The Malfoy's uppermost library was dark, just the way that he preferred it to be while practicing dueling. It was easy to tell when someone was coming in that way; light from an open door was a dead give-away. It had taken some work to ensure that he wouldn't destroy anything in the library, but as it was seldom used and often forgotten about, that was easy to take care. Aside from Narcissa's collection of muggle cookbooks, everything was simply moved to other rooms. He always made sure he kept his back to that wall of shelves and set his dummy up on the other side of the room, and from there it was as easy as pie.

He'd been practicing for nearly two hours when he heard footsteps. The door opened slowly. A figure half his height crept in and stuck as close to the walls as it could. When it reached him he felt a tug on his sleeve.

"Viva needs to gets a book, sir." The house elf's voice was much quieter than those of the others at the manor. "Viva will be gone after that and won't be a bother again."

"Go ahead, then." He moved aside a couple steps so she could reach whatever she needed, folded his arms across his chest. The first time he had met this particular elf, he'd decided he liked her. She was reserved and hadn't wanted to bother him. The rest were polite enough but had no qualms about disturbing him unless their masters threatened to punish them otherwise. "Is Narcissa still awake?"

"Mistress has been asleep for nearly an hour, sir. 'Tell him I will see him in the morning,' she tells Viva." She curtsied slightly and then slid the book she needed from the shelf. "Viva will ready towels and then his bed if Mister Snape would like?"

More to appease the elf than anything, he nodded. "In another hour."

She left with another curtsy, and it was almost as though she'd never been there at all.

The hour passed quickly for the wizard, reminding him again how much he hated the convoluted way time worked. Minutes could drag by as if they were hours, hours could seem days, and days could seem years. It worked the other way too; an entire hour could feel like a minute, a day an hour. Lately, time had been passing altogether too fast. It was nearly Christmas already and he felt as though he had only been with the Malfoy family for a day instead of an entire week.

He was dreading having to return to the school.

Almost as if it were on purpose, his stomach rumbled slightly and his thoughts shifted to food. It had been a while since lunch and had he even bothered to eat dinner? Probably not. He could only remember the house elf interrupting once. With a last look around the library, he pocketed his wand and shut the door behind him.

Noise from the kitchen at midnight was uncommon but not unheard of. The lights were usually turned out as well. The smell of baking desserts was a rarity. Severus paused outside the door, unsure if he wanted to know what was going on. Were the elves working on some masterpiece for breakfast? One that smelled like…cookies?

Frowning, he eased the door open and to say the sight that met his eyes was surprising was an understatement.

Narcissa sat on the floor in a defeated heap, the contents of a massive bag of sugar around her. There was flour in her hair, more sugar on her bottom lip. Her eyes were sad as she raised them to meet his gaze. "I thought you were Lucius for a moment."

"He's likely asleep." She sounded oddly relieved and part of him wondered why. Part of him didn't care. Time alone was time alone – and between Lucius and nine-year old Draco, that was hard to come by. "What in the name of Merlin have you been doing in here?"

She glanced around at the mess and her voice quavered. "I just wanted to make you cookies. It's supposed to be like potions!"

"I see." His eyes found the muggle cookbook on the counter as he fought down an amused smirk.

"That's what Lucius's friend told me! 'If you can make a potion, you can cook!' And I've been collecting these books for years – I wanted to try them out!" The witch was so busy explaining herself that she didn't notice she'd stood up, that Snape was close. Very close. She moved her head away from the book to his direction and jumped slightly. "Severus?"

"Yes?" His eyes were dark.

"What are you doing?"

"Cleaning up your mess."

They met halfway, wondering why they hadn't done this before when it tasted so sweet.

a/n;

This was written for Jen (jennybenny2845) as part of the Secret Santa exchange on HPFC! Merry Christmas!