Archive of Our Own ^beta

Harry woke on Christmas morning to find a pear tree in his sitting room.

Not a decorative arrangement, mind you. Standing pretty proudly right in the middle of his room was an actual, fully grown pear tree, its roots wrapped in what looked suspiciously like dragon-hide sacking, positioned squarely between the sofa and the fireplace. Snow-white blossoms clustered improbably amongst dark green leaves, as though someone had talked to the tree and tricked it into growing like it was April rather than the dead of winter. 

Perched on one of the middle branches, looking equally confused about the situation, was a grey partridge.

Harry stood at the bottom of the stairs in his pants and a faded Chudley Cannons shirt, blinking. The partridge blinked back. It was quite a fat little thing, cute even, with delicate grey-brown plumage and rust-coloured stripes across its flanks, its beady eye fixed on him with what he could only interpret as accusation, as though he was the unreasonable party in this scenario.

"Right," – Said Harry to the empty room. Or to the bird. To himself, more likely. – "Right."

There was no card. No note tucked artfully amongst the branches, no ribbon tied round the trunk. Just tree, bird, and the faint scent of pears that shouldn't exist in December. Harry circled it slowly, looking for some clue as to which of his mates had developed this particularly mental sense of humour. Ron seemed the most likely candidate, considering how he'd been going on about Muggle Christmas traditions lately, something about Hermione making him watch “A Christmas Carol”. But Ron also couldn't keep a secret to save his life, and he'd seemed genuinely clueless when they'd exchanged gifts at the Burrow yesterday.

The partridge shifted on its branch. A single leaf drifted down.

"Don't suppose you can talk?" – Harry asked it.

The partridge, demonstrating more sense than he had, said nothing. Right. Such an intelligent question to raise.

Levitating the entire affair was tricky. 

The tree was heavier than it looked, and the partridge took exception to the movement, setting up an alarmed chittering that had Harry's neighbours' dog barking through the walls. He managed to wrestle it out the back door and into the garden, where it looked even more absurd planted in the frozen earth beside his rather pathetic vegetable patch. The partridge, released from its arboreal prison, hopped down onto the ground. 

It regarded the snow. It regarded Harry. 

Then it made a break for it, scuttling with surprising speed towards the gap in the fence.

"Oh for fuck's sake–"

Harry lunged. The partridge, demonstrating that its kind hadn't survived this long without some measure of cunning, dodged. It made it halfway down the street before Harry caught up with it, scooping the indignant bird up in both hands whilst Mrs Rosamund from number forty-seven watched from her window with undisguised fascination. The partridge attempted to peck him. Harry held it at arm's length the entire walk back, feeling spectacularly ridiculous.

Back inside, he deposited the bird in a hastily conjured crate (thank God for seventh-year Transfiguration) and went to put the kettle on. Probably just someone having a laugh. Probably nothing to worry about. He'd sort it out after he'd had a cup of tea and opened his actual presents, the ones that made sense, the ones that came in boxes with paper and bows like normal people used.

Except when he surveyed the pile beneath his tree – a proper Christmas tree, a normal one with tinsel and lights and no livestock – he realised with creeping dread that he was missing something. Ron's gift was there, an appalling jumper with an animated Hungarian Horntail that kept setting the knitted sheep on Hermione's scarf on fire. Hermione's was there, the poor scarf, yes, and a book on defensive theory that he'd actually wanted. Ginny, Luna, Neville, all accounted for.

No Draco.

Draco, who'd been insufferably smug for the past month about his gift being "something special". Draco, who'd kissed him goodbye at King's Cross and told him he wouldn't see him until after the holidays because of "family obligations", which was code for hiding at the Manor and pretending everything was fine. Draco, who sent an owl every other day without fail, who'd sent one yesterday morning with nothing but a drawing of a poorly rendered Christmas pudding and the words soon, Potter.

Harry looked at the partridge. The partridge looked at Harry.

"Oh, you absolute bastard.”

—

Boxing Day was, oh Merlin, such a double take.

Harry came downstairs to find not one but two pear trees bracketing his fireplace, a fresh partridge on each, plus two turtle doves cooing softly from the mantelpiece. His sitting room was beginning to resemble a particularly chaotic aviary. The doves, at least, seemed content to stay put, their soft grey plumage and the gentle sound they made almost pleasant if one ignored the context of their arrival.

He tried the Floo immediately. Stuck his head through to the green-tinged receiving room at Malfoy Manor and called Draco's name until his throat went hoarse, but the room remained stubbornly empty. No house-elf appeared to take a message (probably because he’s not that welcomed). No Draco materialised, looking irritatingly composed and ready to explain whatever this was.

Harry considered Apparating over there. Considered it seriously, standing in his kitchen with cold tea and growing dread. But that meant dealing with Lucius, who still looked at him like something he'd scraped off his shoe. Meant dealing with Narcissa, who was perfectly polite and perfectly terrifying and had a way of asking about his "intentions" that made him want to Apparate right into the sea. The war was over, blood purist bollocks was supposedly over, but some things were harder to shake than dark magic, and Sunday lunch at Malfoy Manor topped the list of things Harry would rather avoid.

Besides. This was… well. Draco had done daft things before. That time he'd tried to prove he understood Quidditch better than Harry by showing up to a Cannons match with a twelve-foot banner, or the incident with the peacock and the fountain. This was probably just another one of those things, just Draco being Draco, just…

Just thirty-six hours of radio silence and an increasing number of birds.

"It's fine." – Harry told the doves. – "He's just being dramatic. It's fine."

The doves continued cooing, and looked at him with those doe-eyes which were low-key telling him he was an idiot.

—

By the third day, Harry had three pear trees wedged into various corners, three partridges eyeing each other with territorial suspicion, four turtle doves, and three extremely loud French hens that had taken over his kitchen. The hens were just chickens, really – Draco had apparently acquired the fanciest breed he could find, with absurd ruffs of feathers round their necks – but they were aggressive chickens, and one had already pecked him twice whilst he tried to make breakfast.

Day four brought blackbirds. Four of them, sleek and glossy, with orange beaks and a tendency to sing at unholy hours. Common blackbirds, Harry's exhausted brain supplied, because he'd made the mistake of looking it up. Colly birds. Old English for black. Of course Draco would source period-accurate species for his deranged Christmas gesture.

Day five, though. Day five Harry had been dreading since he'd worked out the pattern.

Five gold rings turned out to be five ring-necked pheasants.

"Oh, thank Merlin." – Harry said, slumping against the doorframe as five spectacularly coloured birds strutted into his sitting room like they owned it. The males were gorgeous, he'd give them that. Russet and gold and green, with those distinctive white collar rings that Draco had clearly found hilarious. – "At least you're not going to traffic people."

"Sorry?" – said Hermione's voice behind him.

Harry turned to find her and Ron standing in his doorway, taking in the scene. Ron's mouth was already twitching. Hermione had her hand pressed to her face.

Oh, fucking great.

"The twelve days of Christmas." – Harry said flatly. – "He's doing the twelve days of Christmas."

"With actual birds," – Hermoine said, her voice strangled.

"With actual birds."

"Mate." – Ron surveyed the trees, the partridges sulking in their crate, the turtle doves on the bookshelf, the French hens that had commandeered the kitchen table, the blackbirds lining the curtain rod, the pheasants investigating the fireplace. – "Mate, this is the funniest thing I've ever seen."

"I'm so pleased you're enjoying my suffering."

"But why?" – Hermione asked, in the tone of someone genuinely trying to understand. A knowledge seeker, if you may call her. – "Why would he think this was a good idea?"

"Because he's Draco." 

Harry said, which wasn't really an explanation but was somehow the only explanation that mattered. 

"Because he probably saw the nursery rhyme in some Muggle book about Christmas and thought it was meant to be a literal tradition. Because he’s–" – He gestured helplessly at the menagerie. – "Because he's Draco."

Ron had wandered into the kitchen and was regarding the French hens with interest. 

"Mum would love these. Could roast them for Sunday dinner. We'd be doing you a favour, really–"

"No."

A silence.

"No?"

"It would hurt his feelings." 

Harry said, and immediately regretted it when Ron's face split into a grin that could only be described as evil.

"His feelings. Right. The feelings of the bloke who's turned your house into a petting zoo."

"Shut up."

"The bloke who can't be arsed to answer his Floo–"

"I said shut up."

Hermione was examining one of the pheasants, which tolerated her attention with regal indifference. 

"At least these are actually birds." – she said thoughtfully. – "I was worried about what he'd do for the rest of it. Maids a-milking, lords a-leaping. How exactly does one translate that into poultry?"

"Please don't give him ideas." – Harry told her. – "Please. I'm begging you."

But she was right to wonder. Over the next two days, Harry discovered exactly how creative Draco could be when properly motivated. 

Six geese a-laying appeared on day six. 

Actual greylag geese, honking and aggressive and laying eggs in corners Harry didn't even know his house had. 

Day seven brought swans. Seven mute swans that, despite their name, were anything but quiet, hissing and flapping and generally making everyone's life difficult. Harry had to enlarge the bathroom and fill the tub just to give them somewhere to swim.

"Did you know," – Harry said into the Floo that evening, calling through to the Burrow where he absolutely was not hiding from his own house, – "that unmarked swans belong to the Crown? I'm technically harbouring royal property. I could go to prison. Azkaban wasn't enough, apparently; now I'm going to get done by Muggle authorities for swan theft."

"You're not going to prison." – Ginny said, walking past with a drink in hand. She stopped. Backtracked. Peered at him through the flames. – "Wait. Why are you covered in feathers?"

"Don't ask."

"Are those tail feathers? Harry, those are definitely–" 

She stopped. Her face did something complicated. 

"Oh my Merlin. Is this the Malfoy thing? Ron said something about birds but I thought he was joking–"

"He's not joking. Nothing about this is a joke. This is my life now."

"What's your life now?" – George had appeared, drink in hand, grin already forming.

By the time Harry extracted himself from the Floo an hour later, the entire Weasley family knew. He arrived at the Burrow for New Year's Eve to find them all wearing suspiciously innocent expressions, right up until Ginny walked past and said:

"Nice feather, Harry. New fashion?"

"Where?" – Harry's hand went automatically to his hair.

"Made you look."

The entire kitchen erupted. Ron was actually crying with laughter, hanging onto the counter for support. George raised his glass in salute. 

"To Harry," – he announced, – "for having the questionable judgement to date a Malfoy. May you suffer appropriately."

"I hate all of you," – Harry informed them.

"No you don't," – Molly said, pulling him into a hug that smelled like cinnamon and treacle tart. – "But darling, why haven't you just told the boy to stop?"

Because the Floo at Malfoy Manor remained stubbornly unattended, was why. Because every owl Harry sent came back undelivered. Because Draco had apparently committed to whatever this was with the single-minded determination he usually reserved for academic competitions and grudges, and Harry was just supposed to sit here and take it like some kind of martyr to terrible gift-giving.

Day eight brought eight nightjars, nocturnal birds, naturally, because why would Draco make anything easy, that Draco had apparently decided qualified as "maids a-milking" through some logic only he understood. 

Day nine was nine cormorants for "ladies dancing", which had seemed like nonsense until Harry watched them at the conjured pond he'd been forced to add to his garden. During what he could only assume was some sort of mating ritual, they spread their wings and flapped them continuously, black feathers catching the light as they performed their courtship dance with unexpected grace. 

Absurdly funny to watch, if they were dancing on Discovery channel instead of his fucking garden.

Day ten. Ten grey herons for "lords a-leaping". Harry watched them stalk through his house on their improbably long legs, stabbing at nothing with their sharp beaks, and tried to remember why he'd fallen in love with Draco in the first place.

It wasn't the obvious things, God bless his unfortunate soul, definitely not the sharp cheekbones or the way he looked in Quidditch gear or even that cutting wit he wielded like a weapon. 

It was the hidden things. 

The way Draco had started leaving books on Harry's desk in Hogwarts years, ones he thought Harry might like, never saying a word about it. How he'd learned Harry's tea preferences without asking, and Harry's mug was always prepared exactly right when they studied together. The time Harry had been ill and found potions appearing on his nightstand – none of the standard hard-to-gulp Pepper-Up, but specifically brewed variants that wouldn't interact badly with his headache curse scar. Draco had researched that. Draco-you-all-are-lower-than-me-Malfoy, who pretended not to care about anything, had researched it.

The way he'd looked so terrified when Harry had finally cornered him in the Astronomy Tower and asked him outright what they were doing, this dance they'd been engaged in for months. The way his voice had gone quiet when he'd said, 

"I'm not good at this. At being what someone needs." 

The way Harry had kissed him anyway, and Draco had made this small, surprised sound before kissing back like Harry was something precious he was very afraid of breaching just by touching him.

Draco loved through details, remembering and noticing and never making a fuss about any of it; through acts of service disguised as coincidence.

Which meant this entire bird situation was probably Draco's deranged way of showing affection, and Harry was going to have to accept that he'd fallen in love with someone whose idea of romance involved agricultural regulations and potential swan theft.

Right now, though, watching a heron nearly take out his lamp, Harry wanted  to strangle him very badly. Affectionately. But strangle him nonetheless.

Day eleven was lapwings. Eleven of them, with their distinctive crests and sharp calls that sounded eerily like pipes.

“Eleven pipers piping.” – Harry muttered, watching them strut about. – “Of course.”

He’d read up on them out of sheer desperation for something to do besides manage an increasingly chaotic bird sanctuary. They were Ireland’s national bird. Endangered, too, which meant Draco had probably paid an obscene amount to acquire them legally (if he’d acquired them legally, that was). Given the Malfoy family’s exotic bird dealer – the same one who provided their peacocks, Harry had leant via an old Prophet article he’d dug up – anything was possible.

By this point, Harry had given up calling through the Floo, also had given up sending owls. He had simply resigned himself to whatever fresh hell the twelfth day would bring, because at least then it would be over, and then Draco would have to surface and explain himself, and Harry could–

Could what? He lay in bed on the night of January fourth, listening to the symphony of bird calls that had become the soundtrack of his life and tried to figure out what he actually wanted to say. Was he angrier at the chaos or at the silence? At the gift itself or the fact that Draco had thought this was romantic?

The worst part was that Harry – indeed, God blessed him again – found it a bit romantic, in a completely deranged, thoroughly impractical, absolutely Draco way. In his defense, all that effort and all that planning should count for something, should they not? The sheer commitment to a bit based on what had to be a fundamental misunderstanding of Muggle culture was silly, yes, but wasn’t that the love Draco offered into his hands? Harry could picture him so clearly, sitting int he Manor library, reading about Christmas traditions, coming across that daft song and thinking yes, this is perfect, Harry will love this.

Harry pulled his pillow over his face and screamed into it.

–

The morning of January fifth, Harry woke to silence. Blessed, beautiful silence, with no new rustling nor unfamiliar calls.

He came downstairs in his dressing gown, rarely daring to hope for the best, and found his sitting room exactly as chaotic as he’d left it but containing no new additions. No new pear tree. Absolutely no mysterious final bird species.

“Oh, thank fuck.” – Harry said to the nearest bird.

To laugh right into his face, the doorbell rang.

Harry knew, in that moment before he opened it, exactly what – or who – he’d find. Knew it with the certainty of someone who’d spent seven years learning to predict Draco Malfoy’s particular brand of theatrical nonsense.

He opened the door anyway, because he was an idiot, because he was pathetically in love and what else a pathetic lovesick fool was going to do?

Draco stood on his doorstep in his full deep green with silver threading dress robes, the kind he wore to Ministry functions and family dinners. His hair was appropriately styled. Perfectly so, actually, and his cheeks were flushed pink from the cold. Behind him, though…

Behind him, crammed onto narrow front step and some spilling into the street, were a dozen more fucking birds. Snipes, Harry’s exhausted brain supplied very helpfully, twelve drummer drumming. Their calls sounded like bleating, like distant drums in the hands of someone who’d never played drums before. And behind them, tasking up for about hald the pavement, was another bloody pear tree.

“Harry!”

Draco’s face lit up right when he saw Harry’s. He surged forward, caught Harry in a hug that smelled exquisitely like niche imported cologne and winter air, kissed him soundly on the lips before Harry’s brain could catch up with his fury.

“Happy New Year! Did you like my perfectly set Christmas gifts?” – He smirked, like a very smug creature looking down at, well, practically everyone. – “Pansy said I should just go with the dragonhide Quidditch boots, but I thought you deserve something special. How do you think? Twelve days of Christmas, the birds, the pears? Am I not the most brilliant partner in the world? The research alone took weeks, and personally I think you should award me for making a gesture so romantic–”

He still had the audacity to look genuinely pleased with himself while saying so, as if it’s the most superior thing that no one could do for their lover, except for Draco Malfoy.

Harry reached past him, plucked a pear from the tree (thank Merlin there were actual pears on it) and stuffed it directly into Draco’s open mouth.

Draco’s eyes went wide. He made a muffled sound of surprise, then indignation, then something that might have been mortification as Harry steered him inside by the shoulder, kicking the door shut on the snipes (those could wait) and depositing him on the sofa between a turtle dove and a partridge.

“Three hundred and sixty-four birds, Draco Abraxas Malfoy. Three. Hundred. And sixty-four. Birds.”

Uh oh, Draco removed the pear from his mouth, staring at it and distinctively thinking to himself, he called me by full name. Bad sign.

“I– Yes? One for every day of the year, and pears for the one day left–”

“Do you have any idea, any idea at bloody all, how my mental state has been in the past twelve days? I’ve had to transfigure half my house into a bloody aviary. There are swans in my bathroom. Swans, Drao. Royal swans, for the love of the above. I could go to prison at anytime!”

“Prison?” – Draco looked genuinely alarmed now. – “But, but I purchased them legally! Well, mostly legally… The thing is, the swan permits alone cost–”

“I’ve called you,” – Harry continued, his voice rising despite his best efforts, – “approximately four thousand times. Four. Thousands. Do you know how many times you answered? Zero. Zero times, Draco. Because you were, what, committed to the bit? Making it a surprise?”

“It was supposed to be a romantic surprise with all the mystery–”

“Mystery? Mystery? There’s no mystery when I’ve got a partridge trying to nest in my hair at bloody three in the morning!”

Draco had gone very still. The pink in his cheeks had drained away, leaving him pale and wrong-footed in a way that Harry had never seen. His hands twisted in his lap, crushing what remained of the pear.

"I thought," – he said quietly, very much like a child being kicked by his particularly favourite person, – "you'd think it was clever. Do you know how difficult it is to source that many historically accurate species? The lapwings are endangered, I had to call in favours–"

"I don't need historically accurate endangered birds, I need my boyfriend to answer his bloody Floo!"

Silence stretched very quickly between them like a Big Bang explosion that made itself continue to extend larger and larger through every second. One of the turtle doves cooed softly. A French hen wandered in from the kitchen, took one look at the scene, and wandered back out.

Draco seemed like he was still progressing the situation, and after a moment, after it had been digested, he flinched. Actually flinched, and Harry watched him go very still, very careful, in the way he did when he thought he'd miscalculated something catastrophically.

"You're angry." – Draco said, like he was testing the words. – "You're actually angry. Not just– I thought you'd be laughing by now."

"Laughing?”

“You laugh at everything.” – He didn’t look into Harry’s eyes, or Harry’s general face when he was murmuring out the words. – “I– You laughed at gifts and jokes and– I thought this was just a grander gesture of the things that make you laugh.”

Draco was looking down at the toe of his shoes, Harry noticed. Draco Malfoy never looked down at the toe of his shoes, except when he felt genuinely threatened or rejected by someone he appreciated. He’d seen that detail once, when he caught a glimpse of Draco’s younger self talking with his father.

"But you hate it. You hate it and you hate me for doing it."

Harry ran a hand through his hair. Found, inevitably, a feather. 

"I don’t hate you, you absolute muppet. I just– Draco. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking," – Draco said, and his voice had gone small in that way it did when he was trying not to show he was hurt, – "that you deserved something so special no one else would think to do. You're always going on about understanding Muggle traditions better, about wanting to experience normal Christmas things, and I found this perfect example of Muggle celebration and I thought–" 

He stopped to swallow. 

"I thought you'd be pleased."

The fight went out of Harry all at once, replaced by exhaustion and exasperation and that terrible, familiar fondness that Draco always seemed to inspire at the worst possible moments. He sat down next to him on the sofa, careful not to disturb the partridge, and pressed his face into his hands.

"Draco." – His voice softened.

"I know. I'm an idiot."

"You're an idiot."

"I should have considered the logistics."

"You should have considered a lot of things."

"The spatial requirements alone–"

"The fact that I live in a terraced house first, perhaps."

“... I got carried away.” – Draco’s hand found Harry’s knee tentatively. - “I genuinely didn’t think… I never think about the practical aspects. I just assume it will make you happy and I love seeing you happy.”

Harry turned his head to look at Draco, who was pale, very worried, absurdly beautiful in his formal robes with his hair falling over his eyes. Harry wanted to kiss him and throttle him simultaneously, stuffing another pear in his mouth.

Wanted to keep him, somehow, despite everything.

They sat in silence for a moment, surrounded by the chaos of Draco's gift. A swan honked from the bathroom while the nightjars, disturbed by the daylight, rustled in their darkened corner. Somewhere, a goose was probably laying an egg.

"You do look nice, though." – Harry said eventually.

Draco perked up slightly. 

"Do I?"

"The robes are good. Very…" – Harry gestured vaguely. – "You know. Dashing. Very, very dashing."

"I wanted to look presentable for the grand finale."

"The grand finale that you didn't tell me about."

Draco shifted closer. His hand slid from Harry's knee to his hand, lacing their fingers together. 

“Please don't break up with me over birds. That's such a stupid reason to break up even for us. Those tabloids would never let me live this down, Harry.”

Draco guided Harry very carefully to lay his head against his shoulder, and Harry let him, because he was weak and also because Draco’s neck was warm and solid and here, finally here after twelve days of silence and birds and mounting insanity.

“... You’re lucky you’re pretty, you know that?” – Harry poked at Draco’s side. – “You absolute idiot.”

But Harry was smiling when he said it, and he was definitely smiling when he turned Draco’s face towards his and kissed him properly , without pears orr interruptions or three hundred and sixty-four birds as an audience. Outside, the twelfth pear tree sat on the pavement, its blossoms bright against the January cold. In the distance, someone’s dog was barking. The snipes, abandoned on the doorstep, had begun their strange drumming call again. It sounded, if Harry was feeling generous, relatively close to celebration.

Harry Potter wasn't feeling generous, thank you very much. But he was feeling something, something warm and exasperated and hopelessly fond, and when Draco pulled back to smile at him with that stupid smile, the one that had started all this trouble in the first place, Harry thought that maybe, possibly, he could learn to live with this difficult creature through the remaining Chistmas-es of his life.

“So…” – Draco started between the smooches and the romantic moment. – “You’ll keep the birds?”

Harry had never wanted to take his words back so quickly in his life.

"I'm keeping exactly one bird."

Draco brightened. – "Which one?"

"You, you ridiculous peacock."