A/N: Chapter nineteen: Christmas part 3. And this is the last, I promise…
If the Pannecock idea interests you, look for German Pancake recipes online. You'd be surprised at how many versions there are. :) My mother cooked and served it exactly like I discribe in the chapter.
This is is Harry/Draco, post-Hogwarts, though the slash content is extremely light. There are very vague suggestions of other relationships as well.
I've got this all written out, and am posting one a week. There will be 23 chapters total. All that's left is the editing.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Dedication: To Foodie, who still betas me despite my predilection for slash, and for FionaFawkes, who read and reviewed every single chapter, and gave me such excellent feedback. Also, for everyone who's read and loved my Harry/Draco. This one's for you.
-----19
Draco found himself awake far earlier than he would have liked the next morning, but finally stumbled out of bed and began to dress after at least an hour of tossing and turning. The sky was beginning to lighten, so he figured he might as well give up, anyway.
He found Remus in the hallway, making his way to the kitchen. Upon seeing Draco, he smiled. "Merry Christmas, Draco. Couldn't sleep?"
Draco shook his head. All night he'd been lost in dreams of Harry. At first things were normal, but then they would shift. Some were pleasant enough: Harry leading Draco to his room, and sharing a kiss to die for, or more; Harry returning to his room to tell him he'd changed his mind; even one erotic dream where Harry had rubbed him until he'd gained release. But some weren't nearly so pleasant. Like the one that had shaken him awake at last, where Harry told him that his opinion of him really hadn't changed since they'd first met, and that now that he was grown, he never wanted to see Draco again.
"Ah," Remus said. "Well, a good breakfast should help. Would you like to help? I've got a recipe my mother used to make when I was a kid that I thought I'd share with everyone this morning. Get us feeling a bit festive for Christmas morning. Maybe make a bit of peppermint cocoa."
"Sure." Draco followed him into the kitchen, and Remus showed him the recipe—just eggs, flour, milk and a bit of salt—which they mixed in two batches while skillets heated in the now-warming oven. Once the temperature in the oven was warm enough, they poured the mixes into the skillets, and put them into the oven to cook. Draco set to making some bacon and cocoa while Remus went to wake Harry and Lucius. Things almost felt normal.
When Harry entered the kitchen, Draco couldn't help but tense up. He didn't want Harry angry at him, and he was worried that maybe he had pushed things just a bit too far last night. But Harry just moved to the table and began setting it while Draco finished off the bacon, and pulled breakfast from the oven.
Remus and Lucius entered then, and Remus took over the division of the dish they'd made. The mixture had curled up the sides of the pan, and left a crater in the centre of each to be filled with whatever they wanted. "Mum usually just served it with a bit of butter, some lemon juice, and a sprinkle of powdered sugar," Remus said. "Could you grab all that while I serve, Draco?"
Draco nodded and went to retrieve the things Remus had mentioned. It looked like an odd breakfast, but once he settled down and took the first bite (a feat in itself, as the thing was so thin and wide), he was rather surprised at how good it was for such a simple recipe. "It's very good," he smiled at Remus.
"Thank you, Draco. I've missed having them myself. Never seemed to be somewhere I could make one on Christmas day, most years." He took a bite, his eyes closed in pleasure.
"What's it called?" Harry asked curiously.
"Mother called it something like 'Pannekock,' I think. I've seen it mentioned elsewhere as a German Pancake, though."
"Was your mother German?"
"I think there's a bit of the Dutch on that side of my ancestry, actually."
Harry smiled, but Draco could see that it didn't quite reach his eyes. He only wished he knew some way of cheering Harry up. Still, better to keep quiet for now. Maybe after they opened the rest of their presents, Harry'd be in a slightly better mood.
Once they'd finished eating, Remus and Lucius cleared the table—to a chorus of Lucius's complaints about being treated like a house elf, and Harry asked Draco to come into the den for a moment before they opened their presents. Draco followed him quietly, and waited for him to speak.
"Look, I thought about this a lot last night, Draco. I realize I never mentioned my feelings. But they were my feelings, and private, and I figured you wouldn't care, or worse, it would upset you and make you pull away from me." Draco tried to say that wasn't the case, but Harry interrupted before he could get more than a syllable out. "I know, you didn't. But…I've known you for eight years, Draco. You always react in extreme ways. Even now that we're friends. And…" he swallowed before continuing, "I really didn't want to risk that. I'd rather just stay friends than lose it forever because I was stupid, okay?"
"Harry, I—" Draco tried to gather his thoughts. "I like spending time with you. I consider you a friend. Whatever else, that will never change. I wish you had told me that day, when you tried to—when you were telling me about Remus and Kingsley?" He laughed. "I feel so stupid. I might have freaked out a bit, but I would have come round."
"I didn't want to chance it. And like I said. It was my thing, and that's not why you're here. I promised myself I could leave you alone until you're free to make your own choices. You can't do that here. And you can't do that now, Draco. You're still engaged to Pansy."
"I know, but…"
"Draco, just…think longer, okay? I'm not going to do this, and you can't. This will be over soon enough, and then we'll see, okay?"
"Why is a kiss such a big deal, Harry?"
Harry shook his head. "I'm not going there, Draco. It's just not going to happen. We're not in a place where that would be a good idea. Besides, it'll give us both time to figure out what we want."
"Like you don't know, Harry. You've already admitted it."
"Fine it'll give you time then. Come on, Remus and your father are probably waiting for us," he said, then led Draco from the room.
◦♦☼♦◦
The second round of presents were nice, but Draco was so distracted by the conversation that he'd had with Harry after breakfast that he was unable to work up much enthusiasm. After everything had been opened, and the room had been emptied of scraps of ribbon and paper, Draco took his new things to his room, then sat on his bed. He wished he knew a way to prove to Harry he wasn't just curious, that he wanted to know what it was like to kiss Harry. He'd certainly never wanted to kiss Blaise.
Glancing over at his desk, Draco noticed the list Kingsley had given him. There were only three other nicknames to figure out, but he really hadn't had much luck. And with Christmas, he'd become rather distracted and forgotten about it. Maybe it was time to take another look.
He settled at the desk, and put the two lists side by side. The first had only three names: Roi, Bear, and Bo. Draco shook his head. They were such short names, they could mean almost anything. He looked at the list of those currently enrolled in the Chrysalis program. That list was almost as short. Only nine Death Eaters had been enrolled so far. Himself, his father, Pansy, Blaise, Greg, Ernie, Theo Nott, Daphne Greengrass, and Morag MacDougal. He knew most of the people on the list fairly well, aside from McMillan and MacDougal.
He'd been surprised to see MacDougal's name on the list the first time he'd read it. He couldn't believe that he'd missed her at the press conference, though, to be honest, he'd been a bit distracted by other events that day.
MacDougal had been a Ravenclaw in the same year as the rest of them, but Draco had never spent any time with her when they were in school. While Ravenclaws were better to hang around with than, say, Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs, they were quite usually too busy studying to be any sort of fun. He had seen MacDougal around after she'd joined the Death Eaters, though. She'd actually freaked him out. Her appetite for blood and torture had been chilling enough to make his aunt look sane.
The problem was, even though both lists were small, the nicknames could be pretty much for any of them. He couldn't even tell if they were male or female from them. And none of the names appeared to be taken directly from their true names. Draco sighed. Maybe he should assign each name to at least one of the nicknames, and go from there? So, he knew he couldn't be any of them, so he crossed out his own name. Lucius never got mail, so that left him out as well. But everyone else was fair game, as far as Draco was concerned.
He wrote "Roi" on a separate piece of paper, and listed all the names under it, then began to go over the list to see if there were any he could cross off. The name itself could have meant anything, but he'd go with the idea that they were using it as a shortened form of Royal or Royalty. After all, that was what it meant, in French.
He started with Pansy, though he desperately wanted to cross her off all three lists immediately. She was his friend. Surely she wouldn't be involved with something like this? He tried to think of a reason she might chose a nickname like Roi. Well, she did like to imply she was Wizarding Royalty. In fact, she'd even told him once that there was true royalty on her mother's family tree somewhere. But that seemed too easy. It did provoke a different memory, though, and Draco wondered…After Daphne had become his aunt's protégée, she'd taken on the nickname "Queenie." Maybe it was her? He circled both girls' names, just to be fair, then moved on to Blaise.
Blaise might be considered royalty as well, he thought to himself with a chuckle. To be honest, a lot of Slytherins thought that about themselves. Who knew? Maybe some ancestor or other of Blaise's had once been part of the royal families in Persia or Turkey. And too, he might be termed a 'Queen' as well, Draco chuckled. Blaise had wanted a repeat performance of their little tryst, though they'd never managed to find the time. He circled Blaise's name, then moved on.
He quickly crossed out McMillan's name. He already knew Ernie's nickname, and even if he hadn't there was no way he'd assume that McMillan was royalty in any way. As for Greg, he was pure peasant stock. Strong and sturdy, but no brains. His nickname would have been a lot more obvious, so he was off that list, at least. Nott didn't particularly make sense either. Nott made no bones about the fact that he wasn't fond of the Wizarding Royalty type. In fact, he'd often brought in books about Muggle heroes who had even managed to become known in the Wizarding World for the effect they'd had on it: Che Guevara and Lenin in particular. Peasants, if revolutionaries. He'd have hated the idea of having it as a nickname. So he was definitely off this list…
As for MacDougal, he didn't know enough about her to know either way, only that she was a psychopath… He went back over the remaining names: Pansy, Daphne, and Blaise, circling Morag's name for good measure. Not great, but definitely less than when he'd started. He moved on to the next name—Bear.
Draco rather assumed that Bear was probably a guy, but he didn't want to let his assumptions mislead him, so once he'd written down all the guys' names, he added the girls' as well. This one worked easily for Greg, he supposed, though he would have expected his friend to choose something more ferocious or just plain larger—rhino, perhaps. Still, bears could be deadly enough. He was about to cross out Nott, because he couldn't see the other boy using a creature for a name, but then he recalled the fact that Theo had talked about the fact that the Soviet Russians had used the bear as a symbol, and how he had seemed especially pleased with the symbolism of the creature for them. Draco couldn't say he understood it, but if Nott liked them, that certainly didn't count it out for his nickname, so he circled his name as well.
Blaise wasn't fond of animals. He'd always hated it when Draco's owl had found her way into their dorm, and there had been the morning when he'd woken to Millicent's cat on his chest and nearly had a hissy. No, if Blaise used an animal for a nickname, it would be for a very specific reason—and there was no way it would ever be a bear, so Blaise was out.
Draco moved on to the girls. To him, it didn't fit any of them particularly well, but perhaps it had some personal connotations to Daphne or Morag that he was unaware of? The only one he felt confident it didn't fit was Pansy. Not good enough, but better than nothing, he supposed.
The last name was the worst, really. Bo could have meant anything. Really, for all he knew, it could have referred to Goyle's body odor, he snickered to himself. So, they all seemed to fit that one. He sighed. Well, at least he'd gotten some ideas. Now if he could just find a way to narrow down the possibilities further. He set aside the lists, and went to see if he could borrow Hedwig to send a message to Kingsley. Maybe talking with him would help.
