#slythindoor100

[theoretical-thinker]

25 days of Draco and Harry Writing Challenge

Title: I'm just gonna keep on waiting Underneath the mistletoe

Author: mental_escalation (me :))

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Chapter: 1/25

Word Count: 1160 and ongoing

Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: Draco is less than thrilled when he finds out him and Harry Potter have to work together on a case to stop a maniac from further hurting innocent wizards and witches.

He´s even more annoyed upon hearing that their culprit is mailing packages containing curses for the naughty and potions for the nice - as a Christmas grouch, he really doesn´t need a Santa Clause wannabe forcing him to have anything more to do with Christmas than he absolutely has to.

And when Potter has the genius idea that they act as a couple to properly investigate the potential culprit´s hometown, he´s completely at his wits end.

He just hopes he´ll make it to New Year´s with his sanity still intact.

Notes: Sooo, as this is my first time writing fanfiction ever I figured - why not join a writing challenge, that way I have a deadline. It definitely helped and I´m happy with what I´ve come up so far (yes, I´m not fully done yet, proper time management was never my strong suit).

Anyways, I just hope that whoever stumbles upon my words will have as much fun reading this as I had writing it.

Happy reading and a have lovely Christmas time!

The title is a verse from Mariah Carey´s "All I Want for Christmas Is You"

First chapter´s under the cut :)

Capter 1) Cup of Coffee on Wrought Iron Table

“You´ve got to be kidding me.”, was the first sentence that left Draco´s lips when he came into Robards´ office and saw who else was sitting there.

Harry Potter looked like he´d just had the same thought.

“Come on, Auror Malfoy, get yourself together, come in and close the door. I´ve got important information concerning you two.”, Robards said with a stern look. Potter silently raised one eyebrow as to challenge him to actually come in.

After a moment of glaring back, Draco sighed and relented. While he closed the door and walked to Robards´ desk to sit next to Potter, he couldn´t help but think about how wonderfully his day had started. He´d put on his favourite green and navy tartan trousers, had listened to some classical music while going through the Prophet´s latest abominations and Cassiopeia had even snuggled with him a bit. In fact, she had been oh so generous this morning and purred when he scratched her behind her ears.

How horrible could a day get when your usually more than moody cat suddenly was pliant and loving?

Really horrible apparently, according to the plans Robards had just presented to him and Potter.

“You want to do what”, Potter exclaimed incredulously.

“I don´t want, Auror Potter, I am partnering you and Auror Malfoy up for a new mission.”, Robards answered calmly. His expression made it obvious he had expected him and Potter to not be happy about this.

“But we´re working in completely different departments, we never work on cases together! Why us?”, Draco interjected.

“I´d usually agree with you, Auror Malfoy,”, Robards conceded, “but as our recent information suggests, someone managed to commit a series of crimes that needs both your expertise – and as you are the respective tops of your departments, I am partnering you up.”

Potter furrowed his brows. “What did they do?“

“Well, “, Robards answered, “according to the information we have at the moment, it is someone who targets both pureblood and Muggle-born wizards and witches. Though there is a distinct difference: Purebloods received a curse so bad that every single one of them was admitted to St. Mungo´s – that´s your area, Auror Potter.”

“Do you know what kind of curse was used?”, Potter asked.

Robards nodded. “Yes, it was fairly obvious seeing the wounds the curse inflicted. It´s the Sectumsempra curse – rare and hard to track.”

Draco tensed up after hearing the curse´s name, then frowned. “Wait, so what am I doing here?”, he questioned.

“Patience, Auror Malfoy, I wasn´t done yet. Muggle-borns received a potion that instantly got absorbed by their skin. As of now every potion has been identified as Felix felicis – your area, Auror Malfoy – but they also all ended up in the hospital.”

Potter frowned confused. “If they got Felix felicis, how were they injured.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Really, Potter, didn´t you listen at all back in school? This potion is extremely hard to brew and even if you do everything correctly, there´s still the factor of six months the Felix felicis has to stew before usage. You strictly have to comply or it all goes wrong. So, the real question is How could they not have been injured?”

Potter glared at him, then turned to Robards again. “So, if they both got completely different things, how where you able to make a connection?”

“Well, it started about two weeks ago. At first it was simply suspicious that both the ´curse-´ and ´potion-caused injuries´ wards reported a significant increase in patients. When we asked the victims what they remembered shortly before the incident, all of them reported getting a small package in their mail and, upon opening their respective packages, eventually finding themselves at St. Mungo´s. When we examined the boxes we found both types to be in the same style, so most likely from the same person. They also all contained a card with the same handwriting reading either “You have been naughty” in the curse boxes or “You have been nice” in the potion boxes.” 

Draco´s eyes widened. “Wait…so like Santa Clause?!”, he exclaimed incredulously. Potter threw him a surprised look. “You know who Santa Clause is?”, he asked. Draco rolled his eyes. “Yes Potter, I know who one of the most famous fictional characters of the western world is. I even knew about him before I read up on Muggle culture.”

At that, Potter´s surprise seemed to increase more. “You what?”

“Gentlemen,”, Robards cleared his throat to get both their attention back, “I think this is neither the time nor the place to discuss such inanities. I believe I´ve told you everything you need to know for now, files with all our current information will be given to you tomorrow morning. I expect you two to do your best solving this case without any incidents due to your past rivalry. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir.” He and Potter both said at once.

After they exited Robards´ office, Potter scowled at him. “I think neither of us is thrilled we have to do this together so let´s just try to solve this quickly. I really don´t want to spend any more time with you than is strictly necessary.”

“Likewise.”, Draco replied coldly and they parted ways.

To try and cure his mood from being more sour than a lemon, he decided to stop by his favourite café. It was located only a few blocks away from the ministry in Muggle London. That way he didn´t have to be stressed someone would recognize and spontaneously hex him. That never was fun.

When he arrived, he was happy to find the café nearly empty. It´s not that Draco didn´t like people, that would certainly be disadvantageous in his line of work. It´s just that especially when he already was in a bad mood, all the loud and annoying noises people naturally made would simply become too much for him.

The barista, Hannah, recognized him upon entering and asked him smiling “The usual?”

Draco nodded and sat down on one of the white wrought-iron patio tables scattered around the room. There he contemplated today´s events until Hannah brought him his regular order and tore him out of his thoughts.

She looked slightly concerned. “Is everything alright?”

He quickly nodded, not wanting her to worry about nothing. “Yeah, I´m good. Just a busy day.”

Hannah smiled sympathetically. “I totally get it. Hope you´ll be able to wind off here a little.” And with that she turned around and walked back to the counter. He watched her for a minute, then glanced back to his cup of coffee.

After he took a long sip, Draco closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.

Merlin, what did he get himself into?

[theoretical-thinker]

Chapter 5! :)

In case you want to read m story on tumblr, here are the links for Ch 1, 2, 3 and 4

The prompt´s in the end notes on AO3 and the chapter´s also under the cut

5) Festive Sign and Wooden Cabinet

Draco was still riding his high when they finally arrived in Sorcebury a few hours later. He´d packed a book for the ride but he hadn´t needed it. The whole time, he´d been fascinated by the way they were driving through the beautiful landscape. When he looked out of the window, it even felt a bit like he was flying on his broom! Minus the cold and the occasional unpleasantness of being exposed to the weather!

It. Was. Amazing.

Which he told Potter more than once, unable to contain his excitement and joy.

And Potter… smiled. He actually, genuinely smiled.

Huh, that was weird. And even weirder was his own reaction to Potter smiling. It started a small kind of… restlessness inside of him. The first time it happened he´d frowned, trying to work out what his body wanted to communicate to him – without success though. The next times he had just ignored it.

As they were making their way from the bus station to the hotel, it came to his mind again and he pondered about it. But after a few minutes he shrugged. Maybe it was his nervousness coming through, about them going into this mission with barely any ammunition. In any case it didn´t seem important.

He was honestly curious what their accommodation during their mission would look like, but when the small cottage-like house came into sight, Draco scowled. Oh, no…, it couldn´t be… right?

Unfortunately, the moment they stepped into the house, his suspicions were confirmed. And he felt offended.

“What in Salazar´s name is this?!”, he asked, disgusted by the sight that presented itself in front of him.

Potter only frowned, obviously confused. “Um… Malfoy? I believe that´s what we call a cabinet.”

“Don´t be dense, Potter, I´m not talking about the bloody cabinet. I´m talking about everything surrounding it!” He looked pointedly at the objects in question.

On top of the cabinet sat a small model village consisting of five buildings, in front of it garlands of dark green pine, brown pine cones, red leaves and warm white lights. Two artificial white trees stood on either side. A wooden sign was fixed to the wall in the centre of the space between the trees, light wooden letters reading `It's the most wonderful time of the year´.

Ugh.

“It´s all so… Christmassy.” Draco shuddered. It had been the same on the house´s front side decoration, hence his prior wariness.

“Yeah? So?”, Potter seemed totally lost.

“Why though?”, Draco whined.

“Well, why not? What the hell´s your problem, Malfoy?”

“What my problem is, Potter?”, he whipped around to face him, pointing accusingly to the cabinet. “It´s not even December yet!  I get that you can´t escape the Christmas hell after the first of December, but… now? Already??”

By now Potter, looked fairly amused.

“Malfoy, for a lot of people, the Christmas season pretty much begins the second Halloween´s over.”

Draco looked completely aghast. “For real?!”

At this point he could swear he saw a small smirk on Potter´s lips. The tosser.

“Yes, for real. Also, don´t be so dramatic. Even if that wasn´t the case, have you forgotten what today´s date is? It´s the 30th of November, so it really isn´t that unreasonable or uncommon to see Christmas decoration.”

Dammit, Potter was right. He had indeed forgotten that the first day of December was only a day away. Still.

“In my opinion all Christmas decoration is unreasonable, no matter what time of year. All of Christmas, really.”

And theeere was the infamous raised eyebrow again. He had almost missed it. Almost.

“Wait, so let me get this straight:”, Potter said, “you love snow, but you hate Christmas?!”

“How´s that so hard to understand?”, Draco replied, a bit defensive.

“Because it makes no sense! Christmas and snow are inevitably linked to each other!”

Draco snorted. “No, they´re most definitely not. It´s obvious that you being the Saviour has nothing to do with your wit. There can be Christmas without snow - what would you say to people living in warmer countries who celebrate Christmas? You can´t celebrate cause there isn´t any snow? And what about the months after New Year´s? Doesn’t it snow in January? February? Do you simply tell the snow ´Sorry, you made a mistake, it´s not Christmas anymore so how about you melt away´? This doesn’t make any sense now, does it?”

Potter pouted. “Smartass.”

Draco opened his mouth for a comeback, but before anything could leave his lips, he heard an amused, low voice behind him. “I guess you´re our new guests?”

Both he and Potter whipped surprised around to face the person standing there. It was an older lady with a friendly face. Her hair had a few grey strands and was bound into a loose knot. She smiled. “So? Are you?”, she asked, an expectant tone in her voice.

“O-oh yeah, we are!”, Potter jumped into action. Since he was the one with the most Muggle experience between the both of them, they had agreed he´d organise both their ride and their stay here. Even though he´d never admit it, especially not to Potter, he was immensely grateful for it, since he was sure he only would´ve made a fool out of himself if faced with the situation alone.

While Potter again took care of everything, Draco wandered around the room, noting the two other rooms and the staircase linked to the foyer, wrinkling his nose every time he saw another decor-abomination.

“Malfoy!”, Potter called out after a few minutes and he turned around. “Let´s go?”

“The younger generations and their pet names…”, the old lady said while shaking her head, but she still smiled kindly. “I suppose I´ll never get them.”

“What do you mean?”, Potter asked, frowning.

“Seeing that your room is booked for a ´Harry Potter´ you seem to be calling each other your respective surnames? It´s not often I see a couple doing that.”

Oh crap. He´d completely forgotten about that and according to Potter´s face, he hadn´t been the only one. If the old lady hadn´t watched them in that moment, he totally would´ve rubbed Potter his “easy” regarding their fake dating under his nose. As if abruptly flipping the switch from obvious dislike to seemingly in love would ever be easy.

As fast as he could, he came up with a plausible excuse. “Oh well, you see Mrs.- “, he suddenly realised he didn´t know her name yet. Or introduced himself. If his father was still alive, he´d be outraged at his lack of manners, though this kind of thought really didn´t keep him up at night anymore.

“You can call me Gertrud, dearest.”, she smiled, having guessed the reason for his sudden stop.

“Ah, yes, Gertrud. You see, when we first met each other, my Harry”, Merlin, that felt weird, “and I initially didn´t like each other that much and only called each other by our surnames. Of course, the moment we got to really know each other, the dislike and the surnames fell away quickly. But when we bicker, they unintentionally and unconsciously come back. What can I say? Old habits die hard.”

There. A lie mixed with the truth. He hoped it was believable enough.

According to Gertrud´s expression, Draco had succeeded, because her smile turned amused again.

“My name is Draco Malfoy by the way, in case my– boyfriend”, that felt even weirder, “didn´t already tell you.”

“Don´t worry, dearest, he did, but thank you nonetheless.”

When he glanced at Potter, he saw that the bastard was grinning at him, too. Typical, letting Draco make a fool out of himself while watching from a safe distance. He swore, if Gertrud wouldn´t be here right now, he´d–

Noticing his slightly murderous glance, Potter was quick to turn to Gertrud, too.

“Aaanyways, Gertrud. Thank you so much for your welcome! I´d say M-  um, Draco and I better get to our room, the journey was quite long and we´re a bit tired.”

“Oh, sure, dearest! There´s a folder with all the information you´ll need in your room, but in case you´ve got any other questions, I´m just a call away!” And with that, she swept out of the room.

“Well…”, Potter rubbed his neck, “I guess that wasn´t so bad.”

Draco only ´hmmpfed´ instead of answer, lifting his travel bag and walked past Potter. A few steps along, he turned around and looked at Potter expectantly.

“Well? You coming?”

[theoretical-thinker]

Fourth chapter is up! :)

As always, the prompt´s in the end notes on AO3

If you want to read my story on tumblr, here are the links to Ch 1, 2 and 3

Read Ch 4 under the cut:

4) Red Double Decker Bus

“I´m still not convinced that this is good idea. There are so many things that could go wrong and we didn´t really have enough time to properly prepare for this.”, Draco grumpily said the next morning.

“Oh, come on, Malfoy. We had a long and detailed discussion about it yesterday and in the end you agreed. We´ve planned it, we´re ready for it, so now we´re going through with it. And it doesn´t matter what we´d do and how well we´d prepare for it, there´s always the chance of something going wrong. Not sure if you noticed, but it´s kind of part of the risk working as an Auror.”, Potter smirked. Ass.

Draco simply glared at him in reply. But behind his cold façade he was really nervous about the whole mission. He had barely gotten any sleep because of the bloody thing and after taking his monthly potion this morning, he had downed cup after cup of tea. He´d even used the one Pansy got him as a birthday gift some time ago called “Calm Bringer” – but after at least 6 cups of it, he could in fact confirm that it didn´t bring him any calm. At. All.

And now, apparently, he couldn´t even fool Potter. He considered it an official personal low.

„Seriously, Malfoy, “, he said, schooling his face into a more calming expression, “don´t worry. We went through the whole thing at least a dozen times yesterday. We´ll pretend to be a couple that simply wants to take a little trip together, before the usual annual madness of Christmas and family starts. That´s not a hard thing to do and if someone catches on to our mutual disliking, we can just say it´s the stress! Easy.”

It certainly didn´t sound as easy to Draco, but he decided to drop it. What really worried him though was the other risk of their mission.

Later on the previous day when they spoke to Robards and told him about their findings and plan, he was quick to prohibit any sort of magic for them to use on their mission. “We don´t know how powerful the culprit is and I don´t want to risk the mission failing and putting you two in danger because they detected you early due to your magic.” Draco had immediately interjected. “But sir, my potions could give us a considerable advantage- “, before he could finish the sentence, though, Robards already started shaking his head. “No, I stand by my decision. Nothing remotely magic other than your wands. And I don´t want you to use them in anything other than an emergency – have I made myself clear?”

Draco clenched his teeth. “Of course, sir.” Potter nodded, too.

Which is how he found himself in this situation. That he couldn´t take his monthly potion with him was what worried him the most. Of course, they didn´t expect the mission to go on longer than two or three weeks but still. He didn´t like it. He didn´t like it one bit.

The whole “magic´s not allowed” – rule also meant they couldn´t apparate to Sorcebury. So now they were waiting for whatever thing Potter had organized to get them to their destination.

“If we can´t apparate, then can you at least tell me what is getting us to Sorcebury? You said something about… driving?”, Draco asked, impatient. They were standing on the side of a road that looked seemingly the same as any other road, save for a sign with weird symbols right next to them. As much as he loved snow, he was also getting cold because they´ve been waiting on the same spot for at least half an hour.

“Sorry, I always mix up the departure times with these. But the bus should be here any minute.” Potter at least looked apologetic which helped sooth Draco´s irritation. But then he caught up with the rest of what Potter said.

“Wait, what did you say? The bus?!”

Potter scowled. “Yes, Malfoy, we´re taking a bus. Is such a Muggle way of traveling beneath you or what?”

Before Draco could answer though, their chosen means of transportation turned the corner to their street and drove slowly towards them, presenting itself in all its glory.

He felt his eyes grow bigger and his heart starting to beat faster, now for a completely different reason than his prior nervousness.

“It´s exactly as I remember.”, Draco breathed. In the corner of his eye he saw Potter frown. “What do you mean ´as you remember´?”

He slowly started vibrating with uncontained joy. “When I was a child, father and I once went to Muggle London. I figure he wanted me to see how ´obtuse´ or ´pathetic´ they were and how ´superior´ us wizards were in comparison to them. But then I saw one of those red double decker busses, coordinating gracefully through the traffic chaos. And in this moment I knew I simply had to sit in one of them someday. I completely forgot about it after the war and later work was always in the way.”

He turned to Potter, big eyes and huge grin fixed on his face. Potter looked completely thrown. “Are you meaning to tell me that we are driving to Sorcebury in this magnificent specimen of vehicle?”

“Um,” Potter said eloquently, “yes?”

“Splendid!” he cheered. “I can´t wait!”

While Potter took care of everything regarding their tickets, Draco had the time to properly look around inside of the bus. It was as wonderful as he had imagined. His glee grew even bigger when Potter signed to him to go to the upper level. When they finally sat in their seats at the very front of the bus, Draco couldn´t help but repeatedly look around, taking in every new and exciting detail, making sure he´d remember all of it later.

He turned to Potter, wanting to ask him a question, only to see that he was already staring at him, a weird expression on his face.

Taken by surprise, Draco asked: “Huh? What´s wrong?”

Potter promptly looked away, muttering “Nothing.” And… was that a blush on his face?!

“Um…”, Draco only said, not sure what had just happened.

“Did you want something, Malfoy?”

“Um…”, bloody hell, what was wrong with his brain that he suddenly couldn´t remember what words were?! “N-no…um…nothing important.”

For the next few minutes he tried wracking his brain for the question he had wanted to ask mere moments ago. But no, it was helpless. He´d forgotten.

He sighed.

Oh Merlin, he was definitely in for a ride.

[theoretical-thinker]

Chapter 3 is up! :) the prompt´s, as always, in the end notes on AO3

You can can also read chapter 1 and 2 through here on tumblr

read chapter 3 under the cut:

3) Icicle on a Branch Tip

The next few days went pretty much the same, with the only difference that Potter wasn´t as late anymore. Which didn´t mean that he was truly punctual either. After the fourth day of Potter bustling in hurriedly 10-20 minutes too late, Draco couldn´t stay quiet anymore. He looked up and squinted at Potter.

“Were you cursed to always be unpunctual or why can´t you seem to ever be on time?”

Potter had the actual audacity to roll his eyes. “Oh please, as if you´re always on time, you just happen to be here earlier than me.”

“And how do you come to this outrageous and completely untrue conclusion?”, he said miffed.

“That´ll remain my secret.” The tosser really grinned back at him. Draco had half a mind to hex him. Of course, he´d immediately get suspended, but with their forced teamwork in mind, that suddenly didn´t sound as bad anymore. Quite the opposite.

“Anyways, I´m here now, so we can get on with it. As we already established, none of us wants this”, he indicated at the space between them, “to go on any longer than it absolutely has to.” When Draco didn´t answer, he just shrugged and sat down. “So, did you find anything new in the precious time you were here before me?”

Draco felt a smug smile forming on his lips. “Actually, yes I did.” Potter´s left eyebrow lifted, as it often did when his curiosity was peaked. Not that Draco was paying much attention to Potter. But he´d done that even back in school, and in the few days they´ve been working together he´d done it, too. A lot. It was annoying and not attractive at all.

Draco frowned when that thought appeared in his head. Where did “attractive” come from all of a sudden?

“So?”, Potter asked impatiently. “Spill the tea, what did you find?”

“Ah, yes. Remember how you tried to locate the place from where every curse box originated?”

“Yes, Malfoy, that was literally yesterday - but we couldn’t trace the Sectumsempra at all. And there were also no reports from other Aurors catching a whiff of curse traces like that in the past weeks. It obviously led nowhere.”

“Not entirely correct though, as I now know.”

“And would you be oh so generous and share this newfound knowledge with me?” There was the eyebrow again. It was actually kind of graceful, the way Potter lifted it.

“Well, I found it a bit weird how a curse that unique and powerful wouldn´t leave any remarkable traces. So I researched a bit and found…this!” He proudly presented Potter with an old map.

Potter frowned. “What am I looking at?”

“My, my, Potter, has your eyesight worsened lately? It´s a map.” Instead of an answer, Potter only looked back at him unimpressed. Draco smiled amused.

“It´s a map of different magic and energy zones in England. See this part?” He pointed to a particular bright spot on the map. “Magic flows pretty freely here because the energy is very high. Every object in this zone conducts magic without much resistance. Which also means that any magic cast here will be easy to trace. On the other hand, there are zones like that…” He pointed to another part on the map, this one distinctly darker than the spot before. “…which are the complete opposite. The objects there won´t conduct magic as well, and that means…”

“…that even more powerful curses couldn´t be traced?” Potter finished his sentence.

Draco nodded. “Exactly. Though, to be able to swallow any traces of a curse like the Sectumsempra, the zone our culprit works from needs to have a lot less energy than this part here. In fact, there are just a few zones with energy that low. And only one of them,” with that he pointed to the final spot on the map, “correlates with the location where two out of three of the rarer potion ingredients they need for Felix felicis can be found. It´s not far from the coast, so capturing a Murtlap shouldn´t be hard and as there are significantly more old and abandoned magical buildings in this area, it would be easy to find Ashwinder serpents and especially their eggs. Of course the culprit could´ve gotten them in another way, too, but most of the ingredients have to be used as fresh as possible if you want a really powerful outcome. The longer you wait from the moment they´re extracted, the weaker your potion will get. And even though the potion´s outcome was faulty, most likely due to wrong brewing, the reaction was still very strong- so I´d say they live not far from the ingredients they use.” Draco shrugged.

Potter looked up at him. “That…makes sense. Good job” he admitted reluctantly. He then glanced down at the map again. “So, where exactly is this place?”

Draco shrugged a second time. “Don´t know yet, I only got that far until you arrived.”

“Okay then,” Potter said, while rubbing his hands, “let´s get to work.”

***

By the time they finally found the place - a small Muggle town called Sorcebury - a few hours had passed. (“Seriously, how can it be so hard to find the equivalent position from the energy map on a normal map?!” - “Malfoy, the energy map´s pretty old. They didn´t put a lot of coordinates there and even the few that they wrote down don´t match the real ones a hundred percent. What did you expect?” - “I don´t know, the cartographer to actually do his job? What good is an energy map if you can´t track the energy zones back to their geographical locations?!”)

Draco was just contemplating whether or not he should get himself another cup of coffee to be able to concentrate again, when Potter suddenly spoke.

“I think we should take a break. We made a lot of progress today. It´s nice outside – how about we go out for a short walk?”

Draco looked at Potter, immediately suspicious. “Why?”

Potter rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Malfoy. I just think we could both use a breather and the fresh air should help us to concentrate later again.”

Draco scowled, but when he glanced back at the documents he and Potter had been brooding over and saw only blurred letters anymore, he had to admit Potter was right. “Fine.”, he sighed and got up to get his coat and scarf.

As he put them on, he saw surprise taking over Potter´s whole face. He frowned and looked down to see what could possibly get that reaction out of him. Not finding anything out of the ordinary, he glanced back up at Potter, frowning. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Your scarf…”, Potter said unbelieving.

Ah, so that was the reason. Draco rolled his eyes. “Merlin, Potter. Yes, I´m aware that back in school I was a near fanatic defender and follower of everything Slytherin, but I do actually like the colour red. So you really don´t have to look like I´ve grown a second head just because I choose to wear a scarf in this colour.”

After a moment, Potter seemed to regain his composure, because he finally closed his mouth and nodded. “Yeah, you´re right. Sometimes I just forget that you´ve changed a lot since the war.”

Draco smirked. “My, my, Potter, did the Saviour himself just give me something akin to a compliment?”

Potter only frowned.

“Forget it.”, Draco waved it off.

When they got outside, there already was a thick layer of snow coating every centimetre. Inwardly, Draco nearly burst with joy at the sight.

“Should we take the brief route through the park here?”, Potter asked.

Which would mean even more snow. “Yeah, sure.”, Draco replied, trying to sound as casual as possible. According to the suspicious look Potter threw him, he didn´t really succeed.

After a while of quietly walking next to each other, Draco´s thoughts drifted back to case. “Even though we´ve finally found out where our culprit probably works from, I´m still not entirely sure how we should proceed.”, he thought out loud.

Potter considered this for a moment. “Yeah, you´re right, it´s tricky. Because the town´s Muggle, they would probably be able to detect any proximal magical activity pretty easily. So we can´t just barge in with our wands raised or else they could escape before we even got chance to take a look at them.”

“Exactly. I´ve looked at a few- What in Salazar´s name are you doing, Potter?!”, Draco asked horrified. Potter just looked back at him innocently, a big icicle suddenly in his hand and only centimetres away from putting it into his mouth. “That´s unsanitary! Where did you even get this?!”

Seemingly reluctant, Potter lowered the icicle. “From there.”, he simply replied, pointing to a spruce tree a few steps behind them. Its branches were laden down with half-melted snow sitting atop its needles, and a few icicles in different sizes hung from the tip of the branch closest to them.

“Okay, but- “, turning back to Potter he saw that he was too late. The lunatic had already put the icicle in his mouth, obviously enjoying himself. Draco was appalled. “……why?!”, was the only word he could think of.

“Why not? I always wanted to do this as a kid, and since I couldn´t, I am taking every opportunity I now get to enjoy some delicious”, he punctuated the word, “icicles from trees.”

Draco was confused. “I thought you were brought up here in England too, why wouldn´t you have been able to eat these disgusting things as a kid?”

Potter´s reaction was instant, his whole body seemed to tense up. “Because I wasn´t allowed to do a lot of things.” Seeing Draco´s confusion only growing, Potter sighed. “Let´s just say that I didn´t have the kind of happy childhood that you probably imagine I had.”

Before Draco could ask any further questions, Potter switched the topic.       

“Anyways, what were you trying to say before – you looked at a few…?”

It was obvious Potter didn´t want to keep talking about the topic of his childhood, so Draco went along.

“Ah, yes. I researched possible accommodations in Sorcebury. I may have found one suiting our situation. It´s a small hotel, themed after different holidays throughout the year. The only problem is that it seems to be made mostly for couples, so we have to think about how we could- “, Draco stopped in his train of thought upon seeing Potter´s expression.

Draco immediately got suspicious. “What are thinking about, Potter?”

Instead of an answer, Potter only started to smirk mischievously. That was never a good sign.

“I´ve got an idea.”

[theoretical-thinker]

Second chapter´s up! :)

or again, under the cut:

2) Falling Snowflakes           

The next morning, Draco opened his eyes to near complete darkness. Sighing, he got up, slowly trying to peel himself out of his comfortable bed…its warm…and soft…fluffy cushions…. Before he could ease himself back into his blanket though, his alarm started ringing from the other side of the room – placed in foresight of his utter inability to leave the bed voluntarily the moment the days got shorter again.

Groaning and internally cursing his past self for not letting him have at least 5 more bloody minutes, he finally got out of his bed to turn the annoying alarm off.

When he opened his curtains, it was still dark outside. “Merlin, I hate winter.” he muttered to himself, gloomily glaring out of his window. Not that he could actually see anything outside, but he still felt better trying stare the darkness down.

After inevitably losing this staring competition, he went to his kitchen to put on the kettle. While he waited for the water to boil, he searched for Cassiopeia. “Mhmmm, where are you now, my princess?”

Of course, she didn’t answer him. “Always too busy for the common folk, eh?” After another moment of waiting and looking, Draco gave up and simply got the cat food from the cupboard. Only a second after he filled up her bowls with some of the food and water, his cat made her way from Merlin knows where to him with a slightly upturned snout. “Ahh, I see how it is. Never too important for food, I get it.”

Quietly smiling to himself he crouched down to pat Cassiopeia gently. For a few minutes she tolerated this, even graced him with one of her rare purrs, before she had enough and went back to her secret hiding spot. “Ah, well”, Draco muttered while preparing his tea and putting it under a stasis charm, “I´ll take what I can get.”

By the time he was done getting ready and sat down in his favourite armchair with a cup of tea, the dreaded darkness had lifted and made room for something even more delightful – grey skies. “Of bloody course. Merlin, I hate winter.” Draco muttered again. As if the weather was only waiting for you to get depression.

His mood got better though when he stepped out of his flat´s building and it started snowing. If he squinted, he could even see some sun shining through the thick layer of clouds. Since he was a kid he always felt a childlike kind of glee whenever he saw the beautiful and unique little snowflakes. Smiling, he held out his hand to catch a few of them, looking at all their various shapes and watching them slowly melt against his warm skin. I guess I´ll take the longer route today, he thought. Of course he´d only do that to enjoy the snow a bit more, not because he wanted to avoid planning his mission with Potter as long as possible. He´d never do that, he was a professional.

At least that´s what he kept telling himself, as he walked through the park instead of picking the shorter way along the street, getting closer and closer to the apparition point that´d take him to his workplace.

Before he apparated though, he took another short moment to gather himself. Sighing, he looked up into the sky, watching how the different sized snowflakes slowly made their way down to him, to quietly sit on this clothes, his skin, his eyelashes.

He remembered a snow storm, years, ages ago, when he had run out of the Manor into his parents´ garden. His father had scolded him harshly because Draco had behaved “not good enough” for his liking when a friend of his had visited for dinner the night before. His tears hadn´t even had a chance to properly dry on his skin before they were swept away from to hundreds over hundreds of snowflakes whirling around him. When he had lifted his head to look up, the snowflakes were racing towards his face in a mesmerizing way. It had felt like he was flying. But not like when he was actually on a broom, it had felt more like he was… levitating. After a while of just standing there and looking, he had lost all sense of his body existing on the ground, unsure if the snowflakes where going down or if he was going up. Pure wonder had filled his then small body, he hadn´t even noticed when he stopped crying. The next thing he remembered was his mother, frantically wrapping a thick and warm blanket around him and bringing him back inside. It may have been years since that one morning, but the feeling of wonder had never quite diminished.

Draco blinked, coming back to the present. He shook his head a few times to focus again and a second later, he finally apparated to his Auror department where he got the needed documents. Afterwards, he made his way to the meeting point, an office used for situations like this when different departments worked together on a case.

He expected Potter to be there already, seeing as he was already a few minutes late, but when he opened the office door, he was only greeted with silence. “Not surprising.” he couldn´t help but say.

At least that way he had the time to get himself a cup of coffee. When Potter finally walked into the office, he had gone through most of the files and half of his cup.

“You´re late.”, he said.

“Yeah, no shit.”, was his casual answer. What a dick.

Without saying anything else, Potter just sat down and started working on his own files concerning the curse.

After a while of working side by side in silence, he glanced up at Draco and asked: “So? Found anything out yet?”

Draco huffed. “Nothing I haven´t already known. Apart from the fact that Felix felicis is hard to brew, it also contains especially one incredibly rare ingredient, Occamy eggshells. You don´t simply find those around every other corner. Our culprit somehow has to have them supplied to them. Though I don´t know how, yet.”

Potter nodded. “It´s similar for the curse. To be honest, I don´t even know how they got knowledge of the Sectumsempra curse seeing that Snape invented it. I mean, sure, he probably shared the incantation with others, especially Death Eaters, but that´s just an assumption. And it gets even more tricky considering the fact that I´ve only witnessed the curse very few times.”

This time, Draco couldn´t conceal his flinch. “What a euphemistic way of saying you used the curse yourself. You don´t have to remind me, I got a few souvenirs from this particular encounter.”

Potter had at least the courtesy to look slightly guilty. Then he glanced back at his files. “Anyways, what I´m trying to say is that I also got no clue how to find this person...yet.”

Draco rubbed his face and sighed. “Yes, I was afraid you´d say that.” He glared into Potter´s impossibly green eyes, cursing Robards, the mission and his bad luck. He felt his mood turning sour again.

“It seems this will take longer than expected.”

25 days of Draco and Harry Writing Challenge

Title: I'm just gonna keep on waiting Underneath the mistletoe

Author: mental_escalation (me :))

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Chapter: 1/25

Word Count: 1160 and ongoing

Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: Draco is less than thrilled when he finds out him and Harry Potter have to work together on a case to stop a maniac from further hurting innocent wizards and witches.

He´s even more annoyed upon hearing that their culprit is mailing packages containing curses for the naughty and potions for the nice - as a Christmas grouch, he really doesn´t need a Santa Clause wannabe forcing him to have anything more to do with Christmas than he absolutely has to.

And when Potter has the genius idea that they act as a couple to properly investigate the potential culprit´s hometown, he´s completely at his wits end.

He just hopes he´ll make it to New Year´s with his sanity still intact.

Notes: Sooo, as this is my first time writing fanfiction ever I figured - why not join a writing challenge, that way I have a deadline. It definitely helped and I´m happy with what I´ve come up so far (yes, I´m not fully done yet, proper time management was never my strong suit).

I also put each chapter´s individual prompt in the end notes if anyone´s curious.

Anyways, I just hope that whoever stumbles upon my words will have as much fun reading this as I had writing it.

Happy reading and a have lovely Christmas time!

The title is a verse from Mariah Carey´s "All I Want for Christmas Is You"

First chapter´s under the cut :)

Capter 1) Cup of Coffee on Wrought Iron Table

“You´ve got to be kidding me.”, was the first sentence that left Draco´s lips when he came into Robards´ office and saw who else was sitting there.

Harry Potter looked like he´d just had the same thought.

“Come on, Auror Malfoy, get yourself together, come in and close the door. I´ve got important information concerning you two.”, Robards said with a stern look. Potter silently raised one eyebrow as to challenge him to actually come in.

After a moment of glaring back, Draco sighed and relented. While he closed the door and walked to Robards´ desk to sit next to Potter, he couldn´t help but think about how wonderfully his day had started. He´d put on his favourite green and navy tartan trousers, had listened to some classical music while going through the Prophet´s latest abominations and Cassiopeia had even snuggled with him a bit. In fact, she had been oh so generous this morning and purred when he scratched her behind her ears.

How horrible could a day get when your usually more than moody cat suddenly was pliant and loving?

Really horrible apparently, according to the plans Robards had just presented to him and Potter.

“You want to do what”, Potter exclaimed incredulously.

“I don´t want, Auror Potter, I am partnering you and Auror Malfoy up for a new mission.”, Robards answered calmly. His expression made it obvious he had expected him and Potter to not be happy about this.

“But we´re working in completely different departments, we never work on cases together! Why us?”, Draco interjected.

“I´d usually agree with you, Auror Malfoy,”, Robards conceded, “but as our recent information suggests, someone managed to commit a series of crimes that needs both your expertise – and as you are the respective tops of your departments, I am partnering you up.”

Potter furrowed his brows. “What did they do?“

“Well, “, Robards answered, “according to the information we have at the moment, it is someone who targets both pureblood and Muggle-born wizards and witches. Though there is a distinct difference: Purebloods received a curse so bad that every single one of them was admitted to St. Mungo´s – that´s your area, Auror Potter.”

“Do you know what kind of curse was used?”, Potter asked.

Robards nodded. “Yes, it was fairly obvious seeing the wounds the curse inflicted. It´s the Sectumsempra curse – rare and hard to track.”

Draco tensed up after hearing the curse´s name, then frowned. “Wait, so what am I doing here?”, he questioned.

“Patience, Auror Malfoy, I wasn´t done yet. Muggle-borns received a potion that instantly got absorbed by their skin. As of now every potion has been identified as Felix felicis – your area, Auror Malfoy – but they also all ended up in the hospital.”

Potter frowned confused. “If they got Felix felicis, how were they injured.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Really, Potter, didn´t you listen at all back in school? This potion is extremely hard to brew and even if you do everything correctly, there´s still the factor of six months the Felix felicis has to stew before usage. You strictly have to comply or it all goes wrong. So, the real question is How could they not have been injured?”

Potter glared at him, then turned to Robards again. “So, if they both got completely different things, how where you able to make a connection?”

“Well, it started about two weeks ago. At first it was simply suspicious that both the ´curse-´ and ´potion-caused injuries´ wards reported a significant increase in patients. When we asked the victims what they remembered shortly before the incident, all of them reported getting a small package in their mail and, upon opening their respective packages, eventually finding themselves at St. Mungo´s. When we examined the boxes we found both types to be in the same style, so most likely from the same person. They also all contained a card with the same handwriting reading either “You have been naughty” in the curse boxes or “You have been nice” in the potion boxes.” 

Draco´s eyes widened. “Wait…so like Santa Clause?!”, he exclaimed incredulously. Potter threw him a surprised look. “You know who Santa Clause is?”, he asked. Draco rolled his eyes. “Yes Potter, I know who one of the most famous fictional characters of the western world is. I even knew about him before I read up on Muggle culture.”

At that, Potter´s surprise seemed to increase more. “You what?”

“Gentlemen,”, Robards cleared his throat to get both their attention back, “I think this is neither the time nor the place to discuss such inanities. I believe I´ve told you everything you need to know for now, files with all our current information will be given to you tomorrow morning. I expect you two to do your best solving this case without any incidents due to your past rivalry. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir.” He and Potter both said at once.

After they exited Robards´ office, Potter scowled at him. “I think neither of us is thrilled we have to do this together so let´s just try to solve this quickly. I really don´t want to spend any more time with you than is strictly necessary.”

“Likewise.”, Draco replied coldly and they parted ways.

To try and cure his mood from being more sour than a lemon, he decided to stop by his favourite café. It was located only a few blocks away from the ministry in Muggle London. That way he didn´t have to be stressed someone would recognize and spontaneously hex him. That never was fun.

When he arrived, he was happy to find the café nearly empty. It´s not that Draco didn´t like people, that would certainly be disadvantageous in his line of work. It´s just that especially when he already was in a bad mood, all the loud and annoying noises people naturally made would simply become too much for him.

The barista, Hannah, recognized him upon entering and asked him smiling “The usual?”

Draco nodded and sat down on one of the white wrought-iron patio tables scattered around the room. There he contemplated today´s events until Hannah brought him his regular order and tore him out of his thoughts.

She looked slightly concerned. “Is everything alright?”

He quickly nodded, not wanting her to worry about nothing. “Yeah, I´m good. Just a busy day.”

Hannah smiled sympathetically. “I totally get it. Hope you´ll be able to wind off here a little.” And with that she turned around and walked back to the counter. He watched her for a minute, then glanced back to his cup of coffee.

After he took a long sip, Draco closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.

Merlin, what did he get himself into?