The 12 Days of Christmas or a HarryDraco Fairytale

hieisdragoness18: yes..some nice, easy flirting ;)

A/N: Am I doing that poorly? When I check the responses, I find only one! Tell me--is it so horrible??

On the eighth day...

Harry put an extra scoop of coffee in the pot, needing the caffeine. He had slept the night before, but it hadn't been restful. He had tossed and turned the whole night, dreaming about what he wanted to do to Draco and having brief nightmares about the possibility that Draco was only using him.

His instincts, which he admitted might not be 100% correct, were telling him to trust Draco and trust that the other boy was the same one who had been unable to kill Dumbledore. That just maybe Draco had been changed by the events following his father's incarceration after fifth-year.

"Have a bad night, Harry?" Draco asked as he took a sip of the coffee.

Harry half shrugged. "Sort of."

Draco chuckled and dug into the eggs which had been put under a warming charm when Harry had made his own. "I can tell. I've never had coffee that strong. I thought only Americans made it that way."

Harry laughed and put his head in his hand as he watched the other wizard eat. He had to admit--Draco did look graceful no matter what he did. "At least I didn't make it as strong as the French do."

Draco nodded. "They do like a strong cup." He took another sip. "When did you get to visit France, if I may ask?"

"Shortly after the war," Harry replied. "The reporters and public kept hounding me for what had happened when I went out with Ron and Hermione in what should have been our seventh-year. Even after I got a restraining order against most of them. So, Hermione found a strong glamour for me and I left for Paris in the middle of the night. It was a welcome escape. I stayed there for a couple of months."

"Until everyone was suddenly interested in who was being locked up," Draco finished. "I remember hearing about it. The only thing in the paper was about you and your life. What they found out anyway. And then, it was only about who was on trial that day or week."

"Wait, what?" Harry asked as he put the cup down. "What about my life did they print?"

Draco studied Harry as he explained. "They never found out anything about your life before Hogwarts, but they did several interviews with the students who went to Hogwarts when you were there."

Harry let out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding. "Good."

Draco put his fork down. "Why does it matter?"

Harry got up and put his cup in the sink. "Nothing important. I'm going to go get the sheets I got yesterday. I washed them when I woke up this morning. Let me know when you're ready to tackle those doxies."

"No problem," Draco called to him.

Harry ignored the tiny kernel of guilt that had suddenly popped into his chest. He didn't have anything to be guilty about. It wasn't like Draco should know. And it didn't matter, really. He just didn't want the general wizarding population to know about his past. He might've been the person who killed Voldemort, but he didn't need sympathy from strangers. That was all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After Harry finished putting in the next load of sheets in the washer, setting others in to dry, and folding the ones which had dried, he went to the kitchen and found the dishes from breakfast had been done. Draco was at the table with a cup of liquid, reading the paper.

"Ready?" Harry asked.

Draco looked up and nodded. "Sure. Can I ask what kind of sheets you got?"

"Nothing horrendous," Harry said. "Molly--Mrs. Weasley--had wanted to go with me some years back, to get some." He shivered. "She said maybe some nice floral ones, to lighten up the rooms. I'm glad I waited."

Draco laughed. "Still--what colours?"

"A lot of dark colours," Harry said. "I'm no good at matching colours so I made sure to match the sheets and curtains. Make one room one colour and so on."

Draco sighed and shook his head. "I should've expected no less."

"If you think you can match them together, you can," Harry said. "It's just that I'm pants at that sort of thing."

"Did you get some rugs, too?" Draco asked. "Or did you want to go with just the bare wood?"

"I was going to," Harry said, rubbing the back of his neck, "but the shop didn't have just plain rugs. I didn't know where to start."

Draco bit his lip. "If you want, you can order some catalogs and I'll see what would be best."

Harry, for some reason he didn't know, felt warm at the idea of Draco picking out something to go in the house. He told himself not to let the feeling colour his checks, but he just knew they were pink. "I'll see what I can do about those catalogs, then. It'd be nice to have something. Not wall-to-wall. I like the wood floors, but it'd be nice to have something on them."

Draco smiled and Harry was caught off-guard by the honesty there. It also made Draco look younger, like before he had been haunted by Voldemort's task and made the other man's face light up. "No problem, Harry. I think we can figure out something that isn't floral or tacky."

Harry laughed. "We can only hope so."

"So, the doxies then?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took them all morning to get rid of the last doxy and call for Kreacher to take them out. After they had lunch, Harry showed Draco the sheets he had picked up.

"These are good colours, Harry," Draco remarked. "Good quality, too. I'm impressed."

Harry blushed, thinking back to yesterday when he had considered what Draco had grown up with in his choice of quality. "I ran out of colours because of the number of rooms so I had to get different shades."

Draco nodded to himself. "The curtains look good, too."

Harry didn't know why he felt proud when he heard that. "So we just need to clean the last of dust and dirt and grime from the rooms and we can put these in."

"And then we start on that library," Draco said, smiling at Harry again.

Harry felt something warm in his belly and butterflies in his chest. "Or the living room."

Draco shook his head. "No, the library. There's a couple of cursed objects in there and the sooner you can get them to the ministry, the better."

Harry nodded as he considered that. "Since I cleaned out the upstairs of any objects, why don't we go through the library and get them all to the ministry by tomorrow?"

Draco looked surprised. "A real plan then? You keep amazing me!"

Harry laughed. "I'm full of those. Let me get the last bag I've got so we can do that."

Draco did that honest smile again. "I just knew we would work well together."

"Imagine what Snape would have thought," Harry said quietly, lost in his thoughts.

That smile faltered, but never faded. "Probably have a heart attack."

"Well, let's get to it," Harry mumbled, wishing he had never brought up the subject of their former Potions teacher.

Draco walked by him, their hands brushing against each other. "Imagine what your friends will think, too."

Harry laughed.