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Until the Solstice Rises	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 5147 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Title: Material Abundance

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Pairing: Harry/Draco

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Reference to past Dursley abuse. Otherwise, sickeningly sweet fluff.

Wordcount: 2000 words

Summary: Draco wants to give Harry the best Christmas of his life, but he really only knows one thing to give him that he doesn’t already have.

Author’s Notes: This is an Advent fic written for the request of piratesmile331, who gave me the prompt: After learning of Harry's horrendous early childhood, Draco decides to try to make their first Christmas together extra special.

Material Abundance

            “There must have been one present.” Draco could hear the desperation in his own voice, and grimaced at the sound of it. But he couldn’t take his eyes from Harry, and he couldn’t control the temptation to reach over and link his fingers through Harry’s.

            Harry gave him a remote smile and then avoided his gaze, looking down at their linked hands instead, turning them back and forth. The sounds in the small pub had faded for Draco. He could hear the ridiculous gulps he was giving, the dry sound of his tongue licking his own lips, his breathing.

            “No,” Harry said. “Not unless you count the toothpicks and small coins and socks with holes in them that they liked giving me.” He met Draco’s eyes again, and an instant later his face had warmed and he had reached out as though he was going to cradle Draco’s chin in his hands. He seemed to hesitate and pull back at the last moment, but it was a near thing. “Oh, Draco. I’m over it. I really am.”

            He grimaced a little, and took a small sip of his whisky. “I promise, it’s okay. The Weasleys have always given me great gifts.”

            Draco tightened his hold on Harry’s hand, and said nothing. All he could think was how horrible it would be to wake up on Christmas morning without a single present. His parents had always made sure that he had one at the foot of the bed, and then one at the top of the stairs, and then more dotted along the corridors to the main sitting room where the celebration would take place.

            “You can’t get over something like that,” he said.

            Harry sighed like water going down a drain. “That was why I didn’t want to talk about it with you,” he said, reclaiming his hand and sipping at his whisky again. “I knew you would take it the wrong way. I promise, Draco, I’m fine. In the grand scheme of life, not having someone trying to kill me on a daily basis is a lot more important to me than presents I never got.”

            Draco shook his head. He could speak past the block in his throat if he really tried, so he did it now. “But—what did you want? Can you think of what you wanted and they wouldn’t get you? If you tell me, we can go and buy it right now.”

            Harry stood up and shook his head. “The things I wanted when I was a child aren’t the things I want right now,” he said, and he reached out and caught Draco’s head and kissed him, hard enough to make Draco’s mouth water. “Let’s go home and take care of some of those things, yeah?”

            Harry could pull him into going along with anything. Draco stood up, and lost his balance, and fell with Harry, as always.

            But later that night, he lay awake beside him, staring at the ceiling, his eyes blinking hard and fast, partially to hold back his reaction at the image of a child watching another boy open a huge heap of gifts, none of which were for him, and partially to ease the endless rustling and bustling of his brain.

            He had to make up for that, in some way. Had to show Harry that someone loved him now. Had to show Harry—and maybe other people, too, like himself—that their relationship was a loving and lasting one, not a one-night stand that repeated itself each night.

            The problem was…

            The problem was, he could think of only one thing that Harry didn’t have right now, only one thing Harry lacked. Harry had always smiled when Draco asked questions during the eight months they’d been together, for his birthday or some other special occasion, and said that having Draco was enough.

            Draco nibbled his lip. He knew what he wanted to give Harry. He thought Harry needed it. He just didn’t know if Harry would agree.

            Then he smiled slightly and turned so that his head rested beneath Harry’s chin, closing his eyes as Harry’s restless breath traveled in and out of his hair. Well, there are lots of times when we don’t agree anyway.

*

            “Draco! Where were you? I had to go ahead to dinner and make excuses to Ron and Hermione.” Harry’s voice was low, and Draco winced as he heard it, taking off his scarf and giving Harry a large and nervous smile. He hadn’t meant to let time run away with him, and he always hated spending time without Harry, even if it would also have been time with Harry’s friends.

            “I’m sorry,” Draco said, while behind him Kreacher darted back and forth from the front door to the drawing room in Grimmauld Place where they’d agreed to place the tree. Draco spoke rapidly, making sure that Harry’s attention was on him and not Kreacher. “I just—I was shopping for my mother, you know. She’s hard to buy a gift for.” And that was true, although in this case Draco had bought the gift months before. He’d visited the jeweler to have the ring adjusted, though, so he could virtuously claim that as part of the truth.

            Harry glared at him for a few seconds, then rolled his eyes and reached for his hand. “You didn’t miss much,” he admitted, which was a rare thing for him to say about dinner with his friends. “Ron said Hermione was pregnant the minute I walked in the door, and then Hermione scolded him for ruining the surprise, and then they spent the rest of dinner alternately bickering and holding hands.”

            He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes for a moment. Only when he looked at Draco did the smile become real. “Maybe they have something, about finding someone to fight with,” he ended softly.

            Draco leaned in and kissed him. Harry stood, rubbing one finger around the edge of his eye and making Draco fight not to close it. Draco relaxed when he heard Kreacher stop running back and forth. At least that part was done with now.

            “Well, since I missed dinner, we can have a quiet evening alone,” Draco said, tugging on Harry’s hands. “While I eat dinner, and you drink some whisky. How about it?”

            Harry hesitated. “I really should work on that paperwork I promised I would do for Kingsley…”

            “Two days before Christmas?” Draco tugged harder on Harry’s hands and put his best spoiled-little-boy whine in his voice. He knew that Harry wanted some excuse to take time off, and he would do for Draco what he wouldn’t do for himself. “Come on, you know that he won’t mind if you take a little longer to do it.”

            Harry blinked. Then he said, “You know what? You’re right. I ought to have more time off.” And he smiled.

            Draco tried not to strut or roll his eyes as they moved down the corridor to the drawing room with the tree. For one thing, telling Harry that he knew how much of Harry’s ultra-serious manner towards paperwork was for show might send Harry right back to it. He was weird like that sometimes.

            For another, he was breathing fast, and his tongue seemed to have increased in size in his mouth, his throat swelling shut. He had no time to be anything but nervous. The pride and exasperation battling in him fell away, and he found himself with his hands in the middle of Harry’s back. He dropped them before he could actually shove Harry into the drawing room. Harry was entering in front of him, anyway.

            Harry stopped, and stared. Draco stepped around him.

            Kreacher had done exactly what Draco told him to. The presents, all wrapped in silver or green or red or gold paper, so that the room shone and glittered brilliantly from the reflection of the tree’s fairy lights on the colors, lay around the room on chairs, and sat under the tree, and were cradled in its boughs, and dangled on strings from the ceiling, in the case of those gifts light enough to be held by them. Stepping into the room was like stepping into a treasure hoard, the way Draco had intended it should be.

            Harry stood in front of him with his jaw agape, the fairy-light reflections gleaming on his teeth. Then he turned around and stared at Draco.

            Draco put his head up. “You didn’t get presents when you were a kid,” he said. “So I got you some. All you could want.” He gestured at the gifts and stood there with his hand out, too nervous to lower it.

            “I told you you didn’t need to,” Harry whispered.

            “But I wanted to,” Draco said. “And I know that you want it, too.” He moved forwards again, one hand lifted to interrupt the words he thought Harry would speak, which left him looking a little foolish when Harry didn’t speak them. He swallowed and dropped his hand, and rushed on. “There’s a hole left that your family can never fill. But I might, if you let me.”

            “You didn’t get me just one thing.”

            Draco tried to read Harry’s voice and face, and couldn’t. Well, he had done this, and it was too late to hide it now. He straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat. He was going to have to be honest with Harry, which wasn’t a new thing in their relationship, not at all, but still wasn’t comfortable.

            “That thing might be something you didn’t want, or already had,” Draco said. It was true; there were rooms in Grimmauld Place full of treasures he had never seen, and there might be anything more in Harry’s vault. “Or you might think I was trying too hard to make up for one specific thing your family did, instead of all of it. There are lots of people who would say the Malfoys don’t have compassion or common sense, and I couldn’t stand to make you feel that way, not for one second. Well. What the Malfoys do have is money.” He spread his hands wide and turned in a small circle. “Here’s what money can buy.”

            Harry looked around again. Draco swallowed once more. There was such a strange and complex expression on his face, Draco could do nothing else.

            But then Harry’s face changed.

            He smiled.

            Draco sagged in relief, and then gasped as Harry stepped forwards and wrapped his arms around him. Harry’s voice murmured, low, in his ear, and Draco found himself straining to hear every word, the way he only had once before, the night Harry whispered that he loved him.

            “How did you know?” Harry said now, his voice lower, shyer, heart-deep, heart-full. “I wanted—I’ve wanted things like this, for so long. There were so many Galleons in my vault, more than I ever imagined. There was so much food at Hogwarts, more than I knew I could eat. I thought I’d got over that and I didn’t want so much anymore, but that’s a lie. I want more from you, all the time, and I wanted more Christmas presents the minute you mentioned it. But you’re the only one who would have done this for me. Thank you.”

            He kissed Draco, and his hands struck deep into his hair, and Draco kissed him back, and they stood there in the middle of the presents with light all around them.

            The End.

*

            Rina: Thank you! I hope that death will stop Draco from haunting Ginny, but like you, I’m not holding my breath.

            SP777: Maybe not as much a risk as it would be for a full-length story, but I think there’s a risk that the reader will get bored.

            The sequel is called “Some Virtues of the Fairy Tale.” If you search under that title, you’ll probably find it.
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Until the Solstice Rises