Chapter 23

"'Twas the run up to Christmas
And all through the house
All the creatures were stirring
Yeah even the mouse."
Song - Something Beginning with Christmas, by Janet Devlin

23 December 2005

Draco

Draco was going insane. This was insanity. This entire place was a bloody asylum, just like he'd always supposed it'd been.

Not that he could say that out loud. No, he had to smile and play nice and pretend like he was enjoying himself.

As if that were possible.

Everywhere, there were children screaming. Hyped up on sugar, covered in icing, sucking on gumdrops and candy canes so that rivulets of sugar dropped from the corners of their tiny, insane mouths.

Even Teddy, the light of Draco's life, had a look in his eyes that was a terrifying reminder of Draco's aunt. The batshit crazy one, not the one that was raising this normally mild-mannered child.

"Are you even going to help me?" came the voice of Draco's ex-boyfriend from beside him. Or, well, maybe he was his current boyfriend, but he'd surely be Draco's ex after he'd forced him to suffer through this monstrosity of a day.

"And how, may I ask, am I supposed to help you? You won't let me use magic, glue, or Spellotape. I'm honestly supposed to try to stick this thing together using icing and sweets and…"

"And imagination," Harry said with a grin. Then the man reached out his icing covered hand and booped him on the nose.

Booped. Him.

Draco raised his bag of icing, considering, and for the first time during this entire shitstorm of a "party", Harry looked rightfully frightened.

As well he should.

"Draco, don't. If you start, the kids will think it's okay and there will be no stopping them. It's all in good fun, just a friendly competition to build the best gingerbread house. But if you do what you're thinking, all bets are off."

Oh, challenge accepted.

Because honestly, if you couldn't beat them, you joined them. Wasn't that how the saying went? Draco twisted his wrist, tightening the frosting bag and raising his arms.

"Draco," Harry warned.

And Draco fired, shooting a thick stream of pale frosting across the little table so that it landed on Harry. Well, not just on Harry. Across his face, actually, with a bit in his hair. And if Draco weren't surrounded by small heathens with big ears, he might make a comment about how familiar that scene looked, but he was surrounded by those tiny people, so he simply smirked and raised one, gorgeous (he knew they were gorgeous because he'd shaped them just that morning) eyebrow.

Harry narrowed his eyes in response, then glanced over to where Molly and Arthur stood working with little Dominique, Bill and Fleur's two-year-old, in the Burrow's kitchen. They hadn't seemed to notice the commotion, but someone else had.

"Whoa! Uncle Harry! What happened to you?"

Teddy's mouth was open in shock, and Draco, well, he couldn't resist. He grabbed a gumdrop and tossed it at Teddy, landing it right in his gob. Draco always knew he should have been a Chaser instead of a Seeker, and there was his proof.

Teddy cheered, then picked up a pack of gummy worms and turned to Victoire. "Vic! Your turn. Let's see if I can get this in your mouth!"

As the children began lobbing candy at one another, Harry reached for a towel, wiping his face. "Look what you've done," he said in mock affront.

"You started it. You booped my nose."

"No, I wouldn't do a thing like that. You were only imagining it, I think. Too much sugar is bad for the brain."

"Potter," Draco warned, trying not to laugh.

Harry leaned in and kissed Draco, and Draco, in all his benevolence, refrained from biting the man. Instead, he relished the taste of sugar and Harry and leaned into the kiss.

"Eww!" a chorus of voices chimed, and at least a few of those voices belonged to adults. Since Draco was sure one of them was Ronald, he simply wrapped an arm around Harry's neck and decided he'd earned it.

He'd lost his mind with the rest of them, but at least it was sweet.


A/N: So close to the end! I know this one was kind of short, but we're coming in on the end and the gingerbread house prompt I had for this entry demanded this silliness. I hope you've been enjoying the story. 2 more days!

Oh, one more thing. This chapter has a tiny bit of outside influence from a certain Canadian TV show. Did anyone catch it?