The Freedom of Severus Snape: A Christmas Story
This chapter is may be changed!
I still haven't decided if I want this to be a Severus/Hermione or Lucius/Hermione...I think this time I'm leaning towards S/H. He does need a happy ending, as someone pointed out in my other story...and I did forget to include him in that ending...which is why this story has been stuck in my head...and I'm barely working on the fifth chapter...and *anxiety * soo much schoolwork and I want to be done by Christmas, but I don't want to rush through because I'll make too many errors, and I still have to study for finals, and I barely finished mid-term, and being an online student seems more stressful than going to regular college/uni...woah..that feels better, lol...
Anyway (#^.^#)
After I complete the story you all will see a chapter 3 to the end (^.^)...hopefully in time for Christmas (^.^)...*just keep smiling VI..* … …... …... …...mm hmm...cheers now..
Gah! I think my story is going to be too cliché...sorry...
But really...I don't own anything from this universe...had to say that...
"Hermione," Ron whinged. "Come on!" Hermione gritted her teeth and kept trying to ignore her soon-to-be one time best friend. "It's not like anyone else is ever gonna want you!" He said a little louder than he intended to and Hermione froze in her seat at the Gryffindor table.
"Excuse me?" She hissed at him
"That was just wrong, Ron," Harry shook his head in disbelief that his best mate had actually gone there with his surrogate sister.
"Well it's true!" Ron said definsively. "No one is ever going to want to shag a know-it-all bookworm like her! She's not even pretty enough!"
This time the whole great hall halted in their quiet conversations and movements and waited for the reaction. Down at the Slytherin table no one noticed the tense face of the blond Head Boy who forced himself to replace his expression with a smirk.
o
"Her magic is building up, Albus," the Potions Master whispered at the Headmaster's left as the staff intensely kept an eye on the scene unfolding in front of them.
o
"Ronald Weasley!" Ginny Weasley hissed. "That is no way to talk to Hermione! I cannot believe you!"
"I can talk to her anyway I want!" Ron's voice rose.
"I am not your sister, mother, or girlfriend Ronald Weasley. I am not ever going to be any one of those things to you nor would I ever want to be, and even if I were one of those that still gives you no right to talk to or about me that way!" Hermione hissed as her finger poked Ron in the chest. He suddenly grabbed her hand and started twisting her finger slowly.
"Stop Ron, you're hurting her," Harry warned as Hermione's face started contorting with pain. He tried to ply Ron's fingers from the grip he had on Hermione, but Ron was now too angry and Hermione was starting to cry, but she refused to make a sound.
Severus was already up from his chair and heading towards the foursome followed by Albus, Minerva, and Madame Pomfrey when Harry suddenly punched Ron just as Ginny kicked below his belt line. Hermione's hand was free, but the sudden jerk caused her index finger to pop and she gave a little cry of pain.
"Why are you all defending her!" Ron's face was screwed up in pain and anger as he yelled his next sentence. "She's nothing but a filthy little mublood!" The whole Great Hall gasped as one and even the Professors paused in their haste to reach the four students.
"Her magic is building up too high!" Severus warned and sprinted toward Hermione, pulling out his wand when she suddenly threw up her hands and disappeared, but not before releasing a spine shivering scream.
She did not disapparate, disillusion herself, or run away, but she just disappeared into thin air.
The Great Hall went into chaos.
*HaPpY cHrIsTmAs*
Everything-everyone- was frozen.
Everyone was literally frozen in time.
Hermione could only sit back down in her seat, staring in disbelief with only three thoughts going through her head, 'Holy Shit! What the hell is going on? She look down at her hands which were thrown up in front of her. 'Did I do this?'
She looked around for the only person she knew, or at least hoped, could give her an explanation as to what was happening and saw him as he was attempting to manoeuvre his way through the crowd of students that were gathered around the frozen scene. He was frozen in time.
"Please," Hermione whispered. "I need you," she pleaded to him though she knew he would not hear her. It was a miracle, at least she thought so when her best friend suddenly moved. He looked confused for a moment when he took in the stillness around him, but quickly gathered his wits.
"Hermione!" Harry rushed toward her. "What happened?" He asked, gathering her in his arms and holding her to him as tightly as he could without causing injury. "Why is everyone unmoving?" He asked himself more than the person he embraced.
"You frightened me," He continued, holding her to himself a little closer before releasing her just a little, but not letting go. "You just disappeared after that, that scream. Dumbledore was swearing that you could not apparate within Hogwarts, and the commotion your disappearance caused upset nearly the whole staff." Hermione was silent during his little speech and could only hold onto him as tightly as he held onto her.
"I don't know how I did it," she whispered. He had to strain his ears to hear her but her words made him pause.
"Nonsense," he said. "I don't mean to sound insulting, but you are not nearly powerful enough to freeze time. I think I remember you saying that it is suspected that Merlin could, but-"
"I know it was me," Hermione insisted. "Ron just made me so angry and embarrassed! I wanted, I wished, everything to just go away, that everyone and everything could just be still for a moment." He was quiet for a few moments while they both thought over her words.
"Do you think you could wish my scar away?" Harry asked, almost hopefully, though he knew nothing would erase the mark that left him without parents. Hermione looked up at him with frightened eyes. "Right, no time for jokes," he said. Hermione lifted her hand to brush her fingers across his cheek.
"I did not take it as such," she said softly. "If I had the means and knowledge to erase your scar I would do so, but right now what we should be thinking about is how do I undo what I did?" She asked him. "I don't even know how-" She was cut off from her sentence by the sound of more than several hoofs beating upon the stone floors outside of the Great Hall. The two of them pulled out their wands, ready for any battle that should come upon the vulnerable students and staff, and the words of a curse were on the tips of their tongues when the heavy wooden doors were flung open by an invisible force, but what made the two of them pause was the jovial laughter that warmed their rapidly beating hearts.
The 'Ho-Ho-Ho' that the man, the young man, with rosy cheeks and sparking blue eyes, shared with the world was a far cry from the spine-freezing laughter that Voldemort shared, and the two of them could only stand as frozen as the people around them as they witnessed this wizard's entrance.
It was a sight to behold.
Snow magically laid out a path for the nine reindeer that were hitched to a red sleigh with a man in a dark blue suit with silver trimmings guiding the reins as he was pulled into the Great Hall, somehow magically not causing any injuries to the still unmoving students. The sleigh stopped right before a stunned and speechless Harry and Hermione.
"What the fu-" Harry finally managed.
"Harry!" Hermione hissed, elbowing his ribs and causing him to slightly hiss in pain. A muffled 'Ho-Ho' in a mitten, and two sapphire blue eyes filled with amusement, caught their attention. The man stepped out of the sleigh and Hermione had to look up at his fine sandy coloured hair. She couldn't help but notice how similar their colouring was.
"You're not Father Christmas," was the only thing Hermione could think of to say to him. His jovial laughter filled the Great Hall, and seemingly all of Hogwarts, and made a smile flicker across Hermione's face.
"No, I daresay I am not our Father," he smiled. The smile immediately dropped off of Hermione's face. She turned to Harry in confusion and he looked down at her questioningly, a sign that he was just as bemused as she.
"Our Father?" Harry questioned. The stranger's eyes only sparkled more at his inquiry, but he kept looking down at Hermione with fascination, as if he were seeing her for the first time.
"Not for the first time," he said softly the sparkle in his eyes lessening as Hermione's thoughts displayed across her face. "It has been years," he reached for her hand and Harry moved to stop the stranger from getting too close to his sister. "Not to worry Harry," he said, still not sparing a glance for the dark haired teen. "It is inconceivable for me to even consider harm to my baby sister."
"What?"
"Sister?" Hermione and Harry asked simultaneously. Harry should have been relieved with the stranger's words, but he only wanted to put more distance between him and Hermione.
"I am an only child," Hermione said informatively.
"But you are not," he said sadly, his eyes losing their sparkle altogether. "It is my fault you think you are and I am so sorry my Chris," he said with a hitch in his voice.
"Chris?" Hermione asked. "I simply cannot be your sister. My name is Hermione, and Dad and Mum could have only me." The man in the blue suit smiled sadly.
"Hermione," he said, again reading her thoughts. "I called you Chris since the day you were born, and still call you Chris when you are in my thoughts." Hermione looked up at him in wonder and he smiled. "You only over let me, and I suspect Harry, shorten your name."
"Even so-," Hermione started.
"I lost you," he interrupted. "We begged Father and Mother to let us build Frosty again, as the time to rebuild him was near. We were impatient and we missed him," his voice hitched. "You were only five years young. I didn't want to bother with minding you while I was gathering Frosty's buttons, scarf, and top hat and I left you on your own and not a moment later you were gone. I lost you," he said softly.
"You had wandered toward the Aurora Borealis and fell in," he explained. "Da and Mum were so upset with me for not keeping an eye on you. We couldn't find you for the longest time, Chr-Hermione," he choked.
"Da explained that when you fell into the Aurora Borealis you lost your memories of us so you would not be able to find your way home, and we could not find you because you just simply disappeared. Da could not explain that, and Mum cried every night for a whole year," he said, wiping away a few of his own tears. "But I found you!" He laughed joyfully and pulled her into a hug before Harry could stop him. Hermione looked up at him with watery eyes. "You know?" He whispered. Hermione looked down and swiped a few tears from her cheeks while she shook her head.
"It all sounds familiar," she admitted very reluctantly. "How did you find me anyway?" She asked.
"You performed family magic," he smiled. "That allowed me to track you and come straight away."
"Mione," Harry squeezed her hand and leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Don't let him put thoughts in your head," he warned softly. "You were only five. No one has very clear memories of themselves at that age unless it was traumatising or otherwise happily memorable."
"I just mean that I must have read something similar to this in a book or saw it on the telly," Hermione clarified, and the young man was disheartened.
"I can prove I am not lying," the man said with a hard edge to his tone. Harry looked across at the stranger with a challenging glare. He pointed towards the Potions Professor and moved his index finger in a 'come hither' motion and the Professor suddenly moved towards them in a sprint before slowing as he took in the still scenery.
"What is going on here?" Professor Snape demanded. "What did you do, Miss Granger?" He said accusingly with his famous glare.
"Well, um, Mister-uh, he said I did family magic," Hermione motioned toward the man in a blue suit. Severus lifted an eyebrow, challenging the truth of her words, but Hermione could have sworn that she saw amusement in his eyes for a moment.
"In order for you to have used family magic, Miss Granger, you have to have a family," he reminded her, though it sounded like sarcasm to Harry and he could only glare at the Professor for pointing out the obvious to Hermione just a few minutes after Ron shouted it to the whole school.
"Yes Professor," Hermione said. "I understand."
"Well he said he could prove it," Harry said suddenly, still glaring at Snape while motioning to the young stranger that was claiming familial relations to Hermione.
"You keep nearly every type of potion in your pockets," the young man spoke up, "and I happen to know that you have a Quin Cognatione (Verify Family, roughly translated) in there somewhere."
"She does not need proof," Severus hissed. "She knows-How do you even know what potions I have in my pockets?"
"Professor Snape," Hermione's voice softly intercepted his just as the wizard in the blue suit started whistling a Christmas tune. "I will do it," she said quietly. "If he needs proof-"
"I do not need proof," the man said, halting in the middle of the notes for the line 'He knows when you're awake'. "I know who you are Chris." Hermione looked up at him sternly. "Please," he pleaded. "Let me prove to you that you are my sister." Hermione took in his beseeching sapphire eyes and conceded.
"Okay," she agreed, her heart thumping wildly. She turned to Professor Snape. "I'll do it," she said quietly.
"This is crazy," Harry mumbled as they watched Professor Snape reach into a pocket and rummage around. "One freaking crazy day. First Mione disappears into thin air, than she admits to freezing time, and not even a minute after Father Christmas-"
"I am not Father Christmas," the man gave them a secret smile.
"Yes, yes," Severus said testily. "We all know he doesn't exist," he said as he pulled out a phial, completely missing the coldness in the man's eyes that appeared for a moment. Hermione looked up at him and it was gone before she could notice, but the look made Harry uneasy.
"Now I need a hair-," Severus started in his classroom voice.
"I will give a drop of blood," the man said holding out his finger, which already held a drop of blood at its very tip, over the phial. "I wish for this to be as accurate as possible."
"Fine, fine," Severus hissed completely missing as the stranger's small incision healed itself, which was not missed by Hermione or Harry. "Miss Granger," he said only a tad more softly to her. "After thirty seconds the phial will emit red sparks, it means that there is no relation," He started to say. "If it happens to emit silver sparks it means that there is a distant relation, and gold sparks mean a close relation. After five minutes it will tell what the relation is." Hermione nodded and held out her hand to him and he held her hand gently as he made the small incision, and carefully healed her wound and her broken finger.
"Thank you," Hermione said quietly, only for him to hear and Severus gave her a slight nod in acknowledgement.
"There," Severus said with a smirk after twenty-nine seconds, only to have to smirk slip off his face, and Harry had to slightly turn to catch Hermione when she swooned after witnessing the gold sparks.
"How?" Hermione asked. "Did Mum and Dad give you up for adoption?" She asked. "Or do you belong to only my Mum or only my Dad? I can't be adopted," she denied. "They would have told me," she said with a hitch to her voice and buried her head into Harry's chest.
"Shh," Harry said softly into her hair, closing his eyes and breathing in and out in a steady manner to calm himself. "We'll soon figure this out, Mione. All will be well," he whispered, though he couldn't be sure. His best friend, his sister for all intents and purposes, had a brother. He was suddenly worried that he would be replaced by this stranger.
"Chris," the man said after a few minutes of witnessing Harry comfort her.
"Am I really your sister?" She asked him quietly. He nodded with a small smile for her while resuming his whistling to the same Christmas tune.
"I have to ask you something," he said, giving Hermione the feeling that his question was of some importance. His eyes sparkled cautiously. "Do you believe that Father Christmas exists?" He asked. Severus snorted and Hermione had to elbow Harry in his ribs to stop him from doing the same as the Professor.
"We had this conversation two days ago," Hermione lightly admonished him, only for him to give her a half-smile. She looked up at the stranger, her maybe new found brother when the potion confirmed the claim, and nodded seriously. "I do," she said, just as a small piece of parchment popped out of the rim of the phial and Severus pulled it out, read it, and handed it to Hermione but Harry snatched it before she could reach it and ignored Snape's point deduction and Hermione's indignant, "Harry!"
"You have got to be kidding me," Harry hissed at the man, Hermione's now confirmed brother, and the man could only smile at Harry's outburst. "You come in here on a red sleigh with nine reindeer claiming to be Mione's brother, whistle that Santa's coming to town. Are you going to imply next that, that reindeer with the red nose is Rudolph?" He yelled. "And I suppose that's Dasher and Dancer and Prancer, and Vixen. Oh Look!" He exclaimed, not noticing how the reindeer stood up to attention. "It's Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen!"
"Harry," Hermione hissed over his yelling. "What in the world is wrong with you?"
"What is wrong with me?" Harry laughed, frightening Hermione. "Nothing, nothing in the world is wrong with me. But you, Christmas Hermione Kringle, have the oddest family names in the history of the world." He held the parchment to her and gave her a disbelieving nod. She looked down at the parchment, then at Professor Snape, at the parchment again, then the sleigh and reindeer, and then her brother.
"Is this some kind of joke?" She asked. "Fred! George! If you do not come out this instant I will hex you into next year!" Her threat didn't work, it usually did with those two. "Did you make a mistake when brewing this particular potion?" Hermione asked the professor, only to receive a scowl in return. "Is our family some kind of Christmas fanatics?" Hermione asked her brother and his eyes only sparkled.
"Kris?" She asked sweetly. He smiled hesitantly. "Explain why this says that Kris Kringle the first is also known as Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Le Père Noël, etcetera, etcetera!" She hissed. He flinched.
"Well, Chris," he said hesitantly, "that's because our Da is Saint Nicholas." Hermione looked at him blandly.
"George and Fred Weasley get your bloody arses out here!" Hermione yelled.
"Christmas Hermione Kringle!" Her brother snapped at her and snapped his fingers, transfiguring her lips into a zipper that she struggled to undo while making small helpless noises.
"Undo this," Harry demanded while he tried various finites on Hermione. "Aren't you supposed to protect her?" He glared at the Professor who looked as though he was enjoying himself a little too much at Hermione's expense.
"Oh I would if Miss Granger were actually being harmed, Mister Potter," the Professor purred all too happily. "But as merely staff, I cannot interfere with her family's disciplinary methods unless they are actually causing harm to the student. I see no harm being done here," he smirked. "In fact, I hear delightful silence." Harry could only clench his fists and keep them firmly at his sides while he glared on, wishing for his Professor's head to explode.
"Mmmrh!" Hermione glared at the Professor and he only smirked back.
"Language, Miss Granger," he purred at her.
"Mmmrrrr rrrhhhhmmm," was her indecipherable reply while she glared up at him.
"Ten points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger. For not speaking properly to a teacher," he could only continue his fun.
"Rrrrrhhh," Hermione growled, throwing up her hands. Professor Snape suddenly froze where he was standing. "Mmm," Hermione folded her arms and nodded with self-satisfaction while Harry laughed and her brother smiled with amusement. "Mmmm hhm," Hermione glared at her brother while pointing to her mouth.
"I hope you remember to watch your language next time, Christmas," he warned. "Otherwise you will stay like this for ten minutes and it will increase by five minutes every time," he warned her, then snapped his fingers and her mouth returned to normal.
"How did you do that?" Hermione asked. "Can you teach me to do that? How much wandless magic can you do? How dare you do that to me!" She said, crossing her arms all the while not noticing how the Great Hall was nearly clear of students and staff, except for a frozen Headmaster.
o
"Severus," the Headmaster greeted. "You just disappeared like Miss Granger and Mister Potter. We were worried. I am assuming that since you disappeared by the same methods as them that you were also where they are?" He asked. Severus looked around the empty Great Hall and he wandlessly sealed the doors, performed many silencing charms, and an illusion charm around their area.
"Do you feel that, Albus?" He asked. The Headmaster nodded gravely.
"Great magic t'is afoot," he said. "It reeks of Miss Granger's signature over the whole castle and the grounds along with another that compliments hers."
"I am sorry to have to correct you, Headmaster, but Miss Granger can no longer go by Granger. By law we must call her Miss Kringle," he emphasised. The Headmaster paused, then nodded seriously.
"Any chance there is a relation to Kris Kringle?" He could not help but ask.
"Albus," Severus said, suddenly very serious, "I am afraid that it is going to be very hard to cover up Miss Kringle's bout of accidental magic," he said with a small smile that looked unnatural on him.
"Why do you say so Severus," the Headmaster asked worriedly.
"Because I can suddenly feel the Dark Lord's happiness through my Dark Mark," he answered.
I only posted this chapter because I wanted to say something short and simple in support of France. These days not many people support a good cause, even with just heartfelt words, and others who do want to support with a nice post don't want to cause controversy. I sincerely hope I don't unknowingly offend anyone by saying how much my heart hurts for our brothers and sisters in Paris, France and Beirut. I am keeping you all in my prayers, and I want you know that you are loved.
~V.I.