Disclaimer: I am neither J.K. Rowling nor
Charles Dickens (although it would be a lovely Christmas gift if I
was...). Therefore, I claim neither the characters or overall
plot as my own. The Weasley-Granger children are my creations, as
well as two original characters which will turn up in the fourth
segment. Much of the dialogue is based from Dicken's story, so I
take credit for only the revisions, not the actual text itself.
I actually wrote this story pre HPB, and I have now edited it to fit with the book. One of the spirits have actually changed sexes as well as characters, and there have been other minor changes. If there is confusion about anything, I assume it was an editing mistake and I will gladly rectify it.
Lastly,
this is a Christmas story...not a Nobel Prize winner for best
literature--it's supposed to be fun and a little silly. I did,
however, make an effort to keep Severus Snape canon, but had to contend
with the difficulties of "thawing" him. I hope my efforts will
not be in vain. Without futher ado, please enjoy the story and
have a joyful Christmas season.
Part One: Pettigrew's Ghost
Peter Pettigrew was dead. There can be no doubting this fact or working one's mind around it--he was as dead as a door nail, a coffin handle, a plant left outside of the Hogwarts Greenhouses for winter--in short, was very much departed from this earth. If one cannot understand this fact--oh skeptics, how little enchantment you see!--than this little tale can have no magic. Peter Pettigrew was very much dead.
Severus Snape knew of Pettigrew's death quite well--as he had narrowly escaped it himself. While harboring the last of the Death Eaters in his home at Spinner's End on Christmas Eve, including the unfortunate Peter Pettigrew, Snape stepped outside to bring some victuals for his stowaways. When he returned to feed them, he discovered that the Order of the Phoenix had discovered the Death Eaters hiding in Snape's house from an anonymous source, presumed that Snape had set this up as a trap for the Death Eaters, and burst into his house while he was gone. Most of the occupants escaped, only to be captured a few days later. Bellatrix Lestrange was captured and promptly put into Azkaban, along with her husband. Antonin Dolohov also followed them, after putting a decent fight. But Peter Pettigrew, as Minerva McGonagall said, originally with sadness, but more recently with mockery, was never very talented when it came to magic. So, after a few ineffectual attempts to stun the Order members, Pettigrew, typical of his usual style, transformed into a rat, in an attempt to escape.
His plan seemed to work; while all the Order members saw him transform, it was ludicrously hard to shoot a spell at so small a target as a rat and, just to add further difficulties, it was very dark in Snape's ill-lit home.
But, just as it appeared the Peter Pettigrew had escaped by the whip of his tail yet again, he met his downfall--a rather ugly, bandy-legged ginger cat named Crookshanks, who had not only an appetite for mice in general, but for this particular rat, both figuratively and literally.
Crookshanks had accidentally Dispperated with the Order members when he fell off an overhead shelf and caught his claws in Alastor Moody's long cloak just as he was Disapperating. Thus, following the Order members lazily in the house, he walked through the door just in time to see Peter Pettigrew's little furry body propelling right at him.
Crookshanks, it was said later by all, had a funny expression on his squashed face, almost as if he was trying to smile. Then, just when the rat realized the danger it was in, Crookshanks lunged forward and opened its great mouth--
Well, imagination can surely paint the picture of what happened well enough.
Snape, who had been playing the double-agent for many years, was hailed as a hero by the Order, for conniving a trap so cunning for the Death Eaters. While originally the Order had considered him a traitor for killing Albus Dumbledore, his assistance to Potter and his team of friends in discovering Voldemort's horcruxes had returned him to his position as a spy once more. He told the Order that Dumbledore had been dying already, that his murder was an act of mercy and not of vengeance.
Meanwhile, the truth was actually quite different. Severus Snape, the expert in Occlemency, the master of endless lies, had been double-crossing the Order all along. Dumbledore had, in fact, been dying, but it wouldn't have mattered to Snape at that point. The choice between his life and Dumbledore's was easy--Snape was a miserable man that wished nothing more than to live out his miserable life to the fullest. Also, on that fateful Christmas Eve night, he really had been hiding the Death Eaters from harm, hoping that the news of both Harry Potter's and the Dark Lord's death was just a wild rumor. But, upon the discovery that both these deaths were real, Snape had no real choice but to help his former Death Eater comrades, as they were in his house, with their wands at the ready. While he had been toying with the idea of sending the Order of the Phoenix a note telling them that the Death Eaters were there, Snape never actually did. This remained a mystery, even to the brilliant Potion's Master. But finding it wiser and safer for him to pretend, Snape took the credit for the note and for the intelligent idea to leave the house for a little bit just so the Order could attack without himself being in anyway involved in it.
And so the wizarding world moved on. Harry Potter's name adorned everything--street corners, schools, even the birth certificates of children. The Dark Lord, who had been called He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named just years before was now spoken of freely, so that any child that wanted a really good insult, could call someone a "Voldemort."
The Order members, while they grieved for the death of young Potter, carried on with their lives. Remus Lupin married Nyphadora Tonks and named their twins, Sirius and James, after Lupin's departed friends. Minerva McGonagall became Headmistress of the reopened Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The Auror Department swelled as Harry Potter's former classmates, including Ronald Weasley, who married Hermione Granger not long after Lupin and Tonk's marriage, Ginny Weasley, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan, and Neville Longbottom, who was the boy--now a man--who cast the final stunning spell at Bellatrix Lestrange the night of the raid at Severus Snape's home.
Everyone moved on--except for Severus Snape. He remained at Hogwarts, day after day, month after month, year after year. Seven years passed by the bitter Potion's Master, seven years since Pettigrew's death. Not as if Snape was keeping count--it didn't matter one bit to him that Pettigrew was dead, as he despised the rat anyway. But Pettigrew, had he been alive, shouldn't have been offended by this. Snape despised the world as a general rule and looked forward in expectation to every moment he could spend spreading this misery around.
So--now that I have proven that Pettigrew was dead and gone and that the world had long since forgotten his treachery, I can begin with the words that seem to accompany every magical tale.
Once upon a time, on Christmas Eve of the Good Lord's year, Severus Snape woke from his bed and scowled. I suppose there's no reason for this most unpleasant expression, for there was really nothing that horrible around him. But a scowl was Snape's normal expression on life itself, as if daring the world as a whole to give him its best shot. Needless to say, nothing terrible happened to Snape after that silently made challenge. After all, I wouldn't want to be on the opposing end of that fierce glare.
Still, Snape continued scowling bad temperedly pulling on his solid black robes as if he were preparing for his own execution. In this process, he dropped his wand. Muttering furiously, he bent over and picked it up off the floor. But as he was coming up from his bent over position, he caught a glimpse in the mirror.
Snape had a strange disliking of mirrors. Some could say that he didn't want to see how truly ugly he was. Others, perhaps kinder and more insightful, thought that he couldn't stand to look at himself knowing all the atrocities he had committed. Whatever the case, Snape placed a spare cloak on the mirror on the chest of drawers in his room, so he wasn't able to see anything if he happened to glance in that direction.
However, this morning, the cloak was slightly askew, revealing the right hand corner. Snape saw himself in the mirror--a pale, emaciated face sporting a rather prominent hooknose and yellowish teeth, curtained by long, greasy, black hair, and a pair of piercing, fathomless black eyes that made even the fearless cringe inwardly. They were cold and indifferent, viewing life as one long meaningless farce that simply continued to use him as the butt of every imaginable joke.
Yet his reflection was not what caught his eye. In the very, very corner of the mirror, just below his ugly face, was another face. It was an equally unpleasant face, although not for the same reasons. It had a pointy noise, small, liquidly eyes that seemed to be darting everywhere at once, and a patch of thin, colorless hair. But the ghostly pallor and the expression on its face, in which describing as miserable would be a vast understatement, made even Snape's heart, which many don't believe exists, momentarily halt. Then, in a moment, it was gone.
Snape whipped around behind him aggressively, his wand drawn. But there was nothing behind him but his unmade bed, his bedside table, and a book he had been reading last evening.
His startled look hardened into an angry frown. "Bah--Humbug."
This certain outburst surprised him. Snape was custom to swearing quite fluently when students weren't around--sometimes even if students were around. But to use such a foreign curse at such a moment was strange for him.
"Bah," he said again, trying it out, "Humbug." His scowl softened slightly to a look of grim satisfaction. It was a good curse. It fit well.
Just as he vowed to use it on as many students as possible, especially the Gryffindors, Snape suddenly remembered that he didn't have classes that day, as it was the first day of Christmas break.
While this thought would have brightened his scowl when he woke up (as bright as it would ever get, naturally), now that he had a disparaging word to use against students, he didn't want to be denied the satisfaction of using it! So, scowling angrily once more, and not for the last time that day, Snape left the room, shutting the door tightly with a muttered, "Bah--Humbug!"
For both the facts that it was still quite early in the morning and that most of the students had gone home for Christmas break, the hallways were quiet and desolate. Snape walked slowly downwards, into his region of the castle, the dungeons. As he was going down, a suit of armor, charmed by Flitwick to sing carols, burst into a cheerful, baritone voice, singing "Good King Wenceslas." Snape flicked his wand out of his pocket--and a moment later, the suit of armor collapsed lifelessly on the floor, in pieces. The scowl on Snape's face was momentarily replaced with an unpleasant smirk, before reverting back to its sour self.
The gradual change from the warm upper levels to the coldness of the dungeons became suddenly evident when Snape let out a puff of smoke with his breath. Most people would think that the Potion's Master dreaded these frigid temperatures. But, in actuality, Snape enjoyed the bone-chilling climate of the winter more than any other time at Hogwarts. Some might say that he liked to see his students miserable--others say that Snape's heart was so frozen that cold no longer affected him.
He yanked open the door to his office unceremoniously and cast his customary disdainful glare at the corner, where his much hated student teacher, Hermione Granger Weasley, was seated at her desk.
She hadn't changed much since her last year at Hogwarts, just grown a little older. Her bushy hair was constantly pulled back in a bun (a messy one, which continually irritated Snape's obsessive compulsive nature) and her nose was always absorbed in either work or a book. At that time, she was wrapped up in at least two robes, by the looks of it, a Muggle jacket with a scarf and gloves, and her heavy black cloak. Still, she appeared to be cold. Snape shook his head contemptuously.
"Good morning, Professor Snape," she greeted him, her voice calm and neutral. She knew from experience that being either too cheerful would cause Snape to irritably ask what in the world was she so pleased about or too depressed would make Snape growl an order to stop complaining.
Annoyed that Granger hadn't given him any ammunition to strike her with, Snape simply grunted in return and sat down at his desk, his scowl deepening with thought.
He hadn't asked for a student teacher, as one can easily guess. But, due to the fact that Hogwarts had hired two homicidal maniacs, a fraud, a tyrannical Ministry employee, and a werewolf--twice (Lupin had taken over the position the year after Snape was pushed back to Potion's Master. Lupin was going to remain in that position until Granger could take on the job), McGonagall was forced to start doing longer screening for employees. For this reason, all people that were potential professors went through two years of training first, working under already established professors. Granger had spent her first year under the tutorship of Flitwick--and then McGonagall assigned her to Snape. Snape, with his usual pessimistic view of things, thought that McGonagall had done it on purpose, just to torment him. It didn't matter that Potter was dead--every time he looked at Granger (whom he still called by that name despite the fact she was married) he was reminded of Potter's former escapades.
In the midst of his dark thoughts, the door to the office abruptly snapped open. Snape glared at the intruder, but there was no one in front of him. Frowning, he looked down at his work again--only to be interrupted by a tiny, shrill clearing of a throat from behind Snape's enormous wooden desk.
Slowly, Snape peered over the edge and saw Filius Flitwick standing there, grinning happily. Flitwick was a tiny wizard, with a warm smile and laughing eyes. A Muggle might have likened him to one of Santa's elves.
"Merry Christmas, Severus," Flitwick said, in his squeaky voice.
"Bah," Snape muttered, perversely glad to use his new exclamation of annoyance, "Humbug."
Flitwick just laughed. "Surely you don't mean that, Severus? It's Christmas! What have you to be so gloomy about?"
"What is Christmas good for except to remind you that you're not a Knut richer, a day younger, or a bit more successful than you were the year before last?" Snape asked quietly, in a waspish, dangerous voice, "In my opinion, any fool that goes about this castle speaking the words 'Merry Christmas' should be boiled in a vat of my Draught of Anguish and be buried with a dragon claw through his heart!"
"Severus, really--"
"Let me keep Christmas as I see fit, Flitwick," Snape added darkly, "And I'll let you keep it your way."
"But you don't even keep it," Flitwick wisely pointed out, "And, while it is true, that each Christmas merely marks off the passage of more time, I believe it has done the world a lot of good! It's a time of charity, of kindness, of compassion, of love. It's a time where all the earth's people, wizard and Muggle alike, can join together to celebrate 'peace on earth and goodwill to men.' For that alone, I believe Christmas has done me some good and that it will continue to do so! God bless it, I say!"
Granger, who had looked from her work to hear the poignant Charm's teacher, burst into a momentary applause. Snape gave her a scathing look that would have frightened a Dementor. Abruptly, Granger looked back down at her papers, seeming to hide behind them.
Frowning back at Flitwick, Snape smirked ironically. "Very…touching, Filius. Thinking of entering into politics at any time? The Ministry could always use more inspirational rubbish like that."
Flitwick smiled at Snape, his spirit not dampened by the Potion's Master's coldness. "No…but I have come here to ask you to come to my Christmas Party."
"Not a chance," Snape replied, "And if that is all, I wish you a good morning."
"I'm sorry you will not come, Severus," Flitwick sighed, "But I will still be hoping that the cold of these dungeons will drive you to warmer places."
"Good morning," Snape repeated, a little louder.
"And I wish you a most Merry Christmas, despite what you think of it," Flitwick continued, walking out the door.
"Good morning," Snape said once more, louder still.
"And a Happy New Year!" Flitwick added, swinging his little head into the door frame.
"Good morning!" Snape nearly shouted, looking down at his last assigned potion's homework.
"Good morning, sir."
Snape's head snapped up. As Flitwick was leaving, he let in two gentlemen. They wore nearly the same fashioned dark blue robes, with matching black cloaks. From this absolute unity of dress, Snape gathered that they were Ministry employees.
"Professor Snape, I believe?" said the first one.
"Yes," Snape replied, his voice an unfriendly growl.
"We're with the Magical Spell Reversal Committee," the second one said, after Snape had terrified the first one, "And it has come to our attention that you served in the Order of the Phoenix during the second war."
"Yes, what of it?" Snape asked, more angry than ever at the mention of that group.
"As you are a man of…special magical capabilities," the first one said, gaining courage, "We have come to ask for your assistance."
"Doing?" Snape asked, bored.
"The magical world is still not completely on its feet," the second man continued, "Crackpots still insanely loyal to the Dark Lord place terrible curses on objects, causing horrible pain and suffering for the Wizard and Muggle recipients…and the makers of these curses are usually so inexperienced in making them that simple, painful curses can actually result in a person's death."
"So we're asking for you to help us find these articles and their creators before they harm more innocent people," the first man finished.
Snape looked at the men with a look that could have been thoughtfulness, if he hadn't made up his mind already. As much as he despised teaching at Hogwarts, especially since returning to the position of Potion's Master, being one of the Ministry's mindless lackeys seemed worse. Snape was merely thinking of the cruelest way to turn them down.
"Tell me," he said, softly, very misleadingly, "Is Azkaban still being run by the Dementors?"
The two men looked at each other warily. "Yes, of course."
"And is the Aurors group still functioning?" Snape asked, still very quietly.
"As well as can be expected after the losses they suffered," the first man replied.
"And St. Mungo's," Snape continued, "Is that still open?"
"Yes, Professor Snape," the second man answered.
"Well, that's a great comfort to me," Snape replied, sarcastically, "Because from they way you were talking, I was afraid all these glorious things had closed. My mistake, I suppose."
"Then you wish to take the position?" the first man tentatively asked.
"I wish to be left alone!" Snape barked, making the two men flinch, "If those fine establishments are still up and running then I see no reason for a bunch of wizards and witches, twirling their wands like they're the next Albus Dumbledore, performing functions that should be taken care of by the Ministry!"
"But, sir," the second man exclaimed, "The Auror Department--St. Mungo's--they can't keep up with the demand! People are dying regularly!"
"Well, that would keep down the surplus population, now wouldn't it?" he coldly replied, "Good morning." Abruptly, he bent down over his work again, signifying that that meeting was over.
"Professor Snape," the first man implored, "We're asking for your help. For pity's sake!"
Sharply, Snape looked up from his work. "Pity? Let me tell you what pity is, gentlemen. It's weakness, masquerading as charity! It's infirmity parading as kindness! Pity is a way for humanity to allow themselves to fall back to laziness and lethargy, letting others do the things which they could be and should be doing themselves! That is what I think of your pity's sake, gentlemen."
The two Ministry workers realized the futility of insistence and left Snape to his work, giving him bad looks over their shoulders when they knew he couldn't see them.
Compared to the very active morning, the afternoon dragged by quietly, without a single person to interrupt the silence between the Potion's Master and the student teacher. As the hours went by, Granger's layers of clothing seemed to increase as Snape's desire to add fuel to the fire became less and less. While it would have taken only a quick flick of her wand to relit the fire, she knew that Snape enjoyed his chilling temperatures and would have a fit. And Snape…well, by this time even he was starting to become rather cold, but he knew that the room temperature was making Granger miserable…and there's nothing that a miserable person likes to do more than spread misery to others less abounding in the endowment.
Vainly, Granger tried to warm her hands by the light of her candle, but no amount of imagination from her mind could convince her that it was working.
Finally, just as Granger thought that she would put on her third and final set of gloves, she realized that it was four o'clock at last--time to go home. With an inaudible sigh of relief, she approached Snape's desk, the owner of which was bent over a book.
"I'm going, Professor," she said.
He looked up, frowning darkly. "I suppose you want tomorrow off, then?"
"Yes," Granger answered, her lips contracting slightly, "I've asked Professor McGonagall for permission and she's granted it."
"I suppose you'd think yourself…over-worked to be at your place of employment at Christmas," Snape sneered.
"It's one day out of the year, sir," Granger replied, her face still distant.
"And one day of work extra for me," the Potion Master said, "Just be sure to be here all the earlier the day after--I have you scheduled for early morning detention for some misbehaving Gryffindors. Cauldron scrubbing, my personal favorite."
"Very well. Have a nice--" Granger appeared to start to wish him a happy holiday, then thought better of it. "Good-bye."
Once Granger had left, Snape expected to feel rewarded at the peace…but he discovered, quite alarmingly, that a strange, foreign, unknown feeling had begun to pervade his mind--the office felt lonely without Granger checking papers at her desk. The dungeon room felt unusually large with him standing there by himself, amidst his potion's ingredients and jarred creatures. For the first time in a long time, he was isolated from mankind and wasn't enjoying it.
He tried to push these thoughts from his logical mind. As another one of his general rules, he despised all forms of imagination. They led to unproductiveness and daydreaming…and empty hopes.
Snape turned to the faintly glimmering fire. For a moment, an onlooker might not have recognized him. He sported no scowl, no dark frown, or a cynical smirk. His face was oddly distant and melancholy, as though thinking of something from long ago.
Then, abruptly, his face twisted itself back into an unfriendly scowl. His thoughts, engaged on something that happened so long ago, must not have been something he wanted to dwell on any longer.
"Humbug," he darkly muttered.
Sufficiently more himself again, Snape pushed out the last sparks of the dim fire with his foot, smashing them down with vindictiveness unusual in even Snape. His black robes billowing with his swift step, he closed the door to the office and walked to his room, not in the mood to eat dinner in the company of cheerful faces like Flitwick and Lupin.
He emitted a faint sigh of relief when he reached the door to his room. His plans for the evening were simple--eat a spare bit of soup that he would order from the kitchens and finish reading his book.
However, between Snape's unlocking the door to his room and stepping in, something happened that would affect the Potion Master's quiet plans for the evening.
On the door handle, a ghostly face appeared. It was the face that appeared in the mirror that morning--small watery eyes, a rat-like face, and a look of abject desolation that even the heartless Snape felt pity for--the face of the traitor Peter Pettigrew.
Snape barely managed to gasp in surprise before the ghostly face vanished, leaving only the familiar door knob. He stood in shock for a moment, looking down at the door knob as though it would bite him. Then, shaking his head very sharply, as if to cast away the sight he had seen, he opened the door (holding onto the doorknob for as short a time as possible), muttering about seeing things. Still, when he entered the room, Snape looked carefully into the shadows behind the door, underneath the bed, and in his sparsely-filled closet, his wand drawn all the while. After his search yielded no results, he frowned angrily at his own stupidity and said, "Humbug!"
After a House-Elf dropped off his ordered soup, he put on his long gray nightshirt and, in a strange moment of inspiration, a pair of slippers that Dumbledore had given to him on Christmas many years previously and had laid dormant in his cupboard since then.
Snape pulled up a chair, eating his thin broth distantly, staring into his small fire, which cast hardly any light at all around the darkened room. Once he had finished his soup, he took up his book and read hardly more than a paragraph about the dangers of swallowing too much Good Health Potion when he heard the first door slam.
One perhaps would not find this unusual in a castle full of people. But Snape's corridor was so far away from the other teacher's rooms (done on purpose, of course) that the appearance of any other person besides himself in the desolate hallway was a rarity, indeed. Snape's black eyes darted up from his book and glanced toward his door. Silence reigned for a moment. Shrugging half-heartedly, Snape turned back to his book.
But a second later, another door slammed. And another. And another. Soon it seemed that every single door in the hallway was slamming and shutting over and over again, with frightening rapidness. Snape was on his feet in an instant, glaring suspiciously.
"It must be one of Peeve's tricks," he said, apparently to himself, not noticing how unbelieving his own voice sounded.
Just as Snape was determined to go and investigate the noises, they stopped. Snape held his breath for a moment, listening. His patience was quickly rewarded--but the noise he heard this time was much worse. It sounded as if Filch had taken the manacles down from his office walls and decided to drag them all over the halls of the school--except that these sounded heavier. And with each sound, they appeared to be getting steadily closer to his room.
"Humbug," Snape remarked, "A student playing a prank!"
But, despite himself, his normally pale color had become even pastier.
The sounds suddenly stopped--right in front of his door. Snape had stopped breathing.
Then, a ghost drifted through the door. It's features were the same--a rat-like face with a sharp nose, watery eyes, and a mournful face. It was wearing what it had been at its death--a pair of brown pants, a button down Muggle shirt, and a brown jacket. There were only two differences: one, chains wrapped around his entire body. Heavy silver chains enveloped around his mid-section crept up his chest like a malicious ivy cluster and even wound around his legs and arms. Attached to the chain were books of Dark Arts, heavy, jeweled goblets of deadly potions, which, the Potion's Master in Snape identified, despite his momentary surprise at the ghostly spectacle, and several wands. Also, when Snape had seen Peter Pettigrew last, Snape hadn't been able to see through him.
Snape, of course, believed in ghosts--it's rather difficult not to whenever one sees them on a daily basis and is actually coworkers with one. But his brilliant mind refused to register the fact that Peter Pettigrew, seven years dead that very day, would possibly return to the dead now and come to Hogwarts.
"What do you want of me?" Snape asked, his voice quite steady.
"A good deal," the ghost replied, in Pettigrew's high pitched treble.
"Who are you?" Snape questioned again, his black eyes narrowing.
"You mean--who was I?" the ghost asked in return.
"A rather finicky spirit, aren't you?" the Potion's Master observed, sarcastically.
The ghost slowly crossed the floor, dragging its legion of chains behind it. Snape, crossing his arms, watched the ghost settle on the stool by the fireplace.
"You don't believe in me, do you, Severus Snape?" the ghost asked in return, looking up at Snape with woe begotten eyes.
But Snape was immune to all sad faces and sorrowful expressions. He smirked unbecomingly and gestured to his empty dish of soup.
"I doubt your existence, indeed," he replied, "Because you can come from anywhere--a bad bit of cheese from breakfast, an underdone potato--yes, there's more of the soup than of the spirit about you!"
The ghost let out a terrible, chilling wail, rattling his chains along with it. If frightening Snape just enough to let go of his skeptical thoughts on the ghost's existence was the point of the cry, it was successful. Trying to ignore the racing of his heart, Snape attempted to pacify the spirit.
"All right--all right!" Snape exclaimed, resisting the urge to cover his ears with difficulty, "I believe you--you're real. Just stop that infernal racket! Now why are you here, spirit?"
The ghost stopped its moaning and shaking and turned its haunted gaze at Snape.
"It is my curse, along with the spirits of many others, to walk this earth to witness to those who do not know the horrors of what they are about to suffer--so they can change, unlike ourselves."
The ghost made a quieter but all the more miserable cry and rattled his chains in anguish.
"Why are you chained?" Snape asked warily.
"I've made this chain myself," the ghost explained, lifting the various books, "Every choice that I made, every thought that I had, every step that I took--day by day I made each and every link. Just as you have made your own chain."
Snape, despite himself, could not help looking behind him, to look for his own ghostly chain. Cursing at his temporary stupidity, Snape looked back to his ghostly visitor.
"Have you been traveling for seven years to come here, Peter Pettigrew?" Snape asked, finally admitting his identity.
Pettigrew grimly smiled. It was an expression of one that is experienced on a subject--and, as Pettigrew seemed to be pathetic in nearly everything that he had ever attempted in life--it was a strange expression to see on him. "Yes--and no. I have been studying the remnants of my life, looking over lost opportunities…and terrible choices."
"You were shrewd, Pettigrew," Snape said, sitting down in his seat, as he grew more comfortable with the ghost, "to attempt an alliance with the Dark Lord. You were looking out for your own well-being."
"My own well-being!" Pettigrew exclaimed, suddenly furious, "Yes--my own well-being--when I should have been interested in the well-beings of my friends--of those who cared about me!" He grabbed at his chain, pointing to the wands. "Each wand stands for a person I betrayed…there they all are, my friends, a constant reminder of what I failed to do. And this time of year, my chain is especially heavy…thinking of all the happy days I should be spending with them now, with James, Lily, Sirius, and Remus…thinking of all the Christmas holidays with someone to share them with!"
Suddenly, Pettigrew's doleful expression changed into a more business like expression.
"My time is short. I must tell you why I have come for you."
"Go on," Snape drawled, determined not to show all the interest he was really feeling.
"I have sat by you often, Severus Snape, watching you…knowing that you will never change your ways until you are like me. So I am giving you a chance to change your fate."
Although Snape couldn't begin to explain why Pettigrew, who he had always tormented and ridiculed, would possibly want to help him, Snape was too much of a Slytherin not to take what was handed to him.
"How, exactly?"
"You will be haunted--by three more spirits."
Finding Pettigrew's ghastly appearance the most he could take in one evening, Snape's frowned irritably. "Is this really necessary?"
"Unless you wish to be condemned to this," Pettigrew said, picking up his laborious chains, "The first of the spirits will come at one o'clock."
"Can't I have them all at once and get it over with?" Snape asked, his sarcasm biting, "Don't you know my beauty sleep is important to me?"
Pettigrew ignored him. "The second will come at the stroke of two and the next will come at three. Listen to them well, Severus Snape--they are your only way out of this fate."
Just like that, Pettigrew rose from his seat at the fireplace and floated out the closed window, into the night sky.
Rising to his trembling legs (which he adamantly tried to pretend were not shaking at all), Snape walked to the window and opened it, looking up into the sky for the departed spirit. But there would be no hope of ever finding him--the sky was filled with ghostly apparitions, with chains dangling all around them, their cries chilling Snape to the core.
Swiftly, Snape shut the window, locked it, and sunk on his bed, his face almost as pale as Pettigrew's. He opened his mouth to attempt to say "Humbug," but his throat was too dry.
Normally, one would think that what Snape did was the last thing anyone would do in that situation. Perhaps it was the sheer exhaustion of his depressing day or the lateness of the hour--perhaps the stressfulness of seeing a long since dead co-traitor and a whole legion of chained spirits that tired him. Or perhaps the magic of the spirit cast its spell upon the alarmed Potion's Master. Whatever the case, Snape fell back on his bed and immediately drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.
