Work Text:
On the 26th of December, Draco and Harry celebrate their own private Christmas day.
The 25th is for family—it’s for gifts, and Weasley shenanigans, and spoiling the Weasley kids as well as Teddy rotten. It’s for big meals, fancy clothes, loud conversations and a little bit of wine.
But on the 26th, after a long night of sleep and a lazy late morning spent on the couch, the atmosphere of Grimmauld Place begins to shift as all the candles in the house make their yearly return from the back of drawers and cupboards. As a great, complex blanket fort begins to take shape between the sofas, its structure increasingly complex as the years go by.
By the time the sun goes down, Draco and Harry have managed to fill a giant tray with freshly-baked treacle tart and mince pies—with a Yule log, and whatever treats and crisps they’ve chosen to stack for the occasion. They’ve managed to choose just two or three movies out of the twenty they’ve been meaning to watch, they’ve changed into their fluffiest pyjamas and put on woollen socks for the occasion.
The interior of the blanket fort is big enough for them to sit and move comfortably, and yet it’s snug—it’s cosy, and warm, and safe. Draco sets his iPad against a cushion; Harry places the tray on a tiny conjured table, and once everything is ready, illuminated only by the flickering lights of the safely burning candles outside the fort, Draco brings Harry close to him, and Harry drapes a leg over Draco’s, and fingers twine and lips brush, and crumbs hide in the folds of their pyjamas as the hours go by. And sometimes they manage to vanish the empty tray and the table, to put away the iPad before falling asleep, and sometimes they don’t. But the morning always finds them the same: curled against each other, limbs tangled, breaths mingled, and the scent of baked goods, of candles, merging subtly with their own.