Christmas 1972
It was a chilly December evening and large white flakes fell atop the already snow covered lawn that belonged to the Evans, but warmth seemed to radiate off every surface inside the little white house.
The rooms were decorated with red and green tinsel, and a tall Christmas tree sat beside the homely fire that gave a scarlet glow to the cheeks of those seated closest to it. A number of guests filled the room, standing in small groups with sherry glasses in their fingers or sitting in the many arm chairs and sofas, nibbling from the plates of mince pies and Santa-shaped biscuits that lay on the glass-top table. Most of them wore Christmas themed attire; Santa hats and reindeer antlers and a tall, red headed man in his early forties wore a particularly awful green jumper with a dark plum pudding sewn onto it.
Every so often loud, raucous (and probably alcohol-induced) laughter sounded from them over the gentle crooning of Christmas carols from the large bronze gramophone in the corner of the room.
Twelve year old Severus Snape sat alone at the dining room table in the next room watching them, or allowing his eyes to roam across the various stationary photos of the Evans family that hung on the cream coloured walls. Most were of the two Evans children, one redheaded and one blonde like their parents. In one Lily and Petunia were about five and six years old, at the beach with plastic spades and buckets in their hands and grinning toothily up at the camera. In another they stood in their own front garden, in front of the bright flowers surrounding the porch. Clearly it was summertime as each donned an oversized wide brimmed hat and wore floral summer dresses that reached their knees. Lily was pulling a face at the camera and had one arm around Petunia.
Severus' hands clutched his almost empty glass of apple juice for something to do with them. Why on Earth had he agreed to attend this awful Christmas party? He must look like a complete fool sitting here for an hour on his own. He didn't know where Lily and the other children were, probably upstairs, and he didn't feel welcome enough to seek them out. Two of them were Lily and Petunia's muggle cousins, and one was Natalia Harrison, Lily's best Gryffindor friend from Hogwarts. He didn't know much about Natalia, but the few times they had met she had seemed to him obnoxious and a bit self-important.
Mrs Evans walked into the room carrying an empty plate of mince pies, still laughing at something or other. She closely resembled Petunia, and wore her long blonde hair up in a high bun. When her eyes fell to Severus they filled with the familiar pity he had come to expect from her. He glanced down at his lap, cheeks flushing.
"Are you ok there, Severus?" She asked kindly. "I think the other children are upstairs if you want to join them." Severus didn't know what to say, so he just nodded jerkily.
She heaped more pies onto the platter, and then paused. "Would you like some more juice?"
"Ok."
She placed a large glass of orange juice next to him on the table.
"I hope it's as good as that pumpkin juice Lily is always raving about." She whispered, and gave him another kind smile before carrying the pies away.
A few minutes passed and then Lily entered the room in her purple dress and looked around for him.
"Sev! There you are, we wondered where you'd got to!" But her guilty expression contradicted her- she'd clearly forgotten about him.
Severus scowled and looked away.
She came and stood next to him awkwardly. "Hey look, I'm sorry you're not enjoying the party but if you'd just come upstairs and talk to the others I'm sure we'd all get on? We're playing scrabble."
Severus didn't have much choice. "Alright." He said begrudgingly, and he allowed himself to be led by the hand into the lounge room full of adults and up the white-banister stairs.
But before he'd reached the second step a booming voice called out to Lily and they made their way back down again and to the centre of the room, to a large old uncle of Lily's with very grey hair and green eyes.
"Lily my girl!" The voice boomed again, the words slightly slurred. " I'so good to see you!"
"You too, Uncle Harry!" Lily squeaked as she was pulled into a crushing hug.
The man released her and looked down at Severus. " And who's this! Your little magical friend?"
A few people looked around curiously and Uncle Harry was met with a very stern glare from Mrs Evans, who now looked as if she wished she'd never relayed this secret to the family's favourite, albeit loudest uncle.
"Er, I mean your little friend from school! What is your name again lad, Stevenson was it?"
"Um, Severus."
"Fascinating, fascinating. And you can..?" He trailed off, raising his bushy eyebrows suggestively.
"Yeah."
"Severus is one of the best students in the year, uncle." Lily beamed.
Severus flushed again, this time with pleasure, Lily's abandonment of him completely forgotten…
"Wonderful!" Uncle Harry whispered. He looked as though he was going to say more, but Mrs Evans stepped in.
"We're going to have some dancing now; I hope you will join in Uncle Harry?" She said firmly.
"Ahh, I've been waiting for a good old jive! You kiddies must come have a dance with me!" He boomed, pulling them to the centre of the room.
"No, we don't want-!" They both began, but fruitlessly, as Uncle Harry grabbed Lily who grabbed Severus' hand and pulled them both closer to the radio which was now playing a song with a much faster tempo than the gentle Christmas carols from earlier.
Uncle Harry took Lily's hands and they began dancing around wildly (a few of the guests looked on in shock) but soon many people had joined in and Severus was left standing uncomfortably next to the Christmas tree. He tried to slip away into the dining room again, but Lily grabbed his hand and pulled him back as the song changed to something about December 1963. Her usually pale face was flushed, and a huge grin ran the length of her jaw.
"Come and dance with me! It's actually really fun once you get into it."
He wondered vaguely if she had gotten hold of some of her parent's sherry.
"No, I don't want-" But his words were drowned out by the crowd and he found himself swaying awkwardly to the music while Lily jumped around with corny moves that made them both fall about laughing. When Lily took his hands and led him it wasn't so bad, and despite himself he could feel a grin spread across his face.
"Lily, Severus, turn around!"
They both glanced up, still smiling, to be met with the flash of a camera.
"Mum!"
"Sorry dear, but you two just looked too adorable not to take a picture!"
Lily rolled her eyes at Severus and as another song overtook the first they slipped quietly upstairs to Lily's bedroom where Natalia and two younger children, a dribbling boy and a very small girl with red pigtails were gathered around a scrabble board on the carpet and Petunia was lounging on the bed reading.
Petunia and Severus shared a mutual glare before Petunia buried her nose further into her magazine. At least she hadn't had something disparaging to say about his clothing- in dark pants and a new shirt Lily had given him for Christmas he looked quite normal, although still very skinny.
"Oh hey Lily, um, Severus." Natalia greeted them uneasily. Severus didn't look at her. Obviously Lily had warned her to be nice to him.
Lily and Severus joined Natalia and played a few games of scrabble, helping the younger children to spell out words like "Quidditch" and "Boggart" to the distaste of Petunia. Severus found Natalia becoming increasingly less awkward around him, to the extent that they shared a whispered joke about Petunia.
As Petunia's mouth was pressed into a finer and finer line, Severus found himself smiling. Perhaps this party wasn't going to be as bad as he'd thought. When Natalia opened a packet of chocolate frogs which proceeded to hop around the children's heads to their cries of delight, Petunia sprung off the bed and screeched. "Lily put those vile things away! You know you're not allowed!"
Lily glanced up, "They're only kids, Petunia, they won't remember." Severus noticed the absence of Petunia's nickname.
"And what if they tell their parents! They'll think we're all freaks!"
"They'll think we were playing a game! They're children!" Lily replied exasperatedly.
"Seriously, it's fine Petunia.' Natalia said. "I read a wizarding picture book to my sister's muggle friend, she was older than these two and she didn't remember it at all. Just told her parents about the 'pretty smiling pictures'. It's nice to give them a bit of fun."
"No." Petunia said with slitted eyes. "I'm telling mum right now and you're all going to be in huge trouble!"
"I can modify their memories if you'd like Petunia." Severus said scathingly, picking up Lily's wand from her bedside table. Petunia shrieked and rushed down the stairs.
Severus returned Natalia's high-fived with a grin. She was turning out not to be half as bad as he'd thought. Then he looked around at Lily sheepishly, expecting a reprimand, but she was looking exasperated again.
"Really! You'd think magic was this horrific thing…Anyway, we'd better collect all the frogs before mum comes up here."
They jumped around the room with the kids and managed to get most of the frogs back in their bag. Severus and Natalia popped a few into their mouths to the horror of the kids. "You eat fog! You eat fog!"
Petunia didn't return however, and nor did Mrs Evans, for another good hour, during which time the three older children risked a game of exploding snap, wizarding chess, and gobstones while the younger ones napped on Lily's bed, leaving large wet patches of drool.
"You're probably already getting a warning from the ministry, so we might as well milk it for all it's worth." Natalia said cheerfully to Lily.
"Well they're not exactly going to send me to Azkaban for it, are they?" She grinned, looking at Severus. "Have either of you either got a warning letter from the ministry?"
"Yeah." Said Natalia, "I lost my temper and gave my dad antlers. He thought it was hilarious, though." They cracked up a bit at that thought.
"Nah." Said Severus. "I mean, they'd just think it was my mum, wouldn't they? They can't track exactly who casts which spell."
They got onto chatting about school then, until about midnight when the party ended and yawning, the little children were carried downstairs by their parents, murmuring incoherently about the 'dancing frogs'.
The Evans' offered that Severus sleep over, considering how late it was, and to the disgust of Petunia he got to borrow her sleeping bag.
"I won't be wanting that back." She said nastily. "You can make a decent pair of trousers out of it if you want."
He opened his mouth to tell her he wouldn't keep anything that belonged to a muggle anyway, but was glad when Natalia interrupted him with an accurate imitation of Petunia's reaction to the frogs. Muggles didn't seem so bad after all, Mrs Evans' had been kind, and Uncle Harry reminded him of Professor Slughorn. The three of them said goodnight, and Mrs Evans turned off the light. Severus lay his head down to sleep, smiling. The party hadn't been so bad after all.
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