A/N: Okay, so this chapter might be a little short because I have big plans for the next TWO and wanted to end this one on a sweet note. Also, I'm thinking of writing another story, I have an idea in mind and will post the first chapter. I'd really, really, appreciate any reviews on it to see if it's worth exploring! It's called Someone New. Please, please, please let me know what you think if I should continue or not.

I do not own anything that is mentioned in the HP Universe!

Chapter Twenty-Four: Supposed to Be

Draco's POV

Draco woke up in the middle of night to hear a loud clatter from downstairs and immediately flew from his covers and stormed down the stairs, his wand stretched out in front of him, prepared for any attacks thrown his way. However his wand slowly lowered and his head tilted to the side as he watched a bushy haired witch hop up and down holding her right foot in both her hands.

"Shit, dammit, ooh," she hissed as she rubbed at her foot. She picked at something lodged into the balls of her feet and immediately swore as blood began to profusely squirt from the cut. "Shit!" she hollered as she tried to stop the bleeding on her sleeve. "No, no, no, not the carpet," she squealed as she attempted to raise her foot higher so she could stop the blood from dripping to the floor below.

"Need a hand Granger?" he chuckled as he made his way across the room. It was then that he noticed the broken glass on the floor and the rather large tree sitting in the corner of his room. He smirked as he saw a sparkly silver garland snake through the branches and colourful ornaments adorned the bristles. He caught the falling witch in his hands and guided to her to the sofa, promptly propping up her foot so he could take a look at the damage. He clicked his teeth and shook his head teasingly. "I don't know Granger, we might need to chop it," he smirked.

He ducked the pillow that flew towards his head and was about to turn and give her a mocking grin but was greeted by a second cushion that smacked into his nose. As he shoved the cushion away he dropped her foot and laughed as she howled in pain. "Well it looks like you don't want my help so," he drawled as he scrunched his nose, pretending the hit had hurt more than it had.

"No," she beckoned, calling him back to his seat before he could even move to leave it. "Just fix it please," she rolled her eyes.

With the wave of his wand, Draco watched as the skin stitched itself back up and the blood was washed away. He gently placed it on his knee and turned his attention to the now significantly less angry witch on the other end of the sofa. "You do have a wand you know," he drawled.

"Yes well, I didn't have it on me and I wasn't exactly in the best position to hop on over to the other side of the room to get it now was I?" she growled, pulling her foot away to inspect it. "Besides, you did a good enough job," she shrugged, placing her foot back on his knee.

"So what's this all about anyway?" he gestured to the half decorated tree.

"Well, Christmas Eve is tomorrow and I thought we should have a tree!" she explained plainly.

"We? What's this we business now?" he grinned mischievously.

Hermione blushed and began to stutter to cover her tracks. "Well, you know what I mean, but you're right, I should have asked. But you would've said no, and I wanted a Christmas tree so I got one," she ended up finishing rather defensively. After all, she was Hermione Granger, she didn't need to explain herself to anyone.

"Well, thanks," he shrugged.

"You're welcome," she smiled. "Do you want to help decorate?"

"It's one in the morning!" he groaned.

"So?" she reasoned.

Draco thought for a moment, he wasn't really tired anymore. It had never really occurred to him over the last few years to buy a tree since moving out of the Manor, in fact, not a lot had really occurred to him during that time until he was reacquainted a certain muggle-born witch. He had never decorated a tree before, it was always something that his mother had done, and it always looked immaculate and perfect, but the number one rule was 'do not touch'. Of course there were many years he would sneak into the drawing room and ruffle with the tinsel or tap his nails against one of the baubles, but for the most part, the Christmas tree was off limits. "Why not?" he decided and gave a small smile to Hermione, trying to pretend to be excited. Though if he was perfectly honest, he was pretending to be bored, pretending to be excited. He had mastered masking his emotions years ago, and he knew if she knew just how excited he really was at the prospect of decorating a simple Christmas tree, well that would be the end of him.

Hermione grinned and got to her feet, grabbing his arm along the way and dragging him closer to the tree. "Oops, right, watch out!" she warned as she held him back from taking a step further. He looked down to see the broken glass she had obviously stepped in and watched as a mass of frizzy hair blocked his view while she cleaned up the mess. "There," she said satisfied. There was another clatter and Hermione was instantly by the tree that was now leaning towards her. She had managed to catch it just in time and Draco couldn't help but laugh as she screamed at the blur of orange fuzz that leapt from the tree and bolted from the room. "Crookshanks! That is not okay!" she screamed as she righted the tree back to a standing position.

Draco laughed as Hermione ran through the main floor, chasing the darned cat around his house and he was certainly thankful that her anger wasn't directed at him. He caught sight of the cat dangling from Hermione's grasp as she held him by his cuff and stormed up the stairs to her bedroom where Draco was certain she was going to give the animal a well-deserved scolding. Turning back his attention to the tree, he noticed a box of various ornaments resting on the floor next to hit. He bent down and picked up the first one he saw. As he was about to place it on one of the middle branches something caught his eye and paused to look at the decoration a little closer. It was a green, glass ball, which had a silver snake that slithered all around it, obviously charmed by magic to move. Looking down to the box, he noticed there were several others, as well as some red ones that had a gold figure moving about, no doubt a lion. He wondered where she had gotten them from, but the box didn't hold any kind of name or clue as to the maker. With a shrug he quickly placed the green decoration on the tree, alternating between various decorations.

When he heard footsteps behind him he turned to see Hermione brush her hair back, resting her hand on the top of her head as she let out a sigh. "Bloody cat, he won't be coming out any time soon," she said with a smile. "Oh good, you've started!" she smiled and then turned to a different box that was resting on the coffee table.

"Where'd you get these?" he asked, dangling a red ball from his fingers.

"Oh those?" she said with a blush. "I may have borrowed some from Hogwarts," she said nervously.

Draco raised an eyebrow at the way she said borrowed and folded his arms across his chest to let her know her answer wasn't good enough. "Borrowed?"

"Okay, stole," she admitted with a huff and took the decoration from his hand. "But they have thousands of extras in storage that they don't even use; they surely won't miss a handful of them."

Draco just shook his head and laughed as he picked up another ornament and turned back to the tree.

"What?" she asked.

"I think I've had a bad influence on you," he said with a smirk and turned back to face her.

"Oh don't boost your own ego Malfoy," she rolled her eyes. "I stole these years ago, wanted a bit of Hogwarts back at home," she snorted, placing her ornament finally on the tree, opting for a lower branch.

"You stole Slytherin and Gryffindor ornaments?" he asked skeptically.

Hermione snorted again. "Did you even look in the box? There's Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff too, there, underneath," she pointed and sure enough Draco caught a slight shimmer of blue and yellow under the green and red.

"Oh," he frowned, certain he had caught her in a lie. "And here I thought you were Miss. Goody-two shoes. I'm Hermione Granger, I don't break the rules," he teased, raising his voice near the end to mock her.

Hermione gave him a light shove and shook her head. "While rules are rules, sometimes, in rare cases, they can be broken, if for a noble cause," she justified with a nod.

"And stealing decorations is a noble cause?" ah, he caught her, he smiled.

"Yes," she said with a blush, setting her attention to the tree once again.

"Don't worry Granger, I'll keep your little secret," he winked and turned the box that was now open on the table. "What's this?" he said, leaning over to pick up two intricate ornaments. They were silvery and seemed to dance around in his palm.

"Oh," she said with excitement. "That's a spell I helped Harry work on. It's similar to the Patronus charm. He made a small mobile out of little silvery animals like these for their son. It's quite clever really," she admired, watching the two animals dance and play in Draco's hand.

"Mhmm, but what do they do?" he frowned, using his other finger to poke at the tiny fox that crawled up his arm.

"Oh, well in this form they don't exactly do much, they do protect from dementors and harm, but I don't expect they'll do much on a tree, I just think they look nice. I made yours into a fox, since you said it's your favourite animal. Mine's an otter," she smiled and held out her hand for the tiny otter to curl up onto.

"Not a cat?" he smirked, his attention turning to the small creature that was now in her delicate hand.

Hermione shook her head as she watched the tiny silver creature. "Though I do have a fondness for cats, my Patronus is an Otter, and they're just so playful. Sometimes I wish Crookshanks was this playful, god love him but he's just always in a mood," she sighed.

Draco laughed at the way she spoke about her beloved feline and found he couldn't agree more with her accurate description of the mangy beast. He was about to speak his mind when another thought struck him. "You can conjure a Patronus?" he frowned.

"Mhmm, haven't you seen it?" she asked, almost certain he had. But he shook his head and she smiled as she crossed the room to fetch her wand. "Expecto Patronum," she said softly, and Draco had to shield his eyes at first but then became engrossed in the silver figure that floated throughout the room. He watched it leap and spin through the air and laughed as it crawled through his legs. "Impressive," he nodded as the animal slowly disappeared back into her wand.

"We learned that in fifth year," she smiled back. "You could probably do one too!"

"I thought Death Eaters couldn't conjure a Patronus," he frowned, suddenly wishing he could.

"Snape could," she blinked.

Draco's head snapped to attention at the mention of their former Professor, his Godfather. "Snape?" he asked and watched her shrug in affirmation. That was certainly interesting news to him. He heard Snape had been a double agent, no triple agent, or was it quadruple, he couldn't tell, but other than that, he realized he really didn't know as much about his favourite Professor as he thought he did. "Interesting," was all he could say as he stored this new information away.

"Yeah, and I don't think it's a written rule that Death Eaters can't conjure a Patronus, I just think there wasn't enough pure happiness in their lives to think of a happy memory strong enough to perform one, besides, we've already established you're no more a Death Eater then I am," she shrugged as she moved closer to the tree again. Draco watched as she placed the tiny otter on one of the middle branches and smiled as it bounced from branch to branch.

He quickly followed suit and watched as his fox leap to the nearest branch and immediately take off, chasing the tiny otter around the tree. "Someone's on the hunt," he snorted and took a step closer to Hermione.

"Well, Otters can be tricky to catch," she smirked as she flicked her wand, the boxes beginning to pack themselves up. "I think that's enough for now, we can finish tomorrow night but I need to sleep I think," she said with a yawn.

"I think I might stay and finish," Draco offered as he gave her a small smile. "Night Hermione," he nodded.

"Night Draco," she yawned as she shuffled off to her bed.

Draco opened the box of ornaments and found thin strands of tinsel to place on the tips of the branches. He continued to decorate through the night, draping tinsel, or baubles in various places. He took a break and sat on the sofa, but ended up slowly drifting to sleep, a red Gryffindor ball in his hands. If he were awake, he would notice the strange little silver animals in the tree were fast asleep as well, curled up around one another, snoring peacefully as they slept.

Harry's POV

Harry smiled as his friend's Patronus disappeared, confirming she'll be over in an hour to do their Christmas exchange. Harry had quickly asked Hermione to bring Draco along, Ginny had requested it, but Harry too thought it was a good idea. He figured even Draco Malfoy needed to be around friends for Christmas. When Hermione confirmed that he would be coming since Blaise was apparently too busy or something he couldn't help but smile. Never in a million years did he think he would actually consider Draco a friend, but after saving Hermione's life, he couldn't help it, despite Draco's attitude towards it. He had to admit that Malfoy was still a prick, but it was starting to grow on him, and his jokes were even quite funny, albeit often inappropriate.

He quickly returned to his bedroom where his sleeping wife lay and placed a kiss on her cheek. "Gin, Happy Christmas," he grinned as she opened her eyes slowly at first then threw her arms around his neck.

"It's Christmas!" she squealed in excitement.

"Er- Gin, can't breathe," he muttered and laughed as she loosened her grip. "Thanks, now let's head downstairs, our guests will be here soon and I've got to get started on breakfast," he winked as he gave her another kiss on the cheek.

Ginny quickly threw her feet over the edge, but then moved much slower as she tried to heave her giant belly off the mattress. "You did this to me," she glowered at Harry as she finally stood with one hand on her belly and the other on Harry's shoulder. "Honestly, I'm huge," she laughed.

"Only two more months," Harry sung, happy at the prospect of having a son.

"Two more months," she squealed again, deciding all this lugging around extra weight was well worth it. The pair made their way down the stairs and into the kitchen where they made a fresh pot of coffee. When it was finally brewed she grabbed a mug and placed a kiss on her husband's cheek and quickly left the room, calling out behind her. "Like you said, you're making breakfast," she laughed and Harry just shook his head.

Half an hour later he could hear the fire roar to life and quite a lot of voices coming from the other room, signalling the rest of the Weasley clan had arrived. Not two minutes later he could hear Hermione's voice as well. Deciding breakfast was good enough; he placed everything on a tray and levitated it, along with a tray of coffee, out to the other room. "Happy Christmas!" he cheered at his ever-growing family.

He could hear a whistle and glared at George who was looking him up and down with a bouncing Fred on his lap. "Nice apron," he teased and Harry stuck his tongue out at his brother-in-law.

"For that, you get served last George," he scowled, but his eyes brightened at the small boy on his lap. "He's getting big," he nodded to Fred Jr. and smiled as Angelina scooped him into her arms.

"He'll be a year in two weeks," she cooed, wiggling her finger to her small child.

"We'll have to have a party," Harry laughed, knowing that certainly Mrs. Weasley had already organized one for her grandchild.

"Unca' Harry," a small voice whined and he looked down to see a flash of delicate, wispy, blonde hair. "Teddy keeps making funny faces," she pouted as she pointed at Harry's godchild who now sat with brilliant blue hair and a guilty expression on his face.

"Teddy," he warned with a smile, "what did we agree upon?"

The young toddler rolled his eyes and jumped down from his grandmother's lap, stumbling a bit on the way. "Don't be mean to Vicky," he drawled as if he had said it a hundred times already.

"Victoire," the small girl growled and crossed her arms as she stumbled back to her mother.

Harry could only laugh at the exchange and was glad to see the rest of the room was chuckling too. They all knew that those two were destined to be together one day; they couldn't keep away from each other for more than five minutes. In fact, Victoire was already sitting on the floor next to Teddy, clapping as he changed his hair colour from blue to purple, her current favourite colour of the day.

"Well, breakfast is ready," he shrugged and stumbled back as hordes of red hair surrounded him, each grabbing a warm cinnamon roll from the trays and a cup of coffee. Once the Weasleys were fed, he let the tray hover around the room as the rest of them each took their food. He even smiled as Draco seemed to enjoy the meal.

After their meal, they all exchanged presents. They let the children go first and suddenly there was wrapping paper flying everywhere and loud gasps and squeals as Teddy and Victoire were obviously pleased. Even Fred seemed to giggle at the tiny clapping cats marched towards him. He almost fell backwards as he felt a pair of tiny hands attack him and he looked down to see Teddy grinning back up at him.

"You got me a broom?" the boy shouted and Harry smiled.

"Well, I think you're old enough now," he said, ruffling his Godson's hair. "But you need to be careful. No riding it in the house and you listen to Andromeda. If she says you can't ride it anymore, you need to get off, got it?"

"Got it," Teddy nodded as he ran back to his broom.

Harry watched and notice the three little ones open some small presents that were wrapped in a simple brown paper. Suddenly he saw Draco crouch down next to them to explain. "Hey Teddy, did you know I'm your cousin," he smiled. Teddy's eyes widened at the word cousin and he looked to Andromeda who gave him a small smile and a nod to confirm this new strange word. "Well your mother was my cousin, so we're technically second cousins, but anyway, I thought you might like to know what your mother looked like when she was my age," he smiled, gesturing to the small frame in the tiny boy's hands. Harry was close enough to just make out the picture and was shocked to see, sure enough, a tiny Tonks in a purple dress and bare feet, stomping through the mud with a small blonde child in diapers sitting next to her, his face covered in the dirt and one hand in his mouth. A displeased Andromeda was in the background and he was almost certain it was Draco's mother next to her, laughing at the absurdness of it all. He was certain that Andromeda had been banished from the family, but maybe there was more to the Malfoy's than he realized. It was really was all a bit absurd.

Victoire held a small unicorn figurine that would prance when it was placed on the ground, which she immediately loved, and Fred already had his toy in his mouth, which seemed to be some kind of stuffed dragon. He was impressed really, he wouldn't believe it if he hadn't seen it but Draco Malfoy seemed to be really good with children, just another reason to not hate the bloke.

"Granny, granny! Is that really mummy?" Teddy asked, waving the picture as he ran to his grandmother's arms.

Andromeda scooped up the boy and looked down at the picture, tears forming in her eyes. "It is, but how? Draco, where did you find this?" she asked as she looked to the blonde wizard.

Harry could tell he was starting to get a bit uncomfortable with the attention being turned to him as he shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "Found it in mum's things," he explained quickly and Harry noticed Andromeda gave a short, understanding nod as she wiped away her tears.

"Right then, let's let the kids play, so we can open ours," Ron cut in to change the subject, sensing the conversation had grown a bit, well, awkward.

Over the next couple of hours the group laughed and cried and laughed some more as they exchanged their gifts, once in a while screaming as someone opened one of George's gag gifts. Ron's was the best, when he opened the box, a puff of black soot rushed up and covered his face, it took him ages to remove it and even still he had some dusted on his ears and in his hair.

Ginny and Harry had received mostly things for the baby, which was fine by him as it would be one less thing they had to worry about when the time came. Hermione, of course, had gotten them a series of muggle books to read, the many tales by Beatrix Potter. Ron had actually gotten them one of the best gifts, according to Ginny, it was a small onesie that looked like a Quidditch uniform and even had tiny socks to match.

Charlie gave his family a trip to Romania to see the Dragons, and had even mentioned there was room for Hermione to join, and possibly Draco if he was interested. Charlie and Draco seemed to click instantly throughout the day, constantly talking about different Dragons and travel experiences they both have had over the years. It was an interesting combination, especially to see Draco actually impressed by a Weasley.

Ginny had managed to pull some strings with the Harpies and got everyone tickets to their home opener match, against the Cannons, in the spring, which everyone, even Draco was ecstatic for. And in typical Molly fashion, she had knitted everyone a warm jumper with their initials, even managing to make a tiny one with a small J on the front.

It really was a perfect Christmas, everyone was happy, despite their current troubles, they were all together, and there was another child on the way. Harry looked around the room at all the smiling faces and decided nothing could be more perfect than that moment. He looked down at the hand that slid into his and smiled at his wife as she continued her conversation with Bill, only confirming his earlier statement. Everything was as it was supposed to be.