I know I promised this to you ages upon ages ago and I know it's short, but I wanted to finally wrap this story up. I may someday in the far off future add more to it, but at this moment I decided against that since it would be mostly recapping the twelve days over again.

ShadeDancer

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any such related things so sit back, enjoy the story, and don't sue me.

Epilogue

Harry woke up, blinking away the spots in front of his eyes. It felt like someone had flashed a bright light in his eyes but the dorm room was still dark. Harry reached up with him right hand to brush a lock of unruly hair out of his face and his finger brushed across his scar. He wondered what Tom was up to, he had missed his lover greatly since returning to Hogwarts and their recent fighting hadn't been helping things lately. TOM!

Instantly everything came flooding back to him. The twelve days of gifts, the ceremony, Draco killing Tom…

He had opened the Gateway then, using the eighth and ninth spells of Moriah to take his pain out upon the world, damning them all. But then how was he back here in the Gryffindor dorm? Harry pulled his wand, a funny idea striking him.

"Tempus." He murmured, the date and time appearing in glowing numbers before his eyes.

His suspicions were confirmed. He had gone back in time, back to the night before he had received Tom's first gift. He had no idea how this could have happened, unless—had he said the time spell as he was sucked into the dimensional gateway? Or had some higher power stepped in? Quite frankly Harry didn't care. He had a chance to save everything this time. He could save Tom.

A wicked idea formed in his head and he hoped that someday Lucius would be able to forgive him. He knew the elder Malfoy wasn't all that attached to his son, but Draco was unfortunately his only child and heir. Swiftly getting dressed Harry grabbed up his wand before snaking a hand under his bed to bring out a long, cloth wrapped shape. Reverently Harry unwrapped the cloth to reveal the sharp gleaming blade of Gryffindor's sword. Beautiful. Slipping from Gryffindor Tower, Harry made his way through the silent school to the Slytherin dorms. The serpentine guardian had no problem letting him in.

A quickly cast, localized silencing charm ensured that he wouldn't wake up any of Draco's roommates—though it was tempting to wake Blaise and allow him in on the fun—but even then he didn't plan on drawing things out. He wasn't doing this to be cruel or for revenge, at least not wholly, and dawn was fast approaching. One quick thrust had Draco's eyes flying open long enough for him to gaze upon the face of his death and for Harry to watch those gray eyes glaze over. He felt remorse, but no regret. Lifting the sword again Harry was glad for the spells that kept the blade so sharp as he hacked at Draco's neck in order to take the Slytherin's head.

Availing himself to a liberal amount of Draco's own expensive perfume and a lighted log from the fire, Harry destroyed his handiwork through flame before erasing any traces of his magic in the dorm. He knew the others would wake before Draco's body fully burned, but the fire would do enough damage to keep Harry in the clear. Swiftly he made his way out of Slytherin territory, using hidden passages to get to the owlry unseen. A little bit of fancy spell work later and Draco's head was neatly wrapped in Christmas paper and on its way to being delivered to Tom. Yawning, Harry began to head back to Gryffindor Tower, humming to himself and pleased with his work.

He only had eleven more gifts to come up with now and he couldn't wait to re-receive his own. And this time nothing was going to ruin his Christmas and impending nuptials. Not even those who had for some reason given him this second chance.

… … … … …

Tom was nearly giddy as he sent the owl off with Harry's gift. He had everything planned out right down to the littlest detail. He was going to make sure this Christmas was the best one his lover ever had. No one would be able to top the gifts he had planned—gifts both deadly and beautiful. Gifts that would be useful in the times to come.

As he watched his gift fly away, Tom was surprised to see an owl winging its way towards him. If he wasn't mistaken it looked to be the owl Harry used to send things to him. The owl drew closer and Tom was pleased to see that it was Harry's second owl—Hedwig was too conspicuous after all—and he left the window open. Gracefully the owl flew in, deposited the package on Tom's desk, and glided to the owl stand where food and water waited. It was clearly a present from Harry. For him. It almost surprised him to receive the present, they had been having some nasty fights through their letters over Harry staying at Hogwarts for Christmas, but Harry wasn't the one actually holding the grudge.

Tom found himself eagerly ripping the paper off and found himself staring into the death-glazed eyes of Draco Malfoy. Almost hesitantly Tom reached for the note lying in the Malfoy heir's mouth, wondering if the gift was really from Harry after all—this was not like his lover. He knew there was no love lost between the younger Malfoy and Harry, but he did not believe they were still openly hostile to each other. In fact Tom had contemplated making Draco one of Harry's advisors in the future; Draco was nothing like his father, but he was still a Malfoy and that carried a lot of weight.

The note proved him wrong and Tom couldn't help the darkly pleased grin that spread over his face—he and Harry were a lot more alike in though than he had expected. The note read:

On the first day of Christmas, my True Love, I send to thee,
Draco Malfoy's traitorous head wrapped up so prettily…

Posted On: January 26, 2011