Christmas Eve
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Disclaimer: Severus Snape and associated characters belong, unsurprisingly, to JK Rowling. I am making no money off this and am an impoverished music student, so suing would be counterproductive.
Summary: Severus Snape takes a walk in the Forbidden Forest on a night in December, and has a visitor he is not exactly pleased to see.
Notes: Takes place the year before Philosopher's Stone.
Dedicated to the Cardiff University Harry Potter Society (hey, guys!).
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A sharp leaf of Holly, plucked from the deep of the forest in the frigid midst of Winter, while the Lady Moon hangs twixt full and slender at the very chime of Midnight bell.
Severus Snape muttered mild obscenities about ancient potion-makers as he struggled through the low-lying brambles in the Forbidden Forest. He did not bother with a light; in this place a light would be more likely to attract unwanted attention than it would be a use. The night was cold, dark and dry. Even Hagrid was snug in his little cottage: fire burning as he went about whatever occupied him behind those walls. Severus envied him the warmth, though not the company of the assorted creatures he kept in there. A branch snagged his cloak and stopped him short. He untangled it with numbed fingers, hissing as he scratched himself on a thorn. A drop of blood, as fat and round as the moon at her peak, fell ponderously from his finger to expel itself on the ground below. Within seconds it was gone, sucked in by hungry soil.
A rustling whispered past him, followed by muffled thumps of hooves on damp earth. It was a centaur, he knew, and he hoped it would not come his way. His wand was ready, but conflict with any such creature was not something to be welcomed. It passed on, hair and tail streaming behind it as it galloped. The creature seemed far too underdressed for the weather.
Frost crackled beneath Severus's boots. It was a clear, icy night, so cold that it burned. He was using Bridge's Winter Warmer to heat his clothing, of course (an old spell he had found in a discarded musty old book deep within the Hogwarts library. A battered old tome, half its pages missing, he was instantly interested in it. Something so battered by life he had immediate, if meagre, sympathy for. And besides, unregarded books often held useful knowledge that, most importantly, no one else read. The book now had a better home on his own personal shelves, far from the uncaring hands of students.). It was not a very warm spell, it more gave the feeling that one's clothing had been only just taken from hanging before a fire, but it was a constant heat, not likely to burn out and leave him feeling colder than before.
Shadows shied around his feet, looking for all the world like scurrying creatures. He knew better than to be startled by them. He had not got where he had (and where was that exactly? A not-too-popular teacher in a crumbling castle school did not sound like anyone's ideal life) by jumping at shadows. No, he had done so by being the shadows, or at least among them.
Ahead in the darkness he saw a holly bush, snug against the trunk of an oak. His breath misted like smoke before his face as he made a satisfied noise. A moth whirred past his face, its wings white in the darkness where in day they would be a vibrant mess of pink and green.
Severus's fingers too were bleached to white by the moonlight, stark and chill as he reached for the holly bush. The leaves were a dirty grey against the black of the rest of the woods. A snap sounded, shockingly loud, as he pulled a leaf from its branch. The bush shuddered as it was denuded of this one of its many spiked fingers. Others bent, seemingly of their own accord to grasp at this thief, this intruder. But they seized on nothing. Severus was already moving on.
And Mistletoe, green as eyes, gibbeted like a criminal for other people's kisses, should be gathered by the Druid's way.
There was to be no hesitating in the Forest this night, any less than there was any night. Too much lurked there for anyone's comfort. Only one more ingredient remained for Severus to collect that night, and then he could return to the relative warmth of his dungeon rooms. It was the life of a Potions Master, he supposed, though it was easy to see the temptation of staying tucked up somewhere in the warm. But his intellectual curiousity would drive him to investigate foolish old potions, long since superseded, with the notion of improving on the improved. Anyone else would be happy to sit back, but no, he had keep pushing what he knew still further. And that was why he was stalking the woods in this darkness on this night, Christmas Eve. The Headmaster was, he knew, having his annual drinks party. Severus had excused himself, with some difficulty. He knew they would be enjoying themselves far more without him. That was usually the case.
A clump of mistletoe clustered on bare branch above his head. And here he was without a partner, as it always had been. The tree loomed above him, naked and skeletal, dancing a little in the gathering wind. There was the promise of snow in the air, a tang that those young and young at heart would find exciting, but that Severus expected as a detested inconvenience.
Reluctantly, he removed his cloak and tucked his robes up into his belt. The Druid's Way: as the druids of old would have harvested the plant, with no convenient magic. Severus grasped a branch and pulled himself up, panting already with the exertion. Physical exercise was not an expected part of a Potions Master's job. The mistletoe was only reached by leaning full length along a thick branch, stretching out as far as he could go. Severus pulled a silver knife, a snake wound about its handle in predictable decoration, from his belt and used it to slice through the sucking roots of the mistletoe. It was easily done. The mistletoe whispered as it hit the ground.
By the time Severus was on the ground again, it had begun to snow. Plump white flakes bounced off the tree branches and settled on the dark earth, bleaching it as only snow could. It was as if some unseen power was ensuring that a white Christmas would happen, and that magic could still happen without incantations and effort.
Black-cloaked and hunched over (images of bats, crows and ravens could easily be used, but no bat could be as sweeping, nor any crow or raven as sharp with its caw as Severus Snape was), Severus was out of place and exactly right at the same time. Any number of stories could include a hidden figure striding through snow, any number of heart-warming Christmas tales involving a heart of gold. Any number of stories did not involve this forest and this man, who trudged along with a scowl ornamenting his face.
But these tales have some bearing, as bells were heard through the snow in that moment. Not cutely twinkling bells beloved of any seasonal music, but real bells, some too battered to properly sound, rattling against each other. Jingle Bells was not the right description here, far from it. These bells had done their share of jangling over several years and would twinkle for nobody.
Severus stopped where he was, glaring up to where the noise would seem to be coming from, somewhere in the sky. His wand, always so near, was in his hand, his fingers clenched around it, tighter than any death grip. The sky was, frustratingly, mostly obscured by interwoven branches. But the bells could not be coming from above, surely? Who would be flying that late at night, in a frost this cruel, with enough brash courage to announce their presence? On this night?
Branches crashed aside suddenly with a wild clatter. Snow that had settled on them fell down in lumps. Severus ducked to shelter by a tree trunk as something, some large dark shape rocketed downwards, somehow missing every tree. And was that, that faint rhythmic beating, felt rather than heard, was it hoofbeats?
A snowy spray filled the air as the thing landed a little way from Severus, and he turned his face to avoid it. When he turned back, it had gone from sight, vanished into the black and white world of the wood. The thudding had indeed resolved into hoofbeats, and faded to distance. Severus scowled and strode over to where the snow had been kicked up in the landing. Hoofprints, and two long parallel lines, looking for all the world like sleigh runners.
But who would be driving a flying sleigh through the night sky, swept along through whipping snowstorms and bitter cold?
Severus made a dismissive sound and pulled his hood closer around his face, turning to go. The forest had returned to its quiet state, the quiet that made you wonder what was going on behind those dark eaves to be done in such subterfuge. A movement caught Severus's eye. A spider's web, frosted to crystal, was shivering, though the wind had died down and no fly was trapped in its strands. He stared at it then moved his gaze to where the sleigh had disappeared, frown deepening. The rattling bells returned to hearing, accompanied now by drumming hooves and hissing runners on snow. He hunched over as snow sprayed up over him.
By the time he looked up again, the sleigh had stopped directly before him. It was a sturdy creation, made to be used. The reins were filthy red leather, attached to reindeer who stamped their feet and rolled their eyes with alarming viciousness. And on the sleigh ... on the sleigh was a man, wrapped in furs and squinting out over an ice-encrusted beard. He stood and, with a shake to dislodge the snow, stepped from the sleigh onto the ground. Nearly as tall as Hagrid, his head brushed some of the down-bowed branches. A crown of holly sat on his grey-white hair, complete with clusters of blood-red berries, each shining and smooth.
He looked a little, Severus had to admit, like Albus Dumbledore. A long beard and cheerful blue eyes. An overriding air of blitheness and geniality. An infuriating smile of happiness.
Severus, faced with this spirit of jollity, very nearly took a step backwards at the sheer force of the man's vitality. Very nearly, but not quite. He glowered fiercely instead. A horrible realisation was dawning on him as he examined the man.
No sign of a ridiculous red hat with a bobble on the end. No improbably white beard. There were laughter lines, certainly, but these were lines of care. Nothing that everyone these days saw as traditional. Nothing that a Muggle would splash over a Christmas card in an attempt at seasonal joy. But it was the man, no mistaking him.
"What do you want?" Severus demanded.
"Me?" The man fairly boomed with laughter. "I want for nothing, Severus Snape, save perhaps a glass of sherry to keep the cold out. The question should be: what do you want?"
Severus sneered at him. "I want nothing. I never have."
"What, never? I doubt that. You wished for things as a child, I am certain. Everyone does."
"Maybe I did. But I didn't get them. So I learned to stop wishing." He began walking away, wrapping his cloak around him again. "Wishes are for incompetents who cannot be bothered or are too inept to do things for themselves."
He had not even reached the nearest tree before the man was in front of him again. Severus gave him a black look and turned to go the other way. The man was before him in the time it took Severus to take two steps. The smile had never left the man's face.
"Who are you?" Severus snarled. "No, not your name. I know that. What are you?"
"I am who you think I am. As to what, I suppose I should expect no less from one of your intellectual capabilites." His eyes twinkled in amusement. "Would it be fair to say that an answer is something you truly want?"
"Of course not!" snapped Severus. "I couldn't care less!"
"Ah, but you are thinking about it. And you're thinking that no magic in the world is powerful enough to visit every house in just one night of the year. And you would be right, but you do not take one thing into consideration." He drew a peppermint cane from his pocket and hung it from his finger, holding it up in front of him. "What if the idea is enough? And all it takes is to encourage others to do the deeds for you, even if they only have believe in you? To be a catalyst for such generosity and giving, that is the true magic."
Severus snorted. "Pure clap-trap. You work on the assumption that everyone is good and kind. That is quite clearly untrue."
The man smiled, and in the smile was sadness along with joy. The sadness of the little boy with the empty stocking, the frozen little match girl, the puppies and kittens, everyone who has nobody or nothing. He reached into another pocket and pulled something out, concealing it in his hand.
"Then it is a matter of choice for people as to what they are." He opened both hands to Severus. "Make a choice for me here, Severus Snape. Which would you rather?" His left hand held the red and green striped peppermint cane. His right palm contained a lump of coal.
"Oh, and you'll make some judgement based on that, I suppose." Severus's tone was biting.
The man shook his head. "It is not for me to decide right from wrong, naughty from nice. I relinquished that task some time ago. Just name your choice."
"Then it would have to be the coal. That would at least provide heat, whereas the sweet would only be bad for me overall. Finished playing your games yet?" He paused for a moment. "I suppose having people decide themselves whether they're "naughty or nice" is your way of getting round that task."
The man laughed, ruffling his furs. He placed an arm round him that Severus was not quite quick enough to avoid and placed the coal into one of the potions master's hands. "Then enjoy your heat, my boy, while it lasts."
Severus tried to push him away, but failed. He settled instead for his usual tactic. Sarcasm. "As delightful as I can assure you this has been, I would hate to take up any more of your undoubtedly precious time. I am sure you have many more deserving boys and girls to visit."
The answer that came was warm in tone and contained all the cheer of before. "Every person is as deserving as the last. And you still have not told me what you want, Severus Snape."
"And I have already told you. I want nothing. I'll not be a burden on your time as I clearly would have been years ago."
A sigh came from the mouth that was a full head higher than his own. Not an angry or an exasparated sigh. Just a sigh. The arm around his shoulders tightened, drawing Severus into that fur-covered shoulder.
"But what can I give the man who needs nothing from anybody?" said the man. He turned his head towards Severus, a grin parting the wild beard. "How about this? A chance at redemption."
Severus's eyes narrowed and the man continued.
"A chance to repay a debt of life." He beamed. "I know. Let me tell you this: a boy will be attending Hogwarts next year. His name is Harry Potter."
His arm left Severus's shoulder and he headed back towards his sleigh, patting the reindeer on their noses as he went. He settled into his seat on the sleigh, taking up the reins.
"And that," he said, "may not be what Severus Snape thinks he wants, but it is what he needs. Merry Christmas!"
With that he pulled the reins and sent the team of reindeer racing off into the forest. They were soon airborne again and rapidly vanished from sight. Severus stood staring after them before abruptly turning and hurrying off.
His arm came out as if to hurl the lump of coal off into the trees, but his hand remained closed around it. It would provide a few minutes heat, after all, and it was a cold night. The snow had stopped, but was gradually being frozen in place. Nothing was moving save him and a moth caught in an ice-encrusted spider's web.
He sneered at it and would have walked on by but for a thought that made him reach out a hand and, with fingers white from cold, free the insect. After all, you never knew who was watching and keeping a tally.
Merry bloody Christmas indeed.
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The End.