Chapter 5
"I don't need the trimmings, I don't care what we do, I just want to spend the holidays with you."
Song - The Holidays With You, by Sara Watkins
5 December 2005
Draco stood to get another bottle of wine, topping off the wine in his, Pansy's, and Blaise's glasses. Harry smiled and covered his own, declining the offer.
"Not tonight. Neville and I are next up in the queue for incoming cases, so if I drink any more, I'm sure to get called away."
Blaise smirked. "And how is Longbottom these days? I must say he was looking kind of gorgeous at your birthday, Potter, but I didn't get a chance to speak with him much."
Harry's eyes drooped a little, and Draco could feel his mood change from across the table. He wanted to kick Blaise. "Neville's well, but I don't know how much longer he's going to stay. He's been working on his Herbology Mastery part-time for a while, and he should finish this spring. Professor Sprout's already talking to him about working with her when he's done."
"What would that mean for you, then?" Pansy asked politely. It was almost sweet seeing her growing attachment to Harry over the past two years. She denied it, of course, but Draco was nearly certain she liked his boyfriend.
Harry leaned back, sighing, running his spoon through the leftover food on his mostly empty plate. "I'll end up with a new partner. It would probably have happened soon anyway, as they like to pair more experienced Aurors with the new ones, and we have a large influx of new recruits finishing their training in the next few months." He shrugged and cleared his throat, sitting up straight as if to shake off his mood. "It'll be good for him, though. He never wanted to be an Auror forever; I knew that."
Pansy seemed to read his mood and changed the subject to Blaise's latest article in a French food magazine, and Draco stood to gather the dessert he'd had Linney, his mother's house-elf, prepare for the evening. It was his dinner party, after all, so it was his responsibility to see to the meal and guests.
He returned with the mango and passion fruit entremets, which looked absolutely delightful, when Harry suddenly froze, sighed, then looked up at Draco, his face resigned. He tapped the Ministry-issued wristband on his right arm that vibrated when Harry was needed at work.
"Sorry," Harry mouthed, but Draco shrugged. He'd long ago resigned himself to such things, knowing it was just part of being with Harry. Instead of letting it bother him, he just planned for the eventuality. This meant he already had one of the entremets boxed and added to a small paper bag with a fork and napkin, ready for Harry to take with him. He simply returned to the sideboard and handed it to Harry as he made his apologies to Draco's friends.
"What's this?"
"Your dessert."
Harry's mouth dropped open as though he was going to say something, but nothing came out.
"Close your mouth before you catch flies. Go get the bad guys, darling." He kissed Harry's cheek and pushed him towards the door.
Harry laughed. "All right, I'm going. I'll send you an owl if I'll be very late."
"Of course," Draco said, already waving him off. This actually fit his needs perfectly, as he'd wanted help solidifying his plans and had been hoping to get some time alone with Pansy.
After Harry had gone and they'd all returned to their dessert, Pansy grinned. "All right, you were much too happy to be rid of him tonight. Spill it, Draco."
Blaise raised an eyebrow and sipped his wine. "Do tell."
Draco adjusted himself in his chair, considering carefully how he wanted to do this. He didn't want to tell them anything personal to Harry, but he needed them to understand why this was important. "Harry… Look, everybody knows Harry didn't grow up in a close family," he said in a rush.
Pansy rolled her eyes at the obvious statement, but Blaise only nodded.
"Why that's important now is because he's never really created any holiday traditions. None. He doesn't have any passed down from his parents, and the only traditions he sort of claims for himself actually belong to the Weasleys."
In pure-blood families, the passing down of traditions was sacred. It was how they pass magic down through the generations, how they gained strength and solidarity with their kin. The Potters were an old pure-blood family. To have lost all that magic, all those traditions, was heartbreaking, and Draco could see the pity in his friends' eyes.
"So what are you going to do?" Pansy asked.
"He's raised Muggle, so I want him to have some of what he felt like he missed out on, both Muggle and magical. And I want to give him back some of what he lost. I want to help him make new holiday memories."
"Draco," Pansy said, her eyes wide and voice quiet, "that's…really sweet. And it could be difficult."
"That's why I need your help. I'm going to ask Hermione to help me come up with a list of Muggle things we should do, but I need you both to help me research and see if we can find anything the Potters did. I can always share my own traditions with him, but I want him to have his too."
Blaise narrowed his eyes, then shook his head with a wry smile. "You are so whipped."
Draco shrugged. He didn't think of it as whipped. He just thought of it wanting Harry to have the best of everything, which was really kind of self-serving because the happier Harry was, the happier Draco was too. And Draco liked being happy. "Will you help me?"
They both grinned and nodded. He really did have the best friends a bloke could ask for.
A/N: The recipe for Draco's dessert is tonight's entry in my recipe list. Remember, you can find the URL to copy/paste into your browser at the top of my author profile.
So Draco has a plan now. I wonder how well this is going to go? *cackles*
