No matter how much stolen holly you string around it, an ancient, deserted cottage is a horrible place to spend Christmas. Just ask Draco Malfoy: Death Eater, fugitive, and deep thinking extraordinaire. one-shot, based on a FictionAlleyPark plot bunny posted by Lizard

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Draco had never been one for brotherly Christmas spirit, but now, huddled alone in a derelict Muggle cottage, he would give virtually anything for some company.

He supposed Dumbledore's crowd were having a cozy holiday holed up in their Headquarters, pulling crackers with each other and feasting on good cooking. The building – wherever it was – was probably festooned with garlands and mistletoe, not to mention warm and toasty.

Draco had experienced these things on Christmases past, when he was still a spoiled rich boy living in Malfoy Manor. He remembered the year he was seven. He had run downstairs Christmas morning to find his first broomstick – real, not a toy one – leaning against the family's tree. Draco had run into the dining room where his parents were having breakfast and hugged them both tightly. Lucius had gently extracted himself, although he was chuckling. Narcissa had patted him on the head before insisting he at least had some toast before he went out flying.

He might still have been celebrating at home or Hogwarts, indulging in the house elves' wonderful chicken, wearing a new robe he'd received as a gift if it weren't for the Dark Lord and the task he had given Draco. Instead he was stuck here in this old cabin on a remote island in the Hebrides. The floor was a dirt one, the only furniture a small table and rickety stool, and there were bits of roof missing in several spots. Draco had taken some holly from the last village he'd gone through on his way here, and run it around the top of the walls in a feeble effort to cheer the place up. The holly leaves were shriveling now, and a fair amount of it had fallen to the floor. The villages were few and far between on this desolate moorland, and Draco had long since eaten the food he had purloined at the same time as the holly. He pulled his threadbare blanket closer and sipped the last of the broth he'd managed to make from the stubbly grass.

All this was supposedly for his own protection. He gave a hollow laugh. Protection, his numb left foot! The Dark Lord had only put Draco on that near-impossible mission to punish his parents for their mistakes. As long as Lucius and Narcissa were miserable, the Dark Lord couldn't care less whether Draco was alive or just in hiding.

He knew Dumbledore's fighters weren't going to pursue him. He had never even carried out the murder! It was Snape they were after, Snape who had betrayed them. Draco was just a pawn, a side act. But then, why did such a side act have to hide out in this forsaken place?

Draco remembered what Dumbledore had said in those last moments before Snape stepped in. Dumbledore could protect Draco, could protect his whole family, if he just renounced the Dark Arts. But Dumbledore was dead now, Draco reminded himself, and his allies would be unlikely to extend the same offer. He was a Death Eater, and even before joining up he had been cruel to many of the people he knew to be members of the Order. Why would they help him now?

Because, Draco's conscience said, they're not wanton killers. Not like your father and his friends.

And at that moment, Draco knew he had found a New Year's Resolution.

He wanted to redeem himself.