Author's Note: No worries. I didn't kick any puppies. I hope you guys like this chapter! –DMH

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Twelve Days and Forever After

The Seventh

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"I feel like we should have more decorations," Harry groused as he stared down at the ridiculous number of boxes spread out on the fur at his feet.

I was sitting on the couch again, watching him do all the work while eating an apple and offering him commentary and rude suggestions. He had stopped listening to me long before when I snarked about the lights on the tree not being equally spaced and made him re-hang them three times, but I said anyway, "Maybe strings of popcorn?"

His head lifted at my idea and nodded as he considered it. "I think I have the microwave kind… Is it okay if it's buttered?"

I threw an aptly named throw pillow in his direction with a laugh. He ducked too soon and it caught him on the forehead. "Fine! Maybe we do have enough decorations. So will you get you lazy butt up and help me put up these ornaments?"

I made a grand show of pushing myself off the couch, complete with silly faces and exaggerated huffs of air then dragged myself in his direction. "What do I have to do?"

"Well, you can start by turning that frown upside down." I narrowed my eyes at him and he shrugged, reached down and handed me a box of white ornaments. "Pick a side of tree and go wild."

I set to work hanging the white orbs, but momentarily halted when I saw him walking away. "Where are you going?"

"Music!" he called, disappearing into the hallway that led to his bedroom. This time my huff of annoyance was not exaggerated, but I continued hanging ornaments without a word anyway. Despite still being leery of the tree catching on fire, I had to admit that it looked beautiful with Harry's lights, even without the ornaments. Still, I continued to hang them without Harry and I even had to open the other boxes because he was taking so long to return. Once each box was emptied, I was tempted to turn the lights out just to get a peek at what it would look like in all of its glory, but the music suddenly ringing through the room stopped me.

"What's this?" I asked as Harry strolled back into the room.

"I just remembered that Pansy gave me a compilation cd for Christmas, so I went to fiddle with my stereo system I had installed all throughout my apartment so that I could impress you."

I smiled as Elvis dreamed of a white Christmas and revealed, "I'm very impressed."

He smiled proudly and pressed a kiss to my cheek. Then he walked to the tree to inspect the work I did. His face was playfully critical as he paced back and forth, tapping his finger on his chin with a heavy frown that made me laugh. As fun as this all was, I was still eager to hear what he thought of my decorating skills. "How is it?"

I was highly disappointed because he only nodded and then rushed out of the room. I was apparently frozen in astonishment because I was surprised at myself for not following with a string of curses as I would have normally done. Luckily for him, by the time I had gathered myself enough to start heading towards where he disappeared off to, he returned with his camera slung around his neck. Without saying a word or even looking at me, he lifted the camera and snapped several pictures, circling around the tree as a lion would a zebra, bending and twisting for perfect angles. He had to have taken fifty pictures before he stopped, turning to me with a wide smile that caused my own to erupt.

"It's gorgeous, Draco!" He pulled me into his arms and swung us in a circle. His expression was full of delight, youth and wonder and I was so happy, felt so fortunate to be able to give this to him. The kisses he gave me were full of laughter and I sipped joy from them every time our lips met. "Thank you," he said slowly, cupping my face in his hands. "So much… So much, luv."

My chest tightened as a sign of my body's realization of what was going to happen. Our kisses slowed in number, but began to lengthen… and deepen. I made it a goal to suck moans from his tongue and my heart sung every time I made an achievement. He pulled away from me once, only to toss his camera on the couch, then pulled me even closer. He wound his arms around me, his fingers into my hair, as he pulled us to the floor, onto the rug.

I was straddling his lap and sinking deeper into his kisses when he tugged my shirt up and off. I lifted my arms to help and immediately fell back to his mouth, wanting his taste more than anything in that moment. He rolled us over and I moaned as my bare skin came in contact with soft, white fur. Against my consent, he pulled back to stare down at me, his chest lifting heavily with each labored breath. A hand stroked down my chest and I closed my eyes at the pleasure.

"So gorgeous," he whispered, bending forward to press kisses along the trail his hand had established. My stomach trembled when he got to it, his lips barely ghosting across it as his attempts to tease me succeeded. He pulled back once more and this time I let loose a sound of displeasure as a whimper. "Wait, luv. Wait. Be right back."

I dropped my hands from his shoulders with a groan and allowed him to stand. I closed my eyes, hummed nonsensically with whatever song playing and waited for him to return. When I felt Harry's body covering mine once more, I opened my eyes and gasped at the sight of the tree. He had turned all the lights but the ones on the tree off.

They were amazing.

Blue and green and red and yellow and purple, flashing and twinkling between the tree's branches, like fairies hiding secrets. Looking up at Harry, I could tell that he was just as mesmerized as I was. And he was beautiful with his face turned up to the lights, them flitting across his face, catching each perfect angle of it. I reached up and pulled him back down to me gently. Our kiss began just as gently and then it deepened and then it consumed.

"I want you," he told me.

I nodded and gave myself.

He kissed down my body, this time in an attempt to catch the colors between my pale skin and his lips. The time he spent on my nipple convinced me that he had caught purple, so I was surprised when he moved lower, his tongue joining the cause as it circled around my navel.

"I've never seen…" he mumbled into his kisses as he unbuttoned my jeans. "So beautiful…"

After he had me naked, he sat back on his heels, unmoving, only watching. I felt as if my heart was going to leap out of my chest with every brush of his gaze against me.

"Touch me, Harry." He only shook his head and I felt even more vulnerable than I had in his kitchen that morning. But this was good, so good. I was naked, only covered in lights and Harry was looking at me, seeing me, every bit of me. I was twisting, running my own hands down my body, bending my knees in any and all attempts to goad him into action.

He only asked me, "Can I take your picture?"

I nodded and he shot up, rushing into the darkness towards the couch where his discarded Nikon lay. Then he was over me once more, between my bended knees, telling me to look at him. He rolled his hips into mine, my erection both grateful at the feel of denim, the texture of it and hateful at the barrier. The camera hovered over me, hiding his face from me, but he didn't take any pictures. Only when his hips rolled in such a way that sent me into fits of moans did I hear the clicks.

"Are they… How are the pictures going to turn out in the dark like this?" I panted, looping fingers into the hem of jeans.

"I can develop them," he assured me gruffly. A few more hip rolls, a few more clicks and then he growled in dissatisfaction and set the camera aside. I barely had enough time to call out his name in question before he was yanking his shirt off and bending to me, kissing my questions away. "Do you want me?"

I wanted him inside of me and that part of me twitched at his question and the voice he asked it in. It was deep and gravelly, filled with his own desires that fit so well in the darkness surrounding us.

"Yes." He kissed me again and pulled back, lifting his camera to eyes.

"Take off my jeans." I went to work at the task then pulled them and his pants down to his thighs. He was grand and hard as I stroked him, soaked around the tip and trembling. "Do you want me?" he asked again and I answered with a moan. I spread my legs wider as my excitement built with each click of the camera. "So beautiful," he mumbled, over and over as his hips pushed against me. "I want you."

"I want you, too. Now."

He dropped the camera with a thump that made me cringe, but didn't seem to faze him in the slightest. He fumbled with his jeans for a moment, presumably searching for a condom, but I stopped him and told him that I didn't care and I trusted him and I wanted him… He kicked his jeans completely off as he lowered himself. He kissed down my body for a third time, nibbling and licking, lower and lower and lower still. My breath stilled as soon as I could feel his under my erection, over where I wanted him most.

I had never experienced anything like his tongue exploring me. It felt like too much and not enough at the same time. The heat of his paradoxical lovemaking had my body shivering and I almost couldn't handle it. My lungs felt heavy with screams I was too overwhelmed with to even let loose, so I could only breathe. I turned my head and rubbed my face into the soft fur, trying to concentrate on that feeling and not the raw pleasure between my legs, threatening to eat me alive. I remembering wanting to think that the noises Harry made in his preparation of me were lewd, but they only made me harder, only had me clenching the rug until my knuckles were white.

"Harry, Harry please! Please!"

He raised himself over me and pushed inside of me, slowly, carefully.

"Oh God," he said. He buried his face into my neck and breathed me in slowly.

Perfect will always be a word I associate with that night. I can close my eyes now and remember how he felt on top of me, inside of me, and I can smell his desire, taste his sweat… I had never felt more wanted in my life than in that moment spent in his arms, looking into his eyes.

"I want you," he told me afterwards and I smiled for a long time.

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The next day, I decided to make cookies.

They were about as successful as the Eggs Benedict from the morning before, but Harry humored me and ate them anyway. They were only burnt on the bottom, so it was easy to pretend that they were perfect. At least until they were in your mouth.

Harry ate three while I ate half of one. The rest he placed on a plate and left on the floor next to the fireplace. "For Santa," he told me and I laughed, falling back onto the fur rug and exclaiming that neither of us would get any gifts that year.

"All he has to do is pick up one and we won't have any next year, either."

He laughed at me again and said, "We should go shopping tomorrow. We'll take a cab and split up, then meet back here."

"Shopping? For presents?" He nodded and a slight panic came over me. "I don't know what to get you!"

He had the nerve to smirk at me. "Just get whatever you'd think I'd like."

So I spent the rest of the afternoon observing him and his likes. He seemed to enjoy basketball; it was often on the telly in his bedroom. He was in need of button-down and long sleeved v-necks, but I doubt that he would wear them as often as he did his baggy, stretched out graphic tees. Of all things – graphic tees. He liked sweets. He liked Rome. He liked me. He liked photography…

"Will you develop those pictures of me?" By now, I was sitting in the corner of his office, curled up on a short couch and watching him as he sent a few emails. I had a magazine or two to entertain myself with and the telly, of course, but my eyes periodically wandered to the back of his head. At my question, he turned, spinning in his chair, his brows arched with surprise.

"Do you want me to?"

I shrugged, though the question was racing through my mind. I was not sure if I wanted to see myself the way he sees me. The night before while in the moment, I felt intensely vulnerable and I felt free enough in my vulnerability to share it with him, but self-doubt was quick to subdue me. As if he felt me pulling back, he said, "If you give me permission, process them, but even then, I won't be putting them in a showing or anything like that, if you're worried – Not that they wouldn't look wonderful in a showing, I'm sure. You're beautiful… But those are private photographs."

His babbling made me smile behind my hand a bit, but niggling doubt made me inquire, "Do you have other private photographs?"

"What?"

"Have… What we did last night. Do you have private photos from… incidents such as that?"

He flushed horribly and looked away from me. A hand lifted to fist a bit of his hair and, as if the hand was forcing him against him will, he reluctantly nodded. "From a long time ago."

"Can I see?" Can I compare myself to this other lover of yours?

This time both his hands fisted his hair then he stood, mumbling to himself, and walked across the room to a wall of file drawers that I assumed he kept his work in. Throwing me the occasional nervous glance, as if he was scared that I would run off at any quick movement, he opened drawer after drawer, searching. I took solace in the knowledge that he didn't have a file of a lover's picture on hand, but that did not lessen the size of the butterflies in my middle.

Finally, he held up a thin folder and handed it to me, his eyes on the ground. Before I opened it, I made space for him next to me on the couch. As he sat, he warned, "It's a woman."

Indeed it was a woman.

She was gorgeous.

Pale skin and bright hair, streaming all around her in copper waves, flowing across fluffy white pillows and curling against bright white sheets. She was naked, only covered with light and cinnamon colored freckles that trailed her small breasts and long neck, creating speckled paths along the arms raised over her head in some shots or reaching towards the camera… behind the camera in others… Picture after picture of this young redhead, her face a different shade of ecstasy each time.

I looked to Harry, expecting him to be as transfixed on the beauty as I was, but was surprised to see him looking at me. He was gnawing on his bottom lip and staring intensely as if nervous of what I was going to do. I lifted a hand to his cheek in encouragement and mumbled, "She's beautiful."

"You're beautiful."

"Harry…"

"No, I don't want you to –"

"Is this how you see me?"

He froze at the question for a moment then sighed heavily. He finally looked down at one of the pictures, the one in my hand, and took it from me. Her back was to the camera in this picture, her hair flipped over her shadow to show hundreds of freckles of which I'm sure Harry attempted pepper individual kisses on. Her head was turned so that half of her face was buried in a pillow, but that half that I could see held a smile and a prettily blushing cheek and a brown eye glittering with pleasure.

"I took those pictures when I was nineteen, Draco," he said suddenly and I nodded. As an editor of a fashion magazine, I'd like to think that I could recognize a beginner from a professional. "I had just started getting serious about photography and-and this… taking these pictures, with her, was nothing but playing with aesthetics. I crowed that I was cool and sexy and original, but really I just thought it would be hot to take pictures of a girl while I was shagging her. That's all it was."

"Was it?" I remarked coolly, flipping through more pictures.

He sighed. "Use your professional eye and tell me what you see in that collection of pictures."

"Passion, lust, want, sex, reckless abandon, freeness… Beauty… Hunger, desire… I don't know."

"There's a very important word missing from that list," he told me, taking the folder from me, shutting it and dropping it carelessly on the floor. "I guarantee you would find it in the pictures I took last night. Those pictures of that girl are the extent of what I felt as a teenager. I'm a man now, Draco. I've lived and I've learned and I know."

"Harry…"

He cupped my face and kissed me, softly and sweetly as he tended to do and he said, "I want you and I love you."

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A/N: Yeah, so when I said this weekend in the last chapter, I meant next weekend… No one believes me. lol Sorry! I'm thinking of ending the story next chapter, which would be strange because the fic is called 12 Days and one would think it would have a chapter for each day and it doesn't so… I confused myself. Next chapter is probably the last. (I'm kinda sad now.) –DMH