II

Severus Snape had never looked quite healthy. His skin had always been sallow, his hair was as unkempt as his mannerisms, and the flash in his beady black eyes betrayed the strong will and quick temper. But now his hair was even more haggard, his face drawn with stress and exhaustion, his eyes had dulled by horrors both seen and committed, and his skin was so pale it was almost grey.

It was this Severus Snape that entered Hogwarts late that night, well after the trolls had gone. And although he could hardly miss the deep tracks, footprints, and even bits of leftover debris just outside the gate, he didn't give them a second glance as he hurried inside, intent on his destination. His retreat…his second hell…it was all the same thing really. Paintings scurried out of view as he strode up the stairs, and candles wavered as if they too quivered in his wake.

He burst into the study, the doors snapping shut behind him like a crack of thunder as he desperately fished out an onyx Pensieve and a white marble Pensieve from a hidden cabinet. In desperation and obvious anguish, Severus began to rip silver strands out of his head and toss them by the handfuls into the onyx basin. Blue fire ripped around the edge with every throw, but he paid it no mind/ His eyes closed to try shut out the pain as he finally slowed down and pulled the last of the strands out with great care, one by one, until the overfilled contents of the Pensieve rocked like waves ready to overtop a dam.

He leaned on the desk then, his head still swimming, unable to bear the burden that awaited him in the marble Pensieve. His stomach was reeling with nausea, his head still pulsing with anger, and his blurred vision had yet to clear.

Just then there was a soft knock, and a piercing rage traveled through him.

"Not done yet!" he shouted out furiously, then found he could not contain the physical effects of his actions anymore. Ignoring the sound of a painting's subject clearing his throat on a wall nearby him, Severus waved all the burners under his potion equipment to life and dashed into the bathroom to throw up.

Cautiously, Minerva McGonagall opened the door and peered in, noting in one quick glance the Pensieves, the bubbling potion equipment, and his absence. Her eyes then darted over to the wall where a painting of Albus Dumbledore, late Headmaster of Hogwarts, was making motions with his hands, both asking her in and pointing towards Snape's hasty retreat.

She sighed, both out of grief and out of helplessness, knowing she could do nothing about the situation but worry, and that she did very often. She slipped inside, dreading what she had to tell him, knowing it would do nothing but aggravate an already impossibly hopeless situation. She shut the doors firmly behind her and then cast a quick spell on them to keep anyone who may be standing behind it from listening in.

A few moments later Severus reappeared, looking even more exhausted than he had when he came in. He was not at all surprised to see Minerva standing there, but raised a hand in protest when she began to walk over.

"Don't say anything yet. I don't care if half the school collapsed while I was gone. Don't say a word," Severus said in a voice both commanding and pleading at the same time.

He dragged himself over to a bubbling phial, adding a few more touches to it before forcing it down. Minerva calmly stood there in silence as if perfectly content to do so until he was ready. But Severus hadn't missed her occasional side-glances and turned on his heels to glare at the Dumbledore painting.

"When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it! It's your fault we're in this position to begin with! Go back to sleep!" he snarled, ignoring the critical look in Albus' eyes as he covered the painting with a velvet drape.

He ran a hand through his greasy hair and stared at the marble Pensieve, his expression torn. Finally his shoulders slumped, for his temper was spent. Like a fish swimming through mud, he walked over to it and then gazed into it fixedly before beginning to pick memories out of the swirling mass. As he popped the Hogwarts memories back in his head, Minerva slowly relaxed. She went over at the tea service and carried it to the desk. By the time she had set it down, hot tea had appeared and something sweet and spicy had filled the side tray. Minerva poured them both a cup, and as Severus finished what he was doing and slid into his seat, she had it ready for him.

"You must have had a terribly rough night," she said quietly as he took it.

"Thank you for your sympathy. You can trade any time," he said sarcastically.

"You envy my fate no more than I envy yours," Minerva said quietly. "And until that time when my death means more than my living, I take on the work of two people here. I have my own double life, Severus."

"While I have but two half lives, neither desirable by any means," Severus said, gazing at the cup in his hand before setting it down untouched. "We could say, I suppose, that at least we're not dead yet, although I am not sure we wouldn't be better off," he said quietly, rubbing his head. "In fact, I believe we lost another staff member tonight."

"Good God, no! Who this time?" Minerva said with horror, Severus gesturing to the onyx Pensieve as if offering her the opportunity to look. Minerva, however, had no intention of going anywhere near the evil thing. Even from the distance, she could see images of flames and chaos pressing to the surface.

"It seems that Irma Pince had the misfortune of visiting her sister Terra this evening," Severus said quietly, getting up and gazing into the depths of the onyx Pensieve, very careful not to touch it.

"But I thought Terra Pince was in hiding!" Minerva said.

"Unfortunately for the Pinces, the Dark Lord was able to find the Daily Prophet reporter she had given the list of Death Eater names to first. She, in turn, foolishly told him about her cottage in Haven's Bluff, which, thanks to his Death Eaters, has now been erased from the map except for a few scorched farms," he murmured, watching the images pass with a haunted look on his claylike face. "It was not the only town to be attacked tonight, but I was able to find a way to get word to Pomona Sprout before they got to her…nothing is left of her house or her gardens, or Hooch's for that matter."

"I'm glad she went to her daughter's then," Minerva said, still visibly shaken. "What a horrible thing to happen on Christmas Eve!"

"There is no such thing as Christmas anymore, Minerva," Severus said stonily. "It is just another day of the year that Voldemort can take advantage of. Even now Dementors are floating through the halls of St. Mungo's, and that is only the tip of this misery. There is no mercy…not for me, not for you, not for anyone, so let's not label today or tomorrow as different than any other day. It doesn't matter anymore."

"It may not matter to you, Severus," Minerva said. "But it does still matter to me, as it does to a lot of other people, especially the children. We can't possibly give in to all this darkness around us…at least Christmas provides us with some feeling of…of hope…"

"It's a fantasy, Minerva!" Severus said with a raised voice. "To believe otherwise would be a foolish and dangerous thing that creates a false sense of hope! We cannot afford that!"

"And I say we cannot afford not to have it!" Minerva said fiercely. "I realize you may have been blinded by what horrors you've had to witness under that hood, but I have not lost sight to why we are here, Severus. We are administrators of the greatest wizard school in the world and we are here for the children…the future of our kind…"

"There is no future!" Severus shouted. "And as far as I'm concerned, there is no Christmas either!"

Just then there was a knock at the door and they both looked at it in surprise. Suddenly Minerva's eyes widened.

"Goodness gracious, I forgot about Potter and Weasley!" Minerva said.

"What about Potter and Weasley?" Severus demanded as she hurried over.

"Severus, please, try to remember you are back at Hogwarts…don't overreact," Minerva advised, and Severus squinted suspiciously. "I suppose we had better get this over with."

"Why do I have the feeling I don't need this right now?" Severus growled, hastily putting the Pensieves away. Minerva did her best to pull her demeanor together, despite the fact that she knew how disastrous this consult was going to be.

"Getting impatient for sentencing, are we?" Minerva said coolly to the two seventh years waiting behind the door. "You both are really much to old for this sort of thing," she muttered again as she let them in.

Severus stood behind the desk, eying the two of them dangerously, while Ron and Harry seemed aloof to their position at best. Severus didn't miss the spark of hatred in Harry's eyes, matching it with a look of his own.

"What now, McGonagall?" he asked, despite not wanting to hear it. Harry glanced at Ron thoughtfully, wondering what the Professors had been talking about so long if she hadn't gotten around to mentioning them yet.

"Well, I suppose I should first tell you that we had a chorus of Carol Trolls descend on the gates today…"

"I gathered as much from the state of the courtyard. I suppose you paid them off instead of getting rid of them…"

"It is Christmas Eve, Headmaster," McGonagall said fervently. "It can't hurt to be just a bit charitable, even in these times…"
"Pay them off this year, and they'll just come back the next year," Severus interrupted.

"Assuming there is a next year," Ron murmured.

"Silence," Severus growled. "Go on, Minerva."

"Well, most of the staff is gone, as you know, so I had the Head Girl arrange for students to help gather the items, provided that they check all their items with a staff member first before handing them out. But these two decided to take it upon themselves to rush something of intense school value into their hands," Minerva explained, watching Severus' expression grow in alarm. "Nothing directly magical, but very irreplaceable…"

"What, Minerva?"

"The Headmaster's chair at the high table in the Great Hall," Minerva admitted reluctantly. Severus' head went back as if he had been slapped, and stared at the two with mixed shock and fury.

"Get it back! Why are you standing here, go get it back!"

"The trolls already broke it, Professor," Minerva said quietly, and Severus turned even greyer, making him look almost like a walking corpse.

"How could you do this?" he asked at last, his knuckles whitening. "How could you, even you, Potter, do such an inexcusable, tactless, positively deplorable act as stripping away an artifact that is as nearly as old as the school itself? You cannot, you possibly could not realize just how much history that chair has seen if you saw fit to cast it away as if it meant nothing!"

"It was much easier than I expected, actually. Besides, it didn't mean anything anymore," Harry said defiantly.

"IT WAS DUMBLEDORE'S CHAIR!" Severus shouted at the top of his lungs.

"EXACTLY WHY YOU DON'T DESERVE IT! MURDERER!" Harry shouted back. Immediately, Severus raised his hand as if to hit him and Minerva quickly jumped between them.

"Severus no, please no, you can't do it! Don't make me get involved!" Minerva pleaded.

"Why are you sticking up for him? I know you believe me! You can't possibly not know the truth about what he did!" Harry demanded, but Minerva simply grabbed the wand that had found way into Harry's hand.

"Stop this at once! You are already in enough trouble without pulling wands on staff members!" She said, grabbing Ron's as well. Harry stared at her with a look of complete betrayal. He had always believed that she at least had been on their side, ever since it made the paper that she was threatening to quite if Severus didn't name Hermione Head Girl. But her suddenly backing Severus up now made very little sense to him. "Professor, please! Control yourself!"

"What I wouldn't do to expel the both of you right now," Severus said, gritting his teeth.

"Why don't you then? Or why don't you just kill us outright? It wouldn't be the first time you killed someone in this school," Harry challenged him. But Severus' anger was now so intense it turned disquieting, and a horribly wrong smile suddenly appeared on his face.

"Something I think you had best keep in mind," he said icily. "You have stolen school property that cannot be replaced, disgraced yourselves and your house, and you will pay for it with your own hands and more," he swore, glancing at Minerva who was gazing at him warily. "I want every last point that Gryffindor has earned this year dumped out, I don't care how much that is. You both are also suspended from any activities outside of class, including being on the Quidditch team for the rest of you last year. And since you have no respect for other people's property, I don't think any should be offered to yours. Any gifts scheduled to arrive to you in the morning are hereby confiscated until the end of the year…"

"What?" they both said with dropped jaws.

"And for detention, you will get up first thing in the morning and will dust, clean, and polish every single chair in this school from the lowest dungeon to the highest tower and will not be released until it is done!" Severus snarled.

"Tomorrow's Christmas!" Ron protested.

"Not for you! In fact, I'm done with this whole Christmas business for the entire school! Minerva, I want the Elves to take down every single decoration and plan a sensible menu for tomorrow. Christmas is officially cancelled!" he shouted at them. "Now get out of my office! Everyone!"

Hurriedly, Minerva ushered them out, following close behind as the doors shut tight behind them.

"Christmas is cancelled? Who does he think he is?" Ron demanded.

"He is the Headmaster of this school, Mr. Weasley," Minerva said.

"But he confessed just now, Professor! You heard him yourself, he admitted he had killed someone…"

"I heard, Mr. Potter," Minerva said sternly. "Now, you had best both get some rest, you have a lot of work to do tomorrow."

"You don't really expect us to actually try carrying out that insane punishment? Because I'm not going to do it," Harry said.

"Please, Potter, now is not the time to revolt! I suggest you do as your told for now…I'll try and get you both a healthy break in the afternoon to relax and be with your friends, but the Headmaster is more than within his rights considering what you've done…"

"Considering what we've done? What about what he's done?"

"There's more going on than you know, Potter, or would even believe," Minerva snapped. "Now, there will be no more arguments, go back to your rooms at once!"

"I thought you were on our side…and Dumbledore's," Harry challenged her.

"I'm on the school's side, Mr. Potter, and right now you're not behaving in the school's best interests. Now, I refuse to humor this argument anymore. Good night," she said in a tone that indicated just how final things were.

"Come on, Harry," Ron murmured when Harry didn't move at first, his eyes still focused on Minerva.

"Fine," Harry said at last, turning and joining him. "I think I've given up trying to figure out who my friends are these days," he added as they went up the hall.

"You know at least two," Ron assured him, while Minerva gazed after them, looking a bit lost. Finally she pulled herself together and headed down to the kitchen to speak with the House Elves.