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Day 1
It arrived on December 1. The seductive nature of It and everything it stood for tricked Draco. He allowed It entry to their home, not realizing the consequences.
Day 3
No matter which room of the manor he sat in, Draco Malfoy could still feel It staring at him.
For the second time in his life, he was forced by the two people he loved to play host to something pure evil.
Hermione had promised it would not be for long, just a few weeks. Harry thought it was brilliant. Draco was loathe to admit he had not realized what he was getting into.
“This situation is even worse than when Blaise went through that stage of referring to our family as the ‘Gramalpots’,” Draco muttered under his breath, appraising the beady-eyed thing over the lip of his tumbler of firewhisky. The kids were in bed, allowing the adults to speak freely about It.
Harry raised a brow. “Worse than him altering your business cards so they all had Gramalpot in place of Malfoy?”
Pausing to take a sip from his drink, Draco gave the idea some thought before he nodded.
“Worse than the fact you’d given the cards out to dozens of people before you realized the last name had been changed?” Hermione pressed, smirking.
“Perhaps not that bad,” Draco conceded. “Nonetheless, the creepy bastard needs to go. I never agreed to house this... creature.”
For three days now, It had been quietly living with his family, watching their every move.
“You agreed to certain conditions when we married you,” Hermione scolded him, “and this is one of them. Stop being a drama queen.”
Harry had the gall to snort. “House elves actually do watch us day and night. You do realize the hypocrisy of your statement, right?”
“First of all, I agreed to integrating some Muggle traditions with my family’s. I did not agree to this.” Draco’s lips formed a thin line, as he clenched his jaw. “And why the hell is its name Ralph? Real elves have normal names, like Twig and Snuffles.”
Two pops sounded nearly simultaneously, and a pair of house elves stood before them. He darted a look at Hermione and found her scowling. She hated it when he asked too much of their elves. Calling them needlessly late at night would qualify.
“Never mind. My mistake,” he hastily told the elves. “Please, go back to whatever it was you were doing.” When the two elves disappeared, after giving him a strange look, he calculated that the best thing to do in the situation was resume his argument against allowing the new addition to stay, thereby, hopefully keeping Hermione distracted from his faux pas.
He turned back to Harry and said, “No matter its name, the point is, I do not believe this constitutes learning about and assimilating Muggle holiday customs into my life.”
Completely disregarding his genuine distress over the whole situation, Harry and Hermione broke into laughter.
“Merlin Draco, it’s your son who named it.”
Narrowing his eyes, Draco regarded the other man standing before him. It was late at night, and he had perhaps had one too many glasses of Firewhisky, causing his surreal feelings. That did not mean his musings were not important.
“For two days now I have thought of little outside the parasite, and it being Scorpius who named him. It was after he suggested the name that I began to worry about the possibility that having not just one, but two Gryffindor influences, versus my lone Slytherin influence over our son would be problematic. You do realize I may end up with my son being the first Malfoy in Hogwarts’ history who gets sorted somewhere other than Slytherin?”
“You got that from the name Ralph?”
Day 8 - early morning
“I’m telling you, the reason it didn’t move is because one of you touched it. One of you touched it, and now all three of you are going to deal with the consequences.”
Three sets of forlorn eyes stared at him. Heads shook in denial, but Draco was having none of it.
“When your mother and dad left town, they warned you not to touch it. Touching it could poison it and he wouldn’t be able to use his very special magic anymore. How am I going to tell them you may have stolen Cappy’s magic?”
“Ralph, father! His name is Ralph.”
“Don’t interrupt me, Scorpius,” Draco admonished his son. Sweeping his eyes over the other two children, he gave them both an equally hard stare. James stubbornly maintained eye contact, but Helena’s eyes were on her feet. “I suggest you all go to bed early tonight to see if that will show Saint Nicholas you’re sorry, and then Cappy’s magic may be restored.”
As soon as his back was turned, Draco heard each of them begin angrily accusing the other two of being the culprit.
Day 8 - later that night
“Did you forget to move the elf while we were gone last night, Draco?” Hermione stood in their kitchen, hands on hips.
“Perhaps…”
Day 10
Hermione stood holding The Abomination, waiting for Harry to speak.
“We could… I don’t know. Maybe put it within the branches of the tree, with a whole bunch of tinsel around his neck. The tinsel would be the only thing stopping him from falling off the tree. He was being naughty, getting a close look at one of the breakable ornaments and he fell. It’s kind of funny because the elf is supposed to be the one making sure our kids aren’t being naughty, but he is actually the naughty one. And, as a bonus, it’s a lesson to our kids not to get too close to the tree at the same time,” Harry said, pushing his glasses up his nose and shrugging sheepishly.
Salazar, those Muggles who raised Harry did a number on him, Draco thought. Out loud he answered, “Magic can mend any ornaments they break. I don’t think it’s a great idea to let our kids believe being fatally hung would match the crime.”
Hermione rolled her eyes at him.
Harry grimaced. “I’m bollocks at this. Stop asking me for ideas.”
“This is exactly why you need me,” Draco announced, turning in a slow circle to appraise the room with a critical eye. Nothing caught his eye, but perhaps they were in the wrong room. He snapped his fingers and turned on his heel. Making the assumption the other two would follow, Draco sauntered toward the hall. “You both lack a true appreciation for what magic can do. You’re still limited by Muggle constraints.”
Day 12
What the bloody hell was I thinking? Draco was once again holding the red-clad devil and walking through the house, searching for inspiration. For the past two days, Hermione had placed the elf in his hands. It did not soothe him in the least that she had declared him to be much better at this than she was.
Day 14
The screams erupted just following lunch. Hermione and Harry were ushering the kids into the back yard, all properly bundled up for a romp in the snow. Cappy hung just outside the door that day. It had taken nearly two hours for the kids to discover him there. It was Helena who had suggested, “Mummy, use a Point-Me!” with an impatient stomp of her little foot.
Draco had charmed the elf’s suit from red to blue, and insisted that their actual elf had to visit his ill grandmother, so Jack Frost had come in his stead. Using Aguamenti and a freezing charm, he had created and suspended crystals in the air around Cappy.
The distressed cries were because Harry had accidentally knocked the elf down when they all piled outside too quickly, bumping into each other in the rush.
James was the first to yell out. “Dad, no! Father told us that the elf only got one extra life. You’ve killed it for real this time.”
“He didn’t kill our elf, Jamie!” Helena consoled her brother. “He killed the other guy.”
“No, it was ours,” Scorpius insisted. “Father just changed his color.”
Draco narrowed his eyes at the child. Did he even have a single sneaky bone in his body?
Slobbery cries continued to pour out from James, while little Helena looked back and forth between her brothers. Scorpius stood fast, not willing to admit he was wrong. Tears welled up in her blue eyes, and her bottom lip quivered. Draco was about to take pity on the poor little cherub, admitting the entire charade, when Hermione swooped in.
“Your father,” she began, picking up Helena, who immediately burrowed her face into the crook of Hermione’s neck, “didn’t tell you the entire truth. That was indeed Ralph,” she told them, using the elf’s non-name, “but we didn’t change his clothes for him. He used his own magic to try to fool you. He is such a mischievous little guy. But, he is able to come back again. We will just have to complete a special ritual.”
“Will there be a pentagram?” James asked, wiping snot off his face with the back of a glove.
Harry snorted.
“Ohhh! I bet we could light a fire inside the stones,” Scorpius joined in on guessing.
The look Draco gave his eldest son froze the smile on the boy’s face.
Helena picked her head up off of Hermione’s shoulder. Draco marveled at the instant change in demeanor, although the red splotches on her face meant her previous distress had not been fake. “Mummy, can we chant?” she earnestly asked Hermione.
“Oh, yes, we will definitely be chanting. Your dad and your father know exactly what to do. We’ll learn it from them,” Hermione announced, sending a smirk over the girl’s head, making sure to catch both his and Harry’s eyes.
Draco caught Harry narrowing his eyes right back at Hermione.
For the next few minutes, Draco participated just the minimum amount, letting Harry take charge, making sure he did not upset either of the sides in this battle of wits. He wondered how long it would take for Hermione to break and declare enough of the rubbish Harry was coming up with.
He sang the nonsense Harry spouted, and grabbed Hermione to yank her into his side when Harry commanded him to do so. He spun her around, and did crazy hops next to her, performing whatever Harry commanded. All the while, Hermione still held Helena, who was giggling like a mad hatter. Soon, he could not hold in his chuckles any longer and matched his daughter’s mirth.
Harry made sure to include the boys in the very important task of restoring the elf’s magic. Draco suspected most of the words were part of some Muggle nursery rhyme. “Double, double, toil, and trouble!” Scorpius and James chanted in unison.
Finally giving in to the inevitable, Draco slyly slid a hand into his trouser pocket, touching his wand to help with a nonverbal spell. A loud fizzing noise sounded as the crystals melted away and Cappy’s attire changed from frosty blue to bright red.
“Ralph!” Helena clapped with glee.
Day 15
In the early morning half-light, Draco stood admiring his handiwork. The three little hooligans were not awake yet. He had set up the ensemble the previous night, but had wanted to see it again with the soft light of dawn coming through the conservatory windows.
Faeries, transfigured from serviettes, twirled around the potted plants which were kept growing in the airy room year-round. Holiday music played in the background. The faeries dipped and bowed in time with the selection Draco had charmed to continuously play. Their wings caught the rays of light filtering into the room, causing sparkles and shadows to weave around the greenery. And in the middle of it all was the elf, being passed from partner to partner in mid-air, each faerie taking her turn.
Day 16
Draco should have felt relieved when Hermione refused to hand him the elf the next night. This was not supposed to be his job. I don’t even like the bloody elf, he reminded himself.
Watching Hermione coax their two Crups to sit still while she charmed them to look like miniature unicorns was vastly amusing. When one kicked her in the shin with its sharp little hooves, he huffed a quiet laugh. Served her right.
It was not quite as funny when the little wankers began chasing each other, and he ended up with a small gouge in his thigh from a horn. Quickly altering the spell, Hermione changed the texture of the Crup’s glowing horns.
“It will feel more like getting hit with a pillow,” she explained when she finished.
Once she had them settled back down again, Hermione sat the elf upon one’s back, using a sticking jinx to hold him in place.
From the moment she awoke, until the moment they forced her to bed that day, Helena followed the Crups-turned-unicorns around their house, cooing and talking to them in whispers, lest she scare them away. It took all of her three parents’ combined coaxing and pleading to even get her to sit down for meals.
When finally Hermione smoothed the blankets one last time over her daughter and gave her a final goodnight kiss on the forehead, Helena broke down and begged, “Please mummy, can’t you and dad and father find a way to stop Ralph from turning the Crups back to themselves? I promise to be good - better than I have ever been before. I promise!”
Draco stood leaning against the bedroom doorway, watching the scene with a small amount of sadness. He was not finding it quite so amusing at all now, and vowed to himself that Hermione would no longer be in charge of the elf.
Day 17
Draco should have also vowed that Harry would no longer be allowed to be in charge of the elf. He was absolutely pants at it. As if the idea of stringing up Cappy, like a sacrifice on their tree, hadn’t been enough of a tip-off, the scene that met Draco’s eyes the next morning was the nail in the coffin.
Allowing Hermione an early night, after the stress of the unicorns, which had unfortunately needed to be turned back into Crups despite their daughter’s pleading, Harry had volunteered to take a turn. The colossal mistake of trusting Harry would not be repeated after this disaster.
In the morning, James came moping into the master suite before any of his parents were up. “Dad,” he said, climbing up onto the large bed to perch on his knees by their feet, “why is Ralph so boring today? He was awesome yesterday.”
Slowly, Harry sat up, and rubbed the back of his neck. Draco watched as his husband’s ears turned pink. He groaned in disbelief, anticipating a poor outcome to whatever Harry had done with Cappy overnight.
At least Hermione had enough sense to keep up the ruse. “What do you mean, Jamie? Where is Ralph today? What mischief did he get up to this time?”
A flush suffused Harry’s neck, and Draco knew with certainty it was not going to be good. Merlin, the man was hapless at times.
“Father!” a voice yelled from down the hall. “Ralph’s sitting in my bathroom sink in a pile of marshmallows!”
Draco shook his head in disbelief.
Harry shrugged. “Maybe it’s his way of taking a bubble bath?”
Hermione covered her face to hide the laughter Draco could feel shaking their bed.
Day 20
“It’s a classic,” Hermione reassured Draco with a proud smile.
Slipping a warm hand into his, Harry gave Draco’s fingers a comforting squeeze. “It’s perfect. Your best one yet. Even if the kids didn’t get it, we did.”
Draco scoffed. The point had not been to impress his husband and wife. He had better ways to do that than to arrange a stupid doll. The point had been to impress his kids with the elf doing something very Muggle.
Moving in front of him, Hermione placed her hands on his cheeks, forcing his head to move until he was looking her straight in the eyes. “I love you, Draco Malfoy.” She stood on her tiptoes and moved her hands around his neck, lacing her fingers together, effectively pulling his mouth to hers.
With a tug on his hand, Harry reminded Draco he was there too. “You’re a good man, Draco Malfoy,” he told him, with a small hint of irony in his voice. “If we go to bed now, Hermione and I will be happy to show you how good we think you are,” Harry said with a sly grin. “I’m sure one of us can get up before the kids tomorrow to do something with the elf.”
An invitation like that should not be left standing, Draco decided. “Nox.”
The lights went dim, but the little figures of boys and girls, and a beagle, continued to skate in circles on the small pond set up in the foyer. Snow gently fell from above, melting as it hit the floor. Beside the ice rink sat the elf, watching over the skaters from behind a yellow box, set upside down like a table. A sign hung from the front of it declaring: The Doctor Is In.
Day 23
Tomorrow night was Christmas Eve. The torture would soon be over. Draco was sure the elf was now the only thing keeping the kids from ripping into the boxes that had been steadily piling up in anticipation of the holiday. No threats that came from any of their parents’ lips did a whit of good unless it carried the threat of telling the elf.
Between the three children, there were six godparents who sent packages each year via owl post. George Weasley made sure to never leave out an opportunity to send items which were sure to prank both parents and siblings alike. Luna Lovegood sent the dottiest presents, but no one had the heart to tell her so. However, it was Daphne Greengrass’ presents they always opened first. The statuesque blonde never had a wrinkle in her robes or a hair out of place, and she laughed off every attempt by a wizard to claim her hand, but she surprisingly attracted children like shiny objects drew Nifflers.
Cappy was their last line of defense against Scorpius convincing the younger two to sneak a peek at the three large boxes marked in neat script with their names from Daphne that year.
“Maybe there is a use for the blighter after all,” Draco told Blaise that afternoon when his friend stopped by with a case of champagne. He handed Blaise two brightly wrapped gifts, both under a stasis spell. Draco knew his friend would appreciate the foie gras and caviar.
“Does that mean you’ve changed your mind?”
Draco grimaced. “Salazar, no. The first toast with this will be Christmas morning, when we celebrate no more elf,” he said, holding aloft one of the bottles Blaise had brought.
Christmas morning
Draco dropped onto a sofa with a sigh, letting his head fall back. Grabbing her glass of champagne, Hermione cuddled up beside him. Harry continued to fuss with the piles of ribbon and foil scattered around their tall fir tree.
“Stop that and come sit with us,” Draco said, patting the empty spot on his other side. When Harry appeared set to ignore him, Draco picked up his wand and banished the mess.
“Aha!” Harry exclaimed, picking up a still-wrapped present that had been inadvertently hidden. “There’s one more gift for you, Scorpius. I knew we were missing one from me.”
As Scorpius hopped over the train tracks he had surrounded himself with, Hermione turned to look at Draco. “So, do you think Ralph will be back next year?”
The elf was safely tucked away for the next eleven months, leaving Draco feeling magnanimous. He whispered in her ear while Scorpius ripped into a box with Snitch-covered paper Draco did not recognize, “I still find the idea utterly disturbing, but I suppose Cappy is allowed to return.”
Triumphantly, Scorpius opened the lid and pulled out a beautiful wool hat. He held aloft the red and gold striped hat to show it to his mum.
“Oh, that will go perfectly with the scarf I’m knitting for you!” Hermione exclaimed.
It was then Draco fully realized he was living with two Slytherins disguised as Gryffindors. And their ultimate scheme was to bring down the Malfoy name in a way he would have never anticipated. Luckily, it was something he was happily a part of.