Electra de Lioncourt: I'm glad you like it

sweet as lemonz: I'll take selfish, but then I know his reasons. The Sorcerers Tale is just a rough draft right now, I'm mostly just interested in what people think of it and the next chapter should be up either this week or next depending on how evil school decides to be.

Leah Pensotti: (claps) you noticed my U2 tribute. I saw them back in September, great show my friends were ready to kill me just to get me to stop talking about it. Not that this has anything to do with fan fiction, though I do write U2 fan fics (shifty eyes) :D

Chapter 10: A Christmas Quill

Try as I might I couldn't get Severus out of my head, this was partially because I had taken in one of his students who had remained at Hogwarts over the holidays. Actually I had taken in all three students who were staying at Hogwarts over the holidays which where a second year Ravenclaw, a fourth year Hufflepuff and a fifth year Slytherin. Surprisingly once they were all placed on equal ground (in my office) and had spent a while together they got along quite well. They spent their time playing various card games – both muggle and wizarding alike – and wizards chess while depleting my stash of butter beer. For the most part I let them be while I marked essays and graded Harry's latest potion.

The other Professors had been doubtful that the three of them would get along at all, but I had been determined to show some unity between the houses. After all what were they going to do, sit around their respective common rooms by themselves all holiday? In this holiday sprit Grandpa decided that the students would share Christmas dinner with the staff.

Christmas morning I was up as early as always and I was surprised to see the number of gifts waiting for me given I was only used to one from Grandpa. There was the standard huge assortment of candies as well as a funny hat from Grandpa, rock cakes from Hagrid, a tin of biscuits from McGonagall, a box of sugar mice from Flitwick, a rare type of flowering plant from Sprout, a great mix of all kinds of chocolate from Remus, and most surprisingly a box of bertie botts every flavour beans from Harry with a note attached thanking me for tutoring him in Potions and saying he hoped I liked bertie botts every flavoured beans because he knew my grandfather didn't but he hadn't known what else to get me. Well it seemed that because I was Dumbledore's granddaughter everyone assumed I had a sweet tooth, which is the truth.

I was relived to find out that I had at least sent gifts to everyone who had sent them to me, though Harry's had been school related given I'd sent him some hard to find Defence Against the Dark Arts books, as well as gifts to some others. To all three students that had been stuck at Hogwarts over the holidays I had sent some assorted candies and to Severus I'd sent a black eagle quill. I didn't know how Severus would react to the gift, which I had not left a signed note with assuming he'd know who it was from. Truthfully I didn't quite know why I'd sent him something, but when I'd seen the quills for sale when I'd been doing my Christmas shopping I'd immediately thought of him.

Before dinner that night Grandpa sent me around to check who was coming. Firenze declined because he didn't like human food and Trelawney declined as well due to the fact that "she was having problems with her inner eye" to which I'd replied, "well have you tried some drops for it" only to get the door slammed in my face.

Severus had looked up from his brewing long enough to inform me that he had promised Dumbledore he'd be there, therefore he'd be there. Obviously not even Christmas was going to improve his sour mood.

Promptly at six o'clock I arrived in the great hall dressed in festive robes to discover that Grandpa, McGonagall, Hagrid and Filch were already there.

"Severus said he'd be coming," I said taking a seat. "And the kids are bound to be a few minutes late."

Sure enough not even a minuet later all three kids tumbled through the doors and thanked me for the gifts as they sat down. Then the great hall doors banged open and all three kids jumped and fell silent.

"Good that you could join us, Severus," Grandpa said as I twisted in my seat to look at him.

Then the food appeared, Christmas crackers were pulled and funny hats put on and slowly conversation started. Over the course of the meal Grandpa managed to draw everyone but Severus into the conversation without anyone realising what he'd done. Severus, in contrast, stayed almost completely silent next to me, scowl firmly in place.

It wasn't until well after dinner when I was heading back to my office that Severus spoke to me.

"I'm going to assume you sent the quill."

I stopped walking and looked up at him. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because if we're both going to be on this staff then we're going to have to get along, which means we need to stop arguing whenever we're stuck in a room together." I tried to figure out his reaction but his facial expression betrayed nothing so I ploughed on. "I severely doubt that we'll ever be friends again but I think it would be best if we stopped hating one another."

There was a long silence before he finally nodded and disappeared in the direction of his dungeon as I let out a breath I didn't realise I'd been holding.