Draco was used to how Christmas was at Malfoy Manor. He was used to the entire place being covered in a thin layer of white, powdery snow, to the sound of the enchanted piano in the drawing room playing all day and late into the night, to the huge tree that towered so high above him that its tip touched the ceiling, to the constant warm, crackling fire in the fireplace, to the towering piles of presents, to being surrounded constantly by his parents and other pureblood families who came over on the days around Christmas day. Being at Hogwarts, away from all of that for the first time in his life, unsettled him. He felt restless, fidgety, as if he needed to be doing something constantly just to keep his mind off of everything. His surroundings were so similar to those at the Manor, yet so incredibly different that it was difficult to fully understand how it all felt. There were no crowds of people his parents knew trying to talk to him, or just plain ignoring him, no piano music playing. Snow still covered every inch of the school grounds, except it wasn't just a few inches of powder as it was at home, there was at least 7 inches of it and it was slightly damp to the point where it stuck to the bottom of your shoes if you walked through it, or stayed in a ball almost as hard as a rock if you formed it in that way.
A week before the holidays had started Ron had received a letter from his parents saying they would be spending that Christmas with his older brother, Charlie, in Romania and that all of the Weasleys at Hogwarts would be staying there that year. Ron didn't seem to care all too much about this, and though he was a bit upset about not seeing his parents until the summer, he seemed far more excited to be able to spend the holidays with Harry and Draco. The blond had to admit, he was glad the Weasleys would be staying, he had come to enjoy their company over the past few months and even though Ron loved pestering him about Snape, and Percy seemed determined be stricter with his own house than any of the others, they still felt almost like distant family members who he had grown close to, or something of the sort.
Pansy and Blaise, who -thank Merlin- were going home over the holidays, seemed to find it amusing to make fun of him about his lack of welcomeness in his own home, and how they would be going there, even though it wasn't even their house. By then Draco really had just given up on caring about their words. They always said the same thing and he always knew the insults they couldn't say out in the open, so the more he heard them, the easier it became to just let them roll over him and not affect him. It wasn't like their words hadn't left their mark on him, that would be impossible considering the fact that they used to be his friends and were now the ones trying their hardest to hurt him in any way possible, but he had finally managed to push past even somewhat believing their words were true.
He knew he was considered a blood-traitor now, they certainly loved calling him that, but he didn't find it insulting anymore, he felt almost proud of it. The Weasleys, who Draco had learned more and more about over the past few months, seemed kind, and gentle, not the terrible, cruel family his parents painted them out to be. The "proper" pure-blood families were the cruel ones, Draco had slowly come to realize, and if he had to be called a blood-traitor so that he wasn't associated with them anymore, then he was okay with that, even if the name was terrible and all around insulting.
The first week of the holidays was calmer than any of the others they had experienced since the beginning of Hogwarts. Draco had encouraged, or better to say forced, the other two boys to finish all of their homework during the first weekend, so perhaps the fact that they had that out of the way already helped make everything seem less stressful. Maybe it was just that it was almost Christmas, so everyone was in a better mood which made the castle feel even more welcoming than it usually did. Or possibly everything just seemed more relaxed because finally they didn't have to worry about any of the Slytherins messing with any of them and they could just sit around without a care for what someone might say to them.
"Knight to G-3." Ron said smugly late at night on Christmas Eve, the wizard's chess board set up on their table in front of him, surrounded by broken chess pieces. Harry sat across from the redhead and was scowling down at the board in concentration, trying to figure out how he could possibly still win the game with a pawn, his king, and queen left. Well, only a pawn and his King now, seeing as the knight Ron had sent had just smashed the queen to pieces and shoved it off of the board onto the table with the rest of the broken pieces.
"C'mon, Ron…" Harry groaned and glared slightly at his friend while Draco sat in the seat Harry usually sat in while they did homework, snickering. "How is destroying my pieces fair? Couldn't you just do it normally and take them off the board yourself? I suck at the repairing spell, these things are never going to be fully fixed if you just keep smashing them like that. Seamus is gonna be pretty annoyed if he gets half-wrecked pieces back after the holidays."
Ron's smug grin didn't even flicker and he leaned forward against his hand, which he had propped up on the table beside him. His blue eyes glinted happily in the flickering firelight of the flames inside the huge fireplace of the Common Room. "It's your turn." The redhead said, as if he wasn't currently on the receiving end of The-Boy-Who-Lived's death-glare.
Move your pawn to C-5, Harry, to kill Ron's bishop before it kills the pawn. How can he not see this?! Draco thought in exasperation, glancing between the two of them, it was both amusing and painful to watch them play. Ron was clearly much better at it than Harry, and while Draco found it quite hilarious that the latter was so bad at something and he kind of wanted him to win (just so he could beat him in the next game, but well, nobody needed to know that), he knew there was no way his raven-haired best friend could beat his other one.
"King to D-1." Harry said and Draco facepalmed, that was literally one of the worst moves Harry could possibly do at this point. How am I friends with such an idiot? Draco thought, keeping his left hand in front of his face, unable to believe how stupid and oblivious Harry was at times.
"Knight to H-1." Ron said, still smug despite the fact that he had accomplished nothing in that turn. Or had he done something? What was he planning? Draco's eyes scanned the chess board, trying to figure out what the redhead intended to do. His silver eyes widened ever so slightly when he realized what he was doing. He really is good…
"Pawn to D-5." Harry said, obviously having realized the danger the smaller piece was in, though whether he moved it or not really didn't matter anymore. His king would be trapped if he moved it anyways. Draco sighed again and leaned back in his chair, mentally trying to figure out if it would take Ron two, or three turns to finish off Harry's king.
"Rook to D-5. Check." Ron said, a smirk tugging at his lips as he watched his chess-piece move towards Harry's last pawn and smash it in two. The-Boy-Who-Lived's jaw dropped in shock and he stared at the wooden dark and light brown chess board in front of him before giving an annoyed huff and scowling at it instead.
"King to E-1." Harry said since that was the only place he could go, and nobody would even be able to get him on the turn after that.
"Knight to F-2. Checkmate." Ron said, his eyes glinting in clear triumph as the chess piece slid to the dark square he had told it to go to. He leaned back in his chair just as Draco had moments prior and clasped his hands behind the back of his head while a smirk slowly spread across his face.
"H-how?!" Harry sputtered, his jaw dropping in shock and confusion as his green eyes grew wider and wider behind his round glasses. For a few seconds all the raven-haired boy did was stare at the board, his brow furrowed in complete astonishment and confusion. Ron continued to smirk and watch one of his best friends try to figure out how he had lost for a few seconds before indicating to Harry's king almost lazily with his right hand.
"If you moved it forward, the rook that's over here on A-2 would've killed you; if you went to the right the bishop up on H-3 would've gotten you; if you went to the left either the knight on F-2 or the rook on D-5 would've gotten you; if you went diagonally onto F-2 you would've been killed by the bishop on C-5; and if you went diagonally in the other direction you would've been killed by the rook on D-5. I trapped you so the only safe spot was where you were, and since I killed your only other piece and you always have to move something on your turn, you couldn't go anywhere without putting yourself in check." Ron explained, his smirk never fading from his face and the glint in his blue eyes seeming to just become brighter.
The next morning, Christmas, Draco was awoken rather early by Harry and Ron, who usually couldn't even get up on time to get to breakfast when they were supposed to. The two of them had been talking about something, though what it was, he didn't bother trying to listen in on. "Wha' time's it?" He asked, still half asleep as he pushed himself up into a slumped sitting position on his four-poster bed and rubbed at his eyes tiredly with the palms of his hands. His two best friends looked over at him, both grinning widely, despite the fact that the redhead was clearly about as awake as Draco was in that moment.
"Merry Christmas, Draco." Harry said and continued to grin at him for a few seconds before looking back at the presents piled at the end of his bed, looking suddenly surprised and confused, yet happy all the same. The mix of emotions on his face didn't make all too much sense to the blond, not only did they all seem to not really fit with the others, but also why would Harry be surprised or confused by getting presents? He was the saviour of the wizarding world, surely he was used to receiving a lot of gifts from people.
"You too, Harry. Merry Christmas to you too, Ron." Draco replied and looked over at his redheaded best friend, slowly waking up more as he looked over at him. The young Weasley looked over at him again as well and grinned as he threw his blankets off of his legs and then crawled to the end of his bed where his pile of gifts, which was surprisingly larger than Harry's, was.
"You too, Draco." He said and reached for the gift at the very top of his pile, basically becoming immersed in unwrapping it instantly.
Rather reluctantly, Draco threw his own scarlet red blankets off himself and moved towards the foot of his bed, where there was an actually fairly decent pile of presents considering he only had three friends and his parents both hated him. Well, he had his aunt, who he had been owling with for the past three or so months, but he doubted she would get him anything, she had no reason to.
He shook all speculations of who had sent him things away and somewhat shakily reached for the top present of his own pile. It was rectangular, a bit larger than his hand in length and width, and was wrapped neatly (either with magic or someone with a very steady hand) in dark blue paper. Merry Christmas, Draco. I hope you like this, it's a bit complicated and rather advanced, but I thought you might enjoy it. ~ Hermione was written in the neat, loopy handwriting of his bushy-haired third best-friend. A smile spread across his face and he began to unwrap it while trying to rip as little of the paper as possible. Sure, just tearing it off might have been easier, but it also made more of a mess, and growing up in the manor he had always been scolded if he made too much of a mess, so he instinctively just unwrapped the gift as neatly as he could.
The gift from Hermione turned out to be a book called Moste Potente Potions and without even opening it Draco could tell she had been correct about it being complicated and advanced. He was sure he had only ever seen the book on the highest shelf in his godfather's potion room in his house (which Draco had only been to a few times over the course of his life), and that particular shelf had been the one filled with books that had dangerous and incredibly advanced potions in them, things you didn't learn at school. For a few moments the blond Gryffindor just sat on his bed, holding the Potions book in his hands with a soft smile on his face. "Thanks, Hermione…" He whispered so quietly that neither of the other boys heard him and placed the book down beside him before reaching over to grab his next gift.
This one was wrapped much more sloppily, obviously done without magic, and the paper was a deep scarlet red, very similar to the color of the Gryffindor dormitory's blankets and carpets. He tilted his head to the side slightly in confusion as he slowly turned it over in his hands, looking for a note or something similar to tell who it was from. It most likely wasn't from Harry or Ron, neither of them had really been capable of going out to buy anything, just like Draco, but the blond didn't know who else would've given him anything beside his best friends.
"Who do you reckon this is from?" Draco asked, not completely sure why, and Harry and Ron both looked up at him, the latter's eyes immediately widening and his cheeks becoming flushed with a pale pink when he caught sight of the gift the blond was holding.
"I think... that's from my mum. I told her what happened with your family, and that you and Harry weren't exactly expecting much this year, so she must have sent you something. You probably have something from her too, Harry. Oh no, I think she sent you Weasley-sweaters!" Ron said, looking thoroughly embarrassed as he did, his face seeming to become even redder than before, if that was even possible. Draco stared at him for a moment, not taking any notice to Harry as he too picked up a rather lumpy, sloppily packed gift.
"I…" The blond trailed off, feeling a bit at a loss for what to say as he looked back down at the gift in his hands, the gift Ron's mother, Mrs. Weasley, whose family had always had a kind of rivalry with his own, had sent him. Instead of saying anything after that failed first attempt at speaking Draco began unwrapping the paper from around the present.
When the paper fell away from what was inside it, the first thing Draco saw was a neatly folded home-made knitted dark blue sweater and when he carefully picked it up, letting it unfold itself, he noticed the silvery-gray letter D knitted into its front. For a few seconds he just stared at it in shock, a warm, happy feeling beginning to spread through his chest and then the rest of him like he had just drunk a hot cup of cocoa. Ron's mother had never even met him, and she knew who his parents were, yet she still made something herself that was just for him. A smile lit up his face and with barely a second's hesitation he pulled the sweater over his head, messing his hair up and filling it with static electricity that made it crackle slightly.
"She makes us one every year." Ron was saying and Draco looked over at him, still smiling wider than he had in what felt like years. 'And mine's always maroo-"
Before the redhead could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by Draco, though the blond didn't seem to have meant to cut him off. "Can you… tell your mum thanks? For this?" He asked and Ron looked up from his own sweater, which was, as he had said, maroon. A mildly surprised expression crossed the redhead's face and then he smiled, nodding ever so slightly.
"I'm sure she'll be glad you like it. Also, I believe there's home-made fudge for you too. Harry and I both got some." Ron said, indicating towards the tin Draco hadn't noticed before that was still lying on top of the wrapping paper in front of him.
"It's really good." Harry added, his own tin already open beside him and he was currently taking out a piece and quickly eating it before turning back to the two presents left in his pile. Draco, all hesitancy he had felt earlier about his gifts gone, opened his and tried the fudge that was inside it as well. When Harry said it was really good, he was under-stating it, the fudge was better than anything he had ever tasted, and that was saying something considering how high-class and expensive the food and desserts he had grown up with were. His smile grew slightly (somehow, he hadn't thought he could even smile this wide at all) and since he couldn't resist the urge, grabbed another piece before he too turned back to his last two presents.
One was rather small and wrapped neatly in dark green paper, tied off with a silver ribbon that had a small note strung to it, the other was a bit larger and was wrapped in deep violet paper, a golden ribbon with a note strung to it tying it off in a very similar fashion to the other one. Draco grabbed the latter first, not because it was bigger, no, this year he didn't find himself caring about the size of his gifts, but because he was sure he recognized the smaller one's wrapping-paper and was scared of what him receiving a gift from them could mean.
The small note on the violet wrapped present read, in a handwriting Draco had gotten used to reading over the past few months: Draco, you told me in one of your letters you enjoyed playing Wizard's chess, yet, if I am remembering correctly, you don't own your own set. I hope this one will play well for you. Perhaps you can even beat Ron, who you called "unbeatable", now. ~ Aunt Andromeda P.S.: Push the button. Draco smiled at the small slip of parchment, then untied the ribbon and unwrapped the paper from the rectangular smooth, black box. There was a small silver button on the front of it, and when he reached forward and pressed it with his right index finger the box suddenly transformed itself into a chessboard with one side already set up and the same silver button on the edge of it. He quickly pushed it again and grinned as the board turned back into the box, which he lay down beside him, silently thanking his aunt.
Draco then looked back at the last gift in his pile, hesitantly reaching towards it, only to freeze when Ron suddenly exclaimed in shock and amazement. The blond's head snapped up, taking his chance to push back him opening the small blue gift, to see what was going on. Ron was staring at something that shimmered with silver light and was lying on the ground at Harry's feet, as if the raven-haired boy had dropped it. Draco felt his own eyes widen in shock as well at the sight of the large, silver-glowing piece of silky-cloth. No way… Who gave him an invisibility cloak?
"I've heard of those," Ron said with a slightly far-off, jealous voice before Draco could even open his mouth to begin speaking himself. The box of Bertie-Botts Every Flavor Beans the redhead had received from someone slipped from his hand and fell onto the bed beside him, somehow not spilling at all. "If that's what I think it is - they're really rare and really valuable." Draco nodded along vigorously to what the redhead was saying, positive they were both thinking of the same thing, because what else could the thing that looked like a shimmering blanket be?
"What is it?" Harry picked the shimmering cloth up from the carpeted ground as he asked this and let it slide through his fingers a bit, as if he was trying to figure out how it felt. Maybe he was, but Draco had no real way of knowing. He wasn't a legilimence like his godfather, in fact he really didn't have anything that made him stand out from other wizards, but that was probably good.
"It's a cloak that makes you invisible." Draco couldn't stop himself from explaining, wanting to answer before Ron, who gave him a mock annoyed glare. The blond smirked smugly over at him for a moment before continuing to speak. "Most likely, c'mon, try it on!" Draco was unable to hide the excitement in his voice as he said it and he slid off of his bed, walking over to Harry's so he could see the cloak a bit better.
The raven-haired boy looked at the blanket-like cloak in his hands for a few moments before finally shrugging slightly and threw it over his shoulders. The effect was instantaneous, Harry's entire upper body that had the cloak wrapped around became completely transparent, not even a vague outline of the boy was visible. Draco's jaw dropped in shock and his eyes widened, he had never heard of an invisibility cloak working that well. There was always supposed to be a light shimmer in the air, because things couldn't just completely disappear from view, they were still there, there was no way for someone to be there but to show no trace of it.
"It is an invisibility cloak! Look!" Ron yelled and Draco glanced over at him because sure, he was right, it was an invisibility cloak, but surely the redhead could tell it wasn't an ordinary one, there was something more to it, something beyond what any average (or even above-average) wizard could achieve. The blond looked at the other boy for a few seconds, waiting for him to notice his expression, but when the redhead didn't even glance in his direction he gave up and looked away again to see Harry standing in front of the mirror in their dorm that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. He disappeared seconds later however when he pulled the cloak up over the rest of him. It looked as if the raven-haired boy had simply disapparated, though that was impossible, nobody under the age of sixteen could even attempt to do that.
"There's a note lying there!" Ron yelled suddenly, pointing towards the floor near where Harry's feet likely were, where there was indeed a small slip of parchment lying folded up on the carpet. "A note fell out!"
Harry appeared once again, shimmering into existence as he pulled the cloak off his shoulders and knelt down to pick up the parchment. As the raven-haired boy unfolded the note and walked over to sit back down on the bed beside Draco, Ron stood up and hesitantly took the cloak, holding it tightly in his hands. He wandered back to his own bed and sat down rather heavily, just staring at the piece of silvery silk cloth that looked almost like a blanket in fascination. His eyes were wide in amazement, which Draco could understand, even he, who came from an incredibly wealthy wizarding family with a high status in the world, had never seen an invisibility cloak, let alone one that worked so well. Still, the blond didn't actually care too much about the cloak when he glanced at his best friend's face as he read the note, his expression seemed to be becoming steadily more upset and confused, even after it was obvious he had finished reading it.
"I would give anything to have one of these." Ron said, but Draco didn't pay him much attention, even if he silently agreed. Harry folded the note back up but instead of placing it to the side he just stared at it, his expression a confusing and concerning mix of troubled and blank. "Anything. What's wrong?" It seemed that Ron had finally noticed his and Draco's best friend's silence and troubled look, and he placed the cloak back on Harry's bed, his interest in it seeming to dwindle in concern for him.
"Nothing." Harry said, a bit too quickly to be believable, and finally did put the note down, turning to face them. Draco raised an eyebrow slightly at the small smile that looked somewhat forced, and opened his mouth to comment on it. Before he could, however, the door to their dorm bagged open and he spun around on Harry's bed to see Ron's twin brothers, Fred and George, standing there with wide grins on their faces. They had sweaters not too unlike his own in colors and style, though instead of a silver letter D, one of them had a yellow letter F, and the other had a yellow letter G knitted onto the front.
"Merry Christmas!" The two yelled and Draco forced himself not to flinch back in surprise at their sudden, loud entrance. For a second all he did was stare at them, his shoulders slightly tense, before Fred spoke up himself in a much more normal voice, releasing all of the tension again.
"Hey, look - Harry and Malfoy got Weasley-Sweaters!" Said Weasley twin grinned even wider as he walked over to Harry's bed in long strides, picking up the emerald-green sweater that the raven-haired boy, who was sitting beside Draco with a surprised but relatively amused look, had yet to put on. The third-year redhead then looked over at the one Draco was wearing, tilting his head to the side slightly as if curious, and the blond glanced down for a second, though he wasn't completely sure why. "Harry and Malfoy's are better than ours. She obviously makes more of an effort if you're not family." Draco felt his cheeks burn in a bit of embarrassment, why would Ron's mother try harder on his sweater than her own children's? He was a disgraced Malfoy, for Merlin's sake!
"Why aren't you wearing your sweater, Ron?" George asked his younger brother and Draco quickly tried to push back his thoughts on the subject, because he really didn't need to focus on it too much at the moment. "C'mon, put it on, they're lovely and warm."
The blond looked over at his redheaded best friend just in time to see a scowl pull at his lips and his blue eyes dart down to stare at the maroon sweater in his hands with a look of faint annoyance and hesitation. The expression was rather amusing to look at and Draco couldn't help but press his lips tightly together so he wouldn't start grinning. "I don't like maroon." Ron said half-heartedly, and with a small sigh that seemed to convey all of his resignation in a matter of seconds, pulled his knitted sweater over his head, messing his fire-red hair up.
"You haven't got a letter on yours." George said and Draco blinked as he noticed the same fact. Everyone else had a letter on theirs, except Ron, which was rather strange in the blond's opinion. "I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid - we know we're called Gred and Forge." Draco had to clamp his hand over his own mouth to stop himself from laughing aloud, but still an amused snort escaped him and George grinned at him, only to look towards the door barely a half a second later when the door once again opened to reveal Percy Weasley, the fourth Weasley who was still at Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays.
"What's all this noise?" The eldest student in the first year gryffindor boys' dorm room demanded, his voice clipped, though much less strict and annoyed than usual. He had a scarlet red sweater thrown somewhat carelessly over his arm, which was quite odd compared to his usual neat appearance. Fred, instead of answering his brother, grabbed the sweater from his arm and held it out in front of him, inspecting it as if it were extremely interesting to look at.
"P for prefect! Put it on, Percy, c'mon, even Harry and Malfoy got one." Fred exclaimed and as one he and his twin brother all but pounced on their older brother, ignoring his protests as they forced the sweater over his head. In the struggle his normally perfectly styled hair became tousled and slightly tangled, and his glasses were knocked askew, giving him a rather disheveled and uncoordinated appearance, especially with his arms pinned to his sides by the wool sweater. Draco snorted with laughter again, though he didn't try to hide it that time.
"And today you're not going to sit with the prefects." George said a second later as if he hadn't just forced Percy into a sweater completely against his will. "Christmas is celebrated with family." With that the twins grabbed the sleeves, which lacked the occupancy of Percy's arms, of the red sweater and dragged their brother back out of the dorm-room.
Ron stood up, as did Harry, who was pulling his own green Weasley-sweater over his head, knocking his glasses askew in a similar fashion to Percy's and making his already unruly hair stand up even more. "You comin' down to breakfast with us, Draco? From what I hear there's all sorts of special food and gifts down there on Christmas." The redhead asked, turning to look back at his blond best friend when he noticed he hadn't stood up with him and Harry.
"I - " Draco hesitated for a moment and glanced back over the unopened gift still lying at the end of his bed, the gift with wrapping paper he had grown up having at least half of his Christmas presents wrapped in. "I'll be down in a couple minutes, don't wait for me. I'll meet you down there, I have to do something real quick." He said after a second's hesitation and a small frown tugged at Ron's lips but the redhead simply nodded before pulling Harry out of the dorm with him.
The minute his two best friends left he shakily stood up and walked slowly back over to his bed, picking up the gift he was sure was from his mother with trembling hands. He wasn't sure what could possibly be in it, his parents both hated him, his father had certainly made that clear and Pansy had said his mother had told her the same thing. Except, maybe his old best friend hadn't actually received a letter from her and she had simply said all of that to make him feel terrible. The idea hurt, just like everything else to do with the people who he used to think would stick by him through anything, but it was likely, if he really thought about it. His father had always been much stricter about the family name, about him being the perfect son, about him being in Slytherin, than his mother.
Draco took a deep breath and hesitantly began to unwrap the relatively small gift, only to pause when he remembered the small note, which he grabbed directly and, with still trembling hands, read it:
'Draco
I know you likely think this isn't real, or that I am leading you on with sending you anything, and I suppose I am partially to blame for that if you are feeling that way. I am truly sorry for not trying to reason with your father, though I doubt he will listen to much sense, you know how stubborn he gets. This of course is not an excuse for anything, and I am not asking you to forgive me, for I know I do not deserve it. Still, I apologize for being a rather terrible mother these past few months, and I know I cannot promise to be much better, for as horrible it makes me appear and as much as it pains me to admit, your house does make things slightly more complicated. I am not going to attempt to explain anything at the moment, however, for this really isn't the time for it, I will try over the summer holidays, but for now all I can say is I'm truly sorry and I hope your holidays are enjoyable.
From, mother'
For a few seconds all the blond did was stare at the small note he held clutched tightly in his right hand. He knew his mother's words technically shouldn't have made him feel better about her, because she said she still didn't really accept him for being a Gryffindor, but she had apologized for it, and that made the tight feeling in his chest he had managed to mostly ignore for the past three and a half months become lighter. A few tears stung at his eyes despite how hard he tried to hold them back, and he let out a shuddering breath before once again beginning to unwrap the gift, his hands trembling even more than before.
As he expected, the gift wasn't exactly as special or expensive as her gifts usually were, but still, the fact that she had sent him anything made him not care in the slightest, unlike how he would have reacted just a year prior. A new, rather elegant looking quill and a pot of ink that seemed as though it might refill itself when emptied lay inside the small, narrow box. Draco's hands seemed to abruptly stop trembling, and a tiny smile spread across his lips. Despite the rather basic thing inside the present, it told the young Malfoy that his mother still at least somewhat cared about him.
The rest of the day was incredibly different from Christmas at Malfoy Manor. There was no requirements to make casual, polite conversation with people he didn't know, there were no awkward greetings, it was all just… laid back and comfortable and had a sort of controlled chaos to it that just made Draco feel like he was actually at home, surrounded by people who actually cared, even if many didn't truly know him.
Breakfast was filled with random snacks exploding and raining all sorts of things over the few students that had decided to stay in the castle over the Christmas holidays, people laughing at jokes someone else said, gifts being admired and Fred and George pulling pranks on basically everyone in the Great Hall and somehow getting away with it. Draco was pretty sure by that point that the teachers all secretly thought the twins were brilliant, which he couldn't blame them for, they certainly were hilarious. Seriously, how could his parents have thought the Weasleys were terrible? Sure, Percy was rather annoying and stuck-up occasionally, but he was still rather nice, and hadn't said anything rude to Draco, or anyone else really, besides maybe taking house points or yelling about how he was a prefect. Ron was certainly a much better friend than any of the other ones the blond had ever had, and his mother gave Draco, whose family had been rivals with hers for decades, centuries even, a hand-knitted sweater and home-made fudge simply because he wasn't expecting anything from his own parents.
This realization made Draco wonder why exactly she had knitted Harry a sweater, sure, he had noticed Harry's pile of gifts was rather small, but why would The-Boy-Who-Lived receive such a small amount of gifts? He had saved the Wizarding World, probably the Muggle World as well, for Merlin's sake! Wasn't he supposed to have relatives who admired and adored him? Wasn't he supposed to have hundreds, thousands of people who looked up to him and likely sent him loads of little things for Christmas, and every other holiday imaginable? The blond however shoved most of those thoughts to the back of his mind rather quickly because he really couldn't think properly about things like that, especially not when he was being pelted with snowballs by the Weasleys and Harry later that afternoon.
By the time it was time to go to bed, which was much later than usual, though whether that was because they lost track of time playing chess in front of the common room's warm fire, or just because nobody told them they had to go to bed wasn't exactly certain, Draco felt as if he couldn't keep his eyes open a moment longer. For once, his thoughts didn't keep him awake at all and the moment he buried himself in his four-poster's thick, warm red blankets he slipped into a deep sleep, not even waking up when later that night Harry tripped over his own trunk as he snuck out of their dorm to explore the restricted section of the library with his invisibility cloak. Of course, that's not all the raven-haired boy did that night, though for most finding a mirror in an abandoned classroom wouldn't be considered anything of importance.
"You did what? Harry, you could have been caught!" Draco said, his voice rather loud, ignoring the last part, about the mirror, Harry had told them. Several of the other students glanced their way at his outburst, but quickly looked away again before the blond could notice their gazes. Harry had, not even five minutes prior, walked into breakfast later than Draco and Ron, neither of which thought they needed to wake him up at eight if he was still asleep. The raven-haired boy had then basically thrown himself onto the bench beside Ron and had, in a voice that could just barely be considered hushed, explained that the night before he had snuck out of Gryffindor tower under his new invisibility cloak, gotten into the restricted section of the library to search for anything to do with Nicholas Flamel, had almost gotten himself caught by Filch and had then found some sort of mirror that had showed him his entire family.
"You could've at least woken us up too, mate." Ron said, glancing over at Draco and then Harry with a slightly annoyed, and almost hurt, look on his face. The redhead seemed more interested in the magic mirror than the fact that if Harry had been caught not only would he have gotten in trouble, likely got detention, and lost Gryffindor points, he also almost definitely would have had his cloak confiscated.
"Yeah, and how would that have helped, Ron? We all would've been out of bed! That would've been even worse! And Merlin knows you two are loud and incredibly terrible at sneaking around." Draco snapped, though he did make sure to speak at a much more normal volume that time. He had learned his lesson of not being careful when it came to what they were talking about when Pansy had (most likely) told Filch where they would sneak out to the night they first saw Fluffy.
"You're basically as smart as Hermione, you could've come up with some spell or something to help us escape if we were almost caught." The look on Ron's face made it seem like he meant each of those words, which confused Draco immensely. Sure, he was second in their year, but still, the redhead had seen him the last time Filch had almost found them, he had completely frozen up. His mind had gone blank, he couldn't think of anything besides the fact that he would be expelled and sent home, he hadn't even thought of needing some sort of spell to help.
"How about you guys come with me tonight, I want to show you the mirror." Harry said after Draco didn't respond for a full thirty seconds. Said blond looked up from his eggs, which he had begun poking at with his fork, and stared at the boy across from him in shock.
"What? Harry -" Draco started to say but before he could finish he was cut off by Ron, whose blue eyes had lit up at Harry's suggestion. Whether the sudden enthusiasm came from the prospect of getting to see the mirror itself, or from being able to do something risky again, he wasn't completely sure, though likely it was a rather even mix of both.
"I would love to see your mum and dad." The redhead smiled widely at his raven-haired best friend, and even though Draco really didn't want to risk sneaking out again, he couldn't deny that he felt the same as Ron on that matter. He wanted to at least see what Harry's parents looked like. The-Boy-Who-Lived didn't appear to have any pictures of his parents, or of his family at all, now that he thought about it. It was rather strange for him to not at least have one small picture that he had with him, even Draco, whose father had disowned him on the first day of school, had a picture of himself and his parents on the small table beside his bed.
"I want to see them too." Draco admitted, nodding slightly as he heaved a small sigh and looked back down at his plate. "But you two have to promise to be careful so we don't even risk being caught." He added and both of the other gryffindor boys nodded without any type of argument.
"I wanna see your families too, even if yours is terrible, Draco. I want to see all the Weasleys, Ron, you could show me all your brothers and just everyone in general. And I want to know if your father looks like I picture him, Draco, all angry and pale and tall." Harry said and Draco couldn't help but scoff in amusement, slowly shaking his head. He knew one thing for sure, Harry really did not want to meet his father.
"You can see my family anytime," Ron said, glancing over at Draco for a split second with an amused glint in his eyes. "Just come visit me over the summer, mum would be delighted to have you there. You too, Draco. I'm sure I'll be able to convince mum and dad to let you stay most of the summer, if you don't want to deal with your jerk of a dad the entire time. Mum always loves having someone else to mother besides my siblings and I. Anyways, Harry, the mirror might only show dead people... Bummer too that you didn't find anything out about Flamel… Take some of the bacon, why aren't you eating anything?" Draco had to suppress a laugh at the redhead's sudden subject change to food, though the blond did realize he had a point. Harry had barely anything on his plate, and all of what was on it looked untouched.
"Are you okay?" Draco asked then, at practically the same time as Ron, who smiled briefly at him before turning a concerned look in Harry's direction. "You look a bit out of it." Harry shrugged meekly in response and hesitantly took a piece of bacon off the gold platter in the middle of the table, nibbling at it as if he'd rather do anything else. A concerned frown tugged at Draco's lips, but he didn't say anything else to Harry about his sudden shift in mood after that.
"It's cold!" Ron groaned, drawing out the O for at least five seconds as he scowled and somewhat dramatically rubbed his arms with his hands. They had been walking, all three of them under Harry's invisibility cloak, through the castle for what felt like hours. Maybe it had been hours, Draco really didn't know anymore. Harry had dragged both Ron and Draco out of their beds only about a half an hour after the blond had fallen asleep and had led them first to the library and then, almost aimlessly, led them through the corridors of Hogwarts. Occasionally the raven-haired boy would pause and look around in slight confusion before turning a corner that seemed almost randomly chosen.
"Well then maybe you should've actually put something besides a bathrobe on over your pajamas." Draco snapped back at the redhead, rolling his silvery grey eyes in annoyance despite the fact that he secretly agreed with him. The stone walls and floors of Hogwarts seemed to hold the chill of every winter since they were built, cooling the air in the corridors all day and all night long, making everyone in the castle feel as if they were standing outside in the middle of a blizzard unless they wore way too many layers of clothing to appear normal for being indoors.
"I didn't expect us to be out this long! And it's not this cold during the day, or in the common room! Speaking of which, can we-" Ron's rather angered sounding reply to Draco was cut off by Harry, who had been looking intently at the walls as they walked only to turn around abruptly and glare slightly at Ron.
"No! We're not going back to the tower. We're almost there, I know it." The raven-haired boy snapped, his green eyes glinting angrily behind his round glasses. Ron raised his hands in a type of playful surrender, though Draco could see the hint of concern for their best friend glimmering in his blue eyes. Harry wasn't even as caught up in the whole Fluffy thing as he was this. Just how strongly he objected to not finding the mirror again was strangely unlike him and, though Draco hated admitting it, the redhead was not the only one worried about what his new behaviour could mean.
Without waiting for any sort of verbal response from either of his friends Harry started back down the corridor, forcing the other two to hastily follow him so they would stay under the invisibility cloak with him. None of them said much after that, not even when they almost walked straight through a ghost when she flew out of a wall without any kind of forewarning. Draco wasn't sure if ghosts could feel someone passing through them, or if only the person doing so could feel the shift of temperature and thickness of the air when they walked through one, but he did know that he really didn't want to find out.
"Here!" Harry suddenly called out excitedly, a bit too loudly to be considered careful, and pulled Draco and Ron towards a door beside a suit of armor to their left that looked as if it simply led into one of the many abandoned classrooms at Hogwarts. "This is it!" The raven-haired boy reached out and pulled the door open, stepping through the doorway and slipping out from under the cloak in his haste to get inside.
"Harry!" Draco hissed in slight annoyance and worry as he too stepped into the room that did indeed look like an abandoned classroom with its desks and chairs that had thick blankets of dust covering them. His eyes skimmed over the room, taking in every last detail, attempting -for no particular reason beside curiosity- to find out which class had been taught in there before it had been left alone when the professor teaching it retired. He guessed it was likely a Care of Magical Creatures or Transfiguration classroom, judging by the assortment of small empty animal cages that were pushed up against a wall, though it likely hadn't been that for at least five years judging by the completely disused look everything in the room had besides the thing leaning against the far wall that Harry had immediately gone for.
The mirror looked even more impressive in person than what the raven-haired boy had described earlier that day at breakfast. Its reflective glass surface glinted in the pale silver moonlight shining in through one of the classroom's windows, the gold framing of it had hundreds of tiny runes carved into it in a delicate sort of pattern, and the words at the top were all lowercase and read in an intricate, slightly unusual font, spelling out words that Draco was sure were not in any known language: erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. Without fully realizing he had moved, Draco found himself standing beside Harry in front of the strange, ceiling-high mirror, looking at it with his head tilted to the side in confusion and concentration. The surface of the glass seemed to shimmer slightly, but despite that the reflection it showed wasn't any different than an average mirror's would have been.
"You see?" Harry asked and Draco furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as he continued to try and see something different about his reflection, but still all he saw was himself, Harry, and Ron, who had wandered over just seconds after the blond. There was nobody besides the three of them reflected in the mirror, nobody with long red hair as Harry had described or with messy black hair and glasses, besides Harry himself, of course. Draco shook his head in response to the question his best friend had just asked him and Ron, not exactly sure how to verbally say he couldn't see any of Harry's family, or anyone else for that matter.
"I don't see anything." Well, I suppose you could say it like that. Draco thought in mild amusement, but didn't say anything in response to Ron's words. Then again, he couldn't have anyways if he wanted to because Harry answered the redhead himself barely a second after he had finished speaking.
"Look a bit closer! Look at all of them… there's so many…" Harry's voice was excited, but there was a slight tremor in it. It wasn't exactly easy to tell whether the trembling came from sadness or just even more excitement, and Draco decided it really didn't matter much either way because he was sure he did feel both of those emotions either way, even if he only showed one.
"I… only see us three, Harry." Draco said, glancing over at the raven-haired boy with the same concerned glint Ron had in his eyes just a little bit earlier that night. Either something was seriously up with Harry at the moment, or the mirror only showed certain people things. He hoped it was the latter, but he honestly wasn't completely sure.
"You have to really look. C'mon, stand right here." Harry said and tugged Ron towards him a bit, moving to the side so that the redhead could stand where he had been just seconds earlier. The confused look on Ron's face stayed in place for a few seconds before it morphed into a look of shock and a small grin tugged at his mouth. His eyes seemed to light up slightly and he took a tiny step closer to the mirror in a sort of fascinated trance.
"Bloody Hell!" Ron exclaimed and a relieved expression flashed across Harry's face, a grin accompanying it.
"Do you see your whole family standing around you?" The raven-haired boy demanded eagerly as he stepped forward as well so he was right next to Ron. Said redhead shook his head at the question, the grin on his face widening ever so slightly.
"No, I'm alone. I look different though, older, and… I'm Head Boy!" Ron's voice had the same excited tone to it as Harry's, though it seemed less because he was happy, and more as if he longed for what he was seeing to be true.
"What?!" Harry and Draco both yelled at the same time, though they both likely had different reasons for it. How could Harry see one thing, while Ron saw something completely different? Most spells didn't work like that, almost all of them in fact didn't actually have more than one purpose. So… either whatever charm had been placed on this mirror was unusual, or it really did have only one purpose, one that he couldn't figure out.
"I'm… I'm wearing a badge like the one Bill used to… and I'm holding the House and Quidditch cups in my hands! And I'm Team Captain!" Ron's blue eyes looked almost clouded with fascination and the grin on his face was so wide it seemed to stretch from one of his ears to the other. Draco's frown grew slightly and he looked from Ron to Harry, and then from Harry to the mirror with a somewhat nervous fluttering in his chest. There was something weird about that mirror, something powerful. "Do you think the mirror shows the future?"
The excited look in Harry's eyes dulled slightly at that and he glanced down at his shoes for a moment, wringing his hands together. "How could it? My whole family's dead… let me see again -" Harry's words were cut off by Ron however who, without even looking away from the mirror, interrupted him and shoved him away from himself slightly.
"You had it to yourself all of last night, let me look for a little while longer." Harry scowled and stepped towards Ron again after having rather quickly regained his balance.
"You're just holding the Quidditch-cup, what's so interesting about that? I want to see my parents!" This time Harry shoved Ron to the side slightly so he could stand in front of the mirror again, his annoyed scowl now an angry glare and slightly bared teeth. Ron stumbled and almost tripped, however, he somehow managed to regain his own balance just about as quickly as Harry and turned to face him with his fists clenched tightly at his sides.
"Stop sho- " The young Weasley was interrupted by Draco who stepped in between the two other gryffindors, a scowl of disapproval on his face. What was this mirror doing to his best friends? He had never seen them so much as argue, now they looked as if they were about to start punching each other. That wasn't something that just happened without reason! The spells on the mirror weren't good ones, they did something to you that made you obsessed with what you saw, Draco was sure of that.
"Stop! Both of you! Don't you two see that this mirror is doing something to you?" He snapped and looked between the two of them, his silver eyes narrowed angrily, though he felt more desperate than angry. "You two are acting mad!" Draco locked eyes with Harry and in that split second the angry, clouded look in his green eyes dissipated and was replaced with a slightly confused glint, all of the tension easing out of him. When he turned his gaze to Ron the same thing happened; his fists unclenched, his blue eyes became clear as if he was freed of an enchantment, and he shook his head slightly.
"What?" Harry mumbled and Draco sighed, looking away from Ron and instead at the mirror, which shimmered slightly in front of him, its image changing and shifting until it looked different. He gulped slightly but he tried to ignore the image that felt like it was trying to lure him in.
"You two have never even argued before, maybe a tiny disagreement on something, but not argued and most definitely not almost fought. This mirror doesn't just show you something, it -" A sound outside the abandoned classroom, in the corridor beyond, caused him to break off in the middle of his sentence and he turned away from the mirror abruptly to face the direction of the door. "We need to go. I think that was Mrs. Norris." He hissed and then walked over to the only exit of the room, kneeling down to pick up the invisibility cloak the three of them had discarded on the dusty floor. Ron and Harry quickly followed him, both still looking confused but also scared as they threw the cloak over themselves and snuck back to Gryffindor tower.