Accidentally In Love

Author’s Notes: Oh my god, I am SO sorry for this one. I wrote Twelve Days To Christmas back in 2004 for a D/G Xmas challenge and won something. Back then I followed up with a companion ficlet, basically the same story, point by point, but in Draco's POV, for the fun of it, and I thought I had posted it back in 2005, except I didn't! I only realised this stupid mistake when I was updating my other story and saw that this story was non-existent on the site.

So a little note here. This is a follow-up to the Xmas ficlet Twelve Days to Christmas. My beta Silverfangs has feedbacked that it is funnier to read Twelve Days To Christmas first before reading Accidentally in Love. Otherwise, this story can pretty much stand alone too. Just so you know! Enjoy!

Accidentally In Love
A Companion Fic to Twelve Days To Christmas

When Draco received the letter of invitation from the International Association of Quidditch to join the British team in the upcoming World Cup, he was ecstatic. After all, it was his childhood dream, and to have it come true after all that had happened over the past years was like a miracle and a re-establishment of normalcy.

Returning to England after years of exile – self-imposed or pure necessity, he wasn’t entirely sure anymore – had not been an easy decision to make. He had gotten used to the peace and quiet of the Swiss mountains, and was not inclined to make changes to the comfortable routine he had set up living alone in Switzerland. Draco liked routines. It established order that was easy to grasp and it made him feel safe and in control. To return to England, he knew, would mean giving up this order to establish a new one somewhere else; and in a place filled with unpleasant memories and an un-erasable history of his past, he was not entirely sure if he could manage. But someone had to deal with the Malfoy estate, and with Draco being the only one left, it was only proper he should return to negotiate the release of his family’s fortunes from the Ministry’s control. They were under his name, and he had not been associated with any Deatheater activity; his late parents had made sure of that. So what was left of the Malfoys was rightfully his.

The original plan was to return quietly. It was easier said than done. News of his fight with the Ministry for his family’s fortune did not go unpublicised, as he had hoped. He soon found himself in the middle of every sodding soul’s attention in England, and had it not been Professor Snape’s infamously foul temper and non-existent hospitality towards outsiders, Draco doubted he would have been able to stay in England as long as he did, without the professor’s offer of sanctuary.

When everything was over, and his status as the rightful heir to the Malfoy estates re-established, the professor asked him if he had planned anything for himself. He didn’t. Hogwarts had offered him a job to be the new Potions master. Draco declined. He went for the Falmouth Falcons instead.

And as things had always been since his turn of fate at eighteen, it was hard to get in the Falmouth Falcons. The Malfoy name did not command as much respect as it had in the past. And money, it seemed, had also lost their value in a world that used to desire it as swiftly as the eagles mark their preys. The turn of an era had altered the world in ways that a Malfoy had found hard to adapt to. Moral decency, code of honour, and meritocracy took some getting used to, but Draco got the hand of it after a while. He had to. A few months of strict training schedule, a few weeks of relentless feats at persuasion, and what felt like years of waiting. He got in the Falmouth Falcons through sheer determination.

The first time he played professionally, it was exactly like the first time he had played for Slytheri. There were the odd churnings in his stomach, the insane urge to throw up, and the crazy idea of tunnelling into the ground and not face the world until the game was over.

There was also, however, the contradictory feelings of ugly excitement, of knocking people off their brooms, and snatching away their honour and happiness by plucking away the Snitch from under their noses. Draco had never felt more alive. He won the match that day, and every single one thereafter, unless the opponent was Harry Potter or Ginny Weasley. There, he had to put in more work, with varying results, but he did so without complaint. They were worthy opponents. Draco had never told anyone that.

Life should have gotten better since then, and in all practical ways, it had. He had built a name for himself. He had money. And he was fulfilling his childhood aspiration. People seemed to be willing to forget how his family was like before.

But there was no use for success and wealth when there was no one to share it with him.

Of course, there had been Professor Snape, who was genuinely happy to see his success, but it was not the same with families. It seemed that the more he achieved, the more he was reminded of the little of what he had left.

It was one of life’s ways of toying with him. Draco had never believed in retribution when he was younger. But he was beginning to think that perhaps what he had gone through in the past few years, what he had been made to feel since his parents’ death, it was exactly that – retribution.

And Draco hated it.

~*~

Training under Aladair Maddok was tough. Training with Ginny Weasley made it even tougher.

It didn’t come as a surprise that Ginny Weasley should turn out to be the other Seeker employed by the Association. Draco had played against her numerous times in his Quidditch career. She had what it took to be a good Seeker – small, swift, and light (and Draco sometimes had the urge to pick her up in one hand and twirl her round with his fingers, as he would a broomstick, just to prove his point). And everyone knew that bloody Harry Potter was taking a year off professional Quidditch to have babies, bless their soul. Gods forbid, the world did not need any more scar-heads and know-it-alls, and definitely not a hybrid of both.

He had still hoped that it might be someone else. Like Finbar Quigley from Ballycastle Bats, or Galvin Gudgeon from Chudley Cannons. People he did not know from school, who did not know much about him apart from the fact that he was the last descendent of the Malfoy line and the star Seeker for the Falmouth Falcons. People he would be able to behave professionally with.

Ginny Weasley, decidedly, was not one of these people.

The instant their eyes met, and their decade old rivalry sparked back to life, it was the single moment in history that went to prove that some things just wouldn’t change. People might die, seasons might change, wars might have taken place, and the world might have altered, but a Malfoy remained a Malfoy, and a Weasley the same, and they still could not stand each other. First day of training, they had already managed to piss each other off by refusing to be cooperative. Draco ignored Ginny when he was supposed to help her with her sit-ups. Ginny ignored him when she was supposed to pass him the baton in their circuit trainings, deliberately running off with the baton, and Draco had to chase after her for it. Both caused inaccuracies in their timing records for each other, and were screamed at for their total lack of ability to perform the tasks expected of a professional Quidditch player.

It drove Aladair Maddok mad. The one thing that no coaches would ever want in their teams was internal rivalry. And so he decided that housing them in the same building would force the two Seekers to learn to get used to the idea of the other as a team-mate. Bad idea, Draco thought.

When they returned to their respective accommodation that night (mad man, Aladair, to train the team first thing off the International Floo), and realised what had been done to them, they began a shouting match in the corridor, an episode that ended with doors slamming and wall banging.

~*~

That was the way team-mates should be like, Aladair had said. Steam still rushed out of Draco’s ears when he thought about the bizarre morning ritual. Apparently, Aladair had been driven to more drastic measures, which included, but not limited to, making the two of them greet each other repeatedly first thing in the morning, followed by having breakfast together, then doing laps together, and being charged with each other’s well being. Aladair also made them hold each other’s water bottle, such that they had to ask the other for it when they were thirsty. Aladair commanded that partners stay together at all times, and partners were grouped according to the positions they played. Draco and Ginny did not have the Chaser’s luxury to choose with whom they wanted to partner with. There was no choice but to put up with it. After all, Draco thought, if he could pull through five years of exile, he could tolerate Ginny Weasley for three months. After the World Cup, he would never have to associate with her again. At least, not until the next World Cup. He hoped she got married by that time because then she could stay home and have lots of babies, and Draco would gladly give her all his blessings, so long as it kept her off the Quidditch pitch.

~*~

They got into deep trouble on the third day. Fighting with towels and rolling on top of each other in the grass, screaming all sorts of expletives, did not go down well with Aladair.

He made them run round the field, long after everyone had gone home. Paris at night was freezing cold, and Draco could not help the chattering of teeth and the unglamorous sniffing of nose, damp cloth sticking uncomfortably to his body, and sticky mud seeping into his shoes. He felt wet and dirty and unduly abused, and he had half the heart to tell Aladair he had had enough. But he would be damned if he walked off before Ginny Weasley did.

Aladair was going on and on about teamwork and professionalism, and for the love of Merlin, Draco hoped that he would stop already and let them go. But no, Aladair must launch into a lengthy lecture about their childishness, and then still be focused enough, in the midst of his preaching, to scream at him for leaving Ginny behind.

Draco understood the whole deal about teamwork. He knew that they were wrong to be fighting in the middle of a Quidditch training (at least, they should be waited until after training, he supposed), but he had already apologised to Aladair and was resolved to settle into a professional, if difficult and reluctant relationship with Ginny Weasley. What more did Aladair want?

Fuming, he cut his eyes sideways, intending to glare a hole through the head of the person who had gotten him into the mess. What he had not expected was to feel empathetic when he saw the struggling expression on her face. She was obviously burnt out and in pain. It was difficult to gloat when he was in the same situation himself. Draco gave her another fifteen minutes before she surrendered.

Another half an hour passed, and to his surprise, for someone so tiny and so clearly used to the more comfortable routine practised by an all-female Quidditch team (Ginny was from the Holyhead Harpies), he had to admit that Ginny was trying very hard to keep up her end of the deal. Despite the severe conditions, she had yet to utter a single complaint, or make any sounds of distress. Draco was getting seriously worried that he might get burnt out before she did.

It was not more than a second after he had that thought that he realised he was running alone. Turning his head to find Ginny missing, he blinked confusedly for a while before turning completely to find the redhead sprawled out ungracefully on the field. He stopped and watched how she tried to pick herself up, and failing utterly. Draco surprised himself when he did not conjure any nasty thoughts about her predicament. In place of the spiteful feelings he had been anticipating was a sense of empathy for a fellow Quidditch player. He knew how tired she felt because he felt it himself, and most importantly, he knew how humiliating it was for a Quidditch player to fall on all fours on the ground in front of the coach and a team-mate, and a hateful team-mate no less.

Draco tried to look away, to give the lady a little bit of dignity when she burst into tears, but he could not help turning his eyes to her again as he watched her dug her small hands into the wet loose mud, pushing once, twice, and then again, with all her might, just to sit up. Her shoulders shook as she tried to right herself and fail. He couldn’t see her face, but he was instinctively aware that she was not crying. It was quite impressive really, for a woman, but he had no intention of letting her know what he thought of her at that moment, ever.

It was a difficult decision. He could stand there and wait for her. Or he could go back to help her. He weighed his options carefully, and decided that if he helped her, there was the added bonus that they could get home early. It would also, no doubt, help him redeem himself in the eyes of Aladair. It would help his chances of being England’s Seeker.

He wasted no time executing his decision.

She was surprised when he pulled her up and shook her hard, telling her to get a grip of herself. He was careful not to betray any sign of treating her more than a colleague who was scandalising him by being totally inept at physical trainings. She looked at him wide-eyed, and there it was, a bizarre moment when his heart knocked against his rib cage, hard, as if it were trying to escape. It was the first time he had seen her face in such a close distance, a face that was not sneering at him in contempt. In fact, she was looking at him in wonderment, and it disturbed him. He quickly looked away as he pulled her along in a slow jog, trying hard not to think about the mud he’d got on his hand from hers, and promptly let her go when he sensed that she was not going to fall again.

That night, Draco couldn’t wait to run home, away from Ginny Weasley. Because she was starting to make him feel funny, and he did not like that.

He also did not like the fact that she did not thank him. He did not understand why he even cared.

~*~

“Weasley.”

“Malfoy.”

“Letters?”

“Ah huh.”

“Going to be late.”

“Right,” Ginny said and carelessly put away the letter she was reading. When he opened the door in the lobby, a strong gust of wind blew the parchment out of her pocket and across the street.

By reflex response, he went after the parchment. It was a recipe, he saw, written messily, with decorations of food stains and creases and the occasional motherly endearments that Draco was familiar with. Oddly, the parchment made him feel sad and subdued, and so, quietly, he held the parchment to her, and she took it. When she thanked him, he was briefly surprised, and tried hard not to look it.

The streets were dead silent, and the skies were still dark. Cold wind blew, whipping his face, causing them to flush against his will. The sounds of the carriages on the street reminded him of his parents, and how they used to travel together in their family carriages during the holidays. Draco had been to Paris previously, and had always done so with his parents.

When he heard the sounds of nose sniffing, he was momentarily horrified at the thought that he might be shedding tears in the middle of his trip down memory lane. But it was not him. It was Ginny Weasley.

He was not entirely sure if it made the situation any better.

Walking alongside a weeping woman was a novel experience for Draco. In actuality, Draco had never been near many women in his life. There was his mother, Pansy, Millicent, and a distant female cousin, but even so, he had never dealt with a crying lady before, and it was proving to be absolutely nerve wrecking. He tried to pretend that he did not notice she was crying. It was hard. Draco generally was never very good at leaving people alone.

“Gods, are you crying, Weasley?” he finally blurted out.

She glared at him. He wondered why he bothered to be a decent soul. Decent people were never treated with respect.

“Stop it, Weasley,” he said. “People are looking.”

“There aren’t any people,” she cried out suddenly, startling Draco. “There’s only me stuck with you, and the bloody horses, and …”

It was hard not to be offended, especially since he was apparently classed in the same category with horses.

“And the coachmen,” he chipped in when he regained his composure. “I think they would appreciate it if you acknowledge their existence.”

“Shut up.”

“I would,” he said, “if you stop sobbing like I’ve done something to you.”

“Well, you have!” she replied, evidently agitated. “You always have. First year in school, you mocked my family’s state of poverty, and my hand-me-downs, and my second-hand books. Then, second year, you did that awful Valentine prank and embarrassed me in front of Harry. And third year, you … you …”

“I what?”

Ginny paused and sniffed, catching her breath.

“I forgot.”

The way she answered him. The blinking eyes and the childish pout. The ridiculous manifestation of a little girl in the form of a grown woman. Draco tried very hard not to laugh. He doubted Ginny Weasley would find it funny if he were to laugh at her. Silently, he reached into his pocket and took out a handkerchief, handing it to her. She took it without a word, and blew her nose noisily. Draco briefly wondered if she even realised that she had accepted a handkerchief that belonged to a person she detested.

The silence lingered, and Draco deemed it necessary to say something funny.

“Third year I called you a fat weasel,” he said suddenly.

“But I wasn’t fat!” she cried, startling Draco again. “And I’m not a weasel!”

Okay, apparently, that wasn’t funny. Draco thought women really were a weird species. Maybe it was one of those infamous biological mood swings, he thought.

“I hate to ask you this, Weasley,” Draco said, keeping a straight face. “But are you having your period?”

“What?” she screamed, and he winced. “How dare you! Why not you just repeat yourself loudly this time because I think that old man across the street might have missed it!”

“You mean, missed his?”

Draco had no idea where that came from, but he was sure that Ginny Weasley was going to thump his head for this.

But unexpectedly, she stared at him with a constipated look on her face. It took a while for Draco to realise that she was trying hard not to laugh.

But she laughed anyway.

Her laughter rang and echoed in the streets, bouncing off walls and threading through the cold morning air. It was a nice sound, Draco decided, but also an eerie change of mood that was too sudden for Draco to take.

“Holy Merlin, you are a mad woman. I knew it ran in the family.”

At that, she spun around and stabbed a finger into his chest. It hurt. But Draco was more fascinated at how small she was, standing so close to him. He had to suppress the impulse to press a palm on top of her head to test if he could push her into the ground, just to show how he towered over her. It would be a good show of power, but it did not seem like a good idea to agitate an already overexcited young lady who was obviously having PMS, whatever she might say.

“You leave my family out of this,” she warned, rubbing away the last traces of tears from her eyes with the back of her free hand, sniffing like a little girl, which rendered her words none too threatening. In the cold morning air, her cheeks were flushed, her hair was wild, and her tear-stained face glimmered under the moonlight, her huge eyes blinking.

Draco could not stop staring at her. Granted, she looked like a mad woman, but she was looking like a mad woman because she missed her family.

Draco knew how that felt like.

It was a weird feeling, empathising with a Weasley, but Draco had never come as close to relating to another human being – aside from his parents – that it was enough to drop him into a state of vulnerability. On top of this vulnerability was another set of emotion, directly opposite to the deeper ones he was feeling; the appearance of the sniffing woman, like a lost little girl trying to glare her way out of getting a penny out of a stranger, was also too funny for Draco to not laugh. And so he did.
“What?” she demanded, completely unaware of what she had affected in him.

“Your face,” he managed to say.

“My face – hup! What?” she exclaimed.

It made him laugh even harder.

“Pathetic, Weasley.”

“I am not - hup! - pathetic!”

“You’re hiccupping!”

“I am - hup!- not!” She glared daggers at him.

“Your say, Weasley,” he replied and strolled off. “Hurry up, or we’ll miss breakfast and I won’t catch you when you fall off your broom,” he said over his shoulder.

“You wouldn’t - hup! - dare,” she said. “Not when Aladair has his say.”

“Screw Aladair,” he swore.

“You - hup! - wouldn’t dare - hup! - say - hup! - that to him - hup!” she replied.

“Shut it, Weasley. Your hiccupping is very irritating.”

“Make me,” she said, punctuating her line with a hiccup.

“Silencio,” he uttered, after which he immediately followed up with a Binding charm on Ginny’s hands, effectively stopping her from getting her wand.

“You asked for it, Weasley,” Draco said and smirked before he steered her toward the training ground, and thus ended the bizarre episode in which Ginny Weasley was beginning to feel like a potential friend.

~*~

Apparently, he was getting good at the whole ‘adaptation’ concept. When he first went to live in Switzerland, he took years to get used to the idea of living alone in an unfamiliar place, and that he achieved mainly by distracting himself with the task of setting up order and routines that he could follow and seek comfort in.

When he returned to England, it took him a good two years to rebuild his life into something that resembled a decent life for a young bachelor.

Draco was never very good at adapting. He was used to having things arranged for him since young. But Paris was starting to feel like home by his sixth day in the city.

The only problem was, this time, the idea of home revolved around a routine that involved Ginny Weasley.

The simplicity of it scared him sometimes, but it was undeniably easy to fall into an ordered life with his team-mate. Every morning, at six-thirty, they would meet to travel to work. And on their way, they would stop at the café to buy coffee and ice-cream.

Soon, Draco found himself waiting around for Ginny all the time. In the morning. In the afternoon, when they had breaks. At lunch. When they did their laps. When they did their drills. Even when they had dinner, Draco waited for Ginny to leisurely eye the menu four times before she hesitantly placed an order only to change it three times over. Everything they did, they did it together, and every time Draco waited without real complaints. And when he did complain, he knew it was all for formality sake, and nothing more.

There was seriously something wrong with him.

And so he decided that some sense of normalcy must be re-instilled.

He picked up a fight with Ginny that day. He deliberately knocked into her several times during their flight for the Snitch. He pulled at her broom tail. And he locked his broom handle with hers to pull her off course.

When they got back on the ground, she walked up to him and gave him a hard shove.

She asked him what his problem was.

He told her it was none of her business, and that she should spend more time thinking about her own problem since she apparently could not handle rough play.

She launched herself at him, and he did not back off.

They ended up running in the fields until midnight.

On their way home, they were silent. Draco stopped at the café to order his latte and Ginny’s, and to pick up some snacks for supper. Ginny, however, did not stop to wait for him, as was their usual practice. When Draco turned and found Ginny already at the other end of the street, he got very angry.

He threw the cups of coffee and food away.

He could not sleep that night.

~*~

There was no apology, but there was no silent treatment either.

The next day, it was as if nothing had happened. Draco arrived at the lobby to find Ginny already there, waiting for him. Everything went back to normal. They exchanged notes, they bickered, and they shared ice-cream, and they badmouthed Aladair behind his back.

They had their first day off on Monday. The team arranged to meet up for a tour around the city. Draco did not want to go. He knew Paris better than it knew him.

He intended to spend the day cleaning up his apartment, though it would be shocking if he could find anything to clean. Being a cleanliness freak, his living space was constantly kept spick and span. Nothing was ever out of place. So he ended up taking down books from shelves and arranging them many times over, using different shelving methods. First by the period of the literature, then by genres, then by the size of the books, from big to small. But he figured the original way of categorising them by authors was still the most effective, and so he returned them to their original positions again.

Then he took out his broomstick and sat down to trim the end of the twigs. He polished it three times.

He was ironing his Quidditch uniform when the doorbell rang.

It was Ginny.

Before he could react, his team-mate marched into his house. Draco felt briefly irritated at the uninvited guest. He was having such a nice and peaceful day. He stood at the door, his arms crossed, waiting for Ginny to reappear again so that he could give her a piece of his mind about common courtesy and trespassing. When he saw the cloak she was holding in her hands (his cloak), it was already too late. There was nowhere to run except outside, and outside was the last place he wanted to flee to. Being chased out of his own apartment was unacceptable.

They started a struggle in his house. Ginny had an iron grip on his arm, and he had an iron grip on his doorframe. It was a wonder how a woman her size could store so much strength in her body.

At one point, Draco tried the underhanded means of tickling Ginny.

Unfortunately, she was not ticklish.

And unfortunately, he was.

His action became an inspiration for Ginny, and Draco soon found himself on the losing end.

When Ginny managed to get half of his person out of the house, he clung on to his doorframe still, refusing to be bullied into submission. Which prompted Ginny to try the underhanded means of causing him embarrassment by talking at the top of her voice. Their neighbours came out of the house to see what the commotion was about, and Draco, being a person who valued dignity more than the ordinary person, voluntarily disappeared into the lift before Ginny could blink, and left the building with a smiling Ginny at his trail.

~*~

Tuesday, he sounded like a toad. He knew he was not looking very pretty either.

Ginny said he looked like he had been run over by a carriage. He thought the description could not be more accurate, but he could not tell her so. It would not be good to encourage her like that.

Instead, he told her to sod off, and he tried to march ahead and displayed his Malfoy temper in its full glory. But the attempt failed when she caught his elbow and tipped her face up to his.

It was impossible to get mad at a face with huge blinking eyes, Draco noted. Beware of huge blinking female eyes.

“It’s bloody raining,” he heard her say, “and you are going out there without an umbrella?”

“It’s raining?” he asked wonderingly. Surely he was not so ill as to overlook such an obvious fact?

“Yes,” she snapped impatiently, which affected Draco to feel defensive. “For Merlin’s sake, don’t report to training when you are sick! You are going to spread your disease to everyone on the team!”

“You mean I’m going to spread the disease to you,” he snarled, sniffed, and turned.

“Hey,” she called, “where are you going?”

“Get a bloody umbrella as you’ve so helpfully suggested!”

“For goodness sake, Malfoy, we’re late!”

“You said to get an umbrella!”

“I have an umbrella!” she snapped again, holding her umbrella up and pointing it at him.

“Then say so!” he snapped back and snatched the umbrella from her. “Now go!” he ordered and pushed the door open for her.

“Don’t order me around, it’s my umbrella!”

“Late! Out!”

“Are you that lazy to form a complete sentence?”

“Out!”

Once outside, Draco opened the umbrella. He stared at it for a moment, and turned to glare at Ginny.

“You are apparently too poor to afford a proper umbrella?” he sneered.

The umbrella was white, and shaped in a perfect cup shape. It was so very small it looked more like a large bowl used for serving salad than an umbrella. No one with a sane mind would actually buy that.

“It is a pretty umbrella,” she insisted and returned his glare.

“Woman,” Draco muttered under his breath, and checked his watch briefly. He clicked his tongue once, looked at Ginny, then at the umbrella, swore, and steered Ginny off under their small umbrella. They stuck close together as they ran across streets, his arm over her shoulders and her arm over his back. Rainwater splashed about them when their feet landed in the puddles. They manoeuvred past moving carriages, and they ran and ran, and were always in sync.

It was quite fun actually. But Draco would be damned to admit this.

When they finally reached the Apparition point, they were soaked, each on one side. Ginny blamed him for not being capable enough to handle the umbrella. Draco retorted. They continued to bicker until Aladair appeared and screamed at them.

All in all, it was one of the most interesting days Draco ever had.

Some point at night, when he took his rubbish out to put it away, he found a pot of chicken soup at his doorstep.

He hoped it rained again the next day.

~*~

Unfortunately, he had no such luck. Wednesday, Draco was in a state of comatose. His whole body ached. His vision was blurred, and he felt as if his head was going to split into halves, like a watermelon chopped down the middle. And it was not raining.

Retribution was being an evil bastard that refused to leave him alone.

Then there was a scream. It was Ginny. He momentarily regretted leaving the pot at her door; she had probably walked into it when she was stepping out of the house. He knew he would never get the end of this.

Soon after, there was furious knocking on the door. Draco could not be bothered with anything that resided beyond the realm of his pain and suffering.

But he could ignore her no more when she started screaming from the fireplace. Draco let her be for a few minutes, thinking that she would let him off.

However, Ginny was proving to be as stubborn as he was.

He dragged himself out of bed and out to the living room. When she saw him, she screamed. Draco felt like he was bleeding through his ears, and he made sure the message was translated into a facial expression that communicated no less.

It only made her angrier.

When he let her into his house, she looked around wildly before she picked up his ten thousand Galleon worth of Roman antique lamp, and flung it at him.

He ducked, and winced when he heard the antique smash into the wall. He was inwardly glad that the other more expensive and more personal items were placed safely in the other parts of the apartment, out of reach of Ginny Weasley.

Draco wanted to yell at Ginny when she was done yelling at him for being a prick, and an insensitive bastard and the like (it was difficult to make out what she was saying when she was so obviously pissed off, and his ears so determinedly blocked). But when he opened his mouth, he found, to his dismay, that he had also lost his voice. He settled for glaring murderously at the woman.

To his indignation, she ignored him and strode to his fireplace. He was contemplating kicking her into the fireplace when he realised she was flooing him a Healer.

He flopped on the couch and watched Ginny as she tried to convince Aladair that he was in need of her as a personal nurse. He would have been touched if Ginny had not implied that he was completely incapable of taking care of himself.

In the end, when the Healer arrived, Ginny had to leave for training. And Draco spent the entire day sulking in bed, cursing everyone and everything for screwing up his life.

Nothing could put him in a good mood that fateful day. Not until a pot of chicken soup came along some time in the evening.

It was the moment Draco knew he was thoroughly damned. It was unbecoming that he should get excited over a pot of soup. But if being damned felt this good, then he really did not give a damn if he was damned to have his heart fluttering for a certain Weasley.

After all, names could be changed. Ginny Malfoy sounded so much better anyway. He cackled madly at the thought of Ronald Weasley’s tomato face exploding at the sheer impact of the news. Then the potion acted up, and Draco fell asleep.

Later that night, when he was less delirious, Draco decided he must had had too much Pepperup Potion because apart from having steam coming out of his ears, he had also started to experience some very bad hallucinations. Or were they delusions?

Retribution, he decided, had just become creatively evil. Draco felt like banging his head against the wall.

~*~

He nearly forgot it was Christmas Eve. If he had not gone out that morning to do his grocery, he would probably sit through the occasion like it was any other day.

But Ginny was next door, and he was well aware of the fact that she would be spending the day alone too. And she did not look the type to be able to sit through the Christmas season without doing anything.

So he went about preparing for the day. He ordered food to be delivered to him in the evening. He shopped around for presents.

He busied himself with cleaning the house, and making sure that he had everything under control. He had everything planned out, flawlessly – for he would not allow himself to be rejected by a Weasley, and a plan with an exit route was in order, just to prevent that.

The plan was quite perfect, if the Slytherin did say so himself. He would go over to Ginny’s in the name of returning her pot. Then, he would mention that there was Christmas-y food at his place. She would ask to be invited over. And Draco would have a sprig of mistletoe above his door, and when she was leaving, he would use that as an excuse to kiss her. Whatever came after that was entirely up to fate; if she reacted well, he would tell her. If she didn’t, he would let it remain as a polite Christmas kiss, and nothing more, in which case, Draco was sure he would not be too embarrassed as to resort to fleeing Europe and living the rest of his life in Siberia.

Yes, it was a good plan.

~*~

No, it was a fucking stupid plan. She was not supposed to invite him in. He was supposed to invite her over.

There are also puddings, he had said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of his apartment. She was incredulous. That he had expected. He had also anticipated an opening for him to extend his invitation.

But lo and behold, he was bloody nervous. So nervous that he kept a straight face and managed only a few words.

Before he knew it, he was invited into her house, at which point it seemed incredibly silly for him to extend his invitation. And so he ended up in Ginny Weasley’s kitchen, which was not a bad thing actually, except his mistletoe plot had gone to waste.

Maybe tomorrow morning. Maybe he could trick her into the vicinity of his door, and somehow execute Project Mistletoe.

Yes, definitely tomorrow.

~*~

It was pleasant spending Christmas Eve with Ginny Weasley, the slight digression to the state of his family, or lack thereof, not withstanding. He had the opportunity to taste more of her cooking, and passed her as a decent cook, and they had ice-cream, and talked Quidditch and Broomstick Boys, among other things.

Draco was, however, completely unprepared for the turn of event at twelve o’clock sharp.

Many things happened at once.

A wild troop of owls came crashing in through the windows.

Presents rained from the ceiling.

Parcels exploded into confetti, and little snow angels danced in the air, singing.

Her floo network was connected.

Noise flooded her apartment.

Draco froze.

“Merry Christmas!” she squealed and jumped on her sofa.

“Merry Christmas,” he said absent-mindedly as he inched further away from the fireplace. “You have a lot of presents,” he continued, brushing off the gift boxes that had landed on his person.

“Whoops, sorry,” she said and helped him out of the pile of presents he was buried in.

“Ginny,” a voice started hesitantly from the fireplace. “Is that Malfoy I see there in your living room?”

Ronald Weasley.

Retribution was never so cruel.

“Er,” Ginny trailed off. “Erm, yes. He lives next door.”

“He lives next door?” Ron exclaimed, horrified.

“I live next door,” Draco confirmed, nodding solemnly.

“Yes, he lives next door,” Ginny repeated.

“He lives next door?” Ron shouted this time, visibly outraged.

“Yes, I believe we’ve already established that,” Draco answered, irritated. “Almost ten years, and you are still as slow, Weasley.”

“No one asked for your opinion, Malfoy!” Ron barked.

“Sod off, Weasley,” Draco replied.

“You, sod off!” Ron warned.

“Ron!”

“Ginny, I’m not done with you yet,” Ron said.

“Oh, please!” Ginny snapped. “It’s Christmas and –”

“I don’t care if it’s fuckin – Ow, mum!”

“Not in front of the children!”

“But, mum –”

“Can I do my panto now?” another voice overlapped. “Is Aunt Ginny seeing us? Aunt Gin?”

A small face popped into view. Draco found himself looking at a miniature Ginny Weasley.

“Yes, dear, I’m right here,” Ginny replied. “Now Ron, shove off,” she demanded with a violent wave of her hand. “I want to watch the little ones’ panto!”

“I’m not finished yet!”

“But I want to show my panto now!” The little girl looked like she was about to cry, and Draco had never found anything more frightening than that moment.

He was glad, though, when it caused Ron to be dragged away by force.

The children cheered and danced into view.

“Is that your friend, Aunt Ginny?” one of the little girls asked.

“Yes,” Ginny answered. “And he loves panto.”

“You do?” the little girl asked, her wide eyes beaming.

Draco was caught off guard. When he did not answer, the little girl continued to beam at him. It made him decidedly nervous.

“Yes, you do,” Ginny cued him.

“Er, yes,” Draco answered distractedly. “She looks just like you,” he commented, looking at the two redheads.

“Yes, she does,” Ginny sighed happily and sat down to watch her nephews and nieces perform their songs and dances for her, long-distance-style.

That morning, Draco celebrated Christmas with Ginny Weasley and her family via the fireplace. It was the first time he had celebrated Christmas in years.

~*~

The next day, Draco invited himself over to Ginny’s apartment in the name of helping her finish her food. Ginny’s mother had sent her a humongous basket of food, and anything was a good excuse to be in her house. It did not hurt that the food was really very good.

“Somehow, it is a tad unfair that a person your size should get a Christmas bundle that size,” he commented as he watched her pounce around in Christmas hyperactivity, arranging her presents at the Christmas tree.

“What can I say?” she replied, skipping, her braids swinging as she did so. “I am too loveable a bundle of joy for my family and friends to resist,” she said and turned around to strike a pose. “In short, I am popular.”

Draco wished she would stop doing that. It was insanely difficult to keep a straight face when she hopped around being all cute and cheery and completely unconscious of herself.

“So, how about you?” Ginny asked, leaning over the counter. “I expect you would have piles of presents from fans. What was it they said in The Witch Weekly? ‘Cutest Man in England Whom All Women Wished to Marry’. Or was it ‘richest’?” she said, and batted her eyelashes at him playfully.

Draco wished she would stop doing that too, because her flirting with him, however harmless it might be, caused his heart rate to accelerate in a manner he was sure was not healthy.

“Fan mails go to my manager,” he answered plainly, lowering his face quickly to finish his lunch.

“Oh poor dear, he must be busy wondering why half the women in England are mooning over you,” she said. “Venice is not sinking, I tell you. England is.”

“Sod off, Weasley,” Draco said and wiped his mouth before he stood up. “I’m getting out of your hair.”

“Hey, wait a second!” Ginny called and ran off.

When she reappeared again, she held out a gift box for Draco.

“Merry Christmas,” she said, and shrugged lightly.

“Thank you,” he said, looking awkward as he took the gift quietly.

“Now you can go,” she said and opened the door for him.

He did not leave immediately. He stood outside her door, looking abstractly upwards, dismayed to find no mistletoe. He then turned his face towards his apartment, and looked longingly at the mistletoe above his door.

She raised her eyebrows at him.

“What?” she asked. “Did you forget something?”

Draco shifted his Christmas present from one hand to the other, and shrugged. Inside, he was fuming at the lack of inspiration to lure her to his door.

Oh, sod the mistletoe.

“Yeah,” he answered finally. “I think I’ve forgotten to give you something.”

“Ah,” she replied. “And here I thought you wouldn’t have gotten me anything,” she said. “Looks like I’ve really misjudged you, Malfoy.”

Draco’s mouth curved into a lopsided grin.

“So?” Ginny asked, gesturing dramatically. “Where is it?”

“There,” he said and pointed a finger at the ceiling.

“Where?” she asked, puzzled, and tipped her face up, following the line of his hand to look at what he was pointing at.

“Mistletoe.”

She blinked, confused. “I have no mistle -”

Seizing the moment, he bent and kissed her full on the mouth.

“Merry Christmas, Weasley,” he said and fled.

When he got in the house, he quickly closed the door and leaned against it for support. His heart was pounding like a hammer banging on his rib cage and any moment, he suspected he would have a heart attack.

And he nearly did when he felt the knock on the door.

“That was cheap, Malfoy,” she said when he opened the door.

“It’s the thought that counts,” he managed to say.

“It doesn’t count very much when it’s not done properly,” she said. He was not entirely sure what she meant by that – not done properly as in, it was not a proper present, or that it was not a proper kiss? Surely she did not mean the latter. Before she could decide, Draco took interpretation into his own hands.

“Your say,” he answered, and under the mistletoe at his door, he kissed her again. This time, he kissed her properly.

It was 25th December 2007. The best Christmas he ever had.