II : Broken

"She's going to kill me." Draco looked up from the pile of charred ashes that dirtied the floor.

"She's not going to kill you, you're over reacting," Blaise replied calmly, although the sudden appearance of a worry line in the middle of his forehead betrayed his real feelings.

They were the only people around on the fourth floor Charms corridor, everyone else being at dinner. All Draco had to do was accept Ginny's Christmas presents from the family owl and deliver them, into her arms, once she had finished at practice.

That plan had been shot to pieces though, when one of Blaise's charms had gone awry, and instead of lightening Draco's load, it had instead set it alight.

They had luckily been able to save all but one present – something which Draco believed was the Weasley family jumper because it was the one thing that should have, but wasn't, it the pile of presents.

The two boys said nothing, and starred at the pile, both trying to think of a way out of their predicament.

"I'm going to blame you," Draco said with determination.

Blaise merely sighed and Draco realised how flimsy his idea was. Ginny would never let a slight thing such as it not being his fault get in the way of a chance for her to berate him.

"You could always - no, no, it's a stupid idea . . ." Blaise said, letting the idea trail away and leaving it up to Draco's desperation to decide if it was a good idea to ask what Blaise had thought of.

Desperation won over common sense and Draco demanded to know of his friend's plan.

"You could always knit her a new one."

"That's a stupid idea," Draco snapped, fully intending to take out more of his frustration on his friend, but a chime from his watch stopped him in his tracks. "It's half past. Ginny finishes in thirty minutes." He closed his eyes and fell back against the wall. "Our first Christmas and I – you – set her presents on fire."

He turned his head to face Blaise. "Do you know how to knit?"

This was how Ginny ended up with two jumpers that year; one from her mother who had forgotten to send the jumper with the other presents, and one from Draco. A desperation driven attempt of a jumper he was secretly proud of.

Broken, charred it's all the same.

If I had more time I'd probably redo this one but I don't so I can't. :(

I think the next one's going to be more angst-y.

Thank you for the reivews on the last drabble . . . I have just realised that I'm going to be writing around 1000 reivews in the next 100 days.