A/n
This story got lost for some reason, so I post it again.
Thanks to my friend Maja for her help in translating this into English.
And don't you dare go out without your hat - Christmas story.
Charity Burbage, for the last two minutes or so, had been doing some sort of strange, complicated dance around their new acquisition, a magically modified coffee machine. In her hand she held a rather thin manual. The gold lettering on the brown cover proclaimed: "It's not coffee, when it's transfigurated from water." Whatever Charity intended to do, she finally she put the manual down on the cup-board, evidently discouraged by the gaze of black eyes, not very discreetly following her every move. Snape immediately returned to reading of The Daily Prophet. He had the look on his face as if the paper consisted of nothing but obituaries.
"I'm making tracks", said Charity cheerfully, combing her hair with an electric plug taken from her pocket. - I lost my comb somewhere," she explained, glancing at Minerva with a glint in her eye, evidently wanting to provoke her to make a comment.
A few days ago, however, Minerva decided that criticising her younger colleague's ideas was missing the point and decided to refrain from doing so. Charity had thousands of them; one "better" than the other, and she did not hesitate to put them into practice, no matter what Minerva was told her. Trying to prove that making toasts with a Muggle iron is possible, had a good chance of going down in Hogwarts history. And in big letters.
"When are you coming back?", Minerva asked, trying to put on an expression as if using a plug in place of a comb was a matter of course.
"As usual, the second of January, in the morning".
"You don't have to rush. The second one falls on a Tuesday, and there aren't any particular schedule changes, so you don't start class until the afternoon".
"Oh, that's great. Maybe I'll do some more post-Christmas shopping on the way then. Merry Christmas", said Charity with a smile, shoving the plug in her pocket and heading for the door. Minerva would have escorted her out, and maybe even hugged her, but then she would have exposed herself to a series of questions to which she had absolutely no desire to expose herself. And certainly not in Snape's presence. So she confined herself to merely responding to the wishes. Snape, in turn, confined himself to pretending that no one had said anything to him.
"Charity, please go and say goodbye to the headmaster. He will be pleased", said Minerva, when Charity was already standing in the doorway.
"You weren't here when he came with wishes".
"That is what I will do. I have thought about it".
"And don't you dare go out without your hat", Snape muttered mockingly, at the same moment when the door closed.
"And don't you dare go out without your hat!", Minerva repeated loudly before she could hold her tongue. Snape looked at her as if he thought she had lost her mind. A slightly rebellious "oookeeey", tinged with a hint of insolence, came from behind the door. Snape folded the newspaper and stood up.
"Will you be here in ten minutes?", he asked into space.
"Yes, I'm not going anywhere for now. I want to wrap things up this semester today".
Snape nodded and left. It was only after a moment that Minerva began to wonder what he actually meant. After all, he didn't suddenly crave anyone's company. He generally holed up in the dun-geons over the Christmas period and unless you were Dumbledore, with his vast reserves of patience, attempts to get him out of there had about as much chance of success as Charity's experiments.
Minerva felt an unpleasant prick in her right side. It was the battered ribs that had decided to make her life a wring, even though she had done literally everything to avoid giving them an excuse.
Although in the morning, standing in front of the mirror and looking at her right side, she was struggling to find places not covered with purple bruises, a visit to Madam Pomfrey was categorically ruled out. The nurse was going away for Christmas anyway. There was a good chance that Albus had some kind of effective medicine, but it would be impossible to avoid questions. She was not in the habit of lying to Albus, so she preferred to keep silent about the worthy of a first-year stupidity she had managed to commit yesterday,. Hardly, she would survive somehow. Fortunately, she had dealt with the worst of it. After all, she knew a bit about healing magic.
Snape returned. He looked around the room, as if he expected someone unwelcome to be hiding un-der the table, or behind a curtain. Then he took a bottle of pale blue potion out of his pocket and with-out a word placed it before Minerva.
"What is it", she asked in astonishment. Truly, if he confiscated something from someone, he found a very appropriate moment to explain the matter. Almost all the students had left for home an hour ago.
"Something to stop you crooking in pain with every movement", he replied quietly.
Crooking in pain, Minerva carefully righted herself in her chair and gave Snape a questioning look. Oh, was it really that obvious of her? The mere fact that Snape had brought her a healing potion was not as suspicious as it might seem. For him, questioning Madam Pomfrey's competence was a kind of amusement, comparable to subtracting points from Gryffindor.
"Don't worry", he said, in a tone dripping with fake sweetness. "If I wanted to poison you, I would not have done it in such an idiotic way".
"Ididn't even thinkof that", Minerva flinched.
Indeed, it was true. She trusted Albus like no one in the world, and since he claimed that Severus Snape could be trusted, the subject was closed.
"I'm just wondering what came into your head", she said.
"I saw your magnificent feat. At first I though nasty Filches cat had gone completely mad. Then I saw you coming back to the castle and realised it was you who had fallen.
Minerva sighed heavily. It had been a long time since she had felt so awkward. She wondered why Snape had to witness this little disaster.
"Peeves sang something about Umbridge hanging around outside my office", she said, com-pletely ignoring the remark about her animagus character's supposed similarity to Mrs Norris. "I wasn't sure if I had locked the door. I wanted to be there as soon as possible".
A mocking smile appeared on Snape' s face.
"Next time, try to use your limited gryffindor imagination before jumping on icy windowsils. You are the only useful animagus in the Order and Dumbledore would certainly not like you to die in such a senseless manner.
At first, she was speechless. She knew Severus well enough to know that while he wasn't one of those people generally considered to be polite, there were some people he wouldn't dare insult without a solid reason. Minerva had counted herself among them so far. Yes, they had argued often, but even mocking remarks towards Harry, Neville, or Gryffindor as a whole, Snape had never directly referred to her. "Her Gryffindor limited imagination," was definitely outside the established norms over the years. Something about the situation had clearly thrown him off balance. She wondered what. Somehow, she couldn't imagine that anyone's fate particularly concerned him.
"Have you anything else to say to me, Severus?", she asked in an icy tone, struggling to control her Scottish temper, which categorically demanded that she immediately assume a standing position and not necessarily calmly make her interlocutor aware that Minerva McGonagall would not tolerate such insolence towards herself.
"Yes", Snape barked, "What's going on in the Great Hall at the moment should interest you".
After these words he turned and left quickly, leaving her with an unasked question and a bottle of potion.
She went through the instructions, written on the label in characteristic small writing: "Three drops, twice daily. Avoid contact with wood. Risk of arson"."
- "And you say it's not poison," she muttered under her breath, uncorking the bottle.
A monstrous, red, Christmas bauble with golden stars, rolled around the Great Hall, from time to time performing small jumps or stopping for a moment to turn around its own axis in a cloud of golden dust.
She dodged the tables and decorations quite gracefully. So far, she has only crushed one ice deer. The bundles of insults against the whole world coming from inside it, alternating with shrill squeals and accompanied by rumbling, reminiscent of a troll who got hold of a drum kit, did not fit into the Christmas atmosphere.
"To the left! Now more to the right! And straight into the Christmas tree! Come on, don't be silly! There are too many tree corpses here!", shouted Peeves floating under the enchanted vault.
Finite incantatem!", roared Minerva, once she had managed to understand what she was actu-ally looking at. Nothing happened. The bauble stopped for maybe a second, probably not even caused by the spell.
"I have tried everything, Professor. It's some kind of extremely vicious curse".
Minerva looked over her shoulder. Snape, standing behind her, was watching the whole scene with a perfectly indifferent expression on his face. From the doorway, Dumbledore was heading to-wards them.
"Good of you to come, Headmaster", Snape said. Dumbledore smiled slightly.
"What is in this bauble?", he asked. Presently there was only drumming and cringing coming from inside.
"Umbridge", replied Minerva, sincerely hoping that nothing in her posture betrayed her growing amusement. Dumbledore reached for his wand, but at that moment the bauble stopped next to the Gryffindors table of its own accord and flared red. Peeves hovered motionless, staring at it in fascination. Umbridge shrieked briefly.
"Did you see how it happened?", Dumbledore asked.
"No, Headmaster. But I'm sure Professor Umbridge has come across one of the Weasley's inventions",Snape explained calmly. "They call it the Carousel Bauble. When touched, it grows, pulls a person inside and spins around for several minutes".
Dumbledore laughed quietly.
"Well, the name captures the essence of the thing", he said.
"How do you know what it is?", asked Minerva sharply, looking at Snape obliquely.
"I recently confiscated about two dozen".
The bauble made a slow spin, twinkled with golden stars, and then an orchestral rendition of the last bars of the song "We Wish You a Marry Christmas" carried across the Great Hall.
"The Personalised down-taking System welcomes you", came a squeaky voice.
"What's that!? What are you doing there!", came a second, also squeaky, but slightly hoarse voice.
"Relax, Professor. We're looking for a way to get you out of there", Snape said, in a grotesque-ly even gentle tone. Dumbledore made a gesture as if he was going to pat him on the back and stopped himself at the last moment. If Minerva hadn't known them, or rather if she hadn't known Snape, at this point she would have begun to suspect that they had both planned this. She was sure she hadn't seen those distinctive, cheerful sparks in Dumbledore's eyes until a moment ago.
"If you want to get out of the bauble, give the solution to the riddle you are about to hear. You have only one chance. If you make a mistake, you will hear another riddle in an hour," the little voice announced".
"What the hell! What is this!", Umbridge screamed. "Hurry up"!
Minerva grunted and, fully aware that she was just joining a non-existent conspiracy, said aloud:
"Dolores, I think there is no way out. You must try to solve this riddle. If we destroy the bauble with a spell, you could get hurt".
"No... No... I don't believe it"!
Umbridge was clearly beginning to discover the capabilities of her voice, as each successive word stung her ears more and more. "You consider yourselves the elite of the wizarding world, some extraordinary caste, and you're more inept than a mi... than I thought!
Minerva closed her eyes and counted to ten in her mind. She almost regretted taking the potion from Snape. If she was still in pain from everything, holding back laugh would come much easier to her.
"Professor McGonagall is absolutely right", said Dumbledore. "We can destroy the bauble, but we've never had to deal with anything like this before and it's hard to predict what might happen. Why put ourselves at unnecessary risk"?
There was silence. Snape studied for a moment the contents of some inconspicuous piece of paper he had fished out of his pocket. Finally, he handed it to the Headmaster.
"Take a look", he said slowly. "I happen to have here a leaflet that came with one of these products. There is no question of any riddles".
Dumbledore ran his eyes over the text with interest.
"Indeed, not a word about riddles", he agreed. "Apparently it's a unique specimen".
"I think we should bring in Weasleys", Snape declared, causing Minerva to immediately stop finding the situation amusing.
"It would be very inappropriate, Severus", she said dryly. "There is no evidence that they have anything to do with this, and until that changes, I will not allow them to be disturbed. You know perfectly well that because of their father's illness...
"I know they left school early', Snape interrupted her. "But we're also both well aware that they peddle this sort of thing.
Minerva felt that her daily limit of patience for Snape had just been exhausted. What was he thinking? Yes, the Weasleys cause trouble, but to baselessly accuse them of something that happened in their absence is a massive exaggeration.
"Evidence", she growled, creasing her eyebrows menacingly. "Show me the evidence".
Snape smiled one of his nastiest smiles. Dumbledore gave them both a slightly chastising look.
"Evidence! Evidence!", sang Peeves, who got tired of being a passive observer. "Maybe more intelligence"!
"Give me that riddle", squealed Umbridge from inside the bauble.
The bauble made several rather quick spins. When it stopped, the golden stars blinked three times and a thin voice sounded again.
"Here is the riddle. A certain weenie of the ilk of... yhm... hmpf..."
The voice stammered unexpectedly, the stars blinking briefly.
"A certain weenie, the likes of some Hogwarts students, had poured a growth-accelerating potion into the pond. A toad inhabiting the pond, each day doubled its size. After forty-seven days, it occupied half the pond. How many days will it take for its mangy body to fill all the available space"?
"I don't understand any of this!", Umbridge wailed.
Dumbledore moved three chairs with a spell and sat down in one. Minerva followed his lead. The potion had really done its job, but she still felt better sitting down. Snape circled around them for a moment, like a harbinger of imminent misfortune, but eventually sat down as well, on the other side of the headmaster. Rumbling and shrieking could be heard again from inside the bauble.
"I'm not going to solve any idiotic riddles! Open up, you mutant nasties! Do you know who I am!? You know who I am"!?
"Someone who is not very good at riddles?", suggested a timid little voice.
"It's cold in here", Dumbledore whispered. Snape shook his head barely perceptibly. Minerva abstained, for as yet she had no formed opinion on the subject. The Great Hall was sometimes unpleasant, especially during those brief periods when Hogwarts was depopulated, but today (as she supposed, due to the situation) it had not yet made itself felt. However, she did not rule out the possi-bility that she would soon be forced to agree with Albus.
"Control yourself, Professor, and ask for the riddle to be repeated", Dumbledore said firmly. "We'll think of a solution together".
Umbridge pondered for about half a minute, making the time pleasant by drumming. Dumble-dore took a blue handkerchief from his pocket and transfigured it into a thick woollen blanket.
"Are you well?", Minerva asked anxiously. She realised that he was tired far more than he admitted. In that respect they were identical.
"Yes, thank you. Are you really not cold? It looks like we're going to be sitting here for a while. We could have some tea".
Repeat the riddle", Umbridge commanded, causing the subject of tea to be momentarily for-gotten. The little voice repeated, this time without a stammer. Minerva concentrated. The riddle was not difficult. In fact, it was more of a mathematical task of the kind whose difficulty lies in the initial confusion in one's head, which must be mastered. Getting it under control, after being swirled around in an enchanted bauble like a Muggle washing machine, was not among the feasible things.
"Forty-eight days", she whispered to Albus. The headmaster nodded.
"Do you have any ideas, Professor?", he asked out loud.
"You were supposed to think about it"!
"And I think Professor McGonagall knows the answer", he replied cheerfully.
"You think?", shrieked Umbridge. "Snape, are you there"?
"I am all the time, Professor", Snape replied.
"Verify it! I won't risk it if it only seems to someone"!
"I'm afraid the professors here are far more knowledgeable about this than I am. It would be like having Potter teach a class in your subject".
"Shh", hissed Dumbledore, grabbing Minerva's wrist, though the only move she intended to make was to correct her glasses.
"I think Mr. Potter would do perfectly well, Severus", she said. "And the answer is forty-eight days".
"Allright", decided Umbridge. "But if I spend another hour here, the Minister will find out about everything."
Minerva snorted quietly. She was surprised that Umbridge was reluctant to inform Fudge, Abut she figured that being trapped in a Christmas tree bauble was far more idiotic than falling off the win-dowsill in cat form, and, in a way, she understood her.
"Forty-eight days!", shrieked Umbridge. "Do you hear me? Forty-eight"!
The stars blinked twice.
"Correct answerr", announced the voice. "The Personalised down-taker thanks you for playing along and wishes you a Merry Christmas".
A cloud of red-gold dust appeared in place of the bauble. After a moment, the cloud fell, revealing Umbridge sitting on the floor. Her face was red and glitter sparkled in her hair. Dumbledore got up and moved towards her to help her pick herself up, but that didn't prove necessary. She rose before he was at her side and, staggering like a drunk, headed for the door. Peeves, roaring with joy, followed her.
"I really hate Christmas", she announced, standing in the doorway. "And you..."
She gave the professors an evil look.
"You will regret it.
When she left the Great Hall... there was not a silence. The strange sounds, which were a pecu-liar mixture of quacks and coughs, were heard by everyone at once.
"And what is that?", Dumbledore wondered. His shoulders were shaking slightly from sup-pressed laughter. Minerva and Snape walked up to him. Minerva was the first to realise what was going on. Under the presidium table, curled into a tight ball, sat Charity Burbage.
"I love you!", she declared, crawling out from under the table, with a little help from Dumble-dore. Snape's face expressed deep scepticism.
"It was absolutely wonderful", she said, still choking on her laughter.
"Rather primitive", Muttered Snape.
"You don't know. Do you know how advanced magic has been used here? Wonderful, just wonderful! I would love to talk to the creator".
"It is true. It took considerable skill to do that", Dumbledore agreed, wiping his face with a handkerchief that he had not yet transmuted into anything. Minerva sank back into her chair. She feared that if she did not pull herself together immediately, her ribs were in danger of breaking again.
"If I had a camera I would take a picture of you", Charity said. "And just a muggle one, to keep it, to look at years later and be able to remember it".
"A moment to last. You are beautiful", Minerva said, smiling slightly.
"That's a very appropriate quote, my dear", Dumbledore said from behind his handkerchief. "Charity, what were you actually doing under the table?", he asked in a tone as if there was noth-ing unusual about just sitting under the table.
"I thought I would see what the Great Hall was like before I left. I sat at the table for a while, in your chair, to tell you the truth".
"What ambition", muttered Minerva.
"No, no. I just wanted to see what it all looked like from there. I heard Umbridge coming. I didn't feel like wishing her well, so I hid. And then it started".
She finally calmed down and began to look at the travelling cloak she was wearing, which for some unknown reason, also bore traces of glitter on it.
"If those poor kids were to get in trouble, blame it on me", she said unexpectedly, flicking the end of her wand across her right sleeve.
"Why should we lay it on you?", Minerva asked in surprise. "I doubt Umbridge even feels like mentioning it".
"Probably so, but if anything, you can say it was my stupid joke. Umbridge won't do anything to me. Without Fudge she means nothing, and Fudge since he was at Hogwarts, yhm..."
She broke off and glanced at Minerva with an odd smile.
"He has a special affection for my mother. No reciprocation, but she's probably the reason he didn't marry".
Snape squirmed with distaste.
"Any more suggestions?", he growled.
-"No. That will be all. Now I really must go. Merry Christmas"!
"Merry Christmas, Charity!", replied Minerva and Dumbledore.
"Just a moment", said Dumbledore. "My dear, where's your hat!
Minerva snorted slightly. Snape looked at them as if he now suspected a conspiracy. Charity stopped.
"In this big container with a sign: "Elves In Need" or something like that. It was on the seventh floor yesterday. I think it's gone today".Minerva and Dumbledore looked at each other. Minerva assumed that the Headmaster, like her, was wondering if this was someone's joke about Miss Granger's activities or simply Miss Granger's activities.
"Nothing will happen to me", Charity announced. "I have good immunity. You know who would sooner finish me off himself than I die of pneumonia".
Dumbledore transfigured the blanket into a Santa hat and handed it to Charity.
"All the same, better safe than sorry." he said cheerfully. Charity looked at the hat.
"Am I really supposed to show myself to people in this?", she asked.
"Why not"?
Dumbledore was surprised.
"You look very pretty in red".
"You're right, Headmaster", she ruled, glancing at herself in her pocket mirror. "Thanks. And once again, Merry Christmas".
"Three times lucky", muttered Minerva, getting up and coming over to hug her.