Chapter Eighteen

The Traditions

The next morning, Harry woke up alone for the first time in almost a fortnight. It was a very upsetting feeling. This bed is far too big for just one person. Harry had never thought this about his bed before, especially since he spent the first eleven years sleeping in a cramped cupboard under the stairs. But now that he'd woken up by himself, after so many mornings with Draco's arms around him, it didn't feel right without him. He sat up, eyes still shut, and stretched his arms over his head.

He and Draco had decided last night that they should wake up in their own beds Christmas morning. They each had their own traditions to uphold, and who were they to spoil tradition?

Harry sighed. He almost slumped back into his pillow and went back to sleep when something banged into the side of his head.

"Ow!"

Harry's eyes flew open and he looked around groggily, searching for the offending object. Sitting in his lap was a wadded up ball of leftover Christmas wrapping paper. He glared at the ball in his lap. Then he looked at the delinquent who had graced him with the presence of the paper ball. Harry's red-headed best friend grinned at him sleepily.

Harry turned his glare to Ron and grumbled about him being sixteen, immature, and incapable of resisting the urge to throw things. Ron chuckled and said, "Oh c'mon, Harry. Who wants to be mature on Christmas morning when there's presents to open!"

Harry's glare turned into a small smile, even if it was reluctant. He stood up and did a full-body stretch.

"Happy Christmas, boys!" cried Hermione, carrying in a pile of presents. The Gryffindor Trio's Christmas tradition was to gather in the boys' dormitory and opening up presents together there. Harry smiled warmly at his bushy-haired best friend and echoed her "Happy Christmas." She plopped her heap of presents on Ron's bed and climbed up next to her boyfriend. Hermione grinned at her sleepy boyfriend and best friend as the boys grabbed their presents and stacked them haphazardly on Ron's bed before climbing up themselves. The three waited until each was settled on the bed behind their respective presents.

All at once, the three teens grabbed a present and started ripping off the paper, ignoring any ribbons that had been painstakingly arranged, just eager to get inside the paper and see what lay in store.

Hermione revealed her present first, a small but elegant sapphire necklace from Ron. "Oh, it's marvelous, Ron. Really," she breathed. Harry smiled, knowing how many hours Ron had spent helping Fred and George out at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes to get the money to buy Hermione that necklace. As Ron fastened the necklace around Hermione's neck, Harry finished opening his first gift.

There was a card sitting on top of a small square-ish box. He opened the envelope, recognizing Sirius' rather untidy scrawl. In the card there was a short note, just saying that wherever Sirius was, he was fine, and Happy Christmas. Harry turned then to the box that had accompanied the card and tore off the paper. When he eased open the box, he gasped in shock and excitement.

It was a Wizard's pocket watch, with several hands and no numbers at all. Ever since he had seen the Weasleys' clock, he'd wanted one like it. When he first saw the wizarding family's clock, he'd marveled at the lack of time, yet keen precision of it. And now he had one of his own. Harry was ecstatic. He looked closer at the watch. It was brilliant gold, with a red face. Engraved on the face was the outline of the Gryffindor lion. And where numbers usually resided were tiny messages, such as "In Class," "Should Be In Class," "Common Room," "Home," and at the position normally occupied by a number twelve on muggle clocks were the words "MORTAL DANGER!" Harry then looked at the hands on the clock. The largest had a very flattering picture of himself, pointing to "Dormitories." The second largest had a picture of Sirius himself, obviously taken from a time before he went to Azkaban, since he was grinning and his eyes held a twinkle Harry had never seen there before. That hand was aimed at "Safely in Hiding." At the sight of this, Harry let out a small sigh of relief. The other three hands, however, were blank, and spinning around lazily. Confused by this, he asked Ron and Hermione about them. Ron explained, since, for once, Hermione had no clue.

"You have to put spells on them to show where other people are." Harry nodded in understanding, and Ron continued. "You have to use the specific instructions that come with the watch to enchant the other hands. Each watch is made individually, by hand, so the instructions are always a little different. Usually all the hands are blank when you get the watch, but obviously Sirius already enchanted two of them."

Harry looked in the box again, and found the instructions inside. He figured he would read through the instructions after he finished opening his presents. He now turned his attention to Ron, who was opening his first gift. Ron had opened the obligatory Weasley package. Harry assumed it was to get it out of the way so he could move on to the more exciting presents. Inside the large parcel was his standard maroon sweater. This year it had bludgers and bats patterned on it, in honor of his position as one of the Gryffindor beaters, a position he was granted just this year. There were also pies and candies in the package. Ron put all these aside to move on to his other gifts.

Harry turned his attention back to his own presents. This was about how it always worked. They all paid close attention to the first thing each other opened and then they would just start tearing into their other presents. Harry opened the one from Ron next. It was a new set of gobstones and a small box of various Wizard Wheezes. Harry frowned at the present from the Dursleys. It was a moldy cracker and a crusty toenail. They just enjoy making me more and more disgusted every year, Harry thought. He shook off the anger, refusing to let his horrid relatives ruin his Christmas. He moved on through the now-smaller pile of gifts. Hermione's gift was new jars and bottles full of all the ointments and polishes from the broom care kit she'd given him for his thirteenth birthday. Hagrid sent him some of his homemade treacle fudge and candies from Honeydukes. His last present was the package from the Weasleys. A fluffy green sweater sat in the box next to a large mound of peanut butter and chocolate marbleized fudge. The sweater was relatively plain but for a small Snitch embroidered in the bottom right corner and the words "Captain Potter" arched just above it.

Harry smiled at all his new goodies, and finally looked up to find out what his best friends got. Hermione gave him a big hug for his gift of the first edition of Hogwarts: A Revised History. And Ron planted a big kiss on Hermione's lips for not only not giving him a book, but for giving him tickets to a Chudley Cannons game over the Easter break.

"So what did the Silver Prince get you, Harry?" Ron looked at Harry's mountain of sweets and small stack of other items, obviously searching for something that looked like it could have been from Draco.

"I don't know yet. We're not exchanging till later," said Harry smiling. "I want to see his face when he opens my present."

"That's sweet, Harry." Hermione grinned at him.

Ron snorted. "You two are disgustingly cute, you know."

Harry threw a light punch in Ron's direction. "You can't really talk much, Mister Male-Half-of-the-Gryffindor-'It'-Couple."

Ron stuck out his tongue, continuing on his immature streak for the day. "Well- Well- Well, I'm just not used to you being all sappy and stupid on me," said Ron finally.

"Get used to it, then." Harry grinned. "I have a feeling Dray and I are going to be together for a long time. I really love him, you know? It's like-. I don't think I have ever been truly whole my entire life. But now that I'm with him, I feel like I am."

There was a faint sniffle from the side of the bed. Hermione was quickly wiping away tears. Harry stared at her. "What? Is something wrong?" He leaned over and put a hand on her arm.

"I'm fine," she said, her voice shaking. "You're just so adorable. How you talk about Draco like that. It's all so romantic." She magicked a tissue out of thin air and blew her nose loudly.

Ron scooted next to his girlfriend and put his arms around her, hugging her close. After she quieted down a little, as Harry's romanticism was apparently too much for her, Ron looked up at Harry. "So when are you and Ma- Ergh. Draco. Draco. I'm still really not used to calling him that."

Harry nodded, smiling. Ron continued. "When are you and Draco getting together to swap gifts?"

"Tonight," said Harry. He could feel the excitement bubbling up inside himself. "After dinner, we're going to exchange." Harry grinned. Now all I have to do is get through the day. He glanced at his watch. The old, muggle watch, that is. 9:56. Only a few more hours. I can make it. Then he looked down at his gifts. Better get these put away, then.

Harry picked up the heap of gifts, took them to his bed and plopped down next to them. He sifted through the gifts until he found the box with his new watch in it, and the instructions. "Now, time to get my new watch set up."


~*~*~*~

Draco stretched lazily and rolled onto his stomach. He flopped his arm to where Harry's always-warm-and-toasty body should be, but it landed on cold silky sheets. Draco opened an eye. He groaned. Harry's not here. Why isn't he here? Draco pulled back his arm and pushed himself up a bit. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. He threw a glance over his shoulder at his desk chair. No Harry. Why isn't Harry here? He should be, right? We didn't break up. No, I'd remember that. And no fight… Oh. That's right. It's Christmas. We're waking up in our own rooms. I was wondering why I was so damn cold last night. Draco flopped onto his side and smacked himself lightly in the head with the heel of his hand. "Duh."

Draco stretched again and climbed out of the cold and now uninviting bed. He yawned as he padded over to his wardrobe for his robe and then poked Crabbe and Goyle awake.

"Vin. Greg. Get your asses out of bed." Draco said. He went to his desk and picked up his wand. He padded back to his bed. At the end, on top of his trunk, was a large pile of presents. Draco waved his wand over the mound of brightly colored parcels and murmured the words to a Hovering Charm. The presents lifted off Draco's trunk and Hovered at waist level, waiting to be moved. He looked at his comrades.

"Guys! Cookies downstairs! C'mon!" That did it. Crabbe and Goyle were instantly out of bed and grabbing their robes. Draco chuckled and slipped his toes into his fuzzy slippers that matched his bright blue terrycloth robe and started to the door of the room.

"Wha-? Where's the cookies?" asked Goyle, rubbing his eyes. Draco shook his head, holding in the grin that was just bursting to get out.

"What the devil are you talking about Greg?" asked Draco, trying to feign confusion. "There's no cookies anywhere. Wake the hell up would you? Grab your ruddy presents and let's go downstairs," said Draco, still amused at how easily he could get the other boys out of bed. Draco watched as Crabbe and Goyle sleepily picked up their Christmas presents and, yawning, walked toward him.

The three boys clumped noisily down the stairs and into the common room, Draco and his Hovering gifts in the lead. Once they were all in the room, Draco guided his packages to land on a table near the fireplace and set about starting a fire. Goyle and Crabbe sat in matching plushy green armchairs and put their gifts on the floor in front of them. This was their routine every Christmas morning since their first year. It was much nicer than sitting in their room and opening gifts, since it was much warmer by the fire. Once Draco had the fire raging, he flopped himself on the couch facing it and pulled his pile to him.

Draco looked at the other two Slytherins, who were both looking at him. "Let's do it," he said happily.

The three boys grabbed at their packages and ripped the paper off one by one, taking care to see who had sent each gift and exclaiming cheerfully over each. When the paper was freed from each gift, the boys balled it up and tossed it into the fire. Every time a paper ball was flung at the fire by one of them, the other two stopped unwrapping to watch the paper burn.

Draco was always quite fascinated by this, as each kind of paper always gave off a new and interesting-colored flame. His favorite flame came from the gift he received from his parents. The flame started out bright white and quickly turned into green with silver sparks. His parents, at least his mother, remembered how much he enjoyed watching his wrapping paper burn away and had obviously treated the paper so it could turn Slytherin colors.

After all the paper had ripped from the packages, the Slytherins took in what each other got for the holiday. Crabbe and Goyle went through their presents first. Each got a big package from their parents that included some article of clothing and large piles of sweets. Crabbe's other gifts were a small book on the rules and strategies for wizard's chess from Draco, (entitled "Wizard's Chess for Magical Dummies") and a bag full of Zonko's gags from Goyle. Goyle's other acquisitions were a similar book from Draco about wizard's chess, ("You Stink at Wizard's Chess. Now What?") and a case of butterbeer from the Three Broomsticks given to him by Crabbe. Goyle and Crabbe each said thank you to Draco for their books and turned to look at his mound of gifts.

Draco was obviously much more popular than either Crabbe or Goyle, and always had more gifts. From his parents was the obligatory pile of sweets. But there was also an ancient-looking talisman. The bronze pendent was circular, with a picture on one side of a large man with missing a hand. The man's remaining hand was outstretched and it seemed like a beam of light was erupting from the palm, aimed at another man who was on his knees with his hands over his head protectively. The other side was filled with writing Draco assumed was in some ancient language.

There was a note enclosed, written by his father, that explained to Draco the powers held by this talisman. The Talisman of Tyr, as his father called it, was used to strengthen the wearer's ability to use wandless magic. After wearing it constantly for one week, a wizard's aptitude in using wandless magic should be at least half the strength as his magic with a wand. After two weeks, the strengths will be matched. Also after two weeks, the talisman must be passed on to another wizard to hold the power. Any power in one's ability with a wand gained after wearing the talisman will be matched automatically, preventing the need to wear the talisman again. Draco explained the use for the talisman to Goyle and Crabbe, and grinned at the box containing Tyr's Talisman. Father, you may not realize it, but you've just helped your enemies greatly. Granted, you've probably already worn the talisman, but that doesn't matter. In one month's time, I will be able to use wandless magic, and so will Harry. Draco smiled and then showed off the rest of his presents proudly.

There was a copy of Moste Potente Potions from Professor Snape. Next was a box full of sparkling red roses from Pansy Parkinson, the presentation of which resulted in both Goyle and Crabbe sniggering uncontrollably. When is that girl going to learn I'm not interested? though Draco, exasperated. He waited several minutes for his housemates to calm themselves before proceeding.

Crabbe gave Draco a pile of delectable treats from Slakendi's Shoppe of Succulent Sweets, a shop in the small wizarding village near Crabbe's home. Goyle presented Draco with a large box of joke items from Loki's Prankster Palace, a large joke shop outside Surrey that Draco loved to visit.

Blaise's present to Draco excited him. It was a muggle portable CD player and a pile of flamed CDs. Burned. Not flamed. Draco grinned as he heard Harry's voice setting him straight in his mind. There were five CDs, each bearing a different label. One was the Weird Sisters, the group that had played at the Yule Ball during the Triwizard Tournament. The other four had lists Spell-o-taped to them showing the names of each song on them. One was a mix of wizard and witch music groups, one was a mix of muggle groups, and the other two were mixes of both.

Draco looked round the table at the three piles of presents and grinned. All in all, it was a good Christmas. And he still got to look forward to Harry's gift tonight. This thought made Draco's grin even bigger. Goyle and Crabbe had finally gotten used to seeing grins spread across their friend's face, and seeing his current grin caused them each to sport one of their own. Draco stood and cast the Hovering Charm over his new possessions and started upstairs, Crabbe and Goyle following closely behind.

Once the three Slytherins had arrived at their dormitory door, Draco opened it with his free hand. Keeping his eyes on his suspended-in-midair gifts, Draco politely made a gesture indicating the other two boys could enter before him. He was stepping into the room himself when he heard the surprised yells. Draco looked up from his levitating presents to see what the fuss was. And he saw the cause for the uproar instantly.

Harry Potter was lounging on Draco's bed. He had his hands lazily tucked behind his head, legs crossed at the ankles, and was grinning like a house cat that just ate the pet canary. Draco couldn't help but notice that Harry was laying on side of the bed he always slept on. Upon further inspection, Draco saw two small gifts sitting at his side. "I was wondering when you three would get here," he said, smiling.

"How the hell did you get in our room?" cried Goyle.

Harry looked at Draco and winked quickly. "Magic."

~*~TBC~*~