This was originally written for HoggyWarty Christmas 2017 on LiveJournal, for the wonderful Delphi. Thanks so much to my amazing beta lovelyluce who did a fantastic job wading through my never-ending sentences and putting an end to their misery. Any remaining mistakes are my own.
A Yuletide Carol
-oOo-
"I am out."
Severus continued to butter his toast as if his announcement had been no more out of the ordinary than asking to swap patrol duties next Tuesday night. The look of supreme disdain on his face was normal and unrelated to any shortcomings of the toast, although Filius suspected he was relishing the drama.
Severus did get bored easily during the winter months.
"I beg your pardon?" Minerva rose to the bait first, not entirely unexpectedly.
"I shall not participate in any Christmas celebrations this year whatsoever. I refuse to spend one more evening surrounded by tinsel, tasteless ornaments or meaningless expressions of goodwill. From now on, I intend to observe pagan holidays – you and the students can have Christmas, Easter and the rest of it to yourselves."
"If you think you're getting off the patrol rota thanks to this Damascene conversion, you will find that you are mistaken." There was a distinct tightness to Minerva's mouth. "I don't care if you pronounce yourself a Buddhist, you will still supervise the little blighters at Christmas dinner."
"Such language, Minerva. I, for one, treasure my opportunities to associate with the young."
Minerva's and Filius' eyes met. It was the smirk that did it: Severus really thought he had got one over them.
"My dear fellow," Filius said. "If that is how you feel, we will of course respect your wishes. Won't we?" He looked around the table, where his colleagues were partaking of breakfast. Perkins, this year's Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, had barely managed to pour himself some coffee – his hands were shaking so badly.
"Like fuck, we will! Can't you tell he's up to something?" A sausage dangled perilously off of Rolanda's fork as she pointed it at Severus.
"He is the Head of Slytherin – if he wasn't up to something, he'd be out of a job." Pomona was always patient enough to point out the obvious.
"What would I be 'up to', anyway?" Severus asked. "Having a tasteful holiday without enforced socialisation and phoney expression of goodwill to all men?"
"While your holidays are yours to spend as you please," Albus said calmly, "you must acknowledge that a formal announcement of your change of tradition will invite comment. I'm sure everyone will support your choices, whatever they are."
The matter was allowed to drop, although Minerva did scribble something in her agenda that looked suspiciously like 'NOSUBS DURING XMASHOLS'.
Naturally, it did not end there.
A key skill to survive past the first term as a teacher of Hogwarts was a certain brand of petty vindictiveness, and Severus was by no means the most proficient at it.
There was merely a tacit agreement to let what followed transpire away from Albus' watchful eyes.
"There is quite a lot in here," Minerva said, her face still buried in a roll of parchment that looked like it predated the Founders. "Lots of ale –"
"Good," Rolanda said faintly, the unaccustomed study taking its toll.
"Sacrifices," Minerva continued unabated, "although, it sounds rather messy – perhaps we should stick to the twigs?"
"What twigs?" Pomona's head emerged from behind a dangerously teetering pile of books. One would think the connection between Herbology and Yule would be limited, given the season, but she had unearthed an impressive number of volumes on her favourite subject.
"They were used to smear the blood on – on walls, and statues, and people..." Minerva's voice slowed down as she considered it. "Perhaps not."
"What about the yule logs, then?" Rolanda seemed revived by the conversation.
"The house-elves always put a big log in the fireplaces for Christmas," Filius reminded her.
He was somewhat surprised by the zeal of his colleagues; this was probably the first time Rolanda had set foot in the library since Armando Dippet's retirement party. Severus' conversion to paganism was hardly worse than any of his other attempts to see as little of the students as possible while annoying his colleagues to the best of his ability. This time, however, even Pomona seemed to insist that he must be taught a lesson with unusual vehemence.
"What do the heathens actually do, then? Get plastered?"
"Really, Rolanda – I'm sure they should be called pagans these days." Minerva frowned. "Or is that wrong, too?"
"Who cares? We all know Severus is just pretending. Why don't we find out what he is up to?"
"Where would be the fun in that?" Filius asked reasonably. "This way we get the advantage of surprise, while he's busy trying to figure out what we are doing. What about wassail? Is there any alcohol in it?"
"There had better be," Rolanda muttered.
Minerva waited until the last customer had left The Hog's Head, and transformed back to her human form. The door creaked loudly, a handy way to announce customers without appearing to do so.
Aberforth had always been much cleverer than he gave himself credit for.
"Minerva." He was already dusting off the bottle of rare St Magdalene whisky from the top shelf that appeared untouched since her last visit. "Going for a walk on the wild side?"
"There's nobody else here to impress, Aberforth. How are the goats?"
"Fine. How are the students?" He pushed a clean glass across the bar. By mutual agreement, there was to be no repeat of the 1964 incident.
"Tucked into bed, I should hope." She let a drop of water fall into her glass from the tip of her wand, wrinkling her nose in appreciation of the fumes. It would be interesting to experience the smell of whisky as a cat, Minerva decided – an experiment for the Christmas holidays, perhaps.
"Seeing as none of them are hiding in my back room, what brings you here?" Aberforth finished pulling his own pint and sat down on the other side of the bar – the stool hidden behind the counter brought him down to Minerva's height.
"I need to see a man about a boar, and I figured you may be able to steer me in the right direction."
Aberforth cleared the foam off his beard with a practised movement. "Why don't you ask Hagrid?"
"Despite his many qualities, the value of discretion is entirely lost on Hagrid. He would blab to Albus the first chance he gets." She was being quite obvious, but then Aberforth would expect nothing less.
"This being a drawback, according to his deputy?"
The warm glow that accompanied excellent whisky and the righteous act of telling the truth enveloped Minerva. "We're rather hoping to avoid a lecture on the true meaning of Christmas. Or Yule."
Thankfully, Aberforth let the last one slip. "A boar, you said – wild boar?" He scratched his head.
"Is there any other kind?"
"BLEEEEEEEEERP!"
Severus didn't even pause to see where the horrible noise came from. He leapt for cover across the first row of desks, then crouched down to stay out of the firing line while looking for a gap to launch his counter-attack.
Why had he been so stupid?
Just because it was the Christmas holidays and he was heading to the same classroom that he had been teaching in for years (mostly without any explosions, despite the ineptitude displayed by his students) didn't mean he could let his guard down. Everyone had it in for him: the Death Eaters he had betrayed; those who had fought on the other side; even those who had been too cowardly to fight themselves seemed to get a kick out of looking down on Severus Snape.
He would show them –
Severus bit down on the hex already tripping off his tongue. Some of the tension in his shoulders melted away when he noticed that the infernal racket was actually produced by Filius holding some device several times his own height.
One did not curse Filius, unless one wanted to spent a substantial amount of time in the Hospital Wing.
There was a select group of people who had it in for him in a slightly different way to the rest of the wizarding population, and apparently, they had all descended upon his dungeons. Raising his head further above the pockmarked desks the students had desecrated with graffiti rather than learning something useful, Severus ticked them off in his head:
Filius, Minerva, Poppy, Rolanda, and Septima (Pomona must have gone to her sister's already).
Merlin help him.
"Yuletide blessings upon you all!" Poppy said as soon as she saw him, in that slightly too cheerful voice she used when faced with a student who failed to recover as quickly as she expected.
"What fresh hell is this?" Severus asked, registering what they had done to his classroom for the first time.
Minerva tutted. "You ought to pay more attention. I'm not sure you believe in hell anymore."
"Trust me, I know it when I see it," Severus muttered as Septima chimed it:
"'Hel' predates Christianity – but we're not here to discuss etymology, however interesting."
"Then why are you here, pray tell?" Severus refrained from mentioning the mess – with any luck, it would keep his visitors on their toes, hoping he had not noticed.
Yet.
"We're here to celebrate with you, of course!" Rolanda said and promptly disappeared head first into a large sack. "Ah, here it is!" She emerged and plonked a large dusty bottle on Severus' desk, right on top of the reference books he kept there, in the so far futile hope one of his students would come up with an intelligent question.
"Not on the books!" Severus snatched them out of the way, the bottle wobbling precariously after the onslaught until it righted itself.
Rolanda didn't even notice. "Where do you keep your glasses?"
"I don't wear glasses!" Severus would not put it past her to be half-tanked already, but the bottle was definitely still full.
"Drinking glasses, of course!"
"This is a Potions classroom. There is no drinking going on here."
"How do you test the potions, then?" Rolanda asked.
"Trust me," Severus said grimly, "the last way you want to test any of the Potions my students have brewed is by drinking them."
"Is that not a reflection upon you as their teacher?" Minerva asked brightly, having conjured a line of tankards that were almost Hagrid-sized while Severus had been busy talking to Rolanda. He was pleased to note that the comment he had made at breakfast a few weeks ago still must sting.
"I rather think it is a reflection upon their dunderheaded parents. Except for Wilkins – he must have been cursed at birth."
"Now, now, Severus," Filius said, regretfully putting down the horn he had been holding. "Look at the head, isn't it perfect?" he said, having noticed Severus' glance, and misinterpreting his revulsion as admiration.
"Is it sticking its tongue out at me?" It was an animal head of some sort, forming the business end of the instrument Severus belatedly recalled was called a carnyx.
"I thought you would appreciate some traditional music," Filius said cheerfully.
"Right then, happy Yule!" Rolanda pressed a tankard into his unwilling hands. "Bottoms up!"
"It's not Christmas yet," Severus protested.
"Yule, not Christmas. It starts with the solstice. Aren't you supposed to know these things?" Septima asked meaningfully.
"May Yuletide blessings be upon you all!" Filius swigged his tankard, swaying as the weight almost knocked him backwards.
"Aye," Poppy said. "May your crops return with the light of the rising sun, or something like that. Cheers!"
Minerva just drank, looking at Severus over the rim of the tankard she was wielding with surprising strength.
"What is this?" He peered suspiciously into the cup, trying to disentangle the different strands of heavy smell emanating from it. One could always trust Rolanda to provide something that would singe the eyebrows of the unwary.
"Mead, you heathen. Now drink – it's your feast, after all!"
Excellent. It had worked – Severus allowed himself a small sip of the predictably strong, if rather pleasant, mead. He took a larger one when he remembered the smeared walls and scrape marks on the door.
"Am I permitted to learn why you have vandalised my office now that I have partaken of your offerings? Or are you saving that revelation for later?"
Minerva looked slightly uncomfortable. "We may as well tell you now, I suppose."
"Please do." Severus found it unnerving – few things discomfited Minerva.
She seemed to recover her usual verve as she explained: "Naturally, we did some research on the proper way of celebrating Yule, not being practitioners of the faith – unlike you." She raised her left eyebrow in mute challenge, while Severus remained unmoved. "It transpired that a wild boar is the traditional offering, so we set about procuring one."
In that moment, they were interrupted by a loud squeal from Severus' office.
Severus put his hand over his eyes. "Please tell me there is not a wild boar in there."
"Yes, well, I'm afraid we had to use your office to contain it – it is rather irate."
"Maybe that's because it has no business in a school!"
"Really, Severus. I would have thought a devout – a devout believer like yourself would be aware of the recommended sacrifice for Yule." Minerva pursed her lips disapprovingly, her old-maid appearance completely at odds with the devils dancing in her eyes. "Poppy, I hope you brought the knife? The ceremonial dagger, I beg your pardon. I'm sure you won't mind a few stains, Severus – it is only Yuletide once a year. "
"I believe I owe you – ten Galleons, was it?"
"Twenty. And five Sickles." Severus did not see why he should subsidise the Headmaster, whose salary surely was multiple times his own meagre stipend. That was part of the reason it was immensely satisfying to win a bet with Albus.
The old man made a big production of pulling out his purse from beneath several layers of robes, but Severus was not going to fall for it. Dumbledore could just as well have clicked his fingers, instead of rooting around his long johns in a futile attempt to look like the old dodderer he wasn't.
"A wild boar – wherever did she get hold of it? I must say Minerva surprised me."
"Clearly, or you wouldn't be about to hand over my winnings to me. In your own time, of course." Severus looked pointedly at the fireplace in Albus' office, where a yule log burned merrily. He hastily averted his gaze to the windows instead.
"I am impressed. While I did not doubt your ability to insist to all and sunder that your conversion was genuine, I did not think your colleagues would be at all convinced."
Severus smirked. "They weren't – they mounted a full Yuletide celebration in my classroom to teach me a salutary lesson." Mercifully, they had stopped short of actually sacrificing the boar, or Severus' second-best teaching robes would never have been the same again.
"One which was sadly wasted," Albus said with a disconcerting twinkle as he emptied the bounty in Severus' upturned hands.
As so often with the Headmaster, Severus left wondering which one of them had hoodwinked the other one. He had a nagging feeling he had been set up, but he could not figure out how.
At least he had an additional twenty galleons (and five Sickles) in his pocket – it could have been worse.
Minerva swept the black robes tightly around her and increased the pace. She could not be seen, and using her Animagus form would not do at all.
Not tonight.
Unbeknownst to Severus, Albus and all the other male inhabitants of Hogwarts, there was a genuine celebration of the old ways at Christmastime. On Mother's Night, or Mōdraniht in the old tongue, the women who lived in the castle all met. One did not have to be a mother, although most of them were, in a sense: they comforted the students, guided them through the trials and tribulations of Hogwarts, and worried about them long after they had left school.
It was not a gathering of the faithful, like in churches across the land at this very moment. Faith implied a promise of something beyond the present – Mōdraniht, to Minerva, was an acknowledgement of the here and now.
The witches of Hogwarts came together to mark the changing of the seasons, to recognise the shift from dark to light – the very earth they stood upon ever so gently turning towards the sun. Celebrating the coming of spring did not cease to be important once one knew about astronomy.
Minerva slowed down now that she had reached the fringe of the Forbidden Forest. Tiny droplets of freezing rain settled on her cheeks and hands, but she proceeded undauntedly to the clearing where Rolanda and Irma had lit a bonfire.
Fire and water, air and earth.
The magic of Mōdraniht was older than Hogwarts – older than Christmas, too. Perhaps it even predated the idea of channelling one's magic through a dozen inches of wood. Minerva's wand was safely tucked into her pocket – however phallic the idea, she was much too wedded to the convenience of it to give it up, even tonight.
Rolanda nodded to her as she joined the circle. The heat of the fire blazed on Minerva's cheeks, the light of the flames flickering between the trees stretching far above them, into the rain-sodden sky.
It was a pity she couldn't tell Severus about this, but then he had looked rather smug as he had headed up to Albus' office earlier, so his evening's entertainment was well provided for.
Septima started – one clear note rose above the crackling of the fire before she was joined by the others. The flames grew, feeding off the magic in their voices joining in a wordless celebration of light and darkness, of winter turning to spring.
Somewhere in the forest, a wild boar squealed loudly, as if it wanted to join in.
THE END