drarry holidays! thank you, @kamaela, for the tag (and all the sexy-gorgeous-brilliant tidbits in yours). this had me writing entire scenes, so in the interest of space and time, i picked two fics i've been wanting to explore more lately:
dinner & diatribes:
Harry works Christmas, makes it home for dinner, not alone. A man— boy, really, can’t have graduated Hogwarts more than two years ago— trails him, star-struck, discomfited, scratching the back of his neck.
“This,” Harry says, toeing off his boots, hang-dog, awkwardly guilty, “is Auror Bentley. My protective detail.”
Draco lets his eyebrows rise.
“Slew of death threats, Howlered directly to my office, passed the Ministry wards,” Harry’s weary. “I know dinner was supposed to be just us, I'm sorry. But I couldn’t just leave him out in the cold.”
“I could go outside,” Bentley says, earnest, like nothing's ever called to him more than the thick snow in their front yard. “I really could, Auror Potter insisted—"
“Nonsense,” Draco cuts in, smooth, secure. “There’s enough dinner for all of Hufflepuff, I'd wager Molly sent her entire kitchen earlier. Stay, please, it's really the least.”
“Thank you,” Harry whispers into his neck enroute the table, close-clasped, sighing. “It’s been a fucking day.”
Draco squeezes him close, closer— death threats, death threats, it’s the job, always the damn job— until a crash issues from the kitchen, and Bentley, gone up ahead, emerges, harried, fervently apologising before rushing back in, probably to fix the damage.
“Protective detail,” Draco mutters and Harry grins.
“He’s better with a wand,” he says, pulling away, upright. “And those threats are probably meaningless, some freak on too many potions.” Quiet, serious, “And if they’re not— I sleep next to you. Only Robards wouldn’t listen when I said that—" goes gruff, mocking, “—he’s a civilian, Potter.”
Draco thinks of the candles he waited to light, the cushioning charms on the table, of the feast he intended to make of Harry on it. No matter. They have a bed, and a door that locks, and he’s handy with a soundproofing spell.
“It’s really quite alright,” he says. The strict line of tension between Harry’s brows, in his shoulders, his gait, eases up, falls in. “I’d rather you bring home strays than not come home at all. Now, please—" he waves towards the kitchen, warm, lit, safe, always safe, “—dinner. Before he stumbles into Mother’s china.”
& it's you:
Their first Christmas on the run, Draco’s vacant, dimmed, easily startled. Dark descends sudden and early on the Scottish village they’ve holed up in for the week. Their blinds are drawn, but the village carollers harmonising Silent Night— so tender and mild— sifts through the cracks, clings to the cracks in the walls.
Harry can’t remember last Christmas. Chasing the scent of an underground uprising across Europe alone, time segmented as the space between information. Any other day— Christ, the saviour, is born— could have been solstice, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, he didn’t have use for it. Now, though.
“Leave,” he tells Draco, who looks irritatingly resigned at that. “Not like that, obviously, Merlin. Just— take a fucking walk. Come back when you’ve stopped pouting.”
It’s a testament to— well, something— that Draco has no quip, no rejoinder, no fuel to throw in the fire. He wraps a scarf around his neck— Harry’s— casts a Glamour and leaves.
He returns two hours later, still heavy, and stops short halfway over the threshold.
“Close the damn door,” Harry says, and Draco walks in, slow, silent, door snicking quietly shut behind. He reaches for a floating paper angel— Harry winces, up close, they’re disfigured, his magic isn’t meant for finicky charmwork— butterfly-soft, holds, releases. The shimmering yellow lights spelled to the walls soften his platinum fall of hair, flint-grey eyes, his stupid, sharp nose. Under Harry’s transfigured lights, Draco looks delicate, almost. He’s not. He’s hardy, hardening further every day on this interminable chase, but for a night—
“Oh, Potter,” Draco’s still fixed on the fluttering angels, “you made a scene.”
They fuck, filthy, under the lights and the angels, Harry pushing into Draco with the weight of his entire body, his ugly wanting wolf, its bursting, rotten heart. They fuck until the whole of Draco is so wet with come and spit and lube that Harry can barely get a grip on him. The carollers are long gone, but the carol sticks, drips from the rafters down, down, onto their bed— son of god, love’s pure light— and Harry collapses beside Draco and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him until neither of them can breathe.
would v much love @lqtraintracks, @skeptiquewrites, @toomuchplor & @sleepstxtic's takes on how your drarries celebrate the holidays (or don't) if you'd like to offer!