"I'm not going," Draco said stubbornly.

"Well, fine, don't go, then," Harry said as he pulled on his nicest pair of trousers. "But it's Christmas Eve and I'm not staying here with you and Cat and Sirius's mum, watching the clocks tick. I'm going."

"You can't leave me alone on Christmas, Potter," Draco whined, following Harry out of his bedroom and over to the staircase.

"I can, and I will," Harry said, jogging down the stairs.

"But..."

"Listen, maybe you shouldn't come anyway," Harry said off-handedly, stopping to straighten the burgundy Christmas tree Draco had charmed to not drop needles and glimmer brightly twenty-four seven. "It is Ron and Hermione's party."

Draco huffed at him. "What are you implying?"

Harry grinned. "Nothing, Malfoy. Just hang around here and drink yourself into a stupor, I should be back around midnight."

"This is that stupid Muggle thing, isn't it? Reverse psychology? I'm not falling for it."

"Then I'll see you later," Harry said, strolling toward the front door. Wait for it, he thought to himself as he placed his hand on the knob.

"All right, all right!" Draco spluttered, hurrying after him.

Harry gave him a very un-Harry-ish smirk. "Coming, then?"

-

"Just don't start anything with anyone and it'll be fine."

"It will not," Draco snarled. "You are feeding me to the lions, Potter, you are literally feeding me to the lions."

"I really don't think you know what that word means," Harry said as they walked up to the building of Ron and Hermione's flat. "Also, you haven't stopped talking the entire way here."

"We Apparated, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Maybe it felt longer because you were being such a git," Harry said, laughing. "Come on."

They Apparated outside of the door of 478 and Harry rang the doorbell.

"HARRY!"

Harry disappeared under a flying blur of long red hair and denim. When Ginny finally let go of him, she squealed, "It's been so long!"

"Yes, yeah, yes it has been," Harry said, pulling off his jacket and shooting a grin at Draco.

Draco looked back at him with an eyebrow quirk that said 'they're your Weasleys' and skulked in through the apartment door Ginny had left open.

Ginny grabbed Harry by the wrist. "Come on, you need a drink."

She dragged him through the foyer. "Harry's here!" she called.

There was a general cheerful uproar from the crowd, that sort of good-natured drunken call to arms. Someone who might have been Seamus Finnigan yelled, "Get him a drink!"

A Christmas tree was blinking in the corner. Harry barely got a look at it before Ginny had pulled him into the kitchen.

"Take your pick," she said, gesturing at a counter covered in various alcoholic beverages. "Not the blue stuff, no one's quite sure what that is, Fred and George brought it and they've been trying to get Neville to drink some all night..."

"Speak of the devil," Harry said as George wandered into the brightly lit little kitchen.

"You brought Malfoy?" George said, laughing loudly as he gave Harry a friendly slug on the shoulder.

"Er, yeah," Harry said. "Why?"

"Bit of an odd thing to do," Fred said as he walked in behind George. "Everyone's too plastered to notice, though. Neville try the blue stuff yet?"

"No," Ginny said.

"Damn."

A few girls in the corner of the kitchen who Harry didn't recognize burst into giggles suddenly. One of them turned around and looked at Harry, wild-eyed, and then turned back to her friend.

"Who the hell?" Harry said as Ginny handed him a drink. "Thanks."

"Ginny raided her year," Fred said. "Word of mouth is a tricky thing. He's off in the corner brooding exquisitely."

"Who?"

"Your Slytherin."

"Ah, yeah, him. Well," Harry said, setting down his drink, "I think I'll go... join the party. By the way, Ginny, why are you dressed up like a Muggle?"

"These?" Ginny said, gesturing at her jeans and black top. "It's completely ace to look like a Muggle right now," she said. "Some post-war fad. I think it's your doing."

"Isn't everything?" Harry said with a laugh as he returned to the living room.

"So I tells him, I says," Mundungus Fletcher was saying to the room at large, "if you want her, by all means, take 'er, but I'm getting me money back one way or another!"

Everyone burst into laughter. Harry looked at Ron and mouthed, "Mundungus?"

Ron shrugged in a way that Harry took to mean Fred and George were involved.

"Harry," Hermione said, tapping him on the arm.

"Hermione!"

"How are you?"

"I'm doing all right, you?"

"Managing," Hermione replied, brushing her hair away from her face. "And how's your... home life?"

"Fantastic."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm happy for you, Harry," she said, smiling weakly at him. "I'm sorry, it's just... work is a mess, and you know..."

"I do," Harry said, hugging her. "Don't worry about me, okay? I'm moving on. We're all moving on."

She smiled wanly at him. "Trying, at least."

"C'est la vie," he replied.

Hermione shot him an odd look.

"Sorry, been spending too much time with Malfoy," Harry said, tipping his wand to the edge of his glass and watching as it refilled itself.

"Speaking of which," Draco said, appearing behind him.

Harry started in alarm. "That's a terrible habit of yours," he grumbled.

"Granger," Draco said curtly.

"Hello," Hermione said. "If you'll excuse me, I think Neville is choking on his own tongue," she said, and fled the room, pulling her wand out as she went.

"He drank the blue stuff, I reckon," Harry said as Draco slid an arm around his waist. "Er, what are you doing?"

"What? We're in a dark corner, Potter, good God, are you that ashamed of me?"

"No, of course not, you're just not usually this forward," Harry said.

"Speaking of forward," Draco said as Ginny walked by Dean and he patted her ass.

The two of them watched in amusement as Ginny wheeled around and brandished her wand, threatening to do rather painful-sounding things with it to various parts of Dean's body.

"Drunk," Draco proclaimed.

"Wasn't Blaise hosting a Christmas Eve party? Why didn't you go there?"

"I've got a better idea, why don't you go to the nearest opium den and order a lap dance?"

"Do they even have those anymore? And what does that have to do with Blaise?" Harry replied, amused.

"That's what his parties are like."

"Oh."

Draco tightened his grip on Harry's waist. "Ditch the Gryffindors, Potter," he whispered in Harry's ear.

"Are you just going to proposition me or will you at least make a case for yourself, Malfoy?"

"Here's the case," Draco said. "They're a bunch of drunken assholes --"

Neville stumbled back into the room, red-faced. Hermione followed shortly, looking triumphant.

"-- I'm horny, and bored, and tipsy, and Weasley keeps looking at me like he wants to hit me, and I bruise easily."

"Let's hang around a few more minutes," Harry said. "Seamus just started a game of strip Exploding Snap. You won't be bored for long."

-

"I'm drunk now," Draco moaned. His left arm was slung across Harry's shoulders and he was clutching the front of Harry's cloak with his right, with his face buried in his shoulder.

"Yes, I had realized," Harry said. "Fuck, I'm drunk too. Which way is Grimmauld Place again?"

"Over there," Draco said, gesturing vaguely.

They were taking a short-cut through the park across from Ron and Hermione's flat, and the moonlight was filtering through the trees. They were dead and bare from the bitter London winter, but thick enough to provide a sort of canopy as the two of them headed up the slowly turning cobblestone path.

"I haven't been here before," Harry said, shivering even in his cloak, which was charmed to adjust its temperature. They had only recently figured out how to transfer the charm to clothes and Harry had shelled out a handsome sum for the cloak when it had first appeared in stores. Of course, the price was much lower now.

C'est la vie.

A young Muggle couple riding in a horse-drawn carriage clopped by. Draco snorted in their general direction.

"Father promised once," Draco murmured, "that he would buy me a horse-drawn carriage, and a person to operate it."

"I'm assuming that didn't happen," Harry said, "which is good, because I think Cat is enough."

"Just been thinking about things like that," Draco said quietly, "lately. Hold on, I need to sit down, the world is tilting."

They stumbled in tandem over to a park bench and sat down.

Draco dropped his head into Harry's lap. Harry absent-mindedly brushed Draco's blonde hair away from his face.

"Your jaw is sharp," Harry said, jiggling his leg.

Draco's grey eyes stared out into the darkness. Somewhere, Christmas carols were being sung off-key.

"World still tilting?"

"Yes, but it's okay," Draco muttered. "I like this kind of tilting."

"I've been thinking too," Harry said, "but you know I don't like to do things half-assed, so I wanted to know what I was talking about..."

"And," Draco muttered.

"I can't really picture being old and doddery with anyone but you."

"What are you getting at," Draco said, turning onto his back so he was looking up at Harry.

Harry hesistated. "Someday..."

"Someday..."

"Someday I'd like to ask you to spend the rest of your life with... me," Harry said.

The wind moved the trees, making soft noises above their heads. Black against midnight blue.

"Oh, Potter," Draco laughed.

"What?"

"Well, what do you think I'm going to say?"

"I don't know, it was sort of a yes or no question --"

"It was never a yes or no question," Draco said. "It's a yes. It's not a question, Potter."

Harry grinned. "Happy Christmas, Malfoy."

Draco sat up and kissed him. "Whatever."

"I hope you don't mind, but all I got you was a pair of socks," Harry said as they stood up.

"I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to kill you now," Draco muttered as he stumbled to his feet.

As they walked off into the night, Harry took off his cloak.

"Aren't you freezing?" Draco said, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Not anymore."

-

A/N: WOW, this is late! Sorry! After school started it was one thing after another.

I hope to get up the next few ficlets in Warped into Time at some point soon, and maybe a post-JoM one-shot (possible setting: Ron and Hermione's wedding). If you have any ideas of what you'd like to see, please feel free to suggest them to me! ;)