A/N: I'm sorry this took so long to get up. In a short summary of what has happened this past month: boyfriend cheated on me, started school, lost friend, family fall out and I almost killed myself. So forgive me for the delay. ^.^ Hope you enjoy. And I realize all the mistakes and inaccuracies that I have made in this story. From the bottom of my heart, I apologize. As you read this, I am re-writing the story.

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"And I give it all away
to have someone
to come home to
this is my December
these are my snow covered dreams
this is me pretending
this is all I need…"
--Linkin Park "My December"

Draco got up early in the morning, his stomach aching, but his mind more alert and aware than it had been in months. He quickly went to his bed to find the package he had arranged to be delivered to him that day.

Inside were an elaborate magical watch, and many boxes of candy. Draco silently slipped a box of candy into each pile of presents at the end of Blaise, Crabbe, and Goyle's bed, and carefully tied the watch into a soft, velvet bag. Then he took out a piece of parchment and a book of poetry and used them to write out a letter to Harry that would have made Cupid sick with all the sap. But Draco figured Harry would eat it up. He tied it to the bag and crept to the school owlry, where he sent it off to be there when Harry awoke. While he was there, he also sent off another gift wrapped box of chocolates to Pansy.

By the time he got back to the dormitory, Blaise was stretching and mumbling as he shook off the last fragments of sleep. Hoping he wasn't heard, Draco slipped back onto his bed, wincing as his stomach pressed against one edge of the hard wood frame.

"Christmas presents!" Blaise suddenly yelled with glee. From the direction of Crabbe's bed there was a grunt of acknowledgement, and slowly the room filled with sound of wrapping paper being torn, and some sounds of happiness, and others of light hearted groans.

"Every year, my mother sends me a package of fresh underwear with my name stitched on it," Goyle grumbled. "I have too much underwear."

"And it is amazing that you only wear a pair a month," Draco quipped. Goyle peeked out his bed curtains and waved the box of candies at Draco.

"Thanks, Draco. You didn't have to," he exclaimed, and Draco picked up on what he was thinking. Everyone was surrised he got them something. Well, his mother may be dead, and he may have just been unwillfully initiated into the worst organization in wizarding history, but he was damned if he wasn't going to celebrate Christmas.

Draco's gifts consisted mostly of those given by his classmates. Scratching his forearm, which was itching crazily, he read a letter from Pansy. It was even sappier than the one he had sent off to Harry, except Draco wasn't the kind to buy into it. But the letter hinted at darker things, and her sentiments went dangerously close to talking about their future as Death Eaters.

The worst gift, by far, was the one sent discreetly from his father. He unfolded the hooded robes and thick, black gloves, and laid them on the bed, staring at them. They proved that he hadn't been dreaming, that this wasn't all a horrible nightmare he could run from.

He also received a letter from Dumbledore, saying the meeting was scheduled to be in his office at midnight the day that the rest of the school returned from the Christmas holiday. Within seconds of Draco reading it, the paper crumbled into a ball all on its own and burst into purple flames, alarming him until he realized that the flames would only burn the parchment. There wasn't even any ash to worry about.

But there was no gift from Harry. Draco shifted through the pile a couple times, and still found nothing that was from Harry, and he was more than a little disappointed. He rubbed his stomach and tried to push it out of his head. Surely there was an explanation.

Goyle, Crabbe, and Blaise had also sent him candy, and he got out of bed chewing on gum that supposedly would never lose its flavour. To Draco's knowledge, no one had ever tested this theory, but it was fine just to have gum that you didn't have to spit out within a couple minutes.

Breakfast was relatively small, but that was only because the Christmas feast was usually very grand, even with a small amount of students and teachers who stayed behind. Draco took his seat at the table, and the moment he touched his goblet, it filled with pumpkin juice that was magically died to be a swirl of green and red, and his plate filled with eggs, bacon, toast and some fruit.

He had already finished his eggs when the group of Gryffindors, Harry included, entered the Hall. Draco was pleased to see that Harry had his watch on, and that more than a couple people complimented him on it. Upon sitting down across from Draco, Harry casually waited until Draco reached to the pile of oranges between them, and he reached in, too. Draco felt a small scrap of paper being pushed between his fingers and he gripped it as he picked out an orange.

Under the pretense of peeling the orange, Draco unfolded the letter. Written in Harry's untidy scrawl with his almost illegible signature were the words "You unwrap your presents later." Blushing at the obvious innuendo, Draco folded the note away and continued with breakfast.

The two boys were becoming experts at acting as if they didn't notice each other's every movements. And they were becoming even better at not even glancing back as they left the room that they shared, because there was an unspoken knowledge between them that they would meet later.

This time, it was Draco who waited in the shadows for Harry to emerge. When he did, thankfully, he was alone, and Draco grabbed him.

"Where's my Christmas present?" he joked playfully, as he yanked Harry to the closet. Harry grinned.

"What, I thought I was enough Christmas present for you."

"Keep telling yourself that. Whatever helps you sleep better at night," replied Draco. After they had slipped into the closet, Harry closed and secure the door, then began to pat himself down.

"Now where did I put that thing?" he wondered aloud.

"Well, either its down your pants, or you're just happy to see me," said Draco slyly.

"That was so wrong."

"But it felt so right."

"And that was so corny. Right up there with that letter you sent me."

"What letter? Oh, that old thing? I meant to send it to Weasel."

"I knew it had that certain 'I hate you' air about it."

"Oh, well, then, that one was for you."

"Ah, here it is," Harry said, pulling out a small ring box.

Fluttering his eyelashes and pretending to tear up, Draco said in a croaky voice, "Oh, my god, Harry, are you proposing to me?"

"Shut up," Harry said, handing him the box. "I noticed you had on that kind of...well...different ring, and I wanted to replace it. Like you replaced my watch."

Twirling the old signet ring on his right hand, Draco used his thumb to ease open the box.

Sitting in a bed of black velvet was a silver ring with a strip of dark sapphire roping around it. Plucking it from its resting place, Draco stared at it. "Wow, Harry," he whispered. Harry eased the old ring off Draco's hand.

"Look on the inside," he said softly, smiling at the pleasantly shocked face Draco wore. Draco turned the ring over and on the inside of the band; it simply said 'Draco Malfoy' and the date. Harry took it carefully from his fingers and slipped it into the place the old ring had once sat. It fit perfectly.

"Wow," Draco repeated again.

"Oh, is Draco Malfoy at a loss for words?" Harry gasped in mock surprise.

"No. I'm just wondering how many sexual favors you had to perform to buy this."

"None with the same with the same energy I'd perform them with you."

At this, both boys fell silent, blushing heavily at the sexual banter that was beginning to heighten more and more each day with them.

"Uh, well..." Harry said quietly, "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, sure," Draco replied nervously, sucking in his stomach and trying to refrain from itching his arm.

"What happened last night?" he asked shyly. "You look so tired."

"If I tell you, you're going to either have a heart attack or hate me."

"I've hated you before. I'll deal with a heart attack."

Sighing, Draco slowly pulled up the sleeve of his robes. Immediately, Harry recoiled, tripping into the pile of bedpans that Draco had painstakingly sorted on Halloween while he waited to stop crying.

Draco couldn't tell if Harry was angry or scared as he looked at the tattoo in disgust. "How..." Harry's sentence trailed off uncomfortably.

"I didn't ask for it. Apparently, they've been holding Death Eater meetings at my house the whole year, ever since my father went on the run. From what I gathered, they had their regular meeting, then I was 'summoned' to be initiated. I didn't do it willfully, but I didn't fight it either. You've seen Voldemort..." Draco dropped his head, wishing he had struggled against his father and the Dark Lord harder, but it was the same as admitting he was on the other side, and Draco didn't have the nerve to rebel just yet.

"Yeah, I have," whispered Harry. It must have taken him great mental strength, but he ignore the tattoo and reached forward to gather Draco into his arms.

"My father killed my mother," Draco whispered fiercly into Harry's shoulder. Harry nodded.

"It's going to be okay. No one is going to hurt you."

They stayed in the embrace for a little while longer, but there was something between them that was secretly worrying Draco, and when they parted he noticed the way Harry couldn't bring himself to look at his arm.

"So...I'll see you at the meeting tomorrow night, right?" Harry asked. Draco nodded, trying to bite back a petulant, childish pout.

When he got back to his dorm, he rubbed his eyes. It was like every day, more and more, he was losing his personality. It was frustratingly annoying.

He wanted to be himself again, and some voice, the snide voice of his past self, began to mutter. 'Exactly what you've always been taught,' it quipped. 'They've...Potter...has brainwashed you into being not yourself anymore.'

And as he began to float to sleep, Draco had fantasies of returning to the inner circle of Voldemort, carrying with him the exact information of what Dumbledore was planning.

And even as he felt ashamed of his thoughts, something deep inside him awoke...something cold...something cruel...

Something very, very Draco.

~

The next morning as Draco was resting in front of the fire, listening to everyone talking about their gifts, Pansy came skipping into the common room with the other returning students. "Draco!" she squealed, flinging herself at him. "Thank you so, so, so, so much for the candy!"

"Thanks for the letter," he mumbled. "Now get off me."

Thankfully, she obliged, but when she grabbed his arm to support herself as she stood, she exposed his arm. There was a deafening silence, then she began to scream in delight.

"Draco, Draco, Draco, Draco!" she squealed over and over again, successfully catching the attention of everyone that happened to be in, or around the vicinity of, the Slytherin dungeons. "When did they do it? Did it hurt? Is your father so proud? Are they accepting anyone else?" Everyone had gathered around, and Draco found his arm being jerked around as people prodded at the Dark Mark.

"Christmas Eve, yes, I don't care, and I don't know," Draco hissed, wrenching his arm out of the grasp of a first years who was looking at him with adoration end envy. 'And I thought the Gryffindors were brainwashed," Draco thought as he watched people still clamoring to get a look at the mark.

"Wow, you are so lucky," Blaise said, having finally awoken and arriving downstairs after hearing Pansy's screams. Draco was unnerved that Blaise was looking at him, not with adoration or even envy, but with a feverish obsession.

He tried to field as many questions as he could before pretending to be worried about his homework. Finally, Blaise told everyone to let him go, and after smiling gratefully, probably the only genuine smiling Draco had given a Slytherin all year, and retreated to the dorm.

Once there, he decided he might as well start on the essay for Tranfiguration, and had settled onto the floor when Blaise entered.

"Transfiguration?" he asked, watching Draco prod a pebble with his wand, then scribble something down. Barely glancing up, Draco nodded.

"Yeah. It's bloody hellish," he replied. Blaise pulled out his things and also sat on the floor, except he seemed to be watching Draco more than he was doing his work. Finally, Draco threw down his quill. "What, Blaise?" he asked.

"How does it feel to be part of it?"

"Part of what?"

"Of...of the movement?" Blaise said excitedly. He abandoned his books to look at Draco as he spoke in rapid sentences. "My dad says he won't think of asking Voldemort to let me join until our side really needs it. I think they should let more kids. I bet Dumbledore has got all the Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers in this school to help him," Blaise scowled. "Anyone who joins them should be tortured and sent to Azkaban."

"Right...but I thought the Dementers were joining our side?" Draco asked, hoping he could use Blaise to suck out the information that the older Zabini, a blundering fool, had let slip.

"Well, yeah, but we can't let that be known now. You know that," Blaise responded, "We just have to keep up the facade of being responsible and law-abiding wizards until we really get moving."

"Well, yeah, of course," Draco said, nodding and trying to look like this was something he has heard many times before. As Blaise was looking at Draco's doodles around the margins of his rough draft of the essay, Draco noticed how young he was.

"How old are you?" he asked. Blaise blushed.

"I'm fourteen,"

"But...that means you were ten when you came here..."

"My dad pulled some strings," he said quietly. "Its not really obvious, is it?"

"No, not really," Draco said. But now that he knew, he could see the way that Blaise had not quite yet matured. His mind may be alert and quick, but his body was behind. His face was soft and innocent, and now that Draco was really noticing, he found himself feeling sorry for the boy.

"Why do you want to join so badly? You could get killed," Draco said quietly, in a voice that told Blaise he was asking for an honest answer, and not a 'movement' powered one.

"Because...every other generation has a calling. I mean...my dad had the first battle with the Dark Lord, then before hand they had the great struggle of rights, and then before then it was Grindlewald..." he trailed off.

"You want a meaning in your life?" and there, Draco felt a connection with the boy. Though deep inside he knew that it may one day come down to him versus Blaise, he knew the feeling of not knowing a reason for your existence.

For hours they worked in mostly silence, occasionally comparing notes and correcting each other's works. And when Crabbe and Goyle ducked in to tell them of dinner, Draco and Blaise acted as if nothing had happened between them.

Harry smiled discreetly at Draco from across the hall when he sat down, then paused in surprise as Blaise shot him a particularly frosty glare.

Now that the Christmas holidays were over, the houses didn't mingle anymore. It was odd to sit at the Slytherin table and listen to the same old petty school rivalries that still ran rampant among them. A few kids got up the courage to ask Draco to see his arm, and he warily obliged, the entire time feeling the eyes of the Gryffindor table on him.

For some reason, he began to act like how he was supposed to if he were the old Draco. He began to make cocky remarks about being a favorite, no so loud that anyone from the other tables could hear his words, but they caught his tone, and they needed only to glance at his smug smile to tell what he was talking about.

Soon many others in the school strained to catch a glance at his arm, but he dropped his sleeve down again and finished eating.

That night he was too keyed up to sleep, and at quarter to midnight he tried to go the bathroom, but his stomach was too upset to do anything.

Finally midnight came, and he crept out of the dorms, clutching the cloak as tightly to himself as possible.

A small group of students had gathered outside of Dumbledore's gargoyle, and Draco was dismayed to find they were all Gryffindors save one lonely Ravenclaw. Harry stood with Weasel, Granger, Longbottom, Finnigan, and Thomas, and was trying to include the Ravenclaw in their conversations.

Draco slipped behind Harry, waited until he was mid-sentence, then grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

Harry barely stifled his yelp of surprise, and he reached around to pull the invisibility cloak off Draco. Immediately, there was an outcry from the onlookers, all who were visibly shaken at Harry's outburst, and Draco found himself being pinned against the wall by Thomas and Finnigan, as Longbottom cowered behind Harry.

"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" Finnigan growled. Draco rolled his eyes.

"I have a thing for sneaking around and listening in on thrilling Gryffindor discussions late at night." He glared at Harry. "Will you get them off me?" Finnigan and Thomas glanced at Harry, bewildered.

"Yeah, let him go. He's on our side," replied Harry, finally coming to Draco's defense. Even after this reassurance, Finnigan and Thomas were reluctant to let him down. When they had, Draco made a show of patting dust off himself.

"Bloody Gryffindors," he muttered.

"When did he join us?" Longbottom said, his lip quivering,

"Awhile ago," Harry said, his voice signalling the end of the conversation. Weasel was surveying Draco with a deep look of disgust, and Finnigan and Thomas were giving Harry confused looks.

Suddenly, before the situation got even more uncomfortable, the gargoyle sprang to life and jumped to the side as Dumbledore emerged. His eyes jumped over the student, lingering on Draco's briefly.

"Welcome," he said, his voice not louder than a whisper, but everyone listened so intently and the air was so silent that Draco was tempted to tell him to quiet down. "You've all been asked to come here by either me, or my forever recruiting friend, Mr. Potter." He smiled at Harry then, and it dawned on Draco that it was probable Harry had recruited every person here. Saying that he himself had asked for them, Dumbledore allowed each person to believe they were individually important to the group.

Draco wondered if Voldemort had ever done that.

"I understand that there may be some reluctance to trust others," Draco, "and I ask you now to quietly voice your concerns, before I take you upstairs to meet some more experienced colleagues of mine."

Immediately, Seamus Finnigan drowned out the other chorus of whisperes from Weasel, Granger, and Thomas. "I don't think he should be here," he hissed, pointing at Draco. Dumbledore fixed his pale blue eyes on Finnigan, and Finnigan dropped his hands and looked less confident. "All I have ever heard from him, all any of us have ever heard from him, is how much he wants to be like his daddy." He sneered at Draco, who sneered back, and was much better at it, being much more practiced at it.

"Fear not, Mr. Finnigan," Dumbledore said calmly, smiling slightly as sparkles of amusement danced in his eyes, "for I am positive that Mr. Malfoy will serve us admirably." With this, Finnigan fell silent, and when a few seconds passed with no protests from the group, all who had begun to shift uncomfortably and avoid looking at Draco, he stood aside and motioned them upwards. Harry, being Harry, strode forward, and Weasel and Granger, being his puppy dogs, followed him. Draco tried to fall in step behind Granger. but he was shoved out of the way by Finnigan, who was practically dragging Longbottom along, who was quickly followed by the Ravenclaw, and Draco was forced to walk behind Thomas, who kept stopping so Draco had to catch himself before walking into him.

So, therefore, Draco stopped for a second to let everyone else go up the winding stairs.

And when he went to move his feet, suddenly he had horrible flashbacks of the night he'd been told his mother died. He had been there again, with Harry, but the cold attitudes of the others had brought back harsh memories and the knowing that he had no one else in the world.

Dumbledore laid a hand on his back. "After you," he said, motioning towards the stairs. The others were glancing back at him, and Finnigan leaned back to whisper something to Thomas, who laughed coldly and stared openly at Draco, who remained frozen at the bottom of the stairs.

"Regardless of what they say to you, Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore whispered, his long nose inches from Draco's face, "You are still far ahead of them, because while they have always been on this side, only one of them knows what it is like to lose someone to the other side, and known the temptation of joining that side,"

"Harry," whispered Draco, feeling the nerves that had been seemingly dead in his feet slowly awaken. He stepped onto the staircase and heard Dumbledore right behind him.

The others had already been let into the office, and Draco ducked into the dimly lit room and heard Dumbledore close the door behind him. Immediately, the lights in the room went up.

Draco could recognize Weasel's father, and a few Ministry officials, but for what was supposed to be the free wizarding world's final hope, it was a very small group.

Then, quite suddenly, it dawned on Draco. He had been privy to the Dark Lord's inner workings enough to know that while many times the Death Eaters would all meet, it was rare that a Death Eater would know the names of every other Death Eater. The possibility of betrayal always loomed, and this prevented it.

And Draco knew, like he knew his name, that this was not the full group, and he knew that they were protecting themselves from betrayal, not from the new members, but from Draco's specifically. Of course, it was necessary. No doubt, if he was running things, he would have done the same thing.

But it still pained to see how the others hid their face from him, or how when Dumbledore introduced them all, it was a first names only. It hurt that Draco sat alone while the others seemed to cluster together like the last survivors of a massacre. The only ones who didn't seem affected by Draco's presence were the teacher of Hogwarts, and Draco noticed with interest that neither Clio, Snape, nor Flitwick were in attendance.

The meeting was a simple explanation of the meanings of the organization. Then Dumbledore began to field questions. They stayed away from important topics, like how involved the ministry was, but it did mention the 'giant problem.' One official got incredibly heated about it.

"I don't care what Hagrid says, I wouldn't trust those giants if my life depended on it."

"But your life, along with the lives of everyone in this room, do depend on it," Dumbledore replied. The man scowled.

"Regardless, the giants have always been distrusted, what makes us think that they'll not betray us?"

"We don't know. But we never know anything. Their loyalty could waver just as much an anyone in this room loyalty's could waver." It was seeming near the end of the meeting, and some people had begun to talk quietly amongst themselves as others began to talk to Dumbledore.

Draco slumped back in his chair, crossing his arms and wondering if he'd be able to slip out, unnoticed, from this meeting. He felt horribly out of place among these do-gooders. He craved the company of someone who didn't have the weight of the world on his shoulders.

But he watched Harry, too. He watched as Harry whispered something to Dumbledore, and his stomach twisted as Dumbledore waved his hands for silence. "Mr. Potter has just alerted me to something of importance." And to Draco's horror, he motioned for Draco to step to the middle of the room. Draco forced himself out of his seat and somehow found it within himself to walk and stand beside Draco. Little whispers swept the room. "Mr. Malfoy, if you would raise your sleeve."

Draco glared at Harry with a mixture of anger and fear. Raising his sleeve and baring what lay beneath the crumpled black cloth was like proving everyone's worst opinions of him. But as they all stared at him and his arm, which he had involuntarily outstretched, he found himself gripping the sleeve and pulling it back.

There was deadly silence in the room. The only people who didn't pull away from him were Harry, who had seen it already, and Dumbledore, who seemed devoid of any extreme emotion, including disgust and hate.

Only Finnigan looked triumphant. He, again, pointed an accusing finger at the glaring tattoo, "I told you!" he said, a hint of glee in his voice. "Look! He's one of them," he said with finality.

"I am not one of them, Finnigan, but if you point that finger at me one more time, I'll show you what one of them does to one of you," Draco said, dropping his sleeves and striding to Finnigan so they were mere millimeters apart. Dumbledore separated them.

"I will not have fighting in here."

"Tell him, and tell all of them, that I won't cooperate if they keep acting like I'm hiding Voldemort in my underwear."

"Come now, Malfoy," the man who had argued with Dumbledore before spoke up, "even you must admit that it is hard to ask us to instantly accept you. Your father is quite notorious for his support of You-Know-Who."

"Has it ever occurred to any of you that I am not my father? Did that little idea ever cross your faultless minds?" Draco said, spinning around, staring at each other them. "And did it ever occur to you that I know that you are withholding information from me? I know what you're doing, but unlike you all, I will tell you what I know. Whether or not you believe me is up to you, but anything you draw from what I tell you will be worthless if it is tainted with a bad opinion of who I am."

Finnigan had dropped his finger and looked abashed, but still defiant. Once Dumbledore had assured Draco that he would be trusted from now on within the reasonably limits, Finnigan whispered into the bustle as those present prepared to leave, "I know you, Draco Malfoy, and I know that you're not telling us something."

"I'm not telling them where I'm going to bury your body," Draco replied coolly, With that, he turned and left, not wanting to be the last to leave again. No one gave him much of a fond farewell as he exited.

A few hallways away from the office, he sat against the wall and rubbed his eyes and yawned. He didn't want to linger and listen to the conversations he was sure to be excluded from, but he didn't quite yet want to go back to the dorm.

He thought over the meeting. "Many wizards more experienced than you, braver than you, have fallen to Voldemort. I ask of you tonight no easy task. It is a heavy weight you must bear, and it must be borne in silence," Dumbledore had said. To no one's surprise, Longbottom whimpered.

There had been much talk of unification, of binding together despite each other's differences. There had been hints of the incredible danger, and the possibility of death.

But more than anything, Draco was scared of the way Harry had acted towards him. He had barely glanced at him through the whole meeting, and perhaps Draco was being paranoid, but he detected a sort of malice in the way Harry told Dumbledore about the mark.

Had, maybe, the glimmer of being in the relationship finally worn off for Harry? Had Draco been a mere fling in the life of a boy who could have any girl he wanted?

Draco tried to shake the insecurities off, but like leeches, they stuck to him, itching and paining him. So he didn't look for Harry when he went back to the dorms. And he didn't think of Harry as he used his fingernail to open the freshly closed wounds on his stomach.

He did, however, think briefly of Harry when he heard Blaise turn over in his bed. It had been awhile since Draco had been held, and he was craving human contact of any kind.

Even Blaise's.