1999

From the corner of his eyes, Draco noticed the brunette dip down the couch with a huff, his tanned skin gleaming in the golden light of the fire and hair as messy as ever falling on his forehead in soft curls. The scene was familiar to him, so much so, that if he closed his eyes, he could paint that face down on a canvas with just a few shades of brown and black; even the bottle of whiskey that sat in front of him these days, too often.

The chattering in front of him never ceased, just the eyes had turned on him with curiosity laced in them, but they remained silent on the matter.

"...so, I told them to just leave me alone. I didn't want to spend the Christmas with them." Pansy shook her head.

"How did they take it?" Blaise asked, eyes back on her.

"Well, I know they didn't agree, but let me be. They need me, I need peace, it's just a whole chaos." leaning her head on one hand, she sighed.

With a nod, Draco chewed on his bottom lip, tempted to look Harry's way again, but not wanting the eyes back on him, he looked ahead. The sweetness of whiskey spread through the air, and his breath fell short, as he sat their, poised on the chair.

"It's the same everywhere." he provided shortly, putting a piece of waffle in his mouth from the table.

It was the Christmas Eve, but no one seemed sober as the excitement of the Dark Lord gone brewed in the air with an intoxicating fragrance that heightened the Christmas to the top notch and had basically made the whole school mad with happiness. Though a few lives hadn't changed much, or had changed a bit too much to get a grip on matters and kept slipping out of the fingers as time ticked by, straining relationships to threads.

"What's up with Potter?" Pansy nodded her head towards the lone figure sitting in front of the fire with a bottle of whiskey beside his feet on a table. "He's been drinking a lot."

Gaining a leverage to glance his way, he turned, roaming his eyes around the lean yet broad structure hunched on the cushions. Though there was a little scope of catching his eyes, but Draco didn't dare a lot to do that yet, even if he wanted to.

"His relatives left Privet Drive." he answered shortly, not wanting to attract his attention for discussing his personal life, even if his desires were contradictory to his beliefs.

There was a little chance of keeping it that way with Pansy sprawled in front of him with her legs on Blaise's lap, as she seemed to grasp the little chances of gossips spilt here and there about anyone, lately. There was this tensed interest bubbling inside of her these days, Draco had noticed, to befriend anyone who showed some interest toward them and proved decent in her eyes. Maybe it was the stranded situation they all were dealing with, where almost everyone, even the people who had promised that they didn't hold any respect for the Golden Boy had turned their backs to them, complaining about how they were ungrateful and didn't deserve compassion to the least. Draco had taken the blame on his shoulder, turning his nose up dramatically to anyone who tried to bully him, or called him nonsensical words. But deep down, he was past that stage when he would try to use his notorious image to fight them, and just wanted some silence in his life, for once.

"Why?" Pansy asked inevitably, her eyebrows knitted with interest.

Even though he knew the reason, he shook his head with a "don't know," and fell back to the sombre pool of melancholy they were lapping on a few minutes earlier. The distant knocks and squeaks of Harry moving beat on his eardrums, which proved to be the only way of him confirming his presence.

The crunchy snow depressed under his boots, as Draco wandered about the lake. The Whomping Willow somehow had been decorated with what looked like fireflies to him from afar, though he was sure there was a muggle term for those look-alike miniature bulbs. He liked the place, though the only shortcoming of being there was the lack of sitting arrangement around the water with the ground hidden under the snow. There was a way of conjuring something, but Filch would be furious for taking out furnitures from the building, even if he summoned it from the common room.

Adopting the last resort, he charmed a layer of drying spell on the snow and squatted down in front of the lake, the cold seeping through the magic, but he couldn't care at the moment. The Black Lake refreshed a lot of memories from the previous years, the most prominent one being the second task of the Tri-wizard Tournament, where Harry had gone underwater to pull up a soggy Weasley looking like a drenched shaved rat. He snickered to himself with his hand pressed to his mouth.

"What are you doing?" the familiar voice rang from behind him, though it sounded amused, but his heart sped up nonetheless.

"When did you get here?" Draco turned to Harry with a smile tugging at his lips which he couldn't help, yet putting his frown on place with an effort.

"A second ago." Harry nodded and sat down beside him with a huff. "Why were you laughing all alone?"

"Remember when you pulled out Weasley from under this lake? He was looking like a drenched and shaved rat wrapped in a towel." he narrated his thoughts with a smirk.

"No, he wasn't!" he slapped Draco's arm lightly, though the effort to not laugh was given off by his suppressed smile.

"Oh, come on, don't lie." he shook his head between his laughs.

"Remember the time when Hermione punched you in the face?" Harry nudged his shoulder.

"That's a five year old thing! Get over it."

The silence settled between them, just the momentary sniggers that left their mouths once in a while due to the remnants of the humour still trapped somewhere in their hearts which slipped as it thrummed.

They hadn't heard the footsteps of the tension leaving them forever after the imposed arrangement of McGonagall for the countable eighth years worked out pretty well, though the merged ecstasy and melancholy had been too much on their plates to handle as the year was coming to an end, pulling the horizon of their time in Hogwarts behind it, and Draco felt bittersweet about it. Though there was a very short list of things Draco wished he hadn't done while in Hogwarts, the memories that went above his head, he assumed were quite justifiable; like his tendency to threaten people to complain to his father about any uneasiness he had to go through, even the pettiest ones. The fact that his father didn't care one bit about his childish tantrums was highlighted in his mind, but it worked on the students like magic, though the teachers would merely blink away in amusement.

Another one that he regretted about was the insufferable twat he had been to Harry, though there was a little chance of a friendship blossoming between them, but coming to think of it, he could have controlled his behaviour and could have just been civil. The itch in the back of his head that he couldn't point his finger on had turned into a soar spot over the years and currently he was giving himself a daily dose of guilt trip to his past.

"How's Mrs. Malfoy doing?" Harry spoke up again, his voice hoarse from the whiskey he had digested an hour ago.

"She's fine." he nodded his head, not having any elaborated answer to that, for Harry knew every bit of it.

"Things turned out pretty decent despite of our assumptions." Harry said, his glasses glowing in the moonlight, hiding the green of his eyes.

"Yes, it's just that, decent. People still won't stop sending hate mails, it's just us who don't care, that's all." the snap in his voice was stifled skillfully, though he doubted Harry hadn't caught up.

"They do it for a laugh, I can assure you." Harry said, looking down at his lap with a sigh.

"How can you — right." Draco stopped himself before he could speak out the words, and bit on his lips. The last thing he wanted was to pick up a fight with Harry. "All of them?" he asked again.

"Yes, mostly. The others just follow the trend or pick out people to blame." he nodded his head, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"What about the Dursleys?"

"They won't come back untill I leave the place for good. I'm considering going back to the Grimmauld Place. Don't want to be on their way when I've got a choice." Harry pursed his lips in what Draco knew was annoyance, only he didn't know a way to soothe him.

"The Grimmauld Place? Isn't it the — "

"Yes, the House of Blacks. Sirius gave it away, and I don't know what to do with it." Harry scowled.

Sitting there, Draco stared at his moonlit face, reminiscing the secret kisses they had shared under the ceiling of the boys dorm, which he was yet to decipher the meaning of and wondered what Harry thought about it. But he considered himself too much of a coward to volunteer to bring that topic up between them. He was yet to mention it to Pansy and Blaise, feeling guarded about his emotions regarding the predicament, not sure if he could call it even that. While around Harry, he mostly denied to think about it. But the few months they had ahead of them was raising an alarm inside of him, and with Ginny Weasley trailing behind him along the hallways, a bubble of jealousy had puffed up inside his heart.

They had been as sudden as anything in Hogwarts, just out of the blue yet electric, which was rare within the walls. Sometimes, he felt a pang of anger stabbing him in the heart as he thought about how Harry acted like nothing had ever happened between them that was unexpected. Though it ebbed away while he had his late night discussions with himself about how he was worthless and not someone to be loved romantically.

"What?" a mild whisper from Harry pulled him out of the trance of thoughts.

"What are you doing after the year ends?" he asked instead.

"For now, I'm moving to No.12. I'm not sure."

"What about Ginny Weasley? Are you dating her?" he hadn't meant to ask it like that, but he couldn't control himself from speaking up.

Harry turned to him, a knowing look playing in his eyes, and Draco couldn't decide whether it was mocking him or just curious.

"I — yes, we are dating." he nodded his head, though it was Draco who looked away at the dark water in front of them.

"Congratulations," Draco said without intending to mix any content of sarcasm in it, but he definitely wanted to snap at Harry for still looking at him with that same expression in his eyes, which made him feel like a guinea pig trapped in a laboratory for experimentations.

"What's it?" Harry prodded, and that's why Draco hated him for all the years, he concluded.

"Nothing," Draco mustered up his most innocent tone, but the way everything was going, he knew that they were walking on eggshells around each other, and the problem was, he was willing to crack this time.

"I know that tone, Draco."

Though, he had only shrugged, before saying, "We should head in," and walking off from there, without waiting for Harry, because he wasn't yet ready to walk the notorious hallways of Hogwarts with him in the dead of the night.

The almost ten feet tall Christmas tree stood in the middle of the Great Hall like a mountain, with enchanted fairies fleeting through the leaves with a trail of fairy dust snowing over the wrapped boxes placed beneath it. Just like every year, the Great Hall had been decorated with a royal look, and if there was anything more attractive than the ceiling, it had to be the food that lured even the poshest of the people walking around the castle.

Draco hadn't ever had any complaints about the snowy winters of Scotland, for he loved the snow, and even the sky covered with mist and fog that made it all the more better for him. The bitter old habits of sneaking around the castle had stuck to his skin, though now he termed it as "staying unseen among the crowd", which Blaise taunted him about not being very diverse from the prior.

The familiar buzzing of the Hall had never pleased him much, though as the year progressed step by step, he used to close his eyes with his head bowed, and listened to it like some music that pulsed through his veins mixed in his blood. He knew he was going to miss it.

The hushed tones beside him attracted his attention and he strained his ears to listen what Blaise was being so discreet about.

"...they knew it, yes. But never told anyone, worried there was a leak in the team."

"What folklore are you reciting there?" Draco intervened with a frown.

"The Secrets of Sirius Black." Blaise whispered dramatically.

"What?" Draco snapped, amused at their whims. "You are gossiping about Sirius Black?"

"What do you think of us?" Pansy rolled her eyes at him. "Did you know, why Sirius Black tried to kill Peter Pettigrew, and who was the actual secret keeper of the Godrick's Hollow?"

"...no?" Draco shook his head dumbly, his eyebrows raised in interest. "But I'm sure Harry knows."

"Yes, but we didn't. Now we do, and you don't." Pansy wiggled her eyebrows with a smirk playing on her lips.

"Could you be less dramatic?" Draco scowled at her. "But, how do you know, and — okay, let me in, will you?"

It wasn't like he couldn't know it from Harry, but there was a lot of time in his hands and he needed to spend that somehow, and his interest about the truth worked as a bonus.

Through the hallways, a faint light of moonlight seeped inside the castle, enough to light the ways of the passerbys. Pansy and Blaise had decided to go on to the common room as they refused to be out in the chilling cold of December with a thousand layers of coats and heating charms on. The Black Lake was still a choice for him, but that night, he didn't want to see Harry with the ever-present whiff of alcohol mixed in his breath, though he had kind of grown fond of it.

Trench coats had been a bug in his ear ever since his mother had discovered the particular type of winter clothing. She found it fashionable and couldn't stop herself from ordering bizzare prints over them, both for herself and him. Though, knowing that he prefered black base, she had gotten him one with intricate designs stitched on black satin, which Harry had once mocked him about being the posh git of Hogwarts. The thick fabric kept him warm without a doubt, but the hype about it went completely above his head, as he found the broad collars quite stupid and thought they looked like long bathrobes.

Stuffing his fists into the pockets, he walked faster than before, as the wind had picked up a few miles and was now pricking his face like sharp pins. The common room would be too crowdy for his liking, he knew, but there wasn't any other way to go and avoid the strong wind at the same time. Hence, with loud footsteps, he clambered the stairs up to the tower their dorms were, but a pair shuffling in the corner caught his eyesight.

"Oh, come on, Potter." those glasses were noticable at any corner of the castle, and for the life of him, he couldn't seem to skip it once.

"Go away," he groaned, as he stood in front of the red head, while she fixed her dress.

"I mean, couldn't have found a better place? It's the common room, for crying out loud!" he said, as he saw Ginny squeeze out from behind him and out of sight towards the girls dorm.

Even in the dark, he could make out the redness of his flushed cheeks and the messiness of his black hair that looked shaggy to the point where he doubted it could be retrieved. The pit in his stomach had already went an extra metre deeper, and with a disgusted scowl on his face, he stood there, not able to take his eyes off of Harry.

"Everywhere's full on this eve, where am I supposed to go?" Harry said, and Draco was sure he could have slapped him if not for his contradictory emotions.

"Go find a brothel or something, what do I know?" Draco snapped immediately, shivering under his heavy clothing, though he doubted it was for the weather.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong with me. You are the one who was shagging outside the common room!" Draco scoffed at him, his fists balled up inside his pockets.

"What is there to be so dramatic about? What, you've never shagged someone?" Harry exclaimed, his eyebrows furrowed in surprise.

With his teeth grinding inside his mouth, he once again considered hitting Harry, but there was thin chance of him of actually being able to do it. Instead, he just bit a, "no!" and ran off to the dorms with hopes of falling asleep quicker than other days.

As the New Year rolled by, the snow swallowed upto their ankles and the wind became impossible to withstand, due to which the students mostly stayed inside, and merely glided through the corridors like ghost when needed to be. Draco on the other hand, had been, what seemed to Pansy and Blaise, trying to freeze himself into a statue on the grounds of Hogwarts to not ever leave the castle.

They had tried to negotiate with him with ideas of getting a teacher's post in the school, or just become the new Ground Keeper, but he doubted he'd be able to replace Hagrid at the job. Through the trench coat over the jumper he was wearing, the strong wind only swept past his body, but the most it hit him was the face, as it was exposed and he couldn't help but shiver from within.

From the night of Christmas, Harry and Draco had barely spoken. With Harry refusing to meet Draco's eyes and he himself not daring to look too much his way, they had more or less stopped interacting at all. Pansy had her own suspicions, and Blaise being the oblivious one, it remained unknown to him that anything had happened to him at all. Honestly, Blaise never understood any emotion untill someone spoon fed it to him, like a child he was.

Hissing under the cold wind, Draco brushed the back of his hand over his lashes that had gathered a lump of snow over it in those five minutes that he had been standing there. He didn't know, why he was doing it to himself, but ever since the live proof of Harry and Ginny dating, he had been scarred in a way to look at him straight in the eye. The constant sting of the invisible gash drove him to the fields every now and then, hoping the cold would numb the pain, but it didn't.

Rushing back to the tower, he brushed his coat at the door to shed the gathered snowflakes from the fabric, so that they didn't dampen the only potentially capable clothing he had from actually freezing to death.

"What are you upto? It's like minus forty outside and you're strolling around on the knee high snow?" Pansy shook her head with her lips pursed.

"Stop exaggerating things. It's just minus ten, and the snow comes upto your ankles, not knees." Draco rolled his eyes at his friend.

"So what? I don't see the difference, that's what I meant. If you manage to get frostbite then they are going to snap your fingers off with grass clippers." Pansy argued from in front of the fire she had lit.

"For Merlin's sake, Pansy, stop being so dramatic! I was fully covered, if you didn't know, and no, I didn't get frostbite!" Draco snapped, and made it to the couch.

"Where's Blaise?" he asked, as he sighed at the warmth of the room, thawing his limbs and face near the fire.

"Under the quilts, of course." she huffed, as she lifted her bare feet in front of the fire, wiggling her toes.

"Any spacial plans for tonight?" Draco asked, his eyes closed.

"No, I'm not going out anywhere until it stops snowing. I'm ordering whiskey and wine in and drinking till I drop." Pansy shook her head vigorously to emphasise her point, and Draco sighed at her.

"We've got classes tomorrow." he said.

"I do not care, I need a booze or I'm going to faint."

"Then let's invite the Gryffindors in."

Draco didn't know what had made him say that, but he had regretted the minute the group had walked in; Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and last but not the least Ginny Weasley. He honestly didn't understand the meaning behind Ginny's invitation, but he doubted Pansy told them anything about bringing Ginny Weasley to the short party, when she wasn't even in her eighth year yet. Although, there wasn't anything he could have done to stop Harry from bringing his girlfriend, even if she was uninvited.

The tension filled the room from his side, as they sat down on the couch and chairs, pulling them closer to the fire without a word.

"So, let's start it shall we?" Pansy clapped her hands with a satisfied grin playing on her lips.

"Yeah," Weasley nodded his head once, his palms rubbing against each other on his lap for the extra bit of heat.

Draco cautiously kept his eyes on Pansy who was pouring the wine in the goblets for everyone, as he could sense a pair of green orbs flickering back and forth from him to Ginny, and he'd be damned if the silent agreement that he had signed with himself got violated due to Harry's nature to test his will power and control over himself. God knew, this was just the start.

"Alright, let's get on with the toasts." Hermione said, as she raised her glass in the air. "Toast to the beautiful New Year and to our friendship!" Pansy and Hermione shared a sweet smile, when Hermione grabbed her hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze.

"It's my turn!" Pansy wiggled with excitement and grabbed her goblet with a wide grin.

"Toast to Ronald and Hermione finally sleeping together." Pansy giggled to which Ron turned into a shade of tomato with his red hair looking out of the planet under the fiery light.

"Hey!" Hermione protested as her eyes grew wide like saucer pans at Pansy's words.

"Ginny?" Hermione turned to the younger red head in the room, and nudged her towards her goblet, but, for the first time, Draco noticed that she was not at all looking engaged in the little party they were having.

"No, I don't have anything to say." she passed and Hermione turned a short look at Harry who ducked his head away.

Wondering about the interaction, Draco raised his glass, feeling bold all of a sudden, and said, "Toast to the amazing winter and Hogwarts for literally everything."

The roar of the few people only dialled up as the bottles started going out of its contents and gathering up on the mantel. The tension had ebbed away from everyone, including Ginny Weasley who was now downing whiskey like water, and giggling at the silly jokes Blaise was throwing her way with a straight face.

The fire was almost out, and the smoldering pieces of woods peeled off like snakes inside the fireplace. Without the heat of the fire, the place wasn't as comfortable as it was before, with the chill seeping through the stone floor, despite of the woolen carpet specially provided for the winter. But the alcohol in their system had long since numbed the cold out of their nerves, leaving them to slip through their own judgement acting a way they wouldn't have if sober.

The oddity of the minutes thickened up even more when Draco's eyes fell on Harry whose lips were stretched like an welcoming smile to whoever he turned to. Though, by the observations of the previous few nights, Draco supposed him to be a dexterous drinker, which kind of hinted towards the fact that Harry had actually found something funny to which he was smiling rather than just experiencing the effects of snorting meth after drinking alcohol.

"What's so funny?" Draco asked finally, unaware of the fact that he had just broken the fortnight long silence they had managed to stretch through the festive air.

"Nothing, I'm just enjoying the face — fact that we are all here together, like bonding, you know?" Harry made some hand gestures Draco didn't know signed bonding or together, the only two words he could link it with.

"Yeah," Draco nodded his head importantly. "For a long time — I mean it's been days that we've spoken."

"Yes, you kind of acted wierd that night. We were just — "

"Harry, we'll be back." Ginny chirped from beside him, as she stood up, pointing from Blaise to her.

"Yes, go on." Harry waved a hand at her, and continued. "We were just shagging!"

The pin drop silence that followed after Ginny and Blaise left towards the washrooms was a new point that was added to the long list of things Draco would never forget while in Hogwarts.