Per Draco's usual, he woke five hours after crawling into the cot left next to Ron's bed, now occupied by Charlie. Since the summer leading to his 6th year at Hogwarts, Draco had not been able to sleep longer than 4 or 5 hours a night. It had taken its toll on Draco physically, but overtime his body acclimated to little sleep. Thanks to his odd sleep patterns, Draco was able to sleep at almost any time of the day or night and be rested after 4 to 5 hours of sleep, something he was glad to have. Next to him, Charlie snored heavily in Ron's bed completely oblivious to Draco's movements as he folded the blankets on the bed and moved to the door. The Burrow was absolutely silent telling Draco nobody was awake yet.
The reflecting starring back at Draco through the bathroom mirror showed a boy with long and unkept hair with dark shadows around his eyes. His skin had seen more weather in the last few months than he had in the years prior. Over all, his appearance resembled more of that to a homeless man than that of a Malfoy. Sighing, Draco removed his wand from the wand pouch sewn into the inside of his mustard yellow sweater and with a few graceful strokes removed the patched beard and long hair. He had skillfully left the hair on the top of his head a little longer than the rest so it laid with a soft poof and was long enough he could run his fingers through it comfortably. He looked more Malfoy-like, and defiantly better than he had seen himself in ages. His now developed muscles filled out his sweater nicely making Draco looking much sexier than he had been at Hogwarts. Giving his reflection a swoon worthy wink, Draco left the bathroom.
Before heading downstairs to the kitchen, Draco made a quick detour to Ginny's room. She, like the rest of the house, was sound asleep. Her beautiful long red hair was pushed behind her head settled gently on the pillow she held lengthways to her body with her head resting on the edge of the pillow. The rest of her body was scrunched into the fetal position with the blankets wrapped around her leaving only her head peeping out in visible view. Draco gave himself a few moments to relish the sleeping beauty before leaving a small wrapped box on her nightstand.
As he made his way to the Weasley's kitchen he wondered what his mother was doing that morning. Every Christmas Draco had with her growing up, his mother would make breakfast with him. It was the only day a year she would cook, and it made Christmas morning perfect. With ruminants of last night's party strewn around the living room and kitchen, Draco decided to use his time using simple household charms before starting breakfast. He wasn't a good cook, but he was sure he could make something appetizing.
Cleaning up the living room deemed to be a harder challenge than Draco thought as Mrs. Weasley had charms already at work cleaning up the dishes and realized the household charms he thought he remembered were not the ones he needed. Apparently growing up with a house-elf gave Draco little skill in the house. Sighing, Draco began manually putting the cleaned dishes away making a mental note to ask Mrs. Weasley all her household charms at one point. By the time all the dishes were put away in the most appropriate cabinets, Draco realized his next hope of making breakfast was also going to be a challenge. His worries were rested in the form of Ginny walking into the kitchen rubbing sleep away from her eyes.
"Good morning, handsome." Ginny greeted giving Draco a slight giggle as she wrapped her arms around his neck and standing on her tiptoes so he could reach his lips.
"Good morning, gorgeous." Draco answered with a warm smile, "You're up early."
"I had to pee." Ginny replied hopping up onto the nearest counter and grabbing a clean cup to fill with water. "And then I heard someone downstairs and I figured it was either you or a robber so I came down to investigate."
"I could be a robber for all you know." Draco teased taking the empty cup from Ginny and filling it in the tap.
"Thank you." Ginny smiled taking the filled cup from Draco's hand.
"You never have to thank me for anything."
"Oh, so I don't have to thank you for this?" Ginny held up the charm bracelet that Draco had left on her bed stand earlier. There were a few charms on the silver bracelet: a dragon that parodically left its place on the bracelet to fly around Ginny's wrist before reconnecting to its original place, a quaffle that swung gently on its place on the bracelet, a metal version of Arnold complete with pink dye, a sunflower who's yellow petals seemed to glow and two broom sticks that were crossed together with their handles bent at the end creating a small heart.
"Because I was thinking of," Ginny captured Draco's body with her legs, "thanking you in a very, very, inappropriate way."
"You never have to thank me," Draco repeated his hands snaking under night shirt staring deeply into her soft brown eyes. "You can certainly enjoy doing very," Draco winked, "very inappropriate things with me. But never to thank or repay me."
Draco's eloquent and simple reply was met with long and deep kisses from Ginny. After several long moments, the two broke apart and silently thanked Merlin that they had this moment together.
"I almost forgot," Ginny pulled away from Draco's embrace to grab a small wrapped package from behind her. The silver wrapping with an elegant green ribbon was delicately removed by Draco's slim fingers making Ginny grow impatient.
"Just rip it off already." Ginny sighed as Draco removed each piece of tape as not to rip the wrapping.
"Patience, my dear Ginevra." Draco purred with a smirk that Ginny categorized as "Draco's sexiest smirk". After removing the packaging, Draco found a green dragon shaped charm threaded around a simple silver chain.
"It's a protection charm," Ginny explained, "I've been testing it on Fred and George for months now, and I finally got the pattern right. It is supposed to protect you much like Felix Felis would, but more permanent, well ideally. It won't save you from an unforgiveable curse, but help you avoid being hit by a curse."
"Genius." Draco applauded as he slid the chain over his neck. "Its perfect, Ginevra." Draco gave Ginny another sweet and lasting kiss.
Ginny and Draco had the opportunity to enjoy the next hour to themselves to which they spent much of that hour snogging while doing their best to not burn the breakfast they were preparing. Slowly, the rest of the Weasley house began to wake as the smell of sausages and pancakes filled the Burrow. Before long, the small dining table was filled with laughter, food and so much commotion Draco was sure the neighbors a mile away could hear the Christmas celebration. Though this scene was very unusual to the young Malfoy, he was warming up to this idea of celebration and realized he enjoyed being a part of this rambunctious family.
Everyone, Draco quickly realized, was wearing a hand-knit sweater that had a large ini
tial on the bodice. Ginny's sweater was a golden brown color with a giant 'G' printed on the sweater that looked several sizes too large for her frame while next to her George, no that was defiantly Fred Draco corrected himself, was wearing a similar sweater several sizes too small while George was donning a royal blue sweater with a large 'F' on the front. The three seemed very pleased with themselves and would giggle silently whenever someone called George Fred, and Fred George. A bit into breakfast, the twins and Ginny realized that their family had not noticed who was who, and began taking turns making breakfast food into a prosthetic ear for George. It wasn't until Ginny added an earring of charmed butter to George's pancaked ear that Flur decided it was her moment to reign over the trio.
"You s'oundn't use food for playing." Her French accent chastised the amused Weasleys.
"I'm sorry, I only heard half of that. Would you mind repeating that?" George asked sweetly as Fred and Ginny held their snickers at bay. Bill and Charlie however had no qualms to snickering into their food. Flur promptly elbowed her husband and he held up his hands in surrender.
"One second, allow me to translate for my dear brother." Fred smiled sweetly at Flur and then turned to George throwing his hands wildly around his face, ears and George's face. After a bit of the twins wildly throwing gestures at each other silently sending most of the family into stifled giggles, the twins looked to Flur with the straightest and most apologetic face they could muster.
"My apologies, Flur," George nodded, "You are right, food is defiantly not for playing with."
"Which is why we shall vow," both twins stood and held over their chest in mock salute, George over his heart and Fred over his right peck which George silently corrected, "to never ever play with our food ever again."
"Thank you, boys," Flur nodded unamused, "so would you now take off 'zat ridiculous pancake?"
"You want me to take off my ear?" George asked shocked with exaggerated horror.
"You said you wouldn't play with the food!" Flur shot back, her face raging.
"This isn't food, this is my ear!" George argued back with equal rage.
"That is a pancake!"
"Flur," Bill set his hand on his wife's forearm pulling her out of battle with the twins, "with the experience I have with the twins, it is my professional opinion that you just drop the discussion here. They will take this to the grave if they must in the name of a good laugh."
Flur humped in reply and Molly sighed happily at her family. Despite a full house of laughing witches and wizards, the table still felt empty without her two sons present. It was sunken feeling that fell over the household during the day. The twins and Ginny made extended efforts into making the house extra lively.