A/N: Chapter beta read by Forty-Two Dreams. All remaining mistakes are mine.
CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS
During the next days, Snape worked on the batch of Pain Relieving Potion Madam Pomfrey had asked him to prepare. To make it powerful, he had to let it brew over several days. Three days later, when it was ready at last, Snape took a sadistic pleasure in adding cardamom - he was sure Wilson would appreciate the personal touch.
When he carried it to the Hospital Wing later that day, Wilson was still lying unconscious in one of the beds, Lupin seating at her side. Lupin looked extremely tired, even more than usually. For a second, Snape wondered if the full moon was somewhat imminent, and he frantically racked his brain to remember when the last one had taken place. Two weeks before, he recalled with relief.
As Snape deposited the cauldron of potion in a safe corner, he noticed that Lupin's bags under his eyes were accentuated, and that he looked as if he hadn't shaven for days. Probably stayed day and night at his sister's bedside… Well, if he really didn't have anything more important to do… Like attending to a job, for example, Snape thought spitefully.
While he checked the potion, he heard soft noises coming from where both of them were. Snape turned his head slightly to observe them from the corner of his eyes.
Wilson was moving slightly in her bed. Lupin had straightened on his chair and was looking at the witch expectantly. When she remained still again, Lupin let go a sigh of disappointment as his shoulders fell.
Snape returned his attention to his potion and began to fill empty flasks with it.
"Endora?" he heard Lupin say softly.
Snape only gave a quick look back, just enough to see that Wilson was opening her eyes slowly. He put a second flask on the shelf in front of him and labelled it.
"Endora?" Lupin said again.
"Who are you?" Wilson asked in a whisper.
Snape instantly turned back. Wilson was frowning at her brother while Lupin's face had fallen and had paled noticeably. He was even staring at her with horror.
"Hem… Madam Pomfrey?" Lupin called hesitantly.
To Snape's astonishment, Wilson smiled.
"No, Remus, leave Madam Pomfrey at peace, I'm sure she has more important things to do than taking care of me. I'm fine," she assured.
Lupin briefly paled even more, until he realised she had made fun of him. He looked slightly crossed, especially after his sister started laughing. She soon stopped however: her smile turned into a wince and she yelped with pain.
"Serves you right," Lupin scolded. "Do you really think it was funny?"
"No, but the face you made was priceless," she replied with a chuckle punctuated by a hushed 'ow'. "And bear with me, I've been out for… How long have I been out?"
"Three days," her brother informed her.
Wilson seemed to be calculating something for a second.
"Christmas Eve is tomorrow," Lupin clarified, "which means that yes, your tickets for the Appleby Arrows Vs Caerphilly Catapults game are still valid, but no, you're not going, and no, I won't argue with you on this."
Wilson pouted slightly. "By the way, you look terrible," she said.
"If you think I look terrible, wait until I hand you a mirror," Lupin retorted.
"Oh. That bad?" she asked with a half smile.
Snape rolled his eyes in disgust as they hugged each other tightly, and left the Hospital Wing with his empty cauldron. Now that this task was out of the way, he would be able to spend all his time working on his project at last.
"Severus!" Lupin called behind him just as he set his feet on the stairs down.
Snape sighed and turned round. "What?" he demanded coldly.
"She'd like to talk to you," Lupin explained.
"Then kindly inform her that I have more important things to do," Snape replied sternly as he went down a few more stairs.
"It will only take a second," Lupin insisted.
As Snape was about to decline the request in a way the werewolf could understand - that is, using words with no more than two syllables - the stairs began to move. So convenient for once. He turned to Lupin with a smirk and shrugged with feigned powerlessness as the stairs were taking him to another part of the castle.
By the time Snape went to the Great Hall the next day for dinner, he had completely forgotten it was Christmas Eve. He briefly considered turning back when he saw the outrageously festive decorations, but decided to stay nonetheless. Once a decade couldn't hurt.
It seemed it was Hooch who had decorated the tree this year - it was the only way to explain the presence of tiny flying broomsticks and snitches hanging from its branches. Not to mention the bludgers roaming dangerously around it, forcing the students passing by to dodge to the ground.
Someone tapped on his shoulder insistently. When he turned to see who had had the nerve to do such a thing, he discovered Ursaglow, flashing him a large idiotic grin. With the events of the last days, Snape had forgotten such a buffoon even existed. He glared at him but the young wizard's grin never faltered.
"Good evening, Sev- Professor Snape," Ursaglow corrected when Snape cocked an eyebrow. "I haven't seen you since the beginning of the holidays! I came to your office a couple of times, but it was always locked. I knocked, but no one ever answered."
Oh. So it had been him, Snape realised. He had been forced to put a Silencing Charm on his door when the knocks had become too insistent. Snape didn't bother to answer and moved away, only to discover Ursaglow was following him.
Snape was saved the trouble of cursing him by the entrance of both Wilson and Lupin. Wilson's face was still bruised, and she was using a walking cane - one that looked suspiciously like the one McGonagall had briefly used a couple of years before. As for Lupin, he was walking next to his sister, observing her from the corner of his eyes, looking more anxious at each of her steps. She suddenly came to a stop.
"Remus, I assure you I can walk," she claimed rather loudly.
Ursaglow headed toward them as soon as they entered. "Endora! Oh my, what happened to you?" he queried with concern.
"Er… Ski accident," Wilson invented quickly.
Lupin cast her a quick questioning look and she gave an almost imperceptible shrug.
"Ah, yes," Ursaglow nodded. "Those Muggle inventions are always so dangerous."
Snape left them to their fascinating conversation and decided to find himself a safe place on the traditionally unique table of the Great Hall. He found one between McGonagall and Hooch, which ensured him that no undesired person would sit next to him.
"Severus, it's a pleasure to see you decided to bless us with your presence for Christmas dinner, for once," McGonagall teased.
"Don't expect it to ever happen again," Snape warned.
Lupin, Wilson and Ursaglow finally came to find seats at the table just as students began to enter the Great Hall.
"Mizar, why don't you seat with us?" Lupin invited. "I'd love to have a chat with you!"
Wilson stared at her brother with round eyes but didn't comment. However, Snape was sure he saw her slightly shake her head and mouth a silent 'no' to Lupin. Snape was glad to see he wasn't the only one to despise the company of the DADA teacher.
"Sure," Ursaglow accepted as he sat next to Lupin, which placed him, to Snape's greatest horror, just in front of him.
Ursaglow cast him another idiotic grin. He had never noticed this Lockhart trait to Ursaglow, Snape realised. Maybe the young wizard was trying to copy his idol…
"Hey, Harry, Ron, Hermione!" Lupin called as he waved at the teenagers.
Oh great, the infernal trio now. He should really have left when he still could, Snape thought.
"Professor Lupin? What are you doing here?" Potter asked, obviously happy to see him.
"I've been allowed to stay at Hogwarts for the holidays to take care of my little sister!" he replied joyfully as he wrapped an arm around Wilson's shoulders.
"Remus!" she said reproachfully.
"You mean, Professor Wilson is your sister?" Weasley asked.
Granger rolled her eyes. "You two should really learn to be more observant," she scolded. "What happened to you, Professor, by the way?" she asked Wilson.
"She had a ski accident!" Ursaglow replied for her above Lupin's head.
Potter and Granger exchanged a disbelieving look, while Weasley looked horrified.
"A ski accident? I didn't know it was that dangerous!" the redhead exclaimed. "I should warn dad, he said he wanted to try it next winter."
"Oh, don't worry for him. Endora has always been a bit clumsy at sports, anyway," Lupin assured while Wilson glared at him.
"Endora? Isn't that the name of an evil witch in an old television show?" Granger wondered.
Wilson looked abashed. "She was evil?" she asked as she turned to her brother.
Lupin shrugged. "Our father - a Muggle," he clarified for the children, "only said it was the name of a witch in a show he liked a lot."
Snape rolled his eyes. Oh, this was such a fascinating piece of information.
The dinner carried on rather uneventfully after Dumbledore made a traditional speech that, as always, didn't make much sense to the untrained ear. Snape was, however, glad to see Lupin seemed to regret his invitation and looked more and more bored as Ursaglow talked on and on. The werewolf nodded politely every now and then, looking hopefully towards his sister on his other side. But Wilson was busy talking with Vector - those two were unstoppable when discussing Arithmancy, as Snape had noticed along the year.
Lupin managed to find a way out by asking his sister if she was ok, if she needed him to help her with any of the dishes. Wilson sarcastically asked him to cut her meat as well while he was at it - and took her plate away from him as he made to grab it - before returning to her discussion with Vector.
Lupin was doomed to listen to Ursaglow again - which for some reason filled Snape with delight - until he eventually found another opportunity to interrupt his one-sided 'conversation' with him - when the young wizard paused to breathe.
"Endora," he called, and his sister turned to him. "Since you're not going to that Quidditch match, maybe I could have your tickets," he suggested with an innocent smile.
"Yeah, right," she sniggered. "Don't worry about that, I have plenty of friends who would die to get these tickets."
"But you will give them to me because I'm your favourite brother," Lupin affirmed, his smile broadening.
"Ok, but I have two tickets," Wilson countered. "So tell me, what friend would you go with exactly?" Her face fell at the same time Lupin's did when she realised what she had just said.
"I can go with you if you want!" Ursaglow - who had miraculously noticed no one was listening to him - offered.
"Remus," Wilson murmured apologetically, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean – "
"It's ok," he interrupted.
Lupin spent the rest of the meal staring gloomily at his plate while Ursaglow started explaining just how much he enjoyed Quidditch. At some point, Snape felt the werewolf's eyes on him. He held Lupin's gaze for a few seconds, unable to read his eyes, until Lupin stared back at his plate, more sullenly than ever.
Snape was the first to leave the Great Hall. He had planned an important and extremely long experiment for the next day, and he wanted to get it started in the first hours of the day.
It actually took him longer than he had expected. After seven hours working on it non-stop, exhaustion was slowly overwhelming him, but he didn't want to pause. He was almost done - he just had to stir some hundred times - and he just knew he was on to something.
Seventeen, eighteen, he was counting when someone knocked on the door. When he looked up, Snape realised that in his hurry to start his experiment he had neither closed nor locked the door to his lab. It wasn't Ursaglow, like Snape had initially feared, but Wilson, standing on the doorstep and looking somewhat embarrassed.
"Do you have a minute?" she asked almost shyly.
"No," he replied truthfully. Twenty four, twenty five…
Wilson didn't move. "I wanted to thank you," she eventually said.
"Is this another attempt to lay your hands on a certain book of mine?" Snape asked suspiciously. Thirty eight…
"No, I truly wanted to thank you for what you did the other day," Wilson insisted.
"Then you should have saved yourself the bother of coming down here to do such a useless thing," Snape spat back. Forty five, forty six…
The witch sighed, looking as though she was refraining herself from losing her temper. "You're not making this any easier for me."
"Should I?" Snape teased with an eyebrow raised. He continued before she could protest. "Look. You saved me, I saved you. We're even. And by the way, don't let what happened to you make you feel special. Torture is a common practice among Death Eaters."
Snape paused to make sure he was still up to date with his count. Fifty nine, sixty, sixty one… When he looked back up to Wilson, he was surprised by her reaction. He had expected her to be outraged by his insinuations, yes, but certainly not to stare into space and look as if she had just realised something.
Somehow it prevented Snape from carrying on with his accusations. Instead, he concentrated on his potion again. Sixty seven, sixty eight…
"Maybe we could bury the hatchet, now," Wilson suggested hesitantly.
Snape looked up at her with irritation. "I'm busy and don't have the spare time to bury anything. But if you really want something done, please send me an owl so we can arrange an appointment," he replied sarcastically. "Good bye."
Eighty one, eighty two…
"Good bye. And merry Christmas," Wilson told him grimly as she left his lab at last.
Snape snorted. What did she expect, exactly? he wondered. He also marvelled at the fact that it was Christmas indeed, and that he still hadn't heard from his mother… Not that he missed her yearly reproachful owl the least bit…
Eighty nine… No, wait, ninety… Or eighty nine… No, definitely ninety. Or was it ninety one?
Oh damn. Seven long hours of hard work spoiled in one second. Snape glared at his cauldron reproachfully.
"Evanesco," he murmured bitterly with a wave of his wand.
Coming Next: Every Word