10 - In The Bleak Midwinter

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone
Snow had fallen; snow on snow, snow on snow;
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

...*...

Her house was unfamiliar, and her family too welcoming for him to help suspecting some kind of trap. It reminded him of the Evanses, in a way, but in another way, it was completely different. For one thing, they were clearly a lot better off than anyone in Spinner's End; in fact, he decided after some thought, that was the most nervewracking part of it all. He wasn't unused to wealth, as he had been before Hogwarts, but while he might count many of the richer Slytherins as allies and - at least aloud – as friends, he had no illusions that either they or their families did any more than put up with him on sufferance. The Baines family, on the other hand, seemed genuinely glad he was there, and it threw him off-balance entirely. It was a rather nasty thought to entertain, but the more he thought about it, the more it occurred to him – this was the only place he had ever been where everyone at least pretended to like him.

They set him up a bed on the spare room, a large, comfortable room into which he could probably have fitted his room at Spinner's End three or four times over. They told him to make himself at home, to take any books he might want off the shelves, to feel free to take any food he wanted out of the kitchen. They told him to just relax, and, to his own horror, he did.

At the same time, though, he couldn't help but suspect a trap. Nobody could be that relaxed about some stranger in their house, especially not when the stranger was Severus Snape, and nobody could really be that eager to help, to accept him as anything but an intruder. Something had to be wrong here. His instincts, honed by all those years of watching his own back so keenly, cried out sharply against the sudden removal of all threats, because life wasn't that simple. It never was. He could pretend all he wanted, but in the end, he knew what people were like, and they weren't like this. If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that altruism wasn't, and never had been, a part of the human condition.

And yet. And yet, he raised no protest. He let himself pretend. It was too late to go back now, so he simply let himself pretend that he believed it, that he had faith, that he never doubted how genuine they were or what they might want in return. He let himself pretend, and sank back into inaction, as if the pretence that they were honest and altruistic might become fact if he let it. Childish, yes. Naive, yes. But there seemed to be little choice, and it felt good, if only for a little while, to pretend to himself that he was as naive as so much of the world seemed to be.

Besides, he'd committed himself. He was going to regret coming here, and he knew it, but for the time being, all he could do was try to enjoy it.

That was an alien thought. Usually, when he committed himself to something, it was for a reason, and he could focus on that reason, that purpose, and not worry about anything else. Here, though, he didn't know why he'd come. He had no purpose. His job, as Laura and her parents went on telling him, was to relax and have fun, and, he had to admit it at least to himself, that wasn't something he knew how to do. So he was quiet, and withdrawn, and, if anything, sharper even than he was at school, already fed up with the curious isolation of being included.

By Christmas Eve, when it finally became a topic of conversation, he felt like screaming. Outside, it was dark, and the sky was tinged orange by the streetlights; snow fell, but didn't settle; cars passed and partygoers straggled, singing, by the window, just like they had outside the little house on Spinner's End. The words they sang filtered in through the sitting room window: In the bleak midwinter, frosty winds made moan...

Inside, the lights were lit, the gas fire burning blue in the fireplace, the record player in the next room playing Christmas songs. It felt too good to be true. Uncomfortably carefree, uncomfortably merry. Laura sat down beside him on the sofa, two knitted stockings on her lap, and looked at him.

"I usually put my stocking up after dinner. Over the fireplace, there. Do you want to put yours there, too, or shall we move them somewhere else?"

"You got me a stocking." His voice was very flat, disguising any emotion he might have had. In all honesty, he wasn't sure what emotion that even was; that was most disorienting of all, the way this place made his emotions unmanageably indiscriminate.

"Well, my mum got you a stocking," Laura corrected, with a little smile. "It would hardly be fair if you didn't have one."

He was quiet for a long moment, his bony jaw shifting slightly, his lips pressed together until they almost disappeared. "Baines," he said, at last, "I don't think fair is an issue here. I'm already in your house, where I am eating your food, using your fuel, and so on. Not that I object to any of it, of course. But what's all this in aid of?"

Her eyebrows drew together. "Is that what all this is about?" she asked, slowly, chewing on her lip.

"All what?" A little snappish, perhaps, but he didn't much care. "And about what?"

Laura looked at him, clearly hurt, but he couldn't help thinking she looked a little angry, too. Her fingers clenched a little on the stockings in her lap.

"You've been miserable, that's what." Yes, she was definitely angry, in her quiet, level-headed kind of way. "Miserable, and incredibly miserable to be around. Skulking around as if we've personally insulted you somehow. I didn't think you would be the merriest person in the world, but you're even worse than I was expecting." She took a deep breath, brushing a loose hair back behind her ear, and her voice was a little calmer now. "Listen, Severus... it isn't in aid of anything, all right? It's only that we want you here. That's all. I thought you understood that. We enjoy having you here. I enjoy having you here."

Her hand touched his, a gentle brush of her fingers against his. He stiffened reflexively, his eyes drawn down to their hands, then back up to her face. For a moment, he sat there, very still, barely breathing, wanting to believe her, wishing that her touch didn't still make him tense and bitter.

At last, he pulled his hand away and turned his head, not wanting to look at her any more. "I don't like Christmas much. That's all." It was very flat. "And I don't think you or your parents should be wasting money on me. It isn't as though I got you anything." He'd considered it, but he hadn't been able to afford anything she wouldn't already have, and have better.

She was looking at him oddly. "Severus. Have you ever actually celebrated Christmas? I mean, properly?"

"Of course I have!" It came out sounding defensive; he couldn't help it. And, well, it was true, wasn't it? He might never have celebrated Christmas quite like this, with trees and stockings and decorations everywhere, because those took money and time - and festive spirit, which was admittedly lacking throughout his family – but his mother had made an effort when he was younger, at least, and there'd always been a present to open on Christmas Day. He just hadn't cared too much for it, or been naive enough to think that Christmas made any difference to who people were. It was just another way to pretend everything was good, that parents loved their children and presents made up for anything else that had ever happened. It was childish, and even as a child, he'd hated it. But they'd celebrated it, hadn't they? They'd played the Queen's speech on the radio, opened presents, even had a turkey once or twice. They might not have celebrated it how Laura did, but as far as Severus was concerned, they'd celebrated it as properly as possible.

She didn't seem convinced by it, though; the scathing look she continued to give him said as much. Still, she didn't argue back, which he supposed counted as a small victory. Instead, she stood up, holding out one of the stockings to him, and looked at him with a little sigh. "At least pretend you're enjoying it, Severus. Please. My parents will get upset if they think they're ruining your Christmas."

He didn't hide the roll of his eyes but he did stand up, taking the stocking out of her hand. "If you insist."

That night, he lay awake for a long time. The fire still flickered away, warm and comforting. Outside, someone was singing carols, loudly and drunkenly. Severus lay on his back, looking up at the ceiling, and thought.

He hated to admit it, but maybe she was right about him. That seemed to be the case an awful lot of the time lately, and it made him more than a little uncomfortable... still, he had to accept the facts as they were laid in front of him. Perhaps she was right about him. He didn't think she was right about Christmas – it was just another day, after all, and to hold it in such sacred regard seemed like the most infantile thing possible, notwithstanding its popularity – but perhaps she was right about him. About his Christmases. Maybe he never had celebrated them properly.

Lying there on the too-soft bed in someone else's room, he thought of the tree downstairs, and the presents under it, and tried to imagine what it would have been like to have that when he was still young enough and stupid enough to believe that there could be a Santa Claus, or a Jesus, or a day in the year where people were good. When he might still have believed that Christmas was anything but a flimsy excuse for the failures of the year. He didn't understand what made this all so significant to people, but might he have? Might he still?

That was a stupid thought, he told himself, and rolled onto his side as if the pillow would muffle his own thoughts into nothingness. But a new thought was forming in his mind, one which refused to be shaken.

He didn't understand what made this all so significant to people, but he knew it was significant. It was significant to Laura. It had been significant to Lily. And they were significant to him – much more than he cared to admit even to himself. They mattered, and this mattered to them, so didn't that mean it must matter?

Something of a logical leap there, don't you think? he scolded himself, but the thought was lodged in his head, and although he tried to sleep, it pulsed there, keeping him awake until, at last, he sat up, wondering what on earth he was doing, and pushed the blankets aside. He didn't know his way around the house too well, but he'd seen the box of wrapping paper in the cupboard under the stairs, and that was all he needed. It was a quick operation, performed in silence – he didn't want to wake anybody up, after all – but for all that it seemed like a little thing, when it was done, he slept at last, soundly and almost contentedly.

He overslept the next morning; a rare occurrence to say the least, and was woken by Laura shaking his shoulder lightly. "Severus?"

Shooting upright, he cleared his throat sharply and ran a hand back through his greasy hair, looking over at her. Outside, the watery light of dawn was starting to diffuse across the sky, which, this late in the year, meant he must have overslept by several hours. "What time is it?"

"Eight forty-seven." A prompt, accurate response; it was good to know that some things didn't change.

"And you didn't wake me earlier?"

"It's Christmas morning. I thought you deserved the lie-in." She smiled, pulling her hair back into a ponytail with one hand. "My parents are up, if you want to come and open your stocking."

"Give me a moment," he said, a little tautly, sitting up. "I... let me get dressed, all right?"

She laughed, stepping back away from the bed. "We'll be waiting for you in the sitting room. But, really, it's all right if you want to come down in your pyjamas. It's Christmas, after all."

"Let me get dressed," he repeated, a little more firmly, but he did managed to summon up a smile for her – and, despite himself, he was almost tempted to go downstairs in his pyjamas, if only to test how genuine an offer it had been. In the end, though, he got dressed in the most neutral, Muggle clothes he had left after last summer – a plain black shirt and trousers – and headed downstairs, even taking the time to tie back his own hair. In its own way, that was a signal of trust; he kept his hair long as something to hide behind, but he'd decided last night that he wouldn't hide any more this holiday.

Laura must have told her parents what to get him – or got it herself – because what was in his stocking was a shockingly good surprise; from books and a new quill to a pair of gloves to replace the hole-filled ones he'd been wearing since third year. He couldn't help but be flattered; it was hard to doubt that they wanted him here, when they'd gone to so much effort. That cynical part of his mind still cried out in protest, but he could silence it, and his thanks were genuine.

It wasn't long after that, though, that Laura spotted it, and Severus' heart went back into his mouth. He was suddenly and absolutely sure that he'd done something terribly wrong, made a huge mistake.

"I thought you said you didn't get me anything, Severus," she said, her voice light, but curious, and she glanced at her parents.

"Oh, go on." Mrs Baines was smiling, clearly enjoying every moment of this whole charade, Severus thought a little better. "One present before lunch won't hurt."

Laura grinned – actually grinned – and reached over to pick up the present, rather messily wrapped in gold paper, from under the tree. Unsurprisingly, she was meticulously neat in unwrapping it, taking great care not to rip the paper or even crumple it, but there was urgent excitement in her face, her movements. When the paper was actually pulled away, though, she sat there for a long moment, just staring down at the book for a long, long moment. It was a long time before she even opened the front cover of the Potions textbook, to look down at the little crossed-out frontispiece; This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince.

Beneath it: Merry Christmas, Laura. Severus.

For a moment, there was a hushed, expectant silent. Severus' heart sank like a stone, more certain than ever that he'd got this completely wrong, and he looked away, back to the all-too-good pile of presents she and her parents had given him, awkward and embarrassed. He'd done it wrong. Of course he had. He didn't know how, but he'd got it wro—

"Severus?" Her voice was quiet, muted. With a little sigh, he turned his head back to look at her.

And her lips pressed against his, so suddenly and without warning that he couldn't flinch away. Somehow, he didn't want to.

...*...

What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would give a lamb;
If I were a wise man, I would do my part;
Yet what can I give him? Give him my heart.