"I suggest you begin paying more attention to where you are going before you find yourself in serious trouble" Snape hissed vehemently.
"Y… Y… Yes sir, I.. I'm sorry sir" the poor boy stammered in horror, feeling certain he was about to reach a rather untimely demise. Snape's eyes narrowed for a moment as he peered coolly into the terrified face before him, cheeks still rounded with youth blanched to the point of deathly looking, large brown eyes wide and innocent like a rabbit frozen in the eyes of a hawk. Finally releasing the boy with a slight shove he snarled,
"Yes, well be sure it does not happen again" and with that last word he turned away and continued on towards the High Table where his fellow professors sat scowling and rolling their eyes at Snape's insistence on being an utter git.
With an almost crushing sense of relief the first year student fell back into the crowd of his fellow house mates all of whom quickly starting jabbing and rubbing his hair while laughing.
"Merlin Aidan, I thought old Snape was going to eat you alive!" one of his house mates joked while tousling the young boy's hair.
"I know, I thought I was dead for sure, if his stare didn't kill me, his breath would have!" the boy replied, perhaps a little too loudly, for while he was distracted by the chuckles of his housemates Snape spun around with a look of death in his eyes.
"20 points from Hufflepuff!" Snape bellowed while the entire Hufflepuff table paled and cowered under his withering gaze before he once again stormed away towards the high table in a swirl of black robes and malcontent.
"What's his problem?" asked Hermione as she sat down at the Gryffindor table, swinging her bag down onto the table with a resounding thud.
"Just Snape being snarky as usual" replied Harry through a mouthful of shepherd's pie.
"Lord Hermione, what you got in the bag?" asked Ron with wide eyes as he picked up an overturned plate of mince pies. Hermione's cheeks flushed a little as she dusted powdered sugar off her back pack and replied sheepishly,
"Just a little light reading I thought I would get started on for the holidays."
"Light reading?" Ron exclaimed before shoving a mince pie in his mouth, "you could knock out a mountain troll with that thing!" he continued, spraying crumbs all over the place while Harry chuckled beside him, trying not to snort pumpkin juice out of his nose. Hermione leaned back with a look of disgust on her face, hoping to avoid a barrage of half chewed food and pumpkin juice.
"Boys are so disgusting aren't they?" asked Ginny as she joined the crowd gathered at the table, giving her brother an equally disgusted look. "If mum saw you stuffing your face like that she'd smack you" she continued with a frown,
"Yeah well, mum's not here is she?" Ron replied before shoving two more mince pies into his mouth purposely being as disgusting as possible while Harry continued to snicker beside him.
"So, what are you doing for Christmas?" Ginny asked Hermione as she turned away from her brother while rolling her eyes. Giving a soft shrug of her narrow shoulders while trying to push the unruly mass of her hair back behind her ears Hermione replied,
"Study I suppose, maybe try and sneak into the restricted section, I dunno, haven't really thought about it yet."
"The restricted section? You mean you're not going home?" Ginny asked while kicking Ron under the table for making faces at her.
"Ow!" he whimpered while reaching down to rub his shins, "you can't stay here Hermione, not alone, I mean who's going to keep you company, Mr. Grumpy Git up there?" he asked nodding towards the High Table where Snape sat deep in his own thoughts, a metaphorical ink black cloud of displeasure hovering above him. "Cheery as sunshine that one" Ron muttered.
"Well Professor Dumbledore said it's too dangerous for me to go back to the Muggle with the Dark Lord still in hiding, I can't endanger my parents like that so I'm just staying here for the holidays."
The small group of friends suddenly turned rather sullen at the mention of the Dark Lord, Ron's eagerly beaming smile melting like the icing on a birthday cake beneath a blaze of candles, while Harry simply grew very still and quiet, his gleaming green eyes taking on the jaded look that had began to appear far too often over the past few years. For a long while silence hovered above them in a foreboding cloud of awkwardness and the crushing weight of the real world's horrors that lay beyond the comforting and protective walls of Hogwarts.
Ron let out a sudden cheer of triumph as a thought flashed through his typically jumbled and Quidditch idled brain.
"Hey I know, why don't you come to the Burrow, Harry's coming too, I'm sure mum wouldn't mind having you there."
"Yeah that would be great!" Harry and Ginny chimed in together, blushing a little as they glanced at each other before lowering their eyes and nudging each other's foot under the table thinking that no one noticed. Ron grinned at Hermione before rolling his eyes and gesturing to the love-sick pair that continued to make googly eyes at each other.
"No, I really don't want to put your mum out, she's going to have enough to deal with all your brothers and these two" she began, Ginny and Harry instantly turned red faced to look at her and Ron while simultaneously protesting.
"What!" they chimed in chorus at the exasperated looks they were receiving from Ron and Hermione. Sighing and ignoring their weak protest Hermione continued,
"There's a lot of books I want to read that I didn't get the chance to during term, and now is the perfect chance." Ron huffed and blew a straggly lock of fiery hair out of his eyes,
"Fine, stay here with your damned books, you never want to have fun" he scowled as he sullenly pushed the food around on his plate, for once his voracious appetite halting as disappointment flooded him. Feeling a little hurt and offended by Ron's comment Hermione quickly replied,
"I do have fun!" Ron looked at her in disbelief through his thick eyelashes,
"Oh yeah, when was the last time you had fun?" he asked with a smirk.
"Well I err… I… I read a really interesting article on a study of the acromantula last week" she stammered, suddenly feeling unsure of herself.
"The acro-what?" asked Ron, his face paling all of a sudden as Harry leaned over and whispered "really big spider." Gulping nervously Ron glanced around in a fit of paranoia before quickly snorting,
"That's not fun! Quidditch, now that's fun" he continued, smiling at Harry and Ginny as they nodded in agreement. Rolling her eyes and frowning she snapped,
"You and bloody Quidditch, you do realize that it is destroying the last few brain cells you have, right? If you get hit with one more bludger you're not going to remember your name."
"I don't get hit that often!" he quickly protested, his face instantly regaining it's color and them some as he glowered at Hermione across the table. "At least I don't bore people to death with pointless information no one cares about" he snapped, instantly regretting his words as he watched Hermione's face twist into an expression of hurt and anger.
"Well, if I am so boring Ronald, I guess it's good I won't be spending Christmas with you, wouldn't want you falling face first into your porridge out of boredom would we?" and with that she quickly got up from the table and swinging her back pack onto her shoulder strode off towards the Gryffindor common room to sulk alone.
Watching the proceedings at the Gryffindor table closely but unnoticed Snape found it hard to resist the urge to grin as Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley shot insults back and forth between them. As Hermione stormed off, no doubt towards her house common room Snape watched the obnoxious little know-it-all restraining the urge to run and let the tears stream down her cheeks. Indeed, a little happiness is not bad, not bad at all he mused to himself gleefully.