It was Christmas Eve, and Snape had sequestered himself into his private quarters, once again glad that as a House head, his rooms were a little larger then the rest of the staff's. The furnishing didn't much suit his tastes, all decadent green velvet drapes and ornately carved wood but most of them dated back to a time when Salazar Slytherin himself occupied the space, so there was little he could do to alter it. Sinking as far into the cross frame chair as the the green and silver tapestry cushion would allow, Snape surveyed a small pile of presents sitting by his fire place.
It appealed to his sense of irony that he was, unarguably, the most disliked professor in the school and yet, he was, quite possibly, the professor who received the most amount of gifts during the holiday season. Most were ridiculous items used as an attempt to garner his favour, others were useless trinkets that were given in bulk to the entire staff – usually from Hufflepuffs. Last year the Argent twins had given him a scarf knitted out of baby Yeti wool in the most offensive shade of green, that had to have cost at least seven galleons. Their gifts were always inordinately extravagant and disturbingly tasteless.
Hazarding a guess, he pulled out the gift that was wrapped in the most garish paper, assuming it was from those girls. With little ceremony or care he pulled away the green paper with silver Christmas stars blinking and flashing across the wrapper. In side was a pair of enchanted slippers, no doubt the latest fad from Dervish and Bang's. According to the box they were encased in, they had a warming, massaging and exfoliating enchantment and came in three styles colours. He prayed fervently in that moment they hadn't bought him the Chimera-print option.
He sorted through the rest of the gifts assembled. Draco had wrapped a bottle of fifty year old Ogden's in a simple black tissue – perhaps not the most festive, but certainly suited his mood better. Lucius most definitely procured the bottle for Draco to present to him. A brave first year had baked some biscuits and put them in a cheerful cellophane bag with can-caning reindeer. Most of the others were entirely uninspiring and he had no hope that the last one on the pile would be any different.
Unlike the others, it wasn't wrapped in holiday paper, but in week old editions of the Daily Prophet. The coffee stains and edges that looked like they had been chewed on by a small animal added to the decorative quality. Ridding the package of it's wrappings, Severus couldn't help but take a sharp breath. He couldn't believe what he held in his hands.
Putting the gift – the treasure – down, he snatched the discarded newspaper off the floor, and started reading every corner, searching for the name of the giver. Finding no name was odd, in and of itself, as all the gifts he had ever received, no matter how mediocre, practically had the name of the student who had given them engraved, embossed or embedded on them, so as to make sure they would receive any appreciation being dispensed. And yet, a gift he was truly impressed by seemed to be given by an anonymous donor.
He turned the medium sized cauldron every direction, making sure to handle it with the greatest of care, despite the fact that it would withstand the strongest Confringo curse even Merlin himself could conjure.
The dark grey metal shimmered in the fire light, showing the odd swirled pattern ingrained in the sides of the cauldron, and he couldn't seem to take his eyes away from the smoothed, domed sides. It was made from neither pewter, copper, nor brass and was not made to the standard size scale. Running his hands over the cool metal, he tested for any imperfections or flaws in the forging and found none.
Standing quickly, he crossed to the small bookshelf in the corner of the room, that looked ready to topple under all the titles he had stacked, three deep on each shelf. After quickly looking through the titles, he pulled out the periodical he was looking for, 'Exotic Cauldrons; their purposes, values, and where to find them'.
Sitting back down and pulling the metal bowl into his lap, he started carefully studying each entry, until he found the image that showed the cauldron in question, on a rotating platform, granting the reader a three-sixty view.
'The 'Respiraţie şi sânge' Cauldron is a specialty cauldron designed to withstand the highest of temperatures and the most acidic of potions. It is made with refined Wolfram (often refered to as Tungsten in muggle circles) and is then forged in dragon fire, with dragon blood used as a flux. It is forged in the ancient Damascus fashion, causing the unique swirled patterning on the metal, and adding to it's strength. In addition to the superior metal and forging, the enchantments used during it's manufacture make the heat disperse around the cauldron evenly and you will seldom have scorching when using this peice of equipment.
Summary:
Name; Respiraţie şi sânge Highest Temperature; 4,000 degrees Celsius
Rarity; absurdly rare Average cost; G189, S8, K1
Orgin; Bufniţă Tabăra Dragon Colony, Romania Manufactured by; Constatinescu-Sova
Snape felt his stomach lurch. He kept telling himself that the name had to be a coincidence, that such a girl could have nothing to do with such a prestigeous metal smith. Not able to leave the matter drop, he flipped to the back of 'Exotic Cauldrons', to the merchant index. The listing for Constantinescu-Sova was close to the top, and gave him little more information. The point of contact for sales was Alexandru Sova and that the Sova family had been forging and supplying quality Dragon related accoutrement since 1629. Skimming over the superfluous 'cruelty-free' statement about their Dragon Colony, Snape only had eyes for the family crest located at the bottom of the advertisement that matched the one embossed on the bottom of the pot. He knew he had seen it somewhere before, and that he could not pull it's original location from his detailed memories irked him.
Standing, he reached for the newsprint at his feet, and crumpling it in his first he flung it into the fire, and lost himself a moment, watching the paper catch alight and shrivel up in the flames.
Gingerly, he placed the cauldron on the mantle, the flickering from the hearth, casting shadowed light onto it's metallic curves. As he stared at it from a distance, he was stuck by the outstanding quality of the gift – not of the item itself, but as something that he could actually use.
Pausing himself, he questioned whether he would ever use it. Really, he should return it to whence it came as such an ornate gift could not be justified and would be considered nothing more then bribery. But the question of who gave it was one he chose not to pursue, as the obvious answer was displeasing. Perhaps she had sold it, a family heirloom, to some other student for enough coins to buy a drink at Hogsmeade. Perhaps, she had not sold it at all, but someone had purchased it from overseas – but that brought up the question of who? Dumbledore usually gave him a Christmas present but it was usually something even more ridiculous then the tat the students left. Furthermore, the Headmaster always left his gifts under the tree in the staff lounge, and he had found this one left in the potions classroom.
None of this made as much sense as the simple fact that she had given this piece of cauldron artwork to him, herself. The fact that he saw no motive or benefit in her actions didn't belie that obvious answer, as much as he wanted it to.
He knew he should sleep. Having been up late the night before, and knowing that he had to wake in the early morning for the last shift of hall patrol, he realized that rest was going to be a commodity, but he could not silence his thoughts. Pulling down the candelabra that was mounted on the gray stone wall to the left of the fireplace making a small, cave-like door opened on the far wall past the large canopy bed. Snape quickly exited through it, and started up the winding stone stairs through the private passage way that lead directly to his office.
Upon gaining entry to his study, he strode across the room to where large, black oak filing cabinets towered in the far corner. "Accio student file for Sova, Anezka N." a drawer slid open smoothly and a large manilla file fluttered out of it's drawer.
Snatching it from the air, Snape sat down at his desk and opened up the document. Unfortunately for him, all entries in student files went in reverse order and it took a solid half hour of time to sort through all the detentions and loss of points listed until he came across what he was looking for. The very first page of the packet – her original application to transfer to over the details that were not important, he picked two facts from the page in front of him. The first, that her Father's name was not Alexandru but Casmir Sova, neither confirming or refuting anything. Standing out more, however, was a statement that removed any doubt he had on the gift's origin. Written, clear as day was her last official residence, Bufniţă Tabăra, Romania. Now if he could just understand WHY she had left him something she had to know was of value, and that no doubt given her potions skills, she would like to keep for herself.
Recollection suddenly dawned on him where he had seen the crest of the Constatinescu-Sovafamily that was stamped on the bottom of the cauldron. It had been the first night of the year, in the Headmaster's office.
Many miles away, in London, in a small room on the top floor of the Leaky Cauldron, Anezka sat cross-legged in front of the hearth, rubbing unconsciously at the large, black Dragon Shield tattoo that adorned her upper arm. A church bell chimed twelve times in the distance, signaling the start of the Holy day, breaking her from her reverie. "Merry Christmas Harold! NOW you can open your stocking." She pulled a small ratty sock down from where it was pinned on the mantle.
The small hedgehog grunted in pleasure and quickly darted back and forth in a small circle, causing the bell on a green satin ribbon that was tied around his belly to jingle merrily. As soon as Anezka had dropped the stocking on the floor, the critter pounced on it, and started pulling the various treats and toys from it's confines.
As her pet entertained himself with the bag of candied mealworms, she turned to where a small stick-like pine tree was sticking out of an old fashioned tin pail, held upright in it's base with dirt and decorated with shiny gift wrap ribbon that Anezka had purchased at the nickle-and-dime store around the corner in muggle-side. The loopy bows she had tied them into, along with a frosting charm, that had taken her twenty minutes to conjure, making glistening icicles appear on the ends of the needles, made an all-together pretty, if not terribly fancy Christmas twig. Sitting beneath it was a small stack of presents.
Perhaps it was silly, but she had wrapped all the boxes herself, despite the fact that she had just purchased them all in the last few days in Diagon Alley. Whereas most would be saddened by this, she had been wrapping her own presents since she was seven as her Mother never had time and Dad would always forget. She smiled to think of the odd tradition they had made – just her and him, Christmas eve, wrapping presents and drinking cocoa, making sure the the few presents were wrapped before she got home from work and Dad got in trouble for not having it done.
"To Nezza, from Harold" She picked up a package, "Oh, Harold, you shouldn't have." Pulling away the paper she had only taped around the box a few hours previously revealed a small jewelry box that held a set of earrings with emerald teadrops hanging from a cluster of diamonds – none of them were real of course, just glass and other things enchanted to look real. To the naked eye your couldn't tell the difference and had they been authentic jewels, Anezka would never have purchased them at that vendor stall in the Alley the day before, no matter how excited Harold had gotten when he saw the box. She liked indulging the Hedgehog's whims, and admittedly, he had good taste, but she would never spend more then the five galleons she did on the set. "No, really, you shouldn't have. I don't wear jewelry." The small creature looked up from his empty toilet paper roll that he was playing with and grunted at her.
She opened the few other presents that sat waiting, all wrapped in various sheets from The Daily Prophet. There was a book she had been wanting for a while, a new mortar and pestle set that had a higher capacity then the small set that she already had at school, some new pairs of socks and enough cigarette papers to last for the rest of the year. They weren't exciting but she was certainly glad for them. Summoning a few pillows and the embroidered duvet off the antique bed she curled up on the floor in front of the roaring fire, lighting a smoke and opened up to the first page of her new book. If she read through the day, she could have the book finished quickly and she could think of no better way to spend the day. As she flipped through the first chapter, the thought couldn't help but cross her mind on what her professor would do with the cauldron she left him. With a shrug she continued reading, thinking that he'd most likely either try to return it, or act as if he never was given it, at least until he could suss out who gave it and why. Always suspicious, that man was. She couldn't help but appreciate that quality. Outside, snow flurries began to fall.