn't comment on the fresh cuts as he ran his hand up my arm and leaned down to my chest. When his mouth closed around my nipple, I let out a gasp. "But I love making you moan," he murmured as he moved to the other breast.

"You're good at it," I managed to get out. Between his tongue and the feather-light touch he was using on the crook of my arm, my mind wasn't in a position to articulate thoughts very well. He didn't seem to notice when I reached down to unbutton my pants, but when I lifted my hips to push them off, his gaze jerked downward and he let out a hiss. "Touch me," I breathed, kicking my jeans to the floor. He didn't move; we hadn't done this before, and I seemed to have taken him by surprise. "I said -"

"I heard you." He trailed his hand down my stomach, but he didn't seem to be in a hurry. I hadn't thought he'd hesitate - he'd always been very clear that he was quite happy to go as far as I wanted to go, which meant both that he wasn't pushing me and that he wasn't the one putting the brakes on.

There was something about that approach to sex that I found very comforting. The formative years where most people started having sex and figuring out what they liked in a partner had been shrouded by the war for me - first the trauma of the war itself, and then the trauma of the aftermath. I'd had my first kiss with Emma Dobbs by the Quidditch pitch at Hogwarts toward the end of my fourth year, and it had been nice, but then Dumbledore had died and the world had fallen apart and Emma had fled to New Zealand.

Nothing had been the same after the war, and Draco was the only boy I'd ever kissed. The reverse wasn't true, and the less I was wearing, the more self-conscious I felt about it.

"I should get you in your underwear more often." He leaned in to kiss me again. "You're beautiful."

I felt my face get warm. I didn't always deal well with sincere compliments, but it didn't seem like a good use of my time to argue with my boyfriend about whether he thought I was pretty, especially since the bulge in his trousers felt to me like a pretty convincing confirmation of his sentiment. "Thanks."

He slipped a finger underneath my underwear and glanced at me. When I nodded, the rest of his hand followed, and he let out a loud groan. "Fuck, Astoria. You're so wet."

I wasn't sure whether it was his touch or his words that were more thrilling, but the combination jolted through me and left me whimpering into his chest even before his thumb found my clit. He slipped one of his other fingers into me and leaned in to bite down gently on my neck. When I gasped and threw my head back, he started to move his thumb a little faster. "Do you usually get this wet when we make out?" he asked softly. I nodded. "Good to know." He slipped another finger inside of me, and I moaned again. "Next time, maybe I should see how you taste."

I felt a very pleasant shiver go up my spine. He was very good with his tongue in general, and I doubted that oral sex would be an exception to that rule.

He let himself fall next to me. "Don't stop -" I started to say, and then I felt his fingers slide back into me and his thumb renew its movement.

"Roll onto your side," he said softly. "It's an easier angle for me." When I did, he edged closer - I could feel him through his jeans, and his hips were moving with in time with mine. He used his free hand to sweep my hair back from my neck, and after a moment, I felt his lips against it. I closed my eyes as his fingers started to move faster, and I lost focus on anything that wasn't his body and my body and how good everything he was doing felt. The pressure reached a tipping point, and I cried out as the vibrations spread through me.

When I opened my eyes and twisted around to see his face, he was grinning. "Fuck," I said. "I - fuck. That was good." I rolled onto my back, and he pressed his lips against mine. "Thanks."

He studied his hand. "You know, I don't think I want to wait until next time to see how you taste." My stomach lurched as he ran his tongue along one of the fingers he'd had inside me.

I didn't even try to keep the skepticism out of my voice. "Do I actually taste good?"

"Mm. Do you want me to prove it to you? Because I will." His gaze swept down my body again. "Fuck. Seriously, can I eat you out next time?"

My stomach did another flip. "Sure. I - er - do you want me to - you know?" His eyebrows knit together, and wrinkles appeared in his forehead. He clearly didn't know what I was talking about. I could feel my face burning, but I tried again. "Doyouwantmetogetyouofftoo?"

I said it in a rush, but his eyes widened a little, and a sigh escaped his lips. "I mean - do you want to?" he asked. "Because if you want to, fuck yes."

Sarcasm usually didn't work on Draco when it came to this sort of thing, so I bit back my snark and said, "Yeah. I do." He opened his mouth. "I'm sure."

I'd never seen my boyfriend naked before. Over the past month or so, we'd started to get into the habit of taking off our shirts, and I'd definitely grown to sympathize more with all the girls I'd overheard giggling in the lavatories in school about him. I had disagreed with them at the time, because he'd been a Voldemort-sympathizing prat entirely too obsessed with showing Harry Potter up, and unlike some people, I've never been able to look past who a person is to their appearance. Now that Draco was a Voldemort-opposing prat who was sort of friends with Harry Potter, though, I could appreciate the way his hair fell in his eyes.

I could also appreciate the leanness of his chest, and the subtle flex of the muscles in his arms as he tossed his jeans and boxers aside. I'd never found dicks to be particularly attractive, but there was definitely a jolt in my stomach at the site of his.

He'd noticed my hesitation. "Astoria, you really don't -"

"I want to. I'm just… just processing."

He stretched his arms over his head. "I can understand that. I'm very attractive." I stuck my tongue out at him, though I did feel a little better that he wasn't so secure in himself that he was above making jokes to mask anxiety and insecurity.

Especially since both were things that I seemed to make him feel, which made me feel a little less self-conscious about my lack of experience.

Knowing that he was also nervous below the bluster helped give me the courage to climb on top of him. He immediately let out a very loud groan. "You know your underwear is soaked, right?" I started to rock back and forth, and he moved his hands up to rest on my hips. "Why are you still wearing them?"

"Because if I take them off, we'll definitely end up having sex." He made a face. "How - how do you want me to do it?"

"However you want." He slid one of his hands over to start touching me through the thin cotton.

I whimpered and started to rock harder. "Can I suck it?"

He was beginning to breathe much more heavily. "Fuck yes." As I edged down the bed, he added, "Um - put your lips over your teeth, okay? When you put it in your mouth?" I made a face at him, and he winced. "Sorry - I just don't know what you know."

That part I had known, but I was fairly certain that there were plenty of things I didn't know, so I didn't mock him. "How will I know if what I'm doing is right?"

"I'm so hard for you right now that I don't think you can do it wrong."

I ducked my head down and ran my tongue up his length. I was rewarded with a loud groan, which gave me the confidence to be a little bolder. "Fuck," he said as I took him past my lips. "Oh, fuck." I began to bob my head up and down, and he groaned again. I started to look up at him - I was curious to see what expression was accompanying those sounds - and he gasped, "Please don't stop." I pushed my head down further, and his hips jerked upward. "Fuck," he said again. "Next time you suck me off, I want to go down on you while you do it." I felt myself tighten a little at the thought, and I whimpered into him. His hips were moving faster now. "I want to make you come, and then I want to feel those lips on my cock as I slide into you."

I moaned again. My heart was starting to race; there was a not-insignificant part of me that wanted to pull my underwear off and climb on top of him so he could do just that. I hadn't gotten comfortable telling him what I wanted to do with him yet - it just felt awkward in all the wrong ways - but if his talking like this was having this kind of effect on me, it was probably something I should try.

"I want to tease you until you scream," he said. "And then I want to bury my cock in you and grab your hips and fuck you until you collapse and all you can do is moan and beg me not to stop." I felt his fingers in my hair. "Oh, fuck, Astoria, yes."

I didn't stop until he tapped my shoulder. "Astoria," he rasped, "I'm about to - you should -" I stopped and looked up at him just in time.

He let his head fall back and closed his eyes for a moment, still breathing hard. When he didn't say anything, I asked, "I - was that okay?"

He snorted. "Did you hear me?" That made me grin. "Hand me my boxers. Yes, Astoria, that was more than okay."

I reached down to grab them off the floor, and he wiped them across his stomach. "I just - I know I'm not - I've never done that before, and -"

He tossed the now-dirty boxers back on the floor. "Astoria, you have no idea how often I've thought about you sucking me off. Believe me when I say I'm not disappointed."

I let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "Okay." He sat up to reach over to his drawer, and I added, "You talk a lot."

He snorted as he pulled a clean pair of boxers on. "Yeah, well." He bounced back onto the bed. His chest was still damp with sweat, as was the sheet where he'd been laying. "Do you mind it?"

I shook my head, and he reached out to grab me. "Thanks," he said, wrapping his arms around me in a bear hug and burying his face in my hair. "That felt amazing."

I could feel my face starting to get warm again, so I changed the subject. "I - I was thinking," I said. "Why don't you come to dinner with us? For Christmas, I mean? Since you're going to be alone?"

When I twisted around to look up at him, he had a wary expression on his face. "Who's 'us?'"

"My brother's family. Maybe my parents - I dunno, they might be doing something with Daphne, they did Christmas with us last year. It's not really a huge thing for us, anyway. My brother and Addison do it for the kids more than anything else."

I wasn't sure he'd processed most of what I'd said after "parents." He'd frozen as soon as that word had come out. "Your parents," he said. I couldn't read his expression. "You want me to meet your parents. Don't they hate me?" I shrugged, and he let out a sigh. "Okay. Yeah." After a moment of hesitation, he added, "Could I - I mean, do you want me to stay over on Christmas Eve? If I do that?"

I didn't answer him at first. The honest answer was that I would like that quite a lot, especially after tonight - but I also had plans on Christmas morning. "I have something to do earlier in the day," I said after a long pause.

"What do you have to do?"

It was an honest question, and he was really just curious, and somehow, that made the memory hurt even more. I looked away from him and rolled onto my stomach. There were things I didn't like to talk about with anyone, and Eliza was one of them. The bed shifted under his weight as he sat back down. When I felt his fingers rest lightly on my shoulder, I stiffened, and he pulled his hand away.

After a few minutes of silence, he sighed. "So I'm pretty sure this is about your plans on Christmas and not anything I said while you were blowing me, but reassure me."

"It's about Christmas." I buried my face in a pillow.

"Okay."

We sat in silence for a few more minutes. I tried to calm my hammering heart and dug my nails into my palms, which only helped a little but was the best I could do right now, since I was quite sure that my boyfriend would be very upset if I went into his bathroom to hurt myself rather than talk to him about my feelings - and besides, it was a bad habit I really was trying to break irrespective of his feelings on the subject. I didn't know what he was thinking.

He spoke first. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." My voice was still muffled by the pillow.

"Astoria, please talk to me."

I wanted to ignore him. I wanted to want to storm out. That was usually my reaction when people tried to make me talk about things I didn't want to talk about. His voice wavered a little at the end, though, which reminded me that he actually was a person who cared about me quite a lot, and that was why he was pushing me to talk.

And anyway, he'd been a Death Eater. I still felt a little like he deserved to have what he'd been a part of rubbed in his face.

"I'm seeing my friend. She's in St. Mungo's."

I turned my head to look up at him; from the suddenly-tense look on his face, he'd understood the subtext there. "The war?"

"Yeah." I swallowed. "I stayed at school for Christmas that year because I was afraid to go home and have - have something awful happen. Some stupid Slytherin cursed my friend Eliza - you probably didn't know her - and she started bleeding." I felt strangely disconnected from my body; it was definitely me talking, of course, but I didn't feel anything at the words. I just felt numb. "She bled a lot, and she was begging me not to let her die, but I didn't know how to make the bleeding stop. I tried everything, I just - I didn't know." I stopped talking; the numbness was retreating as quickly as it had taken hold, and the fear and anxiety I'd felt that night was flooding back to me, overwhelming all of my senses. I could even smell the blood. "I think - I think she would have died, if one of the Potterclaws hadn't come across us. He got us back to our dormitory and fixed her, but it - everything was just - it was too much. She tried to kill herself a few months after the war ended. She's - she's doing better now, but she's been in St. Mungo's ever since. I dunno if she'll ever be well enough to leave." I hesitated. "My brother said someone in your year sort of recovered from the - the shell shock from the war after she was in St. Mungo's for awhile, and she's working for the Ministry now. So maybe."

I heard Draco take a deep breath. I wondered if he knew who'd gotten out. I wondered if he knew who'd cursed her. If he knew either, he didn't share. "I'm sorry."

Something about that response made my blood boil. 'Sorry' was just so inadequate for what had happened. "Like you didn't know they were doing that," I snapped. "You have no idea how it feels to get cursed like that -"

"Actually, I know exactly how that particular curse feels." His lips were pressed together. I readied myself to tell him off about the Cruciatus Curse, because it couldn't kill you and there wasn't so much blood overpowering your senses and invading your space, but he ended up surprising me. "Sectumsempra, right?" I stared at him for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, I had it used on me, and believe me, that's not something you forget."

He didn't seem to be joking. "What are you talking about?"

"Potter used that on me in our sixth year, and I almost died. Maybe I would have, if Snape hadn't found us." When I didn't respond, he sneered at me. "Yeah, Saint Potter did some shitty stuff, too. I was a prick, but at least I never tried to kill him."

He seemed sincere, and I hated it. "Well, you did try to kill Dumbledore," I shot back. "Everyone knows that." The look on his face made me regret saying it, but I didn't apologize.

"You know, the endless rendition of everything I've ever done wrong is getting old," he snapped. "For fuck's sake, Astoria, if you're going to be my girlfriend, maybe cut me a little slack and let the rest of the world treat me the way I deserve."

I opened my mouth to tell him off, and then I closed it again. He wasn't right, but I didn't know that he was exactly wrong, either. "That's who I am, though. You knew that."

I was expecting the fight to escalate - he hadn't seemed especially combative since we'd become friends, but he'd had a reputation at school for having a bit of a temper. When he spoke, though, there was genuine pain and uncertainty in his voice, not anger. "Do you even like me?"

I would have felt better if he'd insulted me. I couldn't think of any other time that he'd sounded anywhere near this vulnerable, and it made my stomach squirm in a very different and far more unpleasant way than it had been earlier. When I looked up at him, he was starting at the wall. "Of course I do."

"Maybe you should act like it, then." He didn't meet my gaze, and I looked away.

There was a reason I hated talking about feelings. I wasn't very good at it.

He sighed and ran a hand over his face. "Look, I know I deserve to have it rubbed in my face, and I know that people on my side hurt people you care about - hurt you." He glanced down at the scars crisscrossing my arms, and I hugged them closer to myself. "And I know there were plenty of people my age - and younger than me - who were a lot braver than I was. I just - I just wish someone would stop giving me what I deserve for long enough to give me what I need. I was scared, Astoria." His voice cracked when he said my name. It felt like a punch in the gut. "I was scared that he would kill me and kill my mother, and the only person from your side who offered to help ended up dead. It's not fair to expect comfort from you, but I don't really - I don't really have anyone I can ask, and I don't know where that leaves me."

I wanted to ask him who'd offered to help him, but I let it go. "I used to like myself, you know, and now I don't." Tears filled my eyes, and I stopped talking. After a moment, I felt his hand on my shoulder. I didn't shrug it off; I was still angry at him, but I was less angry than I'd been, and I wanted comfort more than I wanted to yell at him. "I'm always afraid now. They made me a coward."

To my surprise, he let out a snort of laughter. Before I had the chance to get offended, he said, "Are you seriously telling me that the war fucked you up by making you a coward? Astoria, if You-Know-Who's supporters couldn't make you back down, nothing can. You're not a coward. You're one of the bravest people I know." I wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that, so I didn't. The silence had just started to become uncomfortable when he cleared his throat. "Can I hold you?"

I considered that for a minute, and then I nodded. The bed squeaked a little as he lay down next to me. When his arm circled around my stomach, I pushed myself closer to him. His grip tightened, and he rested his head on mine.

"Sometimes I wish I didn't like you," I told him. "I didn't think I would. I do, though. You're my favorite person other than my brother. I didn't think I'd ever trust anyone ever again, after - after the war, and after what Daphne did. But I trust you."

"I know you do." He kissed the back of my neck. It was a different kind of kiss than the ones he'd given me earlier, but I'd found that I liked his comforting kisses as well as the passionate ones. "You know, sometimes spending time with you gives me whiplash. How the fuck did we go from you blowing me to fighting about the war?"

I shrugged. "You used to be a Death Eater. I don't like Death Eaters. Sometimes we fight about it." I heard him take a breath, and I added, "Don't say that you're not one anymore. I know that. If I didn't know that, I wouldn't be here, and you'd never see me in my underwear."

"If only you'd told me sooner," he said lightly. I elbowed him, and I felt rather than heard the laughter in his chest. "Look, I know you like solutions, not apologies. Do you want to be alone on Christmas Eve?"

There was an unspoken heaviness between us right now that had nothing to do with our fight and everything to do with my problematic coping mechanisms - but he knew enough to know that stopping me from cutting myself rather than stopping me from wanting to was just a selfish way to make my feelings not his problem. He thought my feelings were his problem, so he tried to take care of them rather than just the symptoms of being sad. That was one of the reasons I trusted him.

I shook my head.

"Will having me there help?" he pressed.

I considered that. "Yes."

"Okay. Why don't I plan to stay with you on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? When you go to St. Mungo's, I'll make myself scarce, and if you decide that I'm not helping, I'll just leave." I rolled over to study his face. There wasn't a trace of anger anymore - he just looked concerned.

I nodded. "I - thanks."

He let out a breath I hadn't realized he'd been holding. "You're my girlfriend. Supporting you is in the job description." I rolled my eyes, and he leaned in to kiss me. It was somewhere between a comforting kiss and a passionate one, and it reminded me that there really was a reason I'd decided to date Draco Malfoy. He was sometimes a bit of a prat, but he'd somehow turned into a decent person underneath that, and he really was good at making me feel a little less alone.

A/N: This is a belated just-for-fun story written for December's prefect challenge over at HPFanficTalk; I didn't get it done in time, mostly because 2k words turned into 6.5k words because that's how my Drastorias apparently roll?

Anyway. This should be able to stand on its own, but there are lots of other stories that expand on things vaguely touched on in this, so please check out my other Drastorias/Astoria fics if you're curious to read more about them and haven't already. I've uploaded most to FFnet, but you can also find them in a more organized chronological series on AO3 and HPFanficTalk's archive.

- Branwen