A Carol for the Fearless

Early Christmas Eve morning, Severus was woken by his own teeth chattering. Sitting up, his arms immediately broke out in a rash of goose pimples. The room was not just its usual blustery temperature, but downright frigid. Darkly, the twelve-year-old wondered if the elf in charge of stocking the fire had forgotten he was staying for the Christmas holidays. It wouldn't surprise him if the elf did, after all, Severus was the only boy in his year staying.

He was the only boy below fourteen staying in the Slytherin house.

It was terribly lonely, but it would be better than going home - or so his mother had told him the week before. That was when she wrote to him insisting he'd be better off at Hogwarts for the holiday as his granny had come down with Dragon Poxs and would need quiet and twenty-four hour care to recover.

This year at home there would be no festivities.

Severus had tried to ask about going to a friend's for Christmas, maybe Quirinus's, but he'd gotten a very pointed note from his granny saying if he dared she'd tan his hide the moment she heard about it because, no proper Prince would spend Christmas hols in a muggle home. It was unheard of, malarky, even. He'd pondered asking Katrina instead, but then he remembered her mother had a terrible habit of insulting his in thinly-veiled ways. That wasn't how Severus wanted to spend his holidays, either. Any attempt on Severus's part in the subsequent days to get his mother to allow him to stay at the Quirrell's had been rebuffed with the argument that Granny was delirious and it would only make her worse if they went behind her back.

His mother was very apologetic about it all, but she did not relent on her decree of Severus not coming home.

So, here he was, stuck at Hogwarts, friendless and in a freezing dorm.

Severus didn't think life could get any worse. Getting up, he hurried in dressing for the day and all but ran from his dorm to the Common Room. There, he found only a smattering of fifth and seventh years hanging around with stacks of books as high as their heads and sheets of parchment a mile long before them as they scribbled away.

Shoulders slumping at the sight, Severus wished his house was more festive - like he heard the Hufflepuffs were. Last week, he'd listened in as a few of them gabbed about decorating the Christmas tree their Head of House had set up for them. It'd sounded so...nice. Severus didn't often regret his sorting, but it was at times like these he did.

His house had just as much solidarity (if not more) than the next house, but they were not the spirited sort. Well, some of them were spirited - meanly, that was. But few Slytherins actually got excited for Christmas and when they did talk about holidays, it was to impress others with where their family would be spending it or about what they'd be getting.

Severus hated it. He wanted to be home with his mum and Granny. He wanted to be helping them decorate the tree and bake cookies. He wanted to go ice skating on the pond with his mother and Severus wanted to sing Christmas carols with his granny as she played the piano. Severus wanted what he had every Christmas, not this Hogwarts bastardization.

No matter how much his mother had assured him he'd like it, Severus knew it wouldn't make up for missing out on his mother's smile or the long evening chats with his granny.

"What are you doing here?"

Severus turned his head.

Standing by the girls' hall was Aurora Sinistra. Frowning at the girl, he replied, "Granny's sick and I was told to stay at Hogwarts. What about you?"

"Dad remarried over the summer, remember? It was in the papers. Anyway, she's a bitch and I'm not spending anymore time with her than I have to," Aurora replied.

Nodding, Severus sighed. She was one of the few who did not harm him with visions of death, but she was standoffish and had an annoying habit of being out after curfew and getting caught. None of her dormmates liked her and Severus was leery about trying to make friends with someone who was so ill favored among their house.

It did not bode well to make friends with outcasts and Severus felt he was far too close to being one himself for him to take a chance on making a friend out of her.

Shuffling his feet, he asked, "Are you going to get breakfast now?"

"Yes, I am," Aurora replied before staring for the way out.

Hurrying after her, Severus questioned, "Are you the only one staying out of the girls?"

"I am," she answered as she kept a step ahead of her fellow Slytherin.

Almost having to run just to keep up, Severus cried, "Slow down, won't you?"

Aurora stopped so quickly he nearly ran into her. Obsidian eyes regarding him cooly, her sepia lips pulled in a sneer. "What in Merlin's name for?" she demanded. "You are not a friend of mine - in fact, you are barely even an acquaintance. Everyone knows you prefer Ravenclaws to Slytherins."

Severus frowned at her. "Just because my best friends are Quirinus and Katrina, doesn't mean I don't like you lot in Slytherin. Things just happened that way."

"Really? How convenient," she sneered.

He scowled. "Is this why the other girls talk about you behind your back? You are awfully rude to someone who's just trying to be polite," Severus snapped.

"In two weeks time, when your mates are back, I'll be no more than a distant memory," Aurora declared, lifting her chin high.

Severus shook his head. "Fine, if you don't want to sit together at breakfast, okay, I don't care. I just thought I'd be ni-ah!" Jumping at the sudden stinging pain that started in his bum, Severus's hands went to his rear as he spun around to see the impish face of Sirius Black.

"Well, hello there, Psycho-Prince," Black laughed.

Glaring at the Gryffindor, Severus reached for his wand. He hadn't even thought of this. Was he going to have to face this arse alone for the next two weeks? Severus didn't have the control to turn the other cheek during the rest of the year without Quirinus's or Katrina's intervention. What was he going to do now?

"Flipendo."

Black gave a loud shout as he was forcefully knocked back a good four or five feet. Turning around, Severus was surprised to see Aurora standing behind him with her wand pointed at Black. Gaping, he started, "Thank-"

"He's a prick and if there's one thing I do know, your mates are going to be awfully upset coming back to Hogwarts in two weeks time to find out you have a month's worth of detentions for dueling with Black. Consider this an act of holiday goodwill," she told Severus before pocketing her wand.

He smiled tentatively, "Thanks, Aurora."

"There's nothing to thank me for," the girl replied before starting for the Great Hall again.

Leaving behind the groaning Black, Severus hurried to catch up with Aurora and this time, she let him.

-v-v-v-v-v-

Christmas morning found Severus frowning with a pile of brightly wrapped gifts in front of him, and letters from his friends gripped tightly in his hands. There was something suspicious going on, he thought. Katrina had written, along with her present, a message about how her mother had been unusually short with her since she'd come home and that she was annoyed her older brother had chosen to go to Italy for Christmas with friends over being home to listen to her stories from Hogwarts. For his part, Quirinus had asked if his father was at Hogwarts because his mother had been crying last night and his father wasn't home this morning and when he'd asked his mother where his father was, she'd gotten teary eyed and left the living room.

Severus knew he had a letter from his mother and granny somewhere mixed in with his presents, but Severus didn't trust them. For the first time in his life, the boy believed his mother had willfully lied to him about something. What that lie was, however, was beyond Severus.

He knew he'd figure it out in time, Merlin willing.

"Are you ever going to open any of those?"

Blinking, Severus lifted his head to meet the dark glare of Aurora, who had only one gift in front of her. Severus immediately felt embarrassed and started to rip away the paper of one of the presents. It was sweater, green with gray stripes. Staring at it for a while, Severus put it aside and sighed at the sight of the other, brightly wrapped gifts.

Scowling at Aurora snapped, "What, is that not good enough for you, Prince?"

"What?" Severus gaped. "No! It's not that..." he trailed off. Reaching for the letters from his friend, he handed them over to her. "Something's wrong," he explained.

Skimming them, the girl handed the letters back. "Nothing's that wrong, from the looks of it. It just sounds like Mister Quirrell left his wife and Selwyn's mother is upset her son chose friends over family for holidays."

Hunching in on himself, Severus shook his head. "You don't get it," he muttered. "None of this is normal. Katrina's brother hasn't seen his mates much at all since his father died a couple years back and Mister Quirrell wouldn't just leave his wife like that. He loves her."

Aurora raised an eyebrow. "Maybe he decided it was time he see friends and Mister Quirrell realized he didn't love his wife like he thought," she argued.

Severus looked to the table where the professors sat. "Then why's Mister Quirrell not up there?" he demanded, finger pointing to the table.

She scoffed. "You're reading too deeply. There's reasonable explanations for everything, but you keep insisting those are all wrong. It's like you want something weird to be going on."

Narrowing his own dark eyes, Severus could find no other answer to give besides, "I feel it, okay?" Crossing his arms and glowering, he snapped, "If you want to make fun of me for it and call me Psycho-Prince like everybody else, okay, but I know something's wrong!"

Aurora, seemingly startled out of her derisive attitude, eyed Severus with a wary eye before whispering, "I wouldn't do that."

Settling some, Severus pushed one of his grandmother's presents toward her. He knew it was likely a scarf or mittens, because despite the fact he had a perfectly good set already, Granny was always trying to give him more. Mum said it was because she had more money than she knew what to do with. Severus, though, despite having been young at the time when they left his father's home, still had a lingering sense that told him to not be wasteful. To use what he had and then he could get a new ones to replace what was irreparably damaged.

"Here, have that. It's probably a hat and gloves or something. Granny's always giving me things like that when I already have a working pair," he said feeling generous now that he knew she was one of the few who wasn't going to call him crazy after all that he'd said.

The girl's lips flickered in an amused lilt. "You have to be the only pureblood that I know who'd say something like that," she remarked as she picked up the gift.

"I'm half," Severus corrected. "Snape's not actually some obscure magical family," he explained. "It's what Granny wanted me to tell everyone, but, I'm kind of getting tired of it because a lot of people already know I'm lying."

Aurora furrowed her brow. "You do know that if I tell someone, you're going to become little better than the muck on people's shoes?" she questioned, seemingly hesitant to press.

"People already think I'm crazy, it's not like it can get much worse," Severus replied. "Besides, Quirinus and Katrina already know. So...so I suppose I don't care one way or another, I was doing it to make Granny happy, but I'm not feeling very charitable toward her or Mum right now. They're hiding things and I wish I could send them a howler for it."

Fingering the silver ribbon of the present Severus had given her, Aurora asked, "Why me? Why are you telling me all this? We're in the same year, but you've never tried to talk to me before. In fact, I've noticed how you stare at me sometimes. You get a queasy look, like you're scared of me."

Severus paused. He didn't know what to say. What could he say? It wasn't like he could tell her he was frightened of her because he didn't know what she'd become. It'd been novel with Katrina, not knowing, but now Severus was beginning to wonder if that wasn't a bad thing. If he couldn't know what side they were dying for, how could he tell if they were good people or not? And if he couldn't tell, how did he know who to trust and who to keep away from?

He didn't and that's what scared him. It was these people he had to take a chance on, they were the ones that would be Severus's downfall if he picked wrong.

The worst part was, though, Severus knew what his downfall was; it was joining the Death Eaters. They would lead him to his terrible, gruesome, painful death and he was not so ridiculous as to lie to himself and say that didn't frighten him. Severus didn't want to die. However, he also knew if he got mixed up with the Death Eaters, that would change. After that, it would only be a matter of time before he met the end he'd envisioned for himself all those years ago.

"It's because I don't know what happens to you," he finally answered.

Aurora frowned. "Are those rumors about you being a seer real?" she inquired.

Severus cast a furtive glance to the professor's table. He didn't like the idea of them listening in, especially Headmaster Dumbledore. Severus knew what happened to the old man and he was very terrified of him finding out. If he learned that Severus was the one to kill him, who knew what he'd do to stop that?

The boy may not want to die his Death Eater death, but he didn't want to die while he was a student, either.

"Sort of," Severus hedged.

Rolling her eyes, Aurora remarked, "Anyway, if you think something's wrong and that your mum and granny are hiding something, why don't you write them and say you know everything and that they better explain their side of things before you decide to run away? That's what I told my dad last fall when his letters started getting short." Her lips curled. "That's how I found about my stepmum," she muttered.

"Did you really know anything?" Severus asked, interest peaked at the tactic.

She shook her head. "No, I didn't," she replied. "I just felt something was...off, like you do now."

Severus fidgeted, uncertain if he liked her idea. It seemed so...risky. He wasn't sure if he was prepared for the consequences that would come with trying to use it. After a moment, he questioned, "Did your dad figure out you lied?"

"No," Aurora said, "He believed me. I mean, why wouldn't he? My stepmum's daughter was a seventh year laster year."

Shoulders slumping, Severus muttered, "Who am I going to blame for my knowing? I can't do that to Mister Quirrell or Katrina's brother..."

"You said yourself you're 'sort of' a seer, tell her that's how you knew," Aurora proclaimed.

Turning this all over in his head, Severus was surprised by how sound it now seemed. She was right about the seer part, he very well could have figured it out that way and with his suspicions confirmed by the letters from his friends...Well, surely his mum would feel too guilty about what she'd done to question him too deeply.

Nodding, Severus stood up. "I'll go write her now," he declared.

"What about your Christmas gifts!?" Aurora called to him. Halting halfway down the length of the table, Severus turned back around and cast a quick Shrinking Charm on his gifts and pocketed them.

Patting his pocket, he asked, "Are you coming, Aurora?"

Reaching for the plate of festive pancakes, the girl shook her head. "No, thanks," she replied. "It's probably something you should do on your own."

Severus was relieved. He'd thought the same, but hadn't wanted to be rude to her after all she'd done to help him reach this point. "Okay, see you later then?" he prodded.

"Yeah, see you."

So, who out there was waiting for this? I'm sure there has to be a fair number who've been waiting for a sequel like this for Mettle. Its focus falls more on Severus, but Eileen will come out in time. I'm hoping, if things go according to plan, this shouldn't be any longer than Mettle was.

Anyway, I'm plugging away on the coming chapters and I hope to have the second up by Sunday if revision and things go well!

Thank you so much for reading and please review :)