The club closed completely on Christmas Eve in order to throw a party for the staff and all of the Pleiades, who found sparkling beaded gowns in their armoires and black boxes filled with heavy, decadent jewels waiting on their vanities. Each outfit was styled perfectly for their personalities, the best colors for their skin and hair, their height and curves and everything was paired with expensive black leather heels at least three inches high. Hermione's dress was a deep wine red with jet black jewels dripping like rain down the front of the bodice, sleeves off the shoulder, the ankle length skirt dragging dramatically behind her in a short train.Two black leather cuffs with silver clasps and a thick silver choker were her jewelry and she wondered if the other girls' pieces were just as suggestive.
They weren't.
Draco greeted them at the entrance to the dining room where they enjoyed a four-course dinner with bottomless champagne out of enchanted crystal flutes. Before they even got to dessert, Hermione was feeling warm and tingly, her eyelids a bit heavy but her smile still genuine. Draco wore a black tuxedo with a diamond pin in the lapel, making toasts to each of them from his spot at the head of the table, his spirits high as he made jokes about each of their favorite customers, their 'special skills' that kept them in demand, or some specific spicy or filthy memory from the past year; each of his stories leaving them all howling with laughter.
"And what about Hermione?" Leanna asked, leaning back in her chair with a sly smile on her face, swirling the bubbly in her glass. A few of the other girls lowered their heads, giggling into their own champagne.
"What about her?" Draco shot back, his eyes burning into Dove's from across the room but keeping his voice light. Everyone fell silent and Leanna set her glass down while Hermione stared into her lap. "She's our newest little star and while she hasn't quite found her...rhythm yet...I'm sure we'll have her on her back with some regularity soon enough to find out where her expertise lies. Let's just say that as of now...the reviews are still out."
The table burst into appreciative laughter and he raised a glass to his little Sparrow, nodding at the look of relief on her face.
Once dinner was over they all stayed up late playing Christmas songs on the piano and drinking far too much. Draco took up residence behind the bar and mixed Shattered Dragons for everyone, taking this one opportunity to serve them, presenting the drinks in heavy cut crystal highballs on shining silver trays. They played ancient wizarding parlor games, Draco transfiguring apples into mystery trinkets that needed to be guessed from behind blindfolds, or changing something on the Christmas Tree and seeing who could discover it first. Everyone was happy and gracious. Even the girls who had whispered behind her back or tried to humiliate her at dinner gave Hermione drunken hugs and well wishes for the coming year. For a few precious hours they were all the same, the pureblood and the muggleborn, prisoner and jailer, the stars and their guardian.
After half of a bottle of Champagne, Sarah took her aside and admitted to admiring her when she was growing up, to being awed by her bravery, her brilliance, how she fought to the very end in a war that the rest of them had given up on. She refused to be brought down. She talked about Harry and Ron's deaths as if they were episodes of a television show or scenes from a book she'd read and Hermione suddenly felt as if someone were stepping on her throat, her breath tight in her lungs. She could remember standing on the battlefield in Surrey, stepping over bodies and seeing the shock of red hair, seeing Ron lying in the mud, his face so peaceful, as if he were only sleeping. Ron and Harry had died. They had died in the cold and rain, swallowing blood and mud and tears, fighting for witches like Hermione. And Hermione lived. She lived and by some strange twist of fate, her punishment for surviving was to live in the lap of luxury, warm from the brutal winter cold, a full belly, swathed in silk and weighed down by jewels, fucking millionaire purebloods for money while thousands of muggleborn wizards and witches were dying in the streets. The glittering lights and bright Christmas decorations blurred before her as her eyes filled with tears that she tried to blink away. When Sarah noticed that her smile had faltered, she sat down beside her and took her hand in hers.
"It won't always be like this," Sarah said quietly. "We just have to survive for now, right? We won't always need him. But you could be suffering under the thumb of worse people, no? We won't always be here, hiding who we are."
"Out there I was helping people," Hermione said, swiping two fingers across her damp cheeks. "I was arrested for embezzling money. I used it to pay for potions and food, rent...not for me...for others, my friends' parents and grandparents...now they have no one...I was"
A burst of laughter and applause from the other side of the room caught their attention and the two girls looked up to see Draco with a blindfold over his eyes, being spun in a circle by two of the other girls. He stumbled and wavered on his feet, his arms outstretched as he tried to snatch the little Santa Claus figure hovering in the air in front of him. Even as he failed in his task, his smile was wide, his whole demeanor relaxed with his tie loose and the first buttons of his shirt undone. His pale cheeks were flushed pink from the champagne and the fire.
"I think you're here to help someone else," Sarah said, patting Hermione's back before standing up to join the others.
Draco stood up and tapped a silver spoon against his glass to get everyone's attention.
"Time for bed," he said, raising his glass. His words were just beginning to slur. "Don't forget to hang up your fishnet stockings. Santa likes to leave rewards for good girls."
He winked at Hermione, who rolled her eyes but still smiled at him. There was something infectious about this Draco...a bit tipsy and paternal, a light behind his eyes that she didn't see at any other time. Christmas was another way for him to detach, to gloss over the cracked surface of his life with champagne and parties and gifts and pretend they were all somewhere else...someone else...that they were in a different world. She rubbed her hand over the brand on her arm and watched as he made his rounds about the room kissing each girl on the cheek, accepting hugs and words of thanks. None of these girls knew him before. They'd never seen the sneering, bitter name-calling or hateful bigotry he'd displayed in school. He still wore a shroud of darkness, a short temper and sharp tongue, but in this room he was a benefactor, a prince, a hero. In this world he was good.
Perhaps he wasn't locking them into the mansion.
Perhaps he was locking everything else in the world out.
On Christmas morning she found a small green box outside her room wrapped in a silver ribbon. It tugged at her heart to see his old house colors represented, the remnants of a tradition that didn't exist anymore, a world that didn't exist. The small white tag was handwritten in an elegant, narrow script.
Happy Christmas Granger.
Hope this brings you good memories of times past.
-DM
Nestled in black velvet inside the box was a pristine copy of Hogwarts - A History. With tears filling her eyes, she ran her fingers over the embossed leather cover and gold script title. The spine crackled as she opened the cover to read his inscription. "To Hermione, who already had it memorized...Christmas 2008. Draco"
Most of Hogwarts had been destroyed in the war, but a few classes after Hermione's had managed to graduate with a skeleton staff, doing their best to keep the traditions alive amidst the rubble and ruin. Eventually, the Puritan Wizards (as Voldemort named them) grew tired of seeing halfbloods and muggleborns treated with any modicum of respect, never mind the audacity of being granted an education and Hogwarts was closed altogether, the castle razed to the ground, burying a thousand years of history along with it. Any mention of the school was met with punishment and all known copies of Hogwarts - A History were ceremoniously burned in front of Voldemort's mansion. Bookstores, libraries, antiquities dealers were all threatened with fire, imprisonment and violence if they kept even a single copy of the book. Filling the hearts and minds of the impure with hope for a better life, reminding them of the idyllic past, reminding them of Harry Potter, simply could not be allowed.
The Death Eaters that had attacked Grimmauld Place had found Hermione's treasured copy hidden in the walls of the house and had charged her with possession of contraband, a mark on her record that would make it nearly impossible to gain employment after the war. Back then she hadn't worried about such things. Back then she'd been sure that the right side would win. The three masked men had held her and Ron with their arms behind their backs, laughing at her tears as each one of them took turns pissing on the cover before burning it to white ash with a sickly green flame.
Her heart bursting with memories, Hermione flipped through the pages to her favorite chapter – the history of the castle libraries – her tears dotting the paper as she read the familiar words for the first time in years. It was a painful sort of nostalgia, calling up faces of dead friends, the wizards she'd considered family, the professors who had shaped her values, instilled her confidence and shored up her strength. Before long she was crying too hard to read the words at all. Placing the book back in its velvet nest, she put the entire box on her nightstand, the gift tag from Malfoy marking her place within the pages. It was only noon but she was drained, her heart heavy, and she curled onto her side and cried herself to sleep.
Draco ate too much at the annual Christmas breakfast and after accepting thanks from all of the girls but the one he'd woken up to see, he retreated to his room where a small pile of boxes and scrolls were stacked on his desk; the owl deliveries that had come in over the past few days that he'd put off opening. The members always sent heartfelt messages of undying appreciation at Christmas thinking it would be a unique way to worm their way into his inner circle, gaining better access to the girls, but also to Malfoy's connections with the rest of the pureblood underworld, illegal potions, muggleborn slaves, plants and creatures sold on the black market. He knew how to find them all. Some of them went so far as to send bottles of his favorite scotch or a rare wine or gaudy, excessive tie tacks and cufflinks; prettily decorated bribes.
One of the red boxes with a white satin bow held two delicate glass vials with gold tiger head caps. The sparkling green liquid within was Feast of Liber, a notorious "endurance potion" that guaranteed it would "leave your partner begging for more even after hours of participating in the love act". The small note inside indicated it was from none other than Nott.
At this festive season of the year Mr. Scrooge, I hope you'll set aside our little unpleasantness and give an old school chum another crack at your prize mare.
With Ever Enduring Affection,
Theodore
Draco rolled his eyes and tossed the box in with the others while reaching for the next, a small silver square with a wine colored ribbon and the telltale M monogram he'd seen plastered everywhere since his birth. Inside was an ornate diamond and onyx cloak pin meant for his dress robes. It sparkled in the firelight and he felt his throat tightening as he read the note enclosed.
"My heart,
I think of you every day when I walk past your suite in the east wing of the manor. You must know that I haven't changed a thing in your room, haven't moved a book or shoe or broom..it's just as you left it, waiting for your return. Although I know it can't be true, I swear that I can still smell your hair on your pillow and sometimes that's all that gets me through the day. You are all that I love in this world. You are the only reason I still live. Wherever this owl finds you I hope that you are safe and happy and cared for. I hope that amongst the villains and unsavory people you've chosen over your family, your blood, I hope that someone is giving you the love that I can't show you. Please let me know that you are well. I miss you. I love you.
He loves you too. I know he does. You inherited your stubborn, tightly closed heart from him, but I can see through the hard armor that both of you wear.
Mother."
He barked out an incredulous laugh at his mother's insistence that his father still harbored the tiniest inkling of feeling for him. She was brainwashed, naïve, living a in a dream world where he was still a six year old boy needing help lacing his shoes. She was frail and broken...and he'd contributed to most of the damage. He was the one who revealed the location of his father's battalion to the Order, who spoke against him at the Wizengamot...something that wasn't forgotten even after the Ministry fell and Lucius was released from Azkaban. Draco had proved himself unworthy of being a Malfoy, a traitor to purebloods and Narcissa had had to watch every moment of her family torn in two.
He crumpled her parchment in his hand, the edges of the thick paper digging painfully into his palm as his eyes began to sting. Sniffing up tears he refused to allow, Draco swept his arm across the top of his desk, sending scrolls and books and packages flying, quills and bottles of ink rattling across the floor, the black liquid staining the stones and seeping into the grout between. An involuntary growl rumbled from his lips as he picked up the box from Theo and threw it towards the fire, taking sick pleasure in hearing the crystal bottles shatter, the potion hissing as it bubbled on the stone hearth. Still it wasn't enough; his heart hammering against his ribs with a boiling combination of pain and rage. Something strained under his skin, screaming to be released.
"Draco?"
And there she stood in the doorway, her hand still on the knob as she hesitated on the threshold in her bare feet. She was so soft, dressed all in cream colored satin. The sunlight behind her outlined her in a gold glow, her hair down, curling over her shoulders. Pure. Clean. The rage roared inside him, the beast rattling its cage. Its what the beast inside him did. It stained. It bruised. It destroyed. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip.
"Close the door," he said, through gritted teeth, moving to pour himself a drink, steadying his hand as he gripped the glass.
"Are you OK? I was coming to thank you for the..."
"Stop talking," he said, turning back to face her, draining his glass in one gulp. She stood before him, still in the sunlight so he could see the outline of her body beneath the thin fabric; the slope of her hip, the curve of her breast. At the sound of his command she dropped her hands to her sides, her eyes lowered. The sight of her so demure, so humble, heated the blood in his veins. He set his glass down and crossed his arms over his chest.
"Strip."