'Tis the Season to be Jolly
In all of his long and eventful career as a double agent, Severus Snape never imagined that he would be in a situation like this. Upon reflection, he was very glad that he hadn't; the amount of mental exertion required to conjure up such an image would most likely have left him with a splitting headache, if it didn't first result in an overpowering desire to pour bleach into his brain. The Dark Lord sat at the head of the table, a Father Christmas hat perched on his bald head in bold defiance of gravity, and by his side a brown burlap sack, laden with packages of all shapes and sizes and emblazoned with the Dark Mark. Next to him was Bellatrix, gazing up at him in rapt adoration. Over her unruly hair, which looked even more like a feather duster left out in a tornado than usual, were a pair of reindeer antlers that lit up and sparkled periodically.
Severus felt a near-irresistible urge to roll his eyes, but years of practice at concealing his emotions and turning his face into an impenetrable blank mask held him back from doing so. Though, in moments like these, he often wondered what kept him from taking his shields down. If the Dark Lord was oblivious enough not to realise that his- by far- most loyal servant was madly, passionately, obsessively in love with him, then he surely wouldn't notice that his most useful (and most competent, Severus reflected, with a degree of grim satisfaction) follower's allegiance did not in fact lie with the dark side. Oh, well. It was best to take precautions.
"My friends," the Dark Lord began, in the usual officious tone he was wont to launch into his long, rambling and increasingly unhinged monologues. Severus sighed inwardly. His master might have been under the delusion that he was still capable of inciting the masses and rousing them into a fury, of kindling their devotion and leading them to believe that the cause they were fighting for was absolutely just, but he certainly was not. Besides, any last residue of rhetoric ability the quasi-reptilian megalomaniac may have once possessed was utterly done away with by the sight of the bobble at the end of his hat swaying violently in time with his ardent gesticulations.
"My friends, it has been a truly momentous year for our side. We have raised the glorious battle standard of the Cause high over the heads of our enemies. We have pounded them into the dust and reduced them to nothing but ashes and powder. Harry Potter—," the amount of venom he could say the boy's name with was truly astounding, even by Severus' standards, "is still at large, but he is friendless and powerless. It is only a matter of time before he is caught. We have the upper hand."
Oh really, Severus thought. I wouldn't be so sure about that. It's a miracle you were able to take power in the first place, let alone hold on to it.
"In honour of our victory over Dumbledore, over Hogwarts, over the Ministry, I have gathered you all together to celebrate Christmas. First of all, I have a few people to thank. I must thank myself for putting up the decorations, and Bella, for helping me—," Severus concluded that the selection of skulls, both animal and human, that lined the mantelpiece, must have been her work, "Thank you to the Malfoys, for kindly offering me the use of their manor, and to Lucius, to whose unexpected culinary talent we are owing our Christmas dinner. And I thank you all for coming here to celebrate with me." He raised his goblet of wine, and took a very lengthy sip from it. No wonder he was behaving as if he had had a complete brain transplant. He was probably more than a little tipsy. At least that answered the question that had plagued the deepest, darkest recesses of Severus' mind from time immemorial: did the Dark Lord need to eat and drink, or was he completely past such pathetic human necessities? Evidently his body still needed to perform some of its original functions, if but a few.
"A very merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you all!" Oh God. Now the crazed, despotic humanoid was proposing a toast. Reluctantly, Severus lifted his glass into the air and clinked it half-heartedly against Lucius'. Whoever had done the seating plan for this absurdity of a party (probably Bellatrix, come to think of it) must have had some sort of vendetta against him. Lucius on one side and Wormtail on the other, coming very close to Severus' personal idea of hell. The only two worse companions he could have envisaged were Potter senior and Black, both of whom were dead. Lucius, keeping in accordance with the festive attire of the Dark Lord and his sister-in-law, though somehow succeeding in looking even more ridiculous than the two of them combined, wore a pointed party hat in a vibrant shade of magnolia, atop which there was a flamboyant cardboard peacock.
Against his will, the corners of Severus' mouth curved upwards...
"Time to open the presents!" chirped the Dark Lord. He laughed, high and gleeful, sounding distinctly like a cat on drugs. "First of all—" He reached into the sack, and pulled out the first parcel, ostentatiously wrapped in dancing peacocks and monogrammed with the Malfoy family crest. "To my master, from his ever faithful Lucius." His eyes narrowed- as far as it was possible for them to narrow, the serpentine slits that they were. "Well, Lucius. This is a pleasant surprise."
"Indeed, my Lord." Lucius made a slight bow, his -er- adornment teetering back and forth precariously. "It is no less than I could give you. Why, the wrapping paper itself cost two hundred galleons. Hand printed, you see. And as for the present..."
The Dark Lord, raising a non-existent eyebrow, began to open the package, his long thin fingers prising apart the spellotape carefully. God, so he was one of those people who couldn't bear to make a single tear in the wrapping paper. Severus shut his eyes in despair. This would take a while.
"Hair products, Lucius?" Severus was startled out of his reverie- painful, fevered visions of auburn hair and rich green eyes the colour of spring grass- by his master's voice. In his hands, the self-proclaimed ruler of the universe held a pink box, its hue disturbingly similar to the decor favoured by Severus' least favourite former colleague, that was embellished with a lime green bow. 'The Elite Wizard's Ultimate Two-In-One Shampoo and Conditioner,' it declared, 'Beat dandruff and split ends for good with our exclusive secret formula'.
So Lucius had really done it this time. A quick look around the table allowed him to observe the reactions of his fellow guests. Most shared his bafflement and bemusement; Bellatrix appeared to be in hysterics, directing jubilant glances at their end of the table whenever she was able to stop shaking convulsively with mirth; the recipient of the gift himself was in stony, petulant silence.
"You forget, Lucius, that I do not possess the same... magnificent locks as you do," he said, crossing his arms like an irate, sulky child who had just been told he could not have a pet hippogriff for his birthday.
"My Lord," protested the unfortunate Lucius. "It was a fatal oversight on my part, I confess. If there is anything I can do to atone for my folly, anything I can give you at all..."
"Enough! Spare me your sycophantic pleadings, please! You will speak to me after the party. Now, shall we see if anyone else has succeeded better? This looks promising. My Lord, I give this to you to repay you for all that you have given me. With all my love, Bellatrix."
At this, Bellatrix abruptly ceased her wheezy, demented cackling. No sooner had she stopped that, then her eyes flooded with tears and, rasping for breath, she began to mutter "My Lord, my Lord" like a malfunctioning record, uttering his title with the same reverential awe of a priest preparing to intone a mass. Cracked, that woman was. Completely off her head. Mercifully, she still had enough of her senses intact not to wrap her present. Severus silently and reluctantly thanked her for saving him a not inconsiderable amount of time.
"This is interesting, Bella," was the Dark Lord's eventual comment. Severus could not have expressed it better himself. Bella's offering at the altar of her devotion was an odd-looking silver pendant bearing a disturbing resemblance to the skull of a reindeer. Knowing Bellatrix, it probably was the skull of a reindeer.
"I made it myself, my Lord," replied Bellatrix, nearly sobbing in rapture, her face glowing, as if his one snide remark had been enough to send her up into the seventh heaven of glory. But then, she would have reacted in exactly the same way had he given her a piece of used dental floss. (Did the Dark Lord floss his teeth? He must have got that pearly white smile from somewhere. Severus had no desire to pursue that train of thought any further; the Dark Lord's dental hygiene was, thank Merlin, none of his business.)
"Well done, Bella." The Dark Lord congratulated her in the stiff, insincere, awkward manner of a parent feigning interest in their child's scribbles, evidently wishing to avoid any further displays of histrionics. "Moving on. Severus, this is yours, I believe."
Severus nodded curtly. "Yes. I hope it pleases you, my Lord." Shields up, armour on, pretend this is the thing that matters most in the world to you.
"Why, Severus! The Dark Sorcerer's Guide to Curses, Hexes and Jinxes, latest edition! Just the thing I wanted! Here, come and sit next to me! You can take Bella's place- Bella, you don't mind going next to Lucius, do you?"
Watching a fuming Bellatrix walk the short distance to the other end of the table like an aristocrat preparing to meet their death on the guillotine during the French Revolution, Severus felt surprise, above anything. Surprise that, however little he tried, the Dark Lord seemed to favour him over all others. Who knew? Perhaps he was still completely invaluable to him. Perhaps, bleak as the prospect was, he still had a small chance of surviving the war, if he didn't lose his mind first from the surreal experience of sitting next to a power-crazed madman wearing a red, fur-brimmed hat with a pompom at its end. Perhaps he was only dreaming- everything was certainly implausible enough...
"And now, my friends, what do you say to a Christmas singalong? What shall we have first? Deck the halls? God rest ye merry hippogriffs? O come all ye faithful?"
Severus gave in to the impulse that had been threatening him all evening, and buried his face in his hands. A couple of rounds under the cruciatus would be infinitely preferable to this.