Author's Note: Merry Christmas! I love this holiday! I love how it feels, how it makes other people feel, the presents, the decorations, the food, even how it started right after Halloween (fuck Thanksgiving! jk!) but most of all, I love the fellowship it brings between friends and family members. I wrote this story for WiseDraco as her Christmas present because I know that she truly knows the meaning of friendship and family through Christmas, to the New Year, to Easter and beyond. Merry Christmas, WiseDraco, I love you with all my heart. I hope you and everyone else reading enjoys this story. And I hope that anyone feeling alone, like Draco does in this fic, learns to cherish the love shared on Christmas all throughout the year. Happy Holidays! – darkmorsmordreheart

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Twelve Days and Forever After

The First

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Christmas is one of those strange times of year, like Valentine's Day or New Year's, that creates an ache in the hearts of those without much family or friends or any type of love one, really, to surround oneself with. The yearning for companionship is the forefront in many a single person's mind.

And it only grows as the holiday season, itself, gets larger.

Christmas seemed to begin directly after Halloween this year. The stores took down their cardboard pumpkins and took orange and black candies from the shelf only to replace them with cardboard snowflakes and green and red candies. If I celebrated Thanksgiving, I'm sure I would have been offended … though, if I had anyone to even celebrate Thanksgiving with, I probably would have been in line early the next morning trying to catch a Black Friday sale.

Lucky for me, my nationality is English, so no excessive American holidays for me. I don't go to church, so no Easter for me. I never drink to excess, so there is no need for St. Patrick's Day. I had no permanent lover, so Valentine's, birthdays, New Year's, and any other thing I can possibly think of was out of the question. I did have my best friend, who pitied me and insisted on taking me out to get laid in the summer time for my birthday, and my parents, who currently reside in France and whose presents – for their own birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, and the like – are purchased early in the year and sent by my secretary at the according times.

The only time I had ever bought a Christmas present at Christmas time was for my previously mentioned best friend, Pansy Parkinson. One December morning, I found myself musing over her present on the subway. She was pregnant at the time, by her boyfriend and "future fiancé" by her definition, Blaise Zabini, so I supposed I would have to buy something for the child as well, since it would be here in the next season.

I ran my tongue over my teeth and grimaced; I needed to brush them. I pushed the reason why I did not have the chance to do so away and turned my phone on instead to check to see what messages I had missed from the night before. A few from Pansy just asking where I was and one from my secretary telling me that I would need to stop by my office later on in the day to pick up packages of new photographs from the last model shoot. I groaned and rubbed a small circle into the skin over my left temple. Like all normal people, I did not want to spend a minute of this cold winter Saturday at work, whether I was the boss or not. I bit my lip and shook my head, effectively sending my uncombed blond hair into my eyes and causing myself another groan of dissatisfaction. As I brushed the hair away with my fingers, I heard a slight giggle coming from my left and turned to see two young women whispering about me behind their hands while sending an occasional glance my way.

I groaned again. It was too early in the morning to be goggled by women who could not tell the difference between an interested straight man and a gay guy with a bad day already hovering over his head.

I did not look at the girls again during my stay on the subway, but that did not stop the giggling. I got off at the stop nearest to my apartment and shoved my hands into the deep pockets of my peacoat as soon as I stepped outside. I was missing my gloves for some reason and there was no way in hell I was going to retrace my steps from the night before.

When I got above ground, I walked down the street with my shoulders hunched and the portion of my face just under my reddened nose covered by my cashmere scarf, and thought of – drooled over more likely – the hot bath I would soon dive into. God, I was stupid for going out in the cold like this.

God, I was stupid for the night before.

I finally made my way into my apartment and it seemed, even as I slunk into the much lusted after bath, I could not run away from the night before… Nor the thoughts that plagued me of the man I spent it with.

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I was engaged to a man by the name of Dudley Dursley once upon a time.

I had just begun my career as a magazine editor for an up-and-coming New York fashion magazine, simply titled The Craft. The magazine, a product of my best friend's dazzling mind and her vision of the magic behind fashion. The magazine is her baby in reality; I am merely the editor and she prefers to interview the occasional photographer or brainstorm with me for the occasional Christmas issue. All in all, Pansy's brainchild is my meal ticket and she never fails to remind me. I am often forced to escort her to functions and parties when her boyfriend is unable to.

And this is how I met my ex-fiancé.

Dursley the Dud, as Pansy calls him, is a newspaper editor and, perhaps, the most boring individual in the entire world whose only redeeming quality seems to be that he is English.

But he was also a boxer and had a chin just strong enough and a jaw line just sharp enough to make me take notice of him, despite his slight gut and massive arms. Oh, his arms – what I would not have given to have woken up in his arms that morning.

Instead, I thought to myself as I sunk into a tub full of bubbles, I woke up in his cousin's. That thought alone made me consider sinking into the fragrant water up to my eyeballs and testing how close to drowning I could get, but I pushed that thought away and leaned my head back against my bath cushion. Lord, what did I do?

I slept with my ex-fiancé's cousin, that's what I did.

I growled softly to myself for a moment for not bringing a bottle of something into the tub with me. I mean, I did have a few drinks the night before, but at this point I was willing to break my rule of keeping drinking to a minimum. How much had I drunk the night before? One, maybe two glasses of wine and a flute of champagne? Surely not enough to make me throw away the inhibitions I have spent most of my life collecting?

Many of the bubbles had disappeared by the time I admitted to myself that the company Christmas party I had attended last night made me lonely – the only explanation for the drinks and for… him.

I honestly should have seen it coming.

He is a photographer; renown, of course. His range is wide; from portraits of celebrities to landscapes that have all sold for thousands… tens of thousands.

Like Pansy, my ex-fiancé and myself, he hails from London, but his job as a much in demand artiste leads him all over the world. Because of his constant jet-setting, it surprises me that since ending my engagement to his cousin, I just cannot stop seeing him. He is everywhere.

At social functions Pansy forces me to attend. At photo shoots he decided to just "drop in" on. In my offices being personally interviewed by my interns. And last night, at the company Christmas party… teasingly telling me that he wanted to interview the genius that tailored my pants and give the man a five page spread in sheer gratitude.

I remember making out with him on the office's icy balcony.

And I remember making out with him on his balcony.

And I remember an assortment of other things, but the most important memory was waking up this morning with his arms and scent around me.

When I woke up, I was so warm and comfortable that I was confused as to why I had even awoken in the first place. I wanted nothing more than slip back into the peaceful existence I found in the downy quilt and pillows and the heavy weight of an arm around my torso, but as I closed my eyes again to do just that, a cloud must have shifted and revealed the sun or something of that nature because, suddenly, my blissful black became a panicked red. The universe was telling me to get up and leave.

So, I did.

As sneakily as possible.

It took several minutes to wiggle away from the body that had spent the previous few hours perfectly forming to mine. It was hardest to get away from his hand – I had discovered it in my hair five minutes into my task – and every time I felt his fingers trail against my scalp, I had to suppress a fit of shivers.

When, finally, I got away from him, I stood at the foot of his massive bed, naked as the day I was born… and stared at him.

He was gorgeous.

I admit, however, that it was strange to see him without his iconic glasses and even stranger to see him with his eyes closed. I remember from the night before when he took off his glasses, it was so hard for me to look away from his amazing green eyes; especially as they looked down at me when we had finally made it to the bed. With the absence of the warmth of my body, he seemed to be slowly curling into himself beneath his black comforter. His hand was still where my head had been a few moments prior, but his other arm was pulled against his chest. He was slowly turning onto his stomach and my eyes delightfully ate up every inch of skin on his broad shoulders and wide back revealed in the movement.

After a while of allowing my gaze to feast on him, I turned away and gathered my clothing… at least the garments that were in the bedroom. I was grateful to his wood floors because they had the decency not to creak when I tiptoed out of the room in search of my shirt and blazer. I found my shirt in the living room, on the couch I had been pinned to hours before and my blazer was on the kitchen floor, next to the spilled glass of wine he had knocked over in his haste to kiss me.

I saw my coat and shoes by the front door and rushed to them – as quietly as possible, of course – but as I reached for my coat, I realized that my wrist was empty and my Cartier was missing. After a quick scanning of the area around me and a slight panic attack, I realized that the only place the watch could possibly be was in the bedroom… with him.

And it was. Oh his nightstand where he had placed it in the process of making love to me. He had made a joke about not wanting me to look at the time or anything else but him that was funny at the time… Or maybe it wasn't funny. Or maybe I'm just not funny so I cannot convey it correctly. The point is: I needed my watch and it was too close to his glorious body for comfort.

As quietly as possible, I tiptoed across the room to the side of the bed he lay closest to and I snatched my watch. I tried not to look at him as I placed the device on my wrist, but I could not seem to help myself or the fantasies of sinking my hands back into the wild, dark hair that kept popping up in my mind. So, after forcing my gaze away, I softly made my way back to the doorway with the intention of hurrying out of the apartment and back to the real world and my own life where I did not sleep with ex-fiancés' cousins.

However, a voice, cool and awake, interrupted my intentions.

"Draco, close the draperies before you leave, would you?"

When I climbed out of the bathtub, I no longer held onto the delusion that I could not remember the night before. I remembered it, as clearly as I remember the feel of Harry Potter's arm tightening around my waist that morning. I remembered. And I still wanted it. Blast it.

Blast it all to hell.

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A/N: Draco's narrative voice gives me the giggles. Reviews for Christmas? -DMH