7

Monday was by far Severus Snape's least favourite day of the week. After a weekend of blissfully sleeping in – even if it was for only an hour – he had to get up early. What was more, this very Monday he was on duty during breakfast which meant that he was expected to be the first person at the Great Hall.

Snape yawned as he made his way up from the dungeons to face the rest of the school. When he entered the Great Hall he allowed himself a small smile. He had done it. Nobody was there but him.

Snape sat in his usual place at the head table and touched the tip of his wand to the plate waiting for him. A steaming pot of coffee appeared as well as a full English breakfast. Snape pocketed his wand. The house elves knew how to make a miserable morning better.

The potions master enjoyed almost a half hour of blissful silence. A copy of the Daily Prophet had appeared beside his plate after his first cup of coffee and he had indulged in politics and gossip. There was an article about how the Dark Lord seemed to have disappeared as there hadn't been any attacks reported for a full week. Snape chuckled. Disappeared, indeed.

The next person to enter the hall was the headmaster.

"Ah, Severus! Good morning, my boy, good morning," the old man greeted the potions master enthusiastically. "How are you today? How did the workshops go?"

"There was some trouble with Malfoy and Potter as was to be expected. The rivalry between those two is irritating. I've never had the misfortune to teach two students who loathed each other with so much passion."

Dumbledore chuckled. "Sometimes they remind me of Mr Potter's father and you."

Snape huffed. "I will not sit here and be insulted!"

"Anyway," Dumbledore smiled, "I wanted to thank you for your support in this project. So far, the students seem sufficiently entertained. I'm very pleased." He placed a small gift, wrapped in bright yellow, in front of the potions master.

"A present?" Snape asked. "What do you want?"

The older wizard laughed. "Always suspicious, always on your guard! You'd make a master spy, Severus, should we need one."

The potions master glared. "Don't speak of myself and spying in the same sentence. Not even in jest! You never know who hears it and gets ideas."

"You are right, my boy," the headmaster sobered. "Know, that this little thing comes without strings attached. It's just an expression of my appreciation for your work."

Snape looked at the old man warily but opened his present. When he opened the small box, he gasped. "Albus! Is that what I think it is?"

"If you think that it's phoenix ash, then it is." Dumbledore smiled benignly and reached for the tea pot which had materialized when he sat down. "Fawkes had a burning day."

"Do you have any idea how much this is worth?" Snape was dumbfounded.

"As a matter of fact, I have." Dumbledore chuckled. "I filled your box and then sold the rest to Arsenius Jigger like always."

"Speaking of selling," Snape remembered something. "The Dark Lord ordered that hair growing potion. Can you organise it to be delivered, along with the invoice?"

"You are making him pay for his order?" Dumbledore asked.

Snape shrugged. "Only for the ingredients. Since it's for his private use and not for the cause, I don't see why I should pay for him. It's what we usually do." He placed the bottle and an envelope on the table.

Dumbledore pointed his wand at the two items and they disappeared. "Done!" he announced.

A little later, McGonagall made her appearance. She turned the topic to the transfiguration-related workshops she had held on the weekend. She informed Snape that two little girls from his house – Anastasia Avery and Crescentia Flint – had a natural aptitude for her subject that hadn't shown in her classes so far but had manifested itself when the children were allowed to use their fantasy.

Dumbledore congratulated Snape for having two gifted little witches in his house.

Snape didn't have any similar stories about gifted potioneers among the lower year Gryffindors but he didn't have any story about exploding cauldrons either and that was at least something.

Shortly after McGonagall's arrival there was a rush of students and the hall filled quickly. There was a constant chitter-chatter of students who shared stories about their weekend with their housemates. When Dumbledore finally invited everybody to get their presents, Snape discovered a small bag made of fur. He looked over to Hagrid and raised the gift questioningly. The half-giant nodded enthusiastically and gave Snape the thumbs up. It made the potions master a little nervous.

As always, the teachers waited with their gift opening until the students had opened theirs.

Hermione Granger opened a black parcel and discovered a quill. She came to the head table and held it out to the headmaster.

"Please, Sir," she said politely, "I suspect that this gift comes from a dark witch or wizard. Can you determine what it does and if it is safe for me to use it?"

"Of course, dear girl, of course!" The headmaster took the quill and put it on the table. He pointed his wand at it and muttered some spells under his breath. "Severus," he said, "what do you think?"

Snape repeated the procedure and then said "I think it is perfectly safe for you to use this, Miss Granger."

"What does it do?" the girl asked curiously.

Dumbledore chuckled. "It will punish you if you write something wrong. I'm very relieved that it was you who got this present. Otherwise the result wouldn't have been pretty."

"Please promise me to lend this to Potter and Weasley on occasion," said Snape.

The girl grinned. "When they write their potions homework, for example?" She asked cheekily.

The potions master agreed that that would be a perfectly acceptable occasion.

Justin Finch-Fletchley from Hufflepuff got a new wizard's hat. When he put it on, his features softened and his hair lengthened until he looked like a girl. When he took the hat off, he was his normal self again instantly.

"What an ingenious piece of magic!" cried Dumbledore when he spotted the boy. "Your doing, Filius?"

"No," the small wizard said proudly. "It must have been made by one of my Ravenclaws. We discussed attaching charms to objects only yesterday in the common room." He beamed as he looked over at his house table fondly.

One of the Hufflepuff first years got a colourful box. When she opened it, a swarm of butterflies burst out of it. Around her, the children oohed and aahed and their delight increased when the girl closed the box and opened it again to discover a new swarm of the delicate insects.

Gregory Goyle discovered a mistletoe in his box. All the girls in his vicinity swarmed to him and met the mistletoes requirements.

"Mr Goyle seems to be enjoying himself," Dumbledore remarked.

Snape agreed. It was nice for the boy to be the centre of attention for once when he was in Draco Malfoy's shadow most of the time.

Once all the students had opened her gifts. It was the teachers' turn.

Dumbledore was delighted when he discovered a hand knitted pair of socks. Flitwick and McGonagall both got bags of cookies and Trelawney got a deck of cards which seemed to have been hand drawn by a rather young child. The resident seer was beside herself. "Cards which were made so diligently will encourage the inner eye greatly! Oh, the things I will see!" She pointed at Snape. "Beware a gift not given personally!"

Snape snorted. Every advent calendar gift was not given personally and seeing how things had gone in the past it was only to be expected that mishaps were going to happen once or twice.

Then he remembered that he hadn't opened his bag.

In it was a bluish egg a little smaller than a chicken egg. Snape was out of his seat at once.

"Hagrid! Is this dangerous when it hatches?" he asked urgently.

"Of course not, Professor!" cried the half-giant. "But you may want to keep the egg shell when it hatches. It's a good thing it was you who got this."

"What is it?" Snape asked through gritted teeth.

Hagrid laughed. "That is a surprise! Just keep it in the bag and everything will go well."

Knowing the gamekeeper, Snape was not at all reassured. He spent every free minute at the library that day. Shortly before curfew, he had to admit defeat. He had not succeeded in identifying the egg.