A/N: This is a series of drabbles, 31 in all, written for the dracoharry100 Christmas Challenge over at LJ. There are thirty one prompts, one for each day in December. So I will be posting one drabble a day. I am going to be writing a single story using all the prompts, but I'm mixing them up and using them in the order that works for the story

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Disclaimer: All these wonderful characters belong to J K Rowling. I have merely borrowed them for my amusement and hopefully yours.

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prompt #30: Melancholy

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Draco sighed as he stood in front of the mirror and buttoned up his robes. December always made him introspective. It was easy enough over the rest of the year to focus on his work and ignore everything else. But December and the coming of the new year made him reflect on his lonesome state and wonder where his life was going. And getting ready to go to Pansy's house and celebrate her fifth wedding anniversary was not helping his mood in any way. Once again he would be alone while the rest of his friends turned up with their husbands or wives, each looking more nauseatingly happy than the other.

They would all look at him and cluck sympathetically and pat him on his back and tell him that he would find someone soon and make him feel as if everything in his life, his hard work and all his achievements somehow didn't count just because he didn't have a partner. He could easily have asked someone to be his date. But at thirty, he was well past the age where he could date someone just so he didn't have to be alone. He would have done anything to avoid this party. Just the thought of it made him feel low. But he knew that it wasn't the party that was making him feel sad. It was the fact that he was so tired of being alone.

But he knew that Pansy would kill him if he didn't show up. So he pulled himself together, put on a smile and stepped through the Floo.