This story is NOT to be archived anywhere besides Potter and the affiliated trademarks are property of JK Rowling. I am not making money with this so call off the bloodhounds.
The Holiday Spirits
by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6surfeu.fi)
Chapter 1
With a whisk of his robes Professor Severus Snape paced the lenght of his Potions classroom to inspect the works of the remaining students. Half a dozen sixth-graders had already finished their concoctions and dispersed, but the usual late crowd of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Crabbe, Goyle and Draco Malfoy were left behind, their potions nearly finished.
He arrived at the other end of the room just in time to witness Crabbe dropping a handful of copper coins into Longbottom's cauldron which began to hiss and overflow. Malfoy and Goyle watched with glee as Harry and Ron attempted to save the confused Longbottom boy's grade to no avail.
Snape was naturally aware that this sort of mischief would easily have merited fifty points to be taken from the Slytherin House, but he did not bother. He never did when it came to Malfoy and his lot – they were in his house, thus he was prepared to turn a blind eye especially when the harm came to Potter and his ilk.
"Professor Snape?" Harry's worried voice asked from beside him. Snape glanced at the ancient clock hanging from the wall. The students ought to have already left for McGonagall's class.
"Not a word, Potter," he spat out, making the boy's surname sound like a bad cherry being spat out. Harry looked as though he was prepared to push the issue, but remained silent. He had been seriously trying to behave himself in Snape's class recently – ever since the unfathomable pensieve incident. Harry often seemed apologetic, even, but Snape cut him no slack. It was a poor reimbursement for the ordeals he had suffered due to the unfavourable existence of the Potter clan.
He turned to the Longbottom boy. "Five points off Gryffindor, Longbottom. In addition you will turn in thirty inches of parchment on the remedial properties of dragonskin by eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Well, Potter, what are you staring at? Off you go. Professor McGonagall is expecting."
The students left and Snape took secret delight in eavesdropping on the indignant muttering being exchanged between Weasley and Potter. When the door closed after them he walked to his desk, slumped down onto his chair and sighed.
Christmas holidays would begin the following day – Christmas day itself was only a few days away. In forty-eight hours the castle would be almost empty.
Dumbledore often travelled abroad for the holidays to visit colleagues at other schools, and almost every other faculty member travelled home to visit relatives. Only a handful of students would remain as well as Hagrid and Filch, the caretaker. And Snape himself. For twelve years running he had volunteered to act as teacher in charge for the holidays. It gave him both a reason to stay and an almost realistic sense of purpose. The reason to this tradition was, of course – even thought Snape himself did not often wish to think about it – the fact that he didn't have anywhere to go to. For years his circle of friends had consisted of other Death Eaters, and now that those times were gone he had made some acquaintances, but he wasn't exactly the heart of the party.
Hours later, after first hexing away the mess Longbottom's cauldron had created and organizing some bookcases Snape shook himself out of his silent reverie of thoughts and paused by the window. True, his classroom lay in the dungeons, but someone had been thoughtful enough to create the illusion of a view by casting a landscape spell on the construction which would change according to the hours. Now it sported a pitch black velvet sky with stars. It must've been late. Snape realized he had probably missed dinner. Just as he was about to dig out the keys for the door in order to leave for his quarters, the room suddenly turned very cold.
Freezing. Snape gathered his robes and pulled them tighter around him, silently cursing Peeves the poltergeist who was likely to be behind it all.
After he had walked halfway across the dark classroom and was approaching the door it banged shut.
Now profoundly annoyed, Snape dug out his wand and prepared to cast an Alohomora to undo Peeves' jinx. But the words never came. Instead, someone interrupted him and he turned, startled.
"It won't do you much good to leave, Severus." A light, disembodied female voice floated to him from the darkest corner.
Snape sleeved his wand and faced the corner, his annoyance reaching astral levels. He had endured his fair share of student pranks, but he was tired, and no student was allowed in the dungeons after class hours. He would have to alert Dumbledore to this incident.
"Step out. I warn you, this warrants more than just points off the House cup tables," he spoke out. It came out more as a hiss from between cleched teeth than actual words.
He expected to see a student step out from the darkness wearing an invisibility cloak. They couldn't possibly have mastered a Disembodiment Spell yet, could they?
But a student did not step out. Snape swallowed hard as a whisky white plume of haze began to take shape in the darkness.
So it was a ghost then. Probably a distant relative of Nearly Headless Nick's. This visitor was quite late for his famed Halloween party – it had been held months earlier as usual. Snape's annoyance mildened, but did not subside.
His annoyance turned to something quite different, though, when the ghost stepped closer, now transparent but with distinguishable facial features. Snape accidentally dropped his wand as realization and horror struck in. "A... Artemisia..?" he managed to mutter out before staggering awkwardly backwards.
"Very perceptive of you," the ghost replied. It stepped into the area still lit by a lonely candle in the middle of the now dark classroom. Its edges shone a faint blue light. All the regular Hogwarts ghosts were quite ordinary whitish-grey forms, but this bluish tint spoke of something else than an ordinary apparition. As curious as Snape might've usually been as to the nature and origins of the unusual colour, he now felt slightly too terrified to pontificate over such trivial matters.
The matter than he was in the presence of a ghost naturally did not startle him. It was the identity of the ghost that made him uneasy. That, and the strange aura of emptiness that came in its wake as it slowly slid forwards in approach. Ghosts usually carried with them a sense of sadness due to the tragic circumstances of death that had lead to their infinite half-earthly wandering. There were poltergeists, of course, who brought along mischief rather than sadness, but Snape did not quite regard them as genuine ghosts.
The ghost of Artemisia Dollop was surrounded by a gaping hollowness, nothingness that Snape felt was tapping negatively into his life force as well. The apparition wore a blackish dress with the usual pointy hat of a witch, but the garments were raggedy and her hair hung in messy locks. The Dark Mark was clearly visible in her skin as the dress was ripped above it.
Snape sat down onto a desk, glaring the ghost. "Why have you come?"
The ghost of Artemisia did not flinch at his cold tone. In fact she appeared completely devoid of all emotion. "After all these years you still carry this hatred. Whether it is for myself of James I can not tell, but rid of it you must."