It was the day before Christmas and Ginny realized they had no tree.

Really, they didn’t have much of anything, and their money went towards existing until one of them could get a good job, and they had no idea how to deal with being a family yet, and...

But it was Christmas! There would be no fairy lights, no chocolate fudge, no Christmas jumpers, no gnome on the tree, no brothers to laugh with, no mother to tell her not to eat the food yet, no father to smile and talk about muggles with. They should at least have a tree!

And... maybe ornaments if they could?

As the streets were more and more filled with colourful lights and decorations, the more their flat looked grey and dull. Weren’t first Christmas supposed to be magical?

Ginny looked on the ground where Malfoy had decided to spend his day, bored out of his mind, she wondered if he felt the same, if he missed his parents and Christmas with them, if he also wanted to reach for a comforting hand that wouldn’t arrive. It wouldn’t be too difficult to imagine that he’d be missing some fancy gala with the best food and Christmas ornaments made of gold, or whatever rich wizards did to pass the holidays, rather than sharing his spot on the ground with a curious toddler that would occasionally hit him with his only plush toy.

Considering how he used to scream at being left with Draco, she considered that an improvement.

“You are just going to let him?” he had noticed her looking and she thought it just made it funnier, he raised his eyebrow but this show of dignity was ruined by another hit.

Ginny smiled and leaned forward on her spot on the couch “We should buy a tree.”

“With what money?” he scowled at her.

“It’s our first Christmas, we should have a tree!” she exclaimed jumping from the couch and Harry turned towards her, curious at the noise.

Draco decided to just ignore her and close his eyes, block the Weasley when she had one of her ideas seemed like the best option. Only, Ginny refused to be ignored and, instead, poked him in the ribs.

“What?!”

He always looked just a little wrong when he was mad, twitching in contained anger, less than the perfect Malfoy he had been at Hogwarts, she had never noticed that back then, he had always looked haughty in his new pristine clothing and she thought he looked stupid, when mad he was less guarded and it just made her want to do it again.

“It’s Christmas! Not even you can be so nonchalant about it!” she grinned and he sat down huffing.

“Why not?” he asked annoyed but it did nothing to damper her enthusiasm “The only fun about it were the presents and I’m not getting any, so”

“Really, nothing fun about Christmas for you?” Ginny asked in disbelief.

“Our family... my father,” Draco started, eyes glazing “He used the holidays for networking, it was never really much fun.”

Draco didn’t understand why talking about his father came so difficult lately, he wanted to believe the bitterness he felt was only of missing him and that any displeasure was solely on being time-displaced, refused to look further than that.

“Wow,” she laughed “sounds even more boring than I thought”

He rolled his eyes, ready to ignore her again but she stopped him again.

“What now?” his irritation growing.

“We need a tree,” she said, looking intently in his eyes, the soft brown hues making him uncomfortable.

“I doubt they have any we can pay,” he said but got up nevertheless, maybe once he returned empty-handed she’d calm down.

Draco walked towards the door and had grabbed his jacket when he heard Ginny talking to Harry.

“This way we can start our own traditions, as a family”

It stopped him mid-dressing, the way she so casually spoke of them like that.

She, that had once pointed her wand at him, she, that had always stood for everything he hated, she, that had every reason to hate him. She hadn’t forgiven him, he knew that, but somehow that knowledge made it worse, they had so much left unsaid, feelings they buried to stay together by chance and by choice. It felt like a denial of sorts.

What kind of family were they supposed to be like this?

Her audacity turned him bitter and, unsure of what made him so mad about it, he lashed out.

“Weasley,” and when she looked at him, he told her “We are not a family.”

The closing of the door felt like a slap, the sound almost too loud in her mind she didn’t even hear Harry calling her, instead falling back on the couch.

The most unexpected was the fact that it hurt.

Ginny didn’t see that coming, they both had cringed and bemoaned their pretend relationship, she enjoyed seeing him angry and she loved to watch him struggle with the muggle world and how to behave with Harry, they weren’t in love and much less friends, it made sense that it didn’t make them family.

But she hurt nonetheless.

Ginny was glad he had gone, she wasn’t sure what she would have done, scream? Thrown something at him? She couldn’t hex him after all. And it gave her time to think, dig inside of her and finally think about how she felt.

Since arriving in the past she had decided that playing nice and hiding away their past to avoid true conflict was best, every scathing word, every remark, every action, all things she had refused to look at in almost two months. The scene in the store had brought back some of it but the rest had stayed in their corner, afraid of the light.

Now she had to confront the fact that the person living with her was Draco Malfoy, a different name didn’t make him into a different person, he was proud of his family even when his father tormented those under him, he had accepted the dark mark and was a Death Eater, she couldn’t just throw it aside.

Because she was still Ginny Weasley, she was part of the family he had insulted and made fun of, she was there when he made life impossible for her brother and she was there when he brought the Death Eaters into Hogwarts.

Their conflict had always been personal, to deny to look at those facts she also refused herself the chance to move forward.

She had to start at their beginning, she couldn’t blame either of them for their father’s feud, in all honesty, even before meeting him, her opinion of Draco had been made years before, her father had always spoken badly of the Malfoys and she hadn’t ever thought that their son would be different, and with Lucius Malfoy being so different from Arthur Weasley, it was no surprise that Draco had thought the same before ever meeting them.

She could blame him for what he’d done after meeting them, choosing to ridicule based on status alone, they were both children, if he’d reached out she was sure things could’ve been different, but to Draco Malfoy only one opinion had mattered then, that of Lucius Malfoy.

Was it then, Lucius’s fault for leading his son in that direction? When did the blame fall on Lucius and when did it fall on Draco?

Perhaps the answer was that easy, maybe she could have really forgiven him everything.
But she had not forgotten the tower, nor the hurt he brought with those actions.

Ginny had never asked him about it, or even asked herself, why he did what he did that night. It was clearly an order from Voldemort and he had spent a year trying to complete it, almost killing in his journey, did he even regret it? Or were they all just casualties for him?

No matter how she tried to put it, she couldn’t imagine a place at Voldemort table was that important, even for him, but then again, Lucius hadn’t cared about hurt any of them when they were at the Ministry, could she really believe Draco was the same?

There was where she got stuck, after all he’d done, she couldn’t believe Draco was like his father.

For the first time, without having to be Malfoy or Weasley, she had seen Draco, the person that refused to let her go when she wanted to go after Voldemort, the person that had chosen to stay with her and Harry, the person that was now living in the midst of everything he was taught to hate, for them.

How was she to interpret his confusing behaviour?

What was she supposed to do when, as she realized, all she wanted now was to learn more about that person she had never tried to know before, Ginny wasn’t sure how to deal with their past or what it meant for their future.

She felt a hand on her leg, coming back to the present and noticing Harry again.

“Oh! Sorry Harry!” she picked him up, checking to see if he wasn’t hurt and relaxing again when she was sure he was okay, smiling as usual. She sighed “What do you think I should do Harry?”

His green eyes looked at her confused, not really knowing what she asked of him.

“Yeah, thought so...”

After all, only she could answer that question.

***

Draco took a deep breath, staring at the door unsure.

Freezing seemed a better option than an angry Weasley, he wasn’t sure she wouldn’t just hex him, uncaring of the consequences, and even if that wasn’t it, he didn’t want to see how she’d lash out.

After the way he left, Draco feared for his life.

As it is, however, he wasn’t ready to die in the cold so he forced himself to open the door, the Weasleys had all been a furious bunch and he expected screaming on the other side, maybe something like a Howler, either way, he entered the flat cautiously.

“You’re back...”

But his reception was nothing of the sort.

Ginny stood by the couch, holding Harry, with a subdued expression and shadows he couldn’t read, her eyes almost tried to avoid him, as if he was something she wanted to hide from. He hated that more than the screaming, he could see her retreating from him, not physically, the person he’d known for the past two months hiding away.

Draco supposed that should’ve made him happy, Weasley didn’t want to play pretend-happy-family anymore and they could be more as they were back in Hogwarts, more distant perhaps, he barely even knew her anyway, why’d he care? No more levity and complicated shared laughter, no more messing with each other, no more questioning, they weren’t a family and much less friends.

But it still hurt.

Draco frowned and extended his arm, revealing the small plastic tree he bought, it was supposed to be an ornament for a real one, but “This is the best I could find on Christmas Eve”

Taking it from him, her smile didn’t reach her eyes but she thanked him nonetheless.

“Weasley --”

A knock on the door distracted them.

When he opened the door, Mrs. Rees friendly face appeared, behind her a man in his late twenties pushing a stroller and a blonde woman at his side.

“Were you about to go out?” Mrs. Rees asked worried she’d interrupted them.

“No, just came back” he offered a forced smile, his feelings still too conflicted for more than that.

Ginny appeared at his side then, much more relaxed now that there was someone as buffer between them, that offended him a little, he wasn’t the irrational one, damn weasel.

“Please come in, we don’t have much but it’s better than the cold” she smiled.

They thanked her and entered the now much more cramped flat.

“So you two are the Hewitts my mum has talked about so much” Benjamin Rees smiled and shook their hands in turn.

“She has talked about you too” Ginny smiled, she was fond of Mrs. Rees rambling after all.

“Hope it was good” Gwen Rees also shook their hands but looked at them with worry after “You two look much younger than I thought, how old are you?”

Draco shrugged “I’m sixteen” the two adults paled as he imagined, he knew they’d receive that kind of look from then on, he tried to not let it bother him.

“So young, and Harry is even a year old already, I’m twenty-seven, can’t imagine going through this so soon” Gwen seemed horrified but he chose to ignore it.

Ginny instead decided to introduce Harry to Daisy, the toddler being completely unimpressed, laughing she asked “What are you doing here today? I thought you would spend Christmas at home”

“Well, we were going to” Benjamin smiled “But mum was restless, couldn’t imagine you three spending Christmas alone, so we decided to come all, the things you do for family, really”

The man shrugged and missed the way their façade fell for a moment, unable to confront each other with so many people around.

“And!” exclaimed Mrs. Rees resolute “Next Christmas we will bring you a good Christmas tree!”

Hours later Mrs. Rees, her son and his family were talking on the couch, Harry delighting the three with his babbling, Mrs. Rees even jokingly said that it was a good practice for Benjamin to know how to deal with a toddler considering how unprepared he’d been with Daisy, a joke that he took in good-spirit and laughed alongside them.

But Ginny was instead focused on the window and Draco wondered if she was thinking about her family, then reprimanded himself, of course she’d be thinking of them. Her eyes dark, the light not quite reaching that window, he wondered if maybe now, they would be able to talk.

When he got closer her eyes shifted, turning to the plastic tree from before, eyes glazed.

Standing at her side he couldn’t bring himself to talk, to begin that conversation, words dying as soon as he thought them, and when she looked at him, he gave up on talking entirely.

Her hand reached his, holding it for a moment she whispered:

“Merry Christmas Malfoy”

Before joining Mrs. Rees again, leaving him colder than before.