The Spirit of Christmas

Disclaimer: I did not create any of the Harry Potter characters or plot line. That all belongs to JKR, and I just like to borrow them for my little rambles.

A/N: I thought I’d get into the Christmas spirit and write a one-shot. As this is purely for fun, please don’t complain to me about “the point” of the story, or why everything is so fluffy, unrealistic and OOC. I’m not trying to write a picture perfect representation; this one-shot is purely for those of us who like some meaningless D/G fluff.

The Spirit of Christmas

Ginny Weasley loved Christmas: the smell of the fresh pine that seemed to emanate and fill every room from the giant Christmas trees, the delicious food, the decorations, the music, and most importantly the way that everyone seemed to be more happier and nicer than usual….

“Hey Weaslette,” A familiar and very annoying voice called out over the loud din of the snowball fight going on outside. “What do you want for Christmas? I’ve decided to become a philanthropist to get into the Christmas spirit and help the needy, and you were at the top of my list- what with being poor, ugly and stupid...”

Scratch that. Not everyone was nicer and happier at Christmas time; some people, like Draco Malfoy, would always be stuck-up gits…

“Shove it, Malfoy,” Ginny retorted with a scowl, stomping past the smirking blonde as she headed inside, narrowly avoiding a stray snowball, which satisfyingly enough hit Draco in his stupid luminescent head.

Coming to a pause to watch his expression change from smirking to plain furious, she just smiled in a satisfied way to herself as he stomped off to go terrify the pants off the poor person that had thrown the snowball, allowing her to continue on her way. Or at least she thought so until she heard footsteps catching up to her and once more the sound of a familiar drawl that she had fondly likened to as a troll snoring. Of course, Draco Malfoy’s voice sounded nothing like that, but he was no better than a mangy troll and his voice was just as irritating.

“Going so soon?” Draco taunted, an annoying smile on his face. “I thought you’d be pleased to hear that I was helping the less unfortunate…”

“The only one who needs help is you,” Ginny replied tartly, lifting her chin defiantly as she looked up at him. It always did annoy her how short she was compared to him. She just came to his elbow, which meant a lot of neck craning and feeling very small and weak compared to the tall, graceful boy next to her…

“Are you offering to give it to me?” Draco asked with a sly smile, meeting her chestnut eyes with his own stormy grey ones.

“No.” Ginny said simply as she continued to walk, vaguely wondering why he was following her anyway. Sometimes he annoyed her, but usually he saved his rather pathetic ammunition for her brother and his friends. Guess it was just one of those days…

“That’s too bad,” Draco said with a mock-sigh. “You could have changed me into a Muggle-loving pansy like Potter if you had only bothered to try.”

“I doubt you’d ever be a Muggle-loving anything, and Harry isn’t a pansy, and-” She turned and looked at him, a suspicious look on her face. “Why are you still talking to me? Haven’t you got some other people on your philanthropist list who are so unfortunate to bother besides me?”

Draco smirked, looking genuinely amused. “But I like annoying you. It’s one of my favourite pass-times.”

Ginny just sighed, wishing that there was such a thing as a god so that he would take Draco Malfoy away and put him on a very remote island where no one could ever find him so that she could get some peace. Yes, that would be the perfect thing to happen right now….

“You seem upset, Weaslette,” He continued, giving her a thoughtful look that was also rather mocking. “You aren’t offended by me calling you poor, ugly and stupid are you? ‘Cause those are just facts and one day you’ll have to accept them….”

Ginny’s hands clenched into fists as she suddenly stopped dead in the hallway. She turned to look at him, her neck craning in that annoying way it always had to do as she stared up into his smirking, pointy face. “Draco Malfoy, if you call me poor, stupid and ugly again, I’ll make sure that one of those characteristics fits you so well you’ll never be able to remove it.”

“Why, Weasley, I never knew you found me so good-looking,” Draco drawled annoyingly, making Ginny inwardly growl in frustration. That pompous, arrogant git was heading in the right direction for a serious bat-bogey-hex.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Malfoy; I was thinking more along the lines of beating your head in so your brain is more permanently damaged than what it already is.” Ginny retorted with a falsely sweet smile.

“Like you actually would,” he stated bluntly, not moved by her threat. Merlin, he was even smiling!! What was wrong with him?

“You know, Malfoy,” Ginny said after a moment as she continued to walk down the hallway, him walking beside her. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say that you purposely annoy me like this because you actually like me getting smart to you.”

He just smiled knowingly, tapping his finger on his nose. “Maybe you’re not as stupid as I thought you were. Now to sort out the poor and ugly part and you might just get off my list of unfortunate people.”

Ginny’s face puckered into a frown as she tried to decipher just what he was trying to say to her. On one hand he had admitted that he enjoyed talking to her, even if it was just to make her get smart to him, but on the other he had called her poor and ugly again….

“You’re obviously more brain damaged than I originally thought,” she said finally, raising her eyes to his, the frown still on her face.

Draco just smiled, “You see that’s what I like about you, Weaslette,” he said, placing an arm around her as they walked, making Ginny squirm uncomfortably. “You aren’t like your brother or those other twits. Your comebacks are always so refreshing….”

“Right,” Ginny said slowly, ducking out from under his arm and taking a safe step back from him. “Well you can go take your weird masochistic ideas and pester someone else, because I really don’t want to cater to your creepy fetishes.”

“And here I thought Christmas was a time of giving. I guess you Weasels really are too poor to give anything, even some of your ever-amusing comebacks.” Draco said with another mock-sigh.

Ginny just huffed and stared at him, one hand situating itself on her hip. “This is ridiculous. You actually want to make me get smart to you for your own enjoyment? I’ve never heard of anything so stupid.”

“What’s so hard to believe about that?” Draco asked, his ever-annoying smirk on his face.

“Because it’s just weird,” Ginny stated heatedly. “People don’t generally enjoy others getting rude to them.”

“But I don’t enjoy people getting rude to me- just you.” Draco responded with a sly smile.

Ginny blinked, wondering if this was his new tactic to annoy her. It seemed to consist of speaking in confusing ways and making her feel weird flutters in her stomach. It also seemed to be working….

“W-well that’s just silly,” she said quickly, continuing to walk down the hallway in the hopes that he would just go away and leave her alone. Things were getting dangerously out of hand here. Draco Malfoy was not supposed to be flirting with her, for flirting he was, and no matter how low he may rate her intelligence she was not so stupid as to not know what he was doing.

“I don’t see why you’re getting so bothered about it,” Draco said lazily, following her with a much slower pace thanks to his longer legs, his eyes watching her with an amused expression. “You can’t tell me you don’t enjoy it too.”

Ginny laughed at that, tilting her head up to look at him as they walked side by side. “It might actually surprise you to learn, Malfoy, that I don’t particularly enjoy being called poor, ugly and stupid. In fact I think it would be the best Christmas present I could ever receive if you were turned into an ant so I could squash you and get rid of you and your petty insults.”

He just smirked, giving her a small ‘tsk’. “Really, Weaslette, you couldn’t think of something better than that?”

“No, Malfoy I couldn’t,” Ginny said with a tired sigh and turned to walk into the Great Hall, stopping as she saw Colin Creevey standing in front of her with his camera.

“Look up,” Colin said with a grin. Ginny looked up and sighed again when she saw mistletoe. That was one Christmas tradition she could do without.

“I’m not kissing you Colin…” Ginny said with a shake of her head, as if she was swatting away a fly.

“Not with me,” Colin said unperturbed. “He’s the one under the mistletoe with you.”

Ginny turned her face and paled when she saw Draco standing behind her. He had got to be joking…

“I’m not kissing Malfoy, now move, Colin.”

“C’mon, Weaslette, where’s your Christmas spirit?” Draco’s voice drawled softly, his warm breath uncomfortably close to her ear. She jumped and turned instinctively, her cheeks flooding with pink as she realised how close he actually was, but that small gap soon became nothing as she felt his lips pressing against hers.

It took her all of three seconds to realise that Draco Malfoy was actually kissing her, and three more seconds to realise that she was kissing him back. Her hands slid up his arms to link around his neck, her head tilted right back in that annoying way, which wasn’t really so annoying now when his lips were fastened so gloriously against hers. She could feel his hands resting on her hips, pulling her closer so that the warmth of their bodies was feeding off into each other, and in that moment she knew she could have kept on kissing him until she passed out from lack of oxygen, except the sudden flash of a picture being taken made her pull back.

“I didn’t think you’d actually do it, but this is priceless!” Colin said happily, moving the picture he had just taken to go on the ‘Wall of Kisses’ which Head Girl, Parvati Patil, had set up in honour of Christmas. Ginny stared at the picture, seeing her and Draco completely engrossed in each other, their lips firmly locked together in a surprisingly passionate kiss. Actually, when she looked at all the pictures, theirs was the most intense. Crabbe and Goyle’s kiss was rather amusing though… Wait…. Crabbe and Goyle were kissing?

“Well what a way to ruin a good moment,” Draco said bluntly, clearly disgruntled the kiss had been stopped. Ginny turned in surprise to stare at him, her eyes bugging slightly. She couldn’t deny she hadn’t enjoyed kissing him either, but he was Draco Malfoy, and she was Ginny Weasley- the two just didn’t go together nicely…

“I thought you said I was poor, ugly, stupid, and number one on your unfortunate people list,” Ginny said with a raised eyebrow, her hand finding itself on her hip again. “Why would you enjoy kissing someone like me?”

“I crossed off stupid, remember?” he said with a smirk, “And you’re still poor and ugly. I mean look at that horrid red hair, and all those freckles…. And you know you’ll never be as rich as me...”

“Ugh, you’re horrible!” She said with disgust and stomped past him, her head held high as she once more left the Great Hall to get away from Draco and everyone else. She still couldn’t believe he had kissed her, and sadly she couldn’t forget how much she had enjoyed it either…

“C’mon, Weaslette,” Draco called out, making Ginny sigh in irritation that he was once again following her; honestly, couldn’t a girl get any peace? “Don’t be like that.”

“Be like what?” Ginny said angrily, spinning on her foot suddenly to face him, and unfortunately smacking into his chest at the same time. She hadn’t realised he had been so close…

Placing her hands on his chest to steady herself, she looked up at him with her head tilted right back, her eyes locking onto his grey ones. The tension between them was almost unbearable, and Ginny could recall very clearly how it had felt to have him kiss her, and at the same time feeling angrily betrayed by her body that was telling her to do it again. He was a prick- a great annoying prat that had called her ugly and made fun of her family. She wasn’t meant to kiss guys like him and enjoy it!

“You don’t need to get so offended,” Draco said more softly, not making any move to push her away or pull her closer.

“You called me ugly, and you’re always offending my family. Why wouldn’t I be offended?” Ginny said in frustration, but it was a lot harder to be angry with him when he was so close and his cologne smelt so good. Surely it must be the cologne that was making her feel light-headed, or maybe his kiss had been charmed and done something? Yes, that must be it! After all, she didn’t actually like the prat….

“Maybe I like your ugly red hair and freckles? Maybe I don’t care that you’re poor, ‘cause let’s face it, I’m rich enough for the both of us, and maybe I do enjoy kissing you, because your lips happen to be very tasty…”

Ginny just blinked, not really believing that he had just said those things, but before she could get a word out his lips were once more closing in over hers, forcing all her arguments to fly out the non-existent window in her brain right then and there.

“Ginny, don’t you get I like you?” Draco mumbled between kisses, making Ginny’s legs go suddenly weak. When he said her name like that she felt quite ridiculously giddy and those fluttery feelings were back too… What did this mean?

“Do you really?” She couldn’t help but ask, pulling her lips away to look at him in surprise.

He just smirked in that same old annoying way. “Maybe stupid will have to come back to the list after all.”

“Hey,” Ginny said with a disgruntled huff, but she couldn’t help but smile all the same. Seeing him return the smile just made her feel even more giddy and fluttery, and then it hit her what those feelings meant…

“Look up,” Ginny said with a small smile.

Draco looked up, frowning slightly. “What I don’t see anything-”

Leaning up on her tiptoes, her hands still resting against his chest, Ginny placed her lips against his in a sweet kiss. “Merry Christmas, Draco.”

END