#el mods

H/D Erised 2023 fic claim: True Love Gave To Me for @bicholsdrarrysideblog

It’s the first of December, and all Draco wants to do is make Christmas lovely for Scorpius. But then Harry Potter shows up, asking him to save the world, and it turns out they’ve almost saved the world a couple of times before. One-hundred and forty-four times, to be exact. Or: what happens after the time loop?

BICHOL, I had the absolute best time writing this fic for you. I spent about five million years trolling your bookmarks (which are hilarious & you have the best taste jfc), and lovedlovedloved pining Harry + doesn’t-believe-he-deserves-good-things Draco. Add in Scorpius and just a pinch of a plot and voila: this fic was born! Thank you so much again for pinch-hitting for Erised this year ♡

This fic took a gaggle of Christmas elves, angels, ghouls, and Krampus to drag over the finish line—@citrusses and @mallstars for their incredible alpha work, and @queenie-jinny and @sleepstxtic for pushing me to fix my tenses, catching all my typos, and generally betaing this fic on a timeline that I cannot even comprehend for myself. All of you are so so so appreciated.

a little Christmas snippet ♡

It’s only as he’s pounding on the door, Scorpius holding his hand in his most darling emerald wool cloak, that Draco begins to question his actions.

It’s too late though. Harry Potter answers it.

“Draco?” He’s still in pyjamas, red and covered in tiny fluttering Snitches. They look like childrens’ pyjamas magically sized up, with how Potter’s knobbly ankles show. “How’d you get past the Fidelius?”

Draco waggles his fingers, and says, “Loop magic?” Then he immediately remembers how absolutely idiotic Pansy looks when she does that and drops his hands to his side, lickety-split.

“Hi, Potter!” Scorpius waves.

Potter’s face lights up instantly, and the gnawing ache grows inside Draco. It’s just—how can anyone just wear their feelings on their face like that? It’s not fair: not fair to Draco, not fair to Scorpius, not fair to Potter. Not fair to Draco’s heart—144 days sounds like an eternity, but it doesn’t feel like enough for Potter to—for whatever Potter’s feeling, right there on his face, for the world to see. For Draco to see.

But Draco knows he made the right choice as soon as Potter squats onto his knees and starts chattering to Scorpius. Scorpius is unusually gregarious with Potter, and Draco wonders if perhaps the finger-waggly loop magic may actually have something to do with it—the easy way Scorpius takes Potter’s hand when it took him ages to warm up to Blaise when he’d returned from abroad. Or maybe it’s just Potter: his palpable warmth, the way he acts genuinely interested in what Scorpius has to say, how his smile lights up his whole face and his eyes say I could love you; let me love you.