The Hogwarts Express chugged slowly through the rolling fields of England, the entire landscape covered in a thick blanket of snow. Little white snowflakes fluttered down from the sky and landed on the windowsill, and it seemed like the snow was piling higher by the minute.
Draco glanced out of the window and sighed. His feet were propped up on the seat as he leaned back against the window that led to the corridor. "We'd better not get snowed in this year. It was bad enough being snowed in with Voldemort, but with you? Merlin save us all—ow!"
Eva had launched a spare quill at him which had made impact in the centre of his forehead. Luckily for him, it didn't have any ink on it, but she just wished she'd thought to put some on beforehand.
"Now shush," she put her finger to her own lips, signalling for him to be quiet, "I need to concentrate."
"I don't see why that needs so much thought," he remarked, hovering his Chocolate Frog around the compartment using his wand out of sheer boredom. "Wasn't the last question you answered about your favourite music?"
"Yeah, and thousands of people are gonna read my response," she argued before rolling her eyes. "I don't expect you to get it. Do I enjoy Christmas?" she asked as she read off the list of questions she'd been sent via owl.
"Oh, you enjoy every moment spent with me," he replied smugly, only to have another quill thrown at him. She then laughed at something on the letter in front of him, causing him to frown. "What?"
She cleared her throat unnecessarily. "'You've been with the dark yet dashing Draco Malfoy for over 3 years now. Tell us a fact that few know about him.' Ooh, what to write, what to write." She playfully tapped the end of her quill against her chin. "Maybe that you refuse to eat peas and will pick them out of every food you have, or the teeth-whitening spells I've seen you use, or maybe I could tell them about your unhealthy obsession with green apples and Chocolate Frogs-"
"Eva, enough!" he snapped harshly, causing her to blink at him. He occasionally had these little outbursts if he was pushed too hard at once. He was fun to joke around with, but only to a certain extent. He sighed. "Don't say anything stupid," he muttered.
She hummed a laugh. "You do know I wasn't going to write any of that shit, right?"
He shrugged. "I wouldn't put it past you."
"Fine," she relented. "What about . . . that you make a really good turkey and mayonnaise sandwich? That's pretty harmless, unless you find cooked poultry offensive to your precious public image, of course."
He pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly already fed up of the interview he was unwillingly receiving himself. "That'll do, I suppose."
"There is no way your house is any fun for Christmas," Eva remarked as they approached the infamous looming Malfoy Manor. A few peacocks from further into the luscious gardens turned their heads and gave them strange looks as they walked past.
"Never said it was," Draco retorted, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his keys to unlock the front door. He shoved it open with his shoulder and dragged both of their suitcases inside. "Still, there are worse places to be, I guess."
Eva rolled her eyes and followed after him, however she almost gasped at the view in front of her. The entrance hall to the manor was generally quite bleak and lifeless, but with the fireplace crackling away and the lights and decorations everywhere, it was—dare she say—magical. And for once it was genuinely a temperature comfortable enough for her to remove her coat as soon as she entered rather than freezing under several layers for days. That had been one of the reasons she'd been dreading Christmas so much after all.
"Draco." Narcissa descended the main staircase and entered the room. She was wearing smart grey robes, as expensive-looking as always, yet rather than her hair being tied up, it was loose in blonde waves down to her shoulders. She pecked Draco on the cheek, just as she always did, and then her attention turned to Eva, looking her up and down judgmentally. "I see you brought company." She sighed. "Well, it is Christmas after all."
Eva nodded during the awkward silence and wrung her hands together in front of her. "It's nice in here by the way. No offence, but this place usually gives me the creeps."
Narcissa did seem to take offence, narrowing her eyes slightly, but apparently not enough to comment on it. "Yes, I do think it gets rather wonderfully festive around this time. Draco, why don't you show Eva upstairs? I will have Tinker take your luggage."
"Sure," Draco replied. He sniffed the air briefly and his expression lit up slightly. "Gingerbread?"
"Gingerbread is only given to those who do what their mother tells them to do first, dear," she responded with a mildly amused shake of her head. "Now go on," she motioned upstairs, "and you know to stay away from the east wing for the time being."
Eva glanced between the two Malfoys with an eyebrow raised. "What's the east wing?"
Rather than reply to her, Narcissa glanced up at Draco who was already half way up the stairs. "Did you not explain to Eva the previous use of the east wing?"
Draco sighed and threw his head back like a stubborn teenager, plodding down the stairs again. "The east wing had the master suite, as well as my father's study, his collection of dark objects, and our old main library. When," he glanced at Narcissa briefly, "the Dark Lord invited himself in as if we're good pals," Narcissa glared at him, and Eva realised that some of her humour must've been rubbing off on him, "he decided to move in there for the majority of his time. For obvious reasons, we're having it renovated, and everything that even touched his yellow fingernails," Narcissa's glare only became harsher, "is being either thoroughly cleaned for several years if it's of irreplaceable value, or simply destroyed."
He then turned on his heel and left, grumbling something about gingerbread under his breath. Rolling her eyes, Eva dashed after him and almost slipped on the polished staircase as she did so. "You're just destroying all that crap? Really?"
He smirked. "Unless you want it," he teased, "then yeah. Had to get rid of all my door handles too, and the floorboards were replaced while we were at school. Voldemort had a habit of letting himself in, making remarks about my music posters and homework, passive-aggressively threatening me with Nagini . . . you get the idea. He woke me up at 2 in the morning once. Since then I slept fully-clothed."
She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Please tell me you weren't nude."
"Just topless," he corrected, "but it didn't make it any less traumatising. I was just lucky he never walked in on me in the shower. Thank heavens for that. Anyway, so that's-" He suddenly checked his watch. "When did you last take those potions Madam Pomfrey gave you?"
Eva closed her eyes and groaned irritatedly as she reached for the back pocket of her jeans and popped open the lid of the small bottle. Due to her currently ongoing shoulder injury, she had to take a droplet of salamander blood every 3 or so hours.
"For fucks sake," she said, although it was impossible to hear since her mouth was wide open and she was dropping one tiny bit onto her tongue using a pipette. "Stupid bludger, stupid Quidditch, stupid-"
"You're starting to sound like me," he taunted. "Why is it always you getting injured? You've spent more time in the hospital wing than actually in classrooms."
She scoffed. "Tell me about it."
Since Draco had been so eager to dig into his serving of the gingerbread house the house-elves were preparing in the kitchens, Eva had let him go ahead without her. She finished drying her hair and tousled it out in the mirror before exiting Draco's room and wandering her way down the corridor.
She vaguely knew the way down to the kitchens. It wasn't too difficult—just roughly downwards, down as many staircases as possible without reaching the cellar. Worst case scenario; she'd get stuck in the cellar with a lifetime supply of elf-made wine, courtesy of Lucius, so she'd be fine if it came to it.
It was still bizarre to her though, all the Christmas decorations, especially the tall and extravagantly-decorated Christmas tree in the middle of the drawing room. The table in the drawing room had also been replaced, and was now not only a lighter colour but also had several decorative ornaments and a bowl of mint humbugs instead of the previous decoration of choice i.e. muggle-born corpses.
Eva stopped. Had she missed a turning? This was a new hall—maybe—she wasn't entirely sure. Everywhere looked the same to her; the same walls, portraits, doors, even the bloody floors and carpets.
As she continued, the hall only became darker. Yep, definitely the wrong way. The portraits were still glaring at her, as they all did, except these ones seemed more willing to destroy her than the others around the manor. They murmured between each other but otherwise said nothing directly to her.
"If you have something to say, it would be nice if you just said it to my face," Eva said to them, her hands in her pockets.
"Mudblood," one to her left mumbled. "Filthy, repulsive, horrible creature in my family home. It's an abomination, it is. You filthy little mudblood, how dare you disgrace the Black and Malfoy name."
"Haven't heard that one before," she retorted quietly. "Too late, I have in anyway. Dunno if you heard the news yet, but the prejudice is kinda over now, so . . . yeah, suck it."
There was a soft yet unusual laugh that made Eva stop straight in her tracks. It came from the wall at the end of the hall, but it was too dark to see exactly what, or who, it was.
Eva reached for her wand. "Lumos."
"Scared of the dark, are we, itty bitty Eva?"
Eva wished she hadn't lit up her wand. Now she could see each of the paintings, and the one in front of her was of a certain woman who'd haunted many of her dreams countless times. Her black curly hair, her slanted posture, her crooked teeth—she could recognise it from a mile away.
Yet Eva froze. Usually she was so cool—in battle, she'd faced the bitch easily—but now nothing but sheer panic was overtaking her mind. It was just a painting, she knew that, but it was as if her conscience wouldn't listen.
The portrait of Bellatrix laughed manically. "You really thought I was gone for good, didn't you? Did you think mean old Bella was gone?" she mocked her. "You stupid and naïve little girl, it's far from over."
Eva finally found the ability to slowly retrace her steps backwards, but even then her legs were trembling in some kind of fear.
"You think I'm dead, do you? Do you think you've killed me? HAH!" Bellatrix laughed even harder when she'd seen that she'd made her jump. "The Dark Lord is here too, you know, in a painting just a few floors below us. It's never over, wittle baby Evie. Oh dear, are you scared?" Her voice only escalated further as Eva didn't provide a single response. "Because you should be. I'll come back for you, Eva, I can promise you that much. The Dark Lord will rise again, and he'll show no mercy on those like you! You're dead, Eva Infernum! Do you hear me?! I'M GONNA KILL YOU, EVA INFERNUM-!"
A pair of hands suddenly grabbed her by her shoulders and yanked her back, turning her around again. Draco snatched her wand from her for a moment and put the light out again before placing it back in her hand. Bellatrix in portrait form was still laughing manically and screaming, and her voice carried through the echoing hallways.
That was all that Eva could focus on. There was a good chance that she was out of earshot, but she could still feel the relentless ringing in her ears, even once Draco had led her back through to the drawing room again. He continuously glanced behind him as they went, so distracted that he almost collided with the Christmas tree, and then with his mother.
Narcissa pursed her lips and furrowed her eyebrows. "What on earth happened here?"
"Your sister, mother," Draco sneered in response. "Your sister happened here."
She sighed, just as another particularly ear-piercing scream rang through the drawing room from the portrait. "I'll see to her now," she muttered, her footsteps quickly retreating away again. Eva could still here the faint conversation in the distance. "I know, Bella . . . yes, I know . . . how sad . . . yes, I know . . ."
They only stopped once they were inside Draco's room again. He closed the door, stared at it for a moment, and then decided to lock it for good measure.
Meanwhile, Eva curled up in the corner of the bed, her legs drawn to her chest and her head resting on her knees. Somehow she'd forgotten how to breathe, and each breath she managed to take came out in harsh shallow puffs.
Draco sat down beside her with some space between them, figuring she could probably use it. "Eva-" he began.
However, before he could say anything, she hurled herself into his arms and began to sob heavily against his shoulder. He blinked for a moment and the force caused him to almost fall off the bed entirely, but once he'd finally regained his balance again, he somewhat awkwardly swayed from side to side, even patting her shoulder before questioning the stupidity of the action himself. It was safe to say that he wasn't the best at consoling those who are crying.
"Ssh, she's gone darling, I promise," he reassured her quietly as her sobs began to quieten down and she rested back against him, wiping tears from her eyes with her sleeves.
She sniffled. "I know, it's just . . ." she trailed off, not really knowing how to put her thoughts into words.
Draco, however, still seemed to understand and nodded. "Put it this way—even if she weren't, I would never let her anywhere near you again. I've already lost you once," he paused for a moment and subconsciously tightened his arms around her, "and that's more than enough times for me."
"Those two months must've been dead boring," Eva joked. "Excuse the pun."
"I would've rather it be boring," he sighed. "Merlin, Eva, I really thought you were gone for good, you know? I—I had to attend your funeral, for fucks sake, I had to watch them lower your casket into the ground. I really thought you were . . ."
She glanced up at him from beneath her eyelashes, her eyes still red and watery. "You really thought I was dead?"
He simply nodded and buried his face in her hair. "How are you here?" he whispered.
She rotated slightly in his arms to hug him back easier. "You already know, Hecate removed my soul-"
"Yeah, I'm not that daft, I know that," he interjected, "but how? It doesn't feel real. I feel like, if I look away for one moment, you'll just be . . . gone, I guess. Everything will just be back to how it was before."
Eva internally cursed the fact that effectively the entire Malfoy family refused to talk so openly about their innermost thoughts and feelings. The fact that she'd been back for months and still she'd had no idea that he'd been feeling that way both saddened her and somewhat irked her.
"Oh Draco," she sighed. "Even if you wanted to get rid of me permanently," his subtle head shake provided her with an answer to that question, "you wouldn't be able to, okay? I'm here now, and I swear on . . . Draco Jr's life," at that exact moment, Draco Jr. squeaked from his cage in the corner of the room, "that I'm here for the long run, whether you get bored of my company or not. Can you trust me on that?"
He hesitated and then nodded. "I probably won't," he said, "get bored of you, I mean. That's kind of the point in the promise ring in anyway." She glanced up at him confusedly. "You know, the enchantment." Her eyes widened in surprise. "Didn't I tell you?"
"If you did, I wouldn't be looking at you like this, would I?" she countered, her eyebrows still almost reaching her hairline.
He rolled his eyes. "Could've sworn I did," he muttered as he reached for her hand with the emerald serpent ring on it. "You probably didn't listen, but I guess I'll repeat myself." He ignored the indignant squeal she made. "When I gave you the ring, it was already enchanted with the promise that I will never, not in a million years, do anything to hurt you. If I were to, the ring would burst into flames and disappear. Has it done so yet? No, and I don't plan on it doing so."
As touched as she was, she was also stubbornly irritated that she hadn't been told about it. "Well," she crossed her arms over her chest like a toddler, "that's nice of you," she admitted, "but I would've preferred it if you would've said something."
"I did!" he insisted.
"When?!" she argued back.
Reader, that back and forth continued for another half an hour.
Eva continuously squealed from the moment her eyes opened on Christmas morning until she reached the Christmas tree downstairs in the drawing room which had a buttload of presents hidden underneath it. She jumped up and down on the spot a few times and clapped her hands excitedly.
Draco stumbled into the room just behind her, also in his pyjamas. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm. "Couldn't you have at least dressed slightly appropriately?" he mumbled.
She spun on the spot. "I don't see your issue, honestly," she retorted as she motioned to the t-shirt she'd borrowed from him and the pair of black gym shorts she was wearing underneath it. "Everything here's covered, keep your greasy blonde hair on."
"Huh, greasy?" he repeated with a frown.
"I'm just teasing, ferret boy," she laughed, settling down at the foot of the tree like she used to when she was small. "Ugh, I haven't had a Christmas like this in . . . well, years, really."
"Oh how difficult your life must've been," Lucius snarked.
Honestly, Eva had clean forgotten that the guy had pretty much permanently rooted himself to the armchair near the fireplace, and she rarely saw him out of that spot. Usually he was either reading the Daily Prophet cover to cover, reading some other book from the library, or examining and tending to his dark artefacts which were being stored in the small room just adjacent to the drawing room. This time around, one leg was crossed over the other while he mindlessly flicked through the morning edition of the Daily Prophet.
"Hey, Voldemort loved you, he wanted me dead," she snapped.
Lucius scoffed. "So naïve, aren't you just? Peacefully forget about this," he tilted his head to the side, exposing his little tattoo on his neck which he was given in Azkaban, "did you, Little-Miss. Infernum? You should be glad the Dark Lord never did get his hands on you, you silly girl. If you thought life was difficult for you then, imagine that but under the Dark Lord's influence."
"I was tortured by Bellatrix," she argued.
"Tortured by the Dark Lord," he added, trying to make his suffering seem greater.
"Watched my friends die!"
"Believed my own son was dead!"
"Was yanked away from my family!"
"Again, believed my own son was dead!"
"Groped by the Snatchers!"
Lucius paused. "Well, that didn't happen obviously, but you get the idea!"
"Children!" Narcissa shouted from the doorway, causing everyone to go silent. Lucius shrank back behind his newspaper while Eva muttered, 'coward', at him. "Merlin, it's Christmas. For once, may we have a quiet and comfortable Christmas morning as a family? Thank you," she sighed.
Eva wasn't paying attention to Narcissa's words, only to the way her heart fluttered at the thought of being part of the family. Why though? She had her own, but she supposed having the Malfoy's as in-laws would be pretty incredible.
Just as Narcissa wanted it, for the most part the morning was pretty smooth. They opened wrapped presents from under the tree one by one, and she was pleasantly surprised to find that there were just as many for her as there were for Draco. Maybe he had just a few more, but not by much.
Most of her gifts were the typical gifts you'd get for a teenage witch—books, skincare potions, chocolate, and a few new fancy quills and ink pots. Draco received similar items, although his weren't so pink in colour.
They were near the bottom of the pile now, but there was one that Eva eyed under the tree. She shimmied it out from underneath and handed the large long gift to Draco, as well as the smaller one that accompanied it. "Merry Christmas, ferret boy."
His eyes widened as he glanced between her and the gift in his hands. He tore open the paper slowly, almost hesitantly, but audibly gasped when he saw the Nimbus 2500 in all its shining glory. He then grabbed for the smaller gift and opened it much faster, only to find that it was a little golden snitch, although this one was slight more copper-y in colour and it opened up as soon as he placed it in his palm.
"After you said that your Nimbus 2001 has been running slow and you've wanted to re-teach yourself Quidditch, I thought you could do with a new broomstick. And the Snitch just came as a bonus offer with the purchase, so . . ." She shrugged.
He stared at the gift agape before glancing back up at her. "Thanks," he muttered almost sheepishly before placing them down again. "I got you something too, actually," he began to climb to his feet and leave the room, "be back in a moment," he called over his shoulder.
While he was gone, she looked up at Narcissa, who was sitting at the table in the centre of the room with a warm mug of hot chocolate, and then at Lucius whose attention continuously switched between his newspaper and the 18 year old toddlers at the foot of the tree. "Any idea what he got me?"
Narcissa seemed to know, placing a finger open her lips but smirking, while Lucius just shrugged. "Hell if I know," he grumbled, disinterested.
Draco entered the room again with something tucked under his arm. Something fluffy. A rug maybe? No, that would be weird.
"Don't hate me," he began.
She rolled her eyes. "It never goes well from here."
"Well I hope it does, because otherwise this gets awkward." The gift suddenly began to squirm in his arms and he had to place it down on the ground. However, what shocked Eva right to the core was when it uncurled and ran at her, pouncing on her and licking her face.
She laughed. "You got me a puppy?!" she yelled in delight.
She sat up, forcing the little golden retriever puppy to climb off her and dart in circles around her and the tree.
Draco was relieved. "Glad you like him," he chuckled. "What are you going to name him then?"
"Name? I get to give him a name?!" she repeated. The puppy stopped in front of her and began to attempt to lick her face again. "He looks like a Dave, don't you think?" Before Draco could say anything, she continued, "Hello, little Dave."
She didn't miss the little snort Lucius made in the corner, or Narcissa's bewildered expression, or the way Draco's lip curled when he was ready to argue the choice of name. But she didn't care.
She had Dave, after all.
⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰
Author's note: Everyone, meet Dave the golden retriever. Who needs kids when you can raise a puppy as a couple? This idea came to me in a dream and I couldn't possibly deny it a place in this chapter.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading, stay safe, and ily lots!