A/N: This fic was written for Jessica (idreamofdraco) for the DG Secret Santa exchange at the DG Forum. You can find Jessica's prompt at the end. Merry Christmas, Jessica! Hope you like this. :D
xXx
Whenever she looks at the handsome wooden chest sitting on her bedside table, its M-shaped crest proudly emblazoned across the latch, she feels a prickly sense of shame deep within her, as if she'd been caught doing something unseemly and quite awful.
She has opened the chest and looked inside only once, days ago, and as she looks at it now she can see its contents with harsh clarity in her mind's eye. Solid, gleaming, garish. Gold.
xXx
She dresses in a rush, snapping on earrings, sliding on stockings, lacing up straps. She doesn't know what to do with her hair so she leaves it be. Molly Weasley looks her up and down when she arrives, but she makes no comment, handing her daughter a basket of bread and a tray of meat pies to take out to the table.
The Burrow is packed with her siblings and their spouses - and their children, and their pets. In the bustle of it all, in the tiny hands pulling at her and the cries of "Aunt Ginny!", in Harry's boy James' high-pitched rendition of Jingle Bells - she can almost forget that Fred's not here.
"I have a secret," Victoire whispers in her ear, her breath warm and sweet, her fingers sticky with juice, "I'm a princess and this is my princess crown. Daddy gave it to me for Christmas."
"That's wonderful, my love," she whispers back. Her niece does a little twirl while grasping at the plastic tiara atop her head, and Ginny can't help but laugh. When she was younger she thought happiness was a permanent state of being, but over the years she has come to suspect it is moments like this.
"Wow, Ginny, you look gorgeous!" gushes Fleur, a wailing child at her hip. "Are you going dancing with your friends later?"
"Eh, I don't think so," she replies, taking baby Louis from her sister-in-law and bouncing him on her lap.
"Probably off with Malfoy and company," Ron mutters, seating himself beside her.
"Louis, Louis..." she coos, and the baby laughs, grasping at her curls with little fingers. She can feel her brother's gaze but refuses to turn and meet it.
"OH WHAT FUN IT IS TO RIDE IN A ONE HORSE OPEN SLEIGH, HEY!" James shrieks, and a cracker goes off under the table.
"Not in the house," Luna admonishes her son dreamily, "you'll scare away the Blibbering Humdingers."
xXx
"A standard bar of gold? I would imagine something like five thousand Galleons, at the least," Hermione says absently, her breath fogging in the cold winter air. "How are things going with...you know."
"Fine," she replies, thinking of what it would be like to have a year's worth of paid rent, credit card debts paid off, no longer needing the occasional bail outs from her father and her brothers.
"Are you seeing him tonight?"
The pop of crackers and peals of delighted little shrieks interrupts their conversation, and Ginny takes the opportunity to slip back into the house, Hermione's question and sense of unease still lingering in the air behind her.
xXx
She Apparates in front of the row of elegant town houses and climbs the stone steps that lead to his door. Something in her blood quickens, sings with anticipation as she rings the bell and waits. Part of her hopes that this feeling never disappears completely.
The anger and shame she felt on first receiving the chest of gold is replaced by a sudden rush of tenderness, and when he opens the door she for once does away with their little games.
"Yes, can I help you?" he says in his clipped upper class accent. His smirk broadens into a smile as she launches herself into him, burying her face into his neck. She can feel his arms circling her waist, and lets herself be held for a moment.
"I can't accept your gift," she says quietly. "But thank you all the same."
"What, the gold?" he inquires, drawing away to look at her face.
"Yes, Malfoy, the gold." She tries not to stare, but the weight of his pale gray eyes on hers always has a way of making something contract inside of her.
"And why is that, pray?" He takes hold of one of her coppered-colored curls and tugs it down, inspecting it with interest.
"Because I don't want us to be that way."
He gazes back at her evenly, and she can see that he's making an effort to comprehend. But how can he understand, she muses. What are some bars of gold to a Malfoy, after all?
"I don't need presents, really. You're present enough for me," she says jokingly, and then realizes that it's true.
"Fine, Weasley. You're the boss. But if I'm your present, shouldn't you be unwrapping me right now?"
She barely has time to blush before he leans down to kiss her, and as their mouths meet shivers break out all over her skin and she can swear she hears a chorus of voices singing Oh Come All Ye Faithful. Wait -
"Oh gods, what do they want?" he mutters, drawing away to glare ferociously at something over her shoulder.
But the carolers continue to sing, undeterred by the bitter cold, the lateness of the hour, or the Malfoy heir's death glare, their cheeks red, their candles flickering but never going out entirely.
Ginny can't help but laugh, her arms wrapped around her present so tightly that she fears she might break him. Their eyes connect, and her breath catches in her throat when he smiles back at her.
"Happy Christmas, Draco."
xXx
Jessica's Prompt: cracker, gold, carols