Disclaimer: looks around Anyone been living under a rock lately? Raise your hand if you REALLY think JKR would publish stories on when she could get these published and make money off them Looks around to see no hands raised Now that that's out of the way this WILL most likely be SLASH, it probably won't take too long to get to the citrus part of the story, Harry and Draco will NOT be jumping into bed to have hot slashy sex in the first 5 paragraphs (I have to do SOMETHING to set the story up)
Summary: A not so long Christmas fic that jumped into my head and insisted I write. I WILL get back to "A Different Year" I'm stuck halfway through Chapter 3 – and I will not leave it hanging where it is at the moment. No real plot advance has happened – well not enough.
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"Looking forward to tomorrow Harry?" Hermione asked at 8:30pm Christmas Eve of their 6th year.
"Bah Humbug" was the only response from the normally cheerful boy.
"Did he just say 'Bah humbug' Herm? What does he mean?" Ron asked from where he was nibbling on Hermione's neck.
"HE can't see any reason to be cheerful about a holiday that should be spent with family when he has none who care about him and his two best friends have been more interested in sucking face with each other than talking to him for the past month" Harry spat out before storming out of the Great Hall headed towards the Gryffindor Tower and his bed.
Ron and Hermione just looked at each other in shock. Harry hadn't seemed to mind them getting together before now, sure he'd been vanishing a bit lately, but they hadn't really noticed, they thought he was just giving him time to themselves for a while.
"Weasley, granger, what did Potter do that finally split the lip lock apart that you two have had for the past month?" came a familiar drawl from behind them.
Ron just gaped but Hermione turned around and stared at Malfoy and his newest side-kick
"Harry doesn't want to celebrate Christmas tomorrow" Hermione blurted out
"Really?" Malfoy drawled "let me guess, he's decided he has no family, his friends don't care about him anymore and oh yeah there's a hypocritical, psychopathic lunatic after him whose only Christmas wish is to have Potter wrapped up dead in a coffin under his Christmas tree?"
"Well, except for the psychopath bit that's what he said yeah" Ron stammered at last
"How did you know Malfoy?" Hermione asked
"Remember that oh so wonderful idea that Dumbledore, Snape, Sprout, McGonagall and Flitwick came up with at the start of the year to encourage "Inter-House Unity"? The one involving dueling with those who feel the need to get rid of some frustrations?"
The Gryffindor pair just nodded silently
"potter and I have been using each other for the past month to get rid of assorted frustrations and to train for the final battle with Moldy Voldie at the same time"
"No way Malfoy, you're lying why would Potter volunteer to be hexed by you?" Malfoy's sidekick piped up "I know Potter may have a death wish but I wouldn't have said he was suicidal"
Hermione looked at the boy, noting his dark, kind of sexy Italian looks "And you are?" she drawled in the same tone as she had to Ron on the train first year
"Blaise Zabini, Slytherin bad boy numero deuce – no body beats the Prince here"
"Zabini raises a good point Malfoy" Ron interjected, not liking the way Hermione was looking at the Slytherin boy "Why you?"
Draco looked at Blaise and they both walked around the table and at down opposite the Gryffindor pair.
"I'll tell you Weasley, but quickly as we then have to come up with a way to get Potter out of this funk."
Draco's companions looked at him in disbelief. He just shook his head and held up a hand forestalling any comments, "Just listen ok? At first neither Potter nor myself wanted to fight each other, me not wanting the entire Gryffindor house hexing me in the hallways should I beat the "Golden Boy", and by the way don't ever let him hear you call him that, good way to be eating slugs"
Ron turned green remembering the incident that had left him eating slugs in second year.
"I digress, and him not wanting to have to dodge dark magic from those death eater children who took exception to him beating their "Prince" and I hate that title almost as much as Potter hates his so if I ever hear it again I will hex you stupider than Goyle Zabini"
Blaise gulped and nodded quickly
"I digress again. After potter had hexed every single Hufflepuff, half the Ravenclaws and a quarter of the Slytherins who showed up the first day, and I had hexed everyone else, Gryffindors included, and between us we'd caused Pomfrey to have to extend the hospital ward as she couldn't get all the hexes off fast enough, Dumbledore informed us that we would from then on be duelling each other exclusively or he'd ban us from attending at all. There wasn't much choice to be had, no one else was willing to step up and be hexed into the hospital wing by either of us and it was them who'd gone to Dumbledore in the first place so we duelled each other."
"Who wins" Hermione asked quietly
Draco shrugged elegantly "Depends on who has had the worst day, actually we're about even, half the time he wins, half the time I do. After the first couple of duels that went for far longer than any student duel should go for –"
"How long" Ron interrupted
"On average, 6 hours straight. Anyway –"
"SIX hours STRAIGHT????" Hermione butted in "No way Harry's never been missing for … that…. Never mind" she mumbled as Draco raised his eyebrow at her, reminding her of some very intense and very LONG petting sessions she and Ron had had earlier in the month
"To get back to the story, we don't have much time you know, Potter and I decided to set a time limit of an hour of actual duelling, followed by an hour of talking through the problems, then more duelling if we still weren't any closer to coming to a solution for the problem. Since both of us have problems that no amount of duelling can take care of – at least no amount of duelling with each other we've talked quite a lot this past month."
"Alright Malfoy, so you know Harry's problems now why are you so insistent that we don't have much time to change Harry's mind about Christmas?" Ron asked warily
Draco looked at Ron and sighed, pointing to the clock "Because you twit it's taken me half an hour to tell you this which means that it is Christmas in three hours."
"So what do we do?" Blaise asked "And why am I helping you save Potter's mind anyway?"
"Because Blaise, if Potter doesn't kill Mouldy Voldie before we turn of age then our fathers are going to make us become Death Eaters and we'll die horrible painful deaths remember?" Draco said in a long suffering voice, letting the Gryffindors know that the pair had had this conversation before, many times.
"oh yeah. Got a plan?" Blaise asked sheepishly
"I do" Hermione said quietly. 'It's a Muggle story, very famous in the Muggle world, called "A Christmas Carol" written by –"
"Dickens yes, and if you think that was a Muggle story you obviously haven't read 'Famous wizards and their biographies' yet have you Granger? Dickens was a wizard, the Scrooge personality – that was him. His best friend cast a spell, come to think of it, that spell's in the library, come on" Draco got up and ran to the library, followed closely by the other three.
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A/N: Okay, there is more to this story, the funny, amusing slightly strange night that Harry has. I'm going to do each, Past, Present and Future in separate chapters.