Chapter 9 – Father Christmas
There were many reasons that Draco regretted getting on the Hogwarts Express to return home for the Christmas Holidays, not the least of which being a possible encounter with the Dark Lord.
He'd spent most of the month of December dreading the upcoming holidays for exactly that reason.
To his immense relief, the break hadn't been nearly has horrible as he'd feared. Specifically, Voldemort had chosen to spend that time elsewhere attending to whatever it was that Dark Lords attended to.
That said, with only a few days remaining in the break, Draco was now wandering Diagon Alley in an attempt to stay out of his home as much as possible. Even without Voldemort's intimidating presence, the mood within the house was gloomy at best. His father remained sullen and withdrawn and his mother doted endlessly.
Only a few months ago, Draco might have joined them in their depression, but he'd recently realized that he was tired of feeling defeated.
He'd also come up with an idea for a very special Christmas gift for the one person who had given him this small bit of hope.
Now, as he walked down the once busy street, he thought about his little nymph. Every memory of her seemed to make him smile and now he was looking forward to bringing her a gift that would return the favor.
Over the past few weeks, the two of them had developed what might be called a friendship. It had started with the day that she'd kissed him and had grown steadily after that. The defining moment had been the day that she saw her brother Bill follow Draco back from a Hogsmeade trip.
On that particular day, Draco had been aware that he was being followed, which wasn't unusual, but he hadn't realized by whom until he'd almost reached the edge of the forest.
Ginny had witnessed the entire exchange. By the time Draco had been able to make his way to the clearing alone, Ginny had been in tears, watching her brother leave and remaining unable to leave the cover of the forest shadows, nor say anything to him. It made Draco wonder about who seemed to determine the mysterious rules that she now had to live by and, more importantly, why such rules were put in place.
But he also had the opportunity to return the favor of holding her, as she had once held him when he'd been distressed.
That had been the final breakthrough between them. From that point, she welcomed his presence openly and Draco had enjoyed it.
And so, the days of December went by with little drama for Draco, as everyone in the school seemed to have their attention on their own matters. He enjoyed the time spent with hisnymph, as he'd come to think of her.
As the winter break neared, Draco found himself becoming a bit morose. He didn't look forward to spending the Christmas holidays at his home this particular year, the possibility of facing the Dark Lord again directly being one of his most serious concerns.
About a week before he had to leave, he noticed that Ginny seemed to be reflecting his rather glum mood. He'd gone to the clearing, with the intent of studying, to find her pacing and muttering silently to herself.
"Did I do something wrong?" he asked, only half-jokingly.
She jumped, startled, then appeared to be embarrassed by her display, quickly moving toward him to cast her warming charm on him. On a total impulse, he caught her by the waist, preventing her from moving away too quickly.
"Something is bothering you," he stated.
He was surprised that she made no attempt to pull away from him but simply looked down, her demeanor appearing sad. He had noticed that when she seemed sad that her clothing seemed to lose some of its vibrancy and this time was no exception.
"Are you sad about not being able to go home for the holidays?"
She nodded, not looking at him, but instead focusing on the folds of his cloak, idly playing with the clasps. He deduced that it was only part of the reason for her mood. He much preferred her to be happy, he decided, but was at a loss for how to cheer her up.
Several questions later, he found that, in addition to not seeing her family, she was actually sad that he was going to be leaving for almost three weeks and that she was going to miss him. He found that he was quite happy about that. Better yet, during the entire conversation, she'd remained close to him, wrapped in his loose embrace.
The closeness had far too strong of an effect on him. He took the opportunity to reach one hand around her mostly bare back to pull her closer and use his other hand to lift her chin to look up at him.
He kissed her.
The first time, when she'd kissed him, it had been short and sweet. This time, however, he had no intention of pulling away until absolutely necessary. It delighted him that after a few moments of surprise at his action, she returned the kiss with equal enthusiasm. She was soft and warm and delightful to hold and he soon found that he had to hold himself back from doing much more than that, as it quickly became abundantly clear that she was innocent of anything more.
He had difficulty concentrating on his studies that afternoon. After they broke apart, he actually made a half-hearted attempt to pull out his books but he found it impossible to focus as he kept glancing over at his nymph, frequently catching her glancing back at him shyly. He loved it.
The next day he returned to find her waiting, looking shy and lovely and for the first time, instead of waiting for her to approach him, he moved to embrace her. This time, when he leaned down to kiss her, she lifted her lips to meet his. He found himself unable to resist smiling in smug satisfaction, until she pulled away to give him a playful slap, mouthing the word "prat".
The day he had to leave, he stopped by the forest on his way to the train and had been delighted to see her pout when he said goodbye. He didn't kiss her then, only because it pleased him to see her pout even further as he left.
His thoughts of her had been a godsend during his weeks away from Hogwarts. It had given him a welcome distraction from his home life. And so now, he eagerly walked the streets of Diagon Alley in search of his rather unusual gift for her.
He'd been quite pleased with himself for his creativity in this regard. Knowing that the nymph would neither need nor want anything his money could buy, he found himself on a quest for information. Not just any information, but specifically, information about various Weasleys.
His plan had been brilliant. Not only had it given him something interesting to do, but it had been fun. It involved being clever and cunning to gather his information without being caught out. He was able to be cunning and, for a change, he didn't have to worry about the terrifying repercussions of his actions. It was merely a playful game. He gathered his facts from various vendors, banks, even the Ministry. All in all, his mission caused the otherwise boring days to fly by.
Finally, after days of success, he gathered the courage to venture into the Weasley joke shop to add the twins to his checklist. Overhearing customers talk in the shop had provided him with a wealth of information to relay to his nymph.
Wandering about the store, he was struck with another rather unconventional idea. Feeling rather over-confident at that point, he walked straight up to the red-head at the cash box to pay for his purchase. The shock on the Weasley brother's face as he paid for his purchase was rather amusing.
Yes, Draco, despite his worst fears was having a good week.
- - -
Ginny watched the blond boy disappear in the direction of the train station with a multitude of confused feelings. Somehow, against her better judgment, she'd become fond of him. He was no longer the enemy and somewhere along the way, they'd reached an understanding.
Watching him when he came to study had given her some insight to his motives. Elora had been right. He was not all that different from her in some ways. It had taken her weeks to accept that. He'd become her steady companion and, oddly enough, knowing he wouldn't be around at Christmas was nearly as bad as not going home herself.
It had all changed the day she saw Bill. Draco had told her about the time that Bill had come to the school in search of clues to her whereabouts. She knew that her family was looking for her and the thought gave her more than a bit of heartache, but she'd been completely unprepared to see Bill only a few hundred feet away, unable to leave the shelter of the trees or even attempt to speak to him.
Her heart had nearly broken when she'd watched her brother walk away.
But Draco had been there, almost immediately, still protecting her secret and holding her while she cried. He never said a word during her entire breakdown. He'd simply wrapped his arms around her and settled down in the shelter of the trees. She'd been so very grateful.
And so they became friends, in her view.
The week before he left, however, everything changed. He'd kissed her. And she'd enjoyed it. And now she was confused again.
She was fond of him, certainly. And Callista had been right as well, he was quite attractive. And she had to admit, she really did enjoy snogging. She was probably closer to him than any boy she'd dated in the past. It was quite strange, considering the fact that she was mute. And now, he'd been gone for only a couple of weeks and she realized that she did miss his company terribly.
It wasn't that she was lonely, actually that was far from the truth. Her week had been filled with lessons from the other nymphs about the workings of the forest as it goes dormant for the winter. Tenere also seemed to know whenever she was free of her lessons and came by to visit her.
She was busy nearly every moment of the day, yet she still found time to miss him. After two weeks, she finally came to admit to herself that she might actually fancy the prat. In fact, she now found herself eagerly awaiting his return.
- - -
Only two days remained before Draco could return to Hogwarts, and never had he been so eager to return to the school. During the entire three weeks of winter break, he'd not had the misfortune of facing the Dark Lord. He was almost ready to breath a sigh of relief. Almost.
That was when word of an explosion at the Weasley joke shop reached him, by way of a very big article on the front page of the Daily Prophet.
Not that the fate of the fool Weasleys meant anything to him directly but it had a rather large impact on him delivering happy news to his nymph, which would thereby make her happy and she would continue to do nice things like snog him senseless.
With that thought in mind, Draco found himself on his final day of winter break trudging his way through the snowy streets on his way to St. Mungo's to check on the red-headed gits.
It wasn't as simple as he'd hoped. There seemed to be Weasleys swarming every hallway of the building making it rather difficult for him to remain stealthy in his mission. Worse, their spouses weren't necessarily red-headed, thereby making it impossible for him to clearly identify whom to avoid. He had to resort to charming his hair dark and standing for several hours near the nurse's station in an effort to eavesdrop.
Fortunately, the idiots only suffered minor injuries. With that knowledge, he was ready to turn around and make a hasty retreat when he heard a name mentioned that seemed to force his feet to stop moving.
Ginny.
Molly Weasley was standing in the hallway, having just heard the Healer's diagnosis, her husband's arms around her in a comforting embrace.
"First Ginny gone missing and now this. Arthur, I'm not sure how much more I can stand," she said said, not quite sobbing, but clearly deep sorrow evident in her voice.
"It's alright Molly. There's no proof of anything. The boys themselves think that it might have been an accident," he said softly.
"You know it's worse than that," she said, her tone changing to show deep concern. "With the boys not working and the bills here, we can't afford to keep looking for her. We can't stretch the budget anymore. We'll probably lose the house to pay for this."
"I know," he responded sadly. "We'll find a way to get by. We may have to put off looking for her for a bit, but we'll find our little Gin-bug. Something will turn up. We won't give up, Molly, I promise."
Oh bugger. The fool Weasleys were spending everything looking for their idiot daughter who was quite safe and ,in fact, had run away. And now they would lose everything over this accident. This was not going to bode well for his happy reunion with his nymph.
Waiting for the attendant to move away from her station, he cast a spell to quietly retrieve the file labeled "Weasley" from the stack on the desk.
The amount listed in the file wasn't so very much, at least not by Draco's standards. Pitiful, actually. Didn't they take donations to cover expenses for these types of things? Apparently not enough. Bugger, bugger, bugger.
It was then hit with a rather novel idea and decided to play Father Christmas to the Weasleys, anonymously, of course. It was something completely uncharacteristic for him but the idea of making his nymph happy was a good motivation. He looked forward to telling her.
For the first time in months, he almost felt good.
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A/N - Hi folks. Sorry for the delay in posting this. I had a really tough time with some parts of this chapter. Please feel free to write to let me know if it is rough or not clear. I welcome constructive criticism (emphasis on constructive, please). Note that most of the rest of the story is written and will come quickly once I get past the next chapter.
