Chapter Text
The brass peacock adorning the clock on the desk squawks nine o’clock.
Draco, surprised by the late hour, savagely strikes through an entire paragraph with red ink and adds the last parchment to a stack of essays—all abysmal, to be sure—submitted by his Fifth Year students. Students who, thanks to his brilliant tutelage, should know the level of excellence he expects. Obviously, quite a bit more instruction will be required, but Draco is confident he will have them up to snuff by the Easter hols.
He makes a note to assign additional inches of parchment tomorrow.
Draco straightens his desk, tapping his wand to align essays with the desk’s edge and the quills with the parchment. He sends his tea service to the Hogwarts kitchens and with a wand flick extinguishes the wall torches, plunging the room into blue-black darkness. Clumps of snow falling outside the window throw shadows over the moonlit desk and dot the sliver of pale light slashing Snape’s portrait hanging on the opposite wall.
Snape snores gently, slumped in his chair having exhausted himself earlier lamenting that his view of the Forbidden Forest had been intentionally obscured by smoke curling from the chimney of Hagrid’s hut. And while a completely valid point, it was a tirade the likes of which Draco hasn’t witnessed since the hiring four months ago of the wild-haired, bespectacled, annoying Care of Magical Creatures Professor now residing in said hut.
The office door swings shut behind Draco as he exits the room, and he frowns. An evergreen wreath adorned with a gauche red satin bow has been attached to the outside of his door. A wand swish seals his office to his magical signature and a satisfying backslash Vanishes the wreath. Again.
“I say, you there!” Professor Binns’ ghostly head emerges from the stone wall opposite Draco’s office. “I do declare,” he says, floating free and circling Draco with a frown, “the students are getting taller each year, you’re practically a man! What are you doing in my office anyway?”
Draco smirks. “Nicking the answers to the history exam, of course.”
Binns sputters through his moustache. “Now, see here you rogue—”
“I prefer rapscallion,” Draco says, a lift to his chin.
Binns shimmers with indignation. “Twenty points from Slytherin for cheating! And stealing my wreath!”
“The wreath was an abomination.” Draco waves a dismissive hand. “And I haven’t cheated, Professor. I wrote the bloody exam.” He rolls his eyes and sends the red tinsel garlands swagged over the paintings lining the corridor slithering off into the shadows.
He can still hear Binns huffing and puffing as he exits the History of Magic corridor.
* * *
If asked, Draco would say that he prefers Hogwarts unadorned, un-decorated, un-garnished.
Not that he spends time making small talk with the other Professors, if he can help it. But should he engage in social discourse he would magnanimously provide sage advice, offering the three words surfacing in his mind as he makes his way through hallways decidedly adorned, decorated and garnished.
Less is more.
Draco rounds a corner and catches a group of Seventh Year boys loitering in the cloister surrounding the courtyard now blanketed with snow. At this time of night, the younger students are already tucked away in their dormitories, but the older students take advantage of the extended curfew afforded by the privilege of age.
The boys catch sight of Draco too late and snap to attention, snuffing out contraband Muggle smokes and straightening ties, both red and green. Draco Vanishes more tinsel garlands dangling from the rafters—Merlin, the bloody stuff is everywhere—as he sweeps past the boys.
“Ten points from Gryffindor,” he says smugly, summoning the cigarettes and tucking them away into his pocket.
A muttered fuck has the corner of Draco’s lips curling as he passes through another doorway.
The chance encounter puts a spring in his step and he practically skips down a long corridor lined with suits of armour charmed to sing Christmas carols. He silences each one with a dramatic flourish of his wand. Peeves rockets out of the last, upending the armour with a clang, mouth open in a silent yell, barrelling off and knocking down another group of students.
Without breaking stride, he descends a set of stairs. The tinsel garland wrapped around the bannisters disappears with each step of his brogues on the stones. He pauses and affects a casual lean while the staircase conveys him across the space to the opposite vestibule. With an arching overhead sweep of Draco’s wand, a cluster of enormous, disgustingly-bright baubles hovering near the ceiling implode into oblivion with a loud pop. A startled cry from a small party of gentlewizards in a nearby winter landscape brings a smile to his lips.
Contrary to popular belief and current behaviour aside, Draco enjoys Christmas. Some of his fondest early childhood memories are set against the backdrop of one of many tastefully decorated, towering Nordmann Firs felled in Malfoy Manor’s South Woods.
Keyword: tastefully.
Draco is still smiling as he passes through an arched doorway marking the entrance to the newly constructed wing housing the Professor's living quarters, his magic rippling as he passes through the admittance veil. A few steps through the short entrance hall and Draco arrives at a large circular foyer lined with doors. A round marble-topped table with ornately carved legs—lion, snake, badger, raven—sits in the center of the room.
And atop it sits a ridiculous life-size nutcracker figure.
His smile fades.
“Good evening, Professor Malfoy,” the nutcracker intones, his wooden teeth clacking distastefully. “Would you care to hear a Christmas carol—”
Draco suppresses a shudder and swipes his wand. Instantly, the nutcracker transfigures to a large arrangement of white calla lilies anchored in red berries filling a Waterford crystal vase. He inhales the sweet fragrance, his shoulder blades relaxing down his back only to clench up at the sound of jangling bells.
He points his wand at a swag of oversized silver bells hanging from a candy-cane striped bow on one of the doors, itching to banish them yet again but he’s already pushing his luck with the nutcracker. A Silencing Spell will have to do.
The door to the left opens before he can freeze the tiny sugarplum fairies buzzing and humming around a poinsettia wreath.
“Evening, Malfoy!” Neville says jovially, emerging from his quarters. He’s wearing an absurd fuzzy Santa hat.
Draco hides his wand behind his back. “Longbottom.”
Neville motions to the flowers. “What happened to the nutcracker? I was teaching him The Twelve Days of Christmas . He was up to day five.”
“You do realize that this table is a Chippendale.”
Neville blinks blankly, the dolt.
Draco grits his teeth. “This gorgeous antique was crafted by the legendary Ravenclaw, Thomas Chippendale. It should not suffer the indignity of supporting a singing nutcracker.”
Neville shakes his head, the bell in the pom tip of his hat jingling. He shrugs. “Well, the calla lilies are lovely, too. Maybe I can teach them to sing as well!” He ignores Draco’s blanched face, attention captured by the silent bells on the adjacent door. “Ah, look! I think Wilson’s bells must have a glitch. This is the third time this week they’ve gone silent.” He sets them to rights and smiles at Draco brightly. “I’m off to choir practice. Care to join?”
Draco bares his teeth in what he hopes is an approximation of a smile. “No, that’s quite alright.”
Neville laughs. “Well, you’ll get an earful at the Christmas feast besides!”
“Brilliant,” Draco says flatly. He makes a mental note to later weigh the pros of Hogwarts’ Christmas figgy pudding against the cons of a Longbottom serenade to decide whether he’ll skip the Feast altogether.
Neville lopes away, humming to himself. Draco waits until Longbottom exits through the archway and once again silences the infernal bells before opening his own barren door. Inside, copper lanterns ignite and flames leap to life in the black marble fireplace, illuminating the sleek, modern interior, one of the last Hogwarts bastions still blissfully free from garish holiday trappings.
Draco sends his robes to hang on the coat hook, pausing only for a moment in the small kitchenette. On the black granite island, like a pimple on the smooth surface, house-elves have set a silver tray of iced Christmas biscuits.
Draco wrinkles his nose and Vanishes the lot.
He enters his study, reveling in the comfort of neatly aligned books and charcoal leather, magical photographs the only color on the shelves. His mother smiles at him serenely from one black frame, and Pansy flips him two fingers while Blaise laughs from another. A quick glance at the Spinner’s End painting beside the secretary informs him that Snape, thankfully, still slumbers in his office. He pours himself two fingers of Scottish whisky from a mirrored bar cart, and heads to his bedchambers.
He’s undressing when he hears it—a muffled squeaking.
Cautiously, he spells open his bureau drawer. Nestled amongst his cashmere, making itself an untidy little nest, is a small hedgehog. Snowflakes still cling to its quills, quivering with excited snuffles and snagging on dampened wool.
Draco clicks his tongue and pulls on a jumper, summoning his Burberry coat and punching his arms into the sleeves. He levitates the rodent, cashmere nest and all, out of the drawer. Beady eyes gaze up at him, and a black nose twitches. He glowers.
“Potter,” he growls.