This is a story I wrote for a Secret Santa Swap. I've always wanted to give Severus and my OC Brie a cute and fun day together, so here they are. If you are not familiar with the character Gabrielle Waters, you can find her in my multi chapter story, Hogwarts' Muggle.

So, there are two ways to look at this story, pick the one you like: 1) This is sometime before ole' Voldy comes back and Brie and Severus don't have to worry about being seen having fun together... for whatever reason. 2) Both Severus and Albus didn't actually die... somehow, and this is after Voldy's defeat. I leave it to you to decide which option feels better to you. Merry Christmas. :D

Snow Daze

"Brie, no," Severus Snape protested, trying to shake off his Muggle friend, Gabrielle Waters, who was currently pulling on his hand, trying to maneuver him outside into the snow. It was winter break and the castle was all but empty. Only a handful of students and teachers had stayed over the holiday.

Earlier, it had started to snow during the dinner in which only he, Albus, Minerva, and Brie had been in attendance. The remaining students had all been served in their common rooms, negating the need for the House Elves to bother with the house tables in the Great Hall, and for the Professors to have to essentially work on the holiday. It was an idea that had appealed to Severus greatly and he wondered why it wasn't done that way every year.

Now it was several hours and several glasses of wine later and Brie wanted to go out and make a snowman. Severus wanted to go to his rooms and read the new book Albus had given him for Christmas.

oOoOoOo

"Oh come on, Severus," she pleaded, pulling with all her might and not even budging him in the slightest. She cursed her small stature as she switched tactics slightly and stopped pulling, dropping his hand in order to circle around behind him so that she could attempt to push instead. It had about as much effect as the pulling had. "Are you using a sticking charm on your shoes or something?" she asked, frustrated. You shouldn't be this hard to move." She'd pulled Severus here and there before, it wasn't usually this difficult.

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"You are the size of a pixie, that is why you can't move me," he said smugly, hiding his wand up his sleeve. He really had just used it to cast a non verbal sticking charm on his shoes. Pixie sized or no, she was unnaturally strong and had almost succeeded in pulling him down the hall with her a minute ago. Her strength and stamina still surprised and impressed him from time to time.

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Brie narrowed her eyes and swooped down to try to unbalance Severus by grabbing one of his legs and pulling it up with her, a technique she'd learned from many hours of Aikido classes, which had been her preferred form of extracurricular sport in high school and on through college. The skills stood her in good stead very often, as her main way of making a living was filming wildlife documentaries around the world, sometimes in dangerous places. A little knowledge of self defense could help solve a whole world of potential problems.

It could also help to tell a Muggle when a wizard was trying to sneak one over on her. "You liar!" she exclaimed when Severus' foot wouldn't lift off the floor. "That should have had you on your back even if you were a two hundred fifty pound linebacker, never mind a six foot tall wizard toothpick. You un-stick yourself right now and come play in the snow with me! It's Christmas snow, which is the best kind of snow."

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"Fine," he huffed, feigning displeasure. If he really couldn't convince her that staying in and enjoying their Christmas gifts was the better option, he didn't really have a problem with going outside instead, he just enjoyed winding her up. She could be hilarious when riled. He wasn't one for playing in the snow, but Brie was, so he could stand to humor her for awhile. It would make her happy and if there was one person left in the world who he would go out of his way to see smile, it was Brie.

As he fell in step beside her, he glanced sidelong, swallowing a chuckle when he noticed that she was still delighting at the holiday decorations, even after all these years of teaching at the school. He had the feeling that she wouldn't soon tire of the never melting icicles and live fairy lights or the ropes of softly singing holly and the dozens of decorated trees scattered all over. In a way, her wonder over the magic there made him appreciate it all over again as well. It sometimes took him back to his first Christmas at Hogwarts. Even though he'd always known he was a wizard, it wasn't until Hogwarts that he'd been exposed to the full blown splendor of things like holiday decorations or magical fireworks displays.

"Aren't you going to go to your rooms for your coat and hat and things?" he asked.

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With a grin back over her shoulder at her stalwart friend she said, "I was actually hoping you might maybe perhaps cast a spell or two over what I've already got on so I don't have to climb all those stairs." Her grin widened when he simply raised an eyebrow. She didn't ask often for spells and charms and knew that it usually amused him when she did. She had a feeling it didn't bother him much because she made sure to only ask for small, silly things, as she didn't ever want him to think that she was his friend simply for what he had the capability of doing for her. It was something she'd been careful about since the rocky start of their unlikely friendship. Right away she'd sensed that Severus' old dislike of Muggles had partially stemmed from expecting them all to gawk and demand 'tricks'.

It had taken years for their friendship to grow into what it was that Christmas and during those years there had been a fair few rocky times and misunderstandings, but they'd always made it through.

oOoOoOo

As they reached the front doors, Severus pulled two quills from one of his pockets and transfigured them both into scarves in Slytherin green. He knew a fair few people would object to a Muggle wearing Slytherin colors but those people could all go jump off a broom as far as he was concerned. He'd wasted too much time at the beginning of their acquaintance disliking her simply because she was a Muggle, to worry about what people thought now.

Chuckling at the delight in her eyes as he wound the scarf around her neck, he cast a warming charm over her as well and hoped that she'd never lose that look of marvel whenever she saw him preform even simple spells. Something about it made him feel wonderful inside. It didn't matter to her that he wasn't the most powerful wizard out there and it was a sentiment that was slowly creeping it's way into his own psyche, soothing the raw patches of his youthful beliefs.

There had been a time when the main pursuit in his life had been the gaining and honing of his skills, convinced that it would eventually bring him the power and authority he craved, foolishly hoping it would impress Lily. Even after he and Lily had parted ways in fifth year, he'd still done anything and everything he could to advance himself in the wizarding world, never losing the vague hope that it might have some effect on Lily's opinion of him. Of course, that had backfired horribly on him when he'd realized exactly what he'd gotten himself into when he'd joined the Death Eaters at Lucius' suggestion.

Those thoughts were not thoughts for today though, as they made their way out into the chilly air full of softly falling snowflakes, so he pushed them to the back of his mind. "You're the snowbird," he said, casting warming charms over himself when he felt the frigid breeze sneak up under his robes. "What's on the snow agenda?"

It was Christmas after all. He could stand to give her the present of participation.

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She grinned again when she heard him ask and realized that he did actually intend to get involved in her snow antics this time. Usually he allowed her to drag him outside, but would stand in the snow like a Grinch, with his arms crossed over his chest, refusing to actually do anything. Delighted by the change in routine, she began to roll up a ball of snow, pushing it this way and that way, watching it get bigger with each rotation as it rolled over the clean white powder. With a shrug, he did the same. She assumed that he figured he was making a section of the snowman she had mentioned earlier while trying to entice him out here in the first place.

With a secret smirk she began to chatter away about various Christmases spent in different places around the world. Back before she'd lost him, she and her husband, Rogan, had spent quite a few holidays out filming in the wild, fulfilling their contract with the production company who produced their documentaries. They'd had a fair few adventures that ranged from hilarious to harrowing and Brie would often rehash them for whoever might ask.

As she had hoped, the tales of her adventures distracted Severus and he didn't notice when she abandoned her large ball of snow and started to amass a small barrage of hand sized snowballs. When she had enough ammo, she continued to spin her nature stories while she piled more snow around the sides and top of her large ball, turning it into a solid snow wall. Hiking herself up onto the wall, so that she was sitting at the top, looking down toward Severus, she finished up her story and called, "Hey, Severus," with a big grin on her face and one of the small snowballs hidden behind her back.

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"Yes, Brie?" he answered absently, focused on the lump of snow in his hands which he was trying to make the correct size and shape to be a snowman head. He'd finished the middle part while Brie had been chatting away about her exotic Christmas adventures from a time he privately considered her 'past life'. As usual, the tales she told were both gripping and funny in turns and he'd been listening while building, assuming the ball of snow she'd started making would be the base for their snowman. He was distracted, both listening to Brie and also considering some type of spell he could put on the finished product, to add a bit of magic into the mostly Muggle endeavor, hoping to make her gasp outright. While her wondrous looks looks warmed his soul, her larger astonished reactions fed his ego and he was in the mood for a bit of an ego boost.

When he looked up at Brie's questioning tone, he had a split second to notice that her large ball of snow now looked more like a snow block, before he was hit in the shoulder by the smaller snowball she hurled at him. Instinctively he lobbed the snowman head at her as she dove behind her snow wall with a giggle, giving him time to dart behind his own ball of snow, which he immediately began to fortify, using spells to make the work go more quickly. In no time he had himself a taller snow wall than Brie and his own pile of snow ammo.

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Brie almost called him out for cheating when she saw the bright flashes of spells from behind the large ball of snow, which grew into a mini white castle before her eyes, dwarfing her own, now, pathetic snow mound. As she watched half in wonder and half in a kind of funny outrage, she supposed that her distraction tactics and sneak attack hadn't been completely fair either so she bit her tongue.

Several snowballs flew past her ears as she poked her head up from behind the wall to get a better look at Severus' fort. Ducking back down she grabbed a few of her own and popped up again, dodging another barrage from Severus as she laid siege to the walls of his garrison. The way she saw it, the only chance she had at winning this snow war would be precise and targeted hits, but Severus had built several square holes in his wall and was firing his ammo at her from out of them. It looked hopeless until she noticed that each time he had to bend down to get more snowballs, she could see the side of his face flash by the opening. It took several times popping up, dodging snowballs and lobbing her own for her to be able to hone her newly formed plan for victory.

Once she had her aim dialed in, it was simply a waiting game. Hoping to exhaust his snowball supply, she popped up several times and dodged most of the ones he tossed at her. A few grazed her shoulders and one caught her square in the chest before she saw her opportunity. As she saw him start to bend down for more ammo, she aimed, threw, and hoped as she watched her own snowball sail through the air, into the opening in Severus' wall, to hit him right in the ear. "Gotcha!" she cried happily when his loud curse told her she'd hit her target.

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"Why you little Muggle imp!" he hollered out the opening in his wall, digging slush out of his ear and shivering when some slid down inside his collar. He was rewarded with a snowball to the face and then one to the back of the head when he turned around to wipe the last one off his cheeks and out of his nostrils.

"I give up!" he cried, moving from in front of the window just in time to avoid two more snowballs fired in rapid succession. He grinned as he heard her whoop in victory, silently waving his wand, hovering the rest of his pile of ammo into the air and over to Brie's snow fort. When he was sure they were all above her, he waved his wand again and let them all fall, laughing outright at her cry of surprise, which quickly turned to a cry of pain that made his stomach clench.

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"Ow! Severus, I think you broke my nose with one of those!" she cried, hearing him immediately come crunching through the snow toward her. When his concerned face popped around the fort wall, she let fly with her last remaining snowball, hitting him directly in the chest, leaving mini snow crumbs clinging to the black fabric of his robes. His expression went from concern, to understanding, to outrage, to indulgent submission all in a span of a few seconds as she collapsed onto her back, weak with laughter, holding her hands up in a sign of truce.

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Staring down at her laying in the snow, her breath streaming out in large white clouds, he suddenly realized that he'd just had the best Christmas he'd ever known and it was all thanks to the quirky Muggle jokester in front of him. She'd impatiently banged on his door early that morning, barging in still in her pajamas, with an armful of presents for him. She'd prodded him into going to the Headmaster's office for the pleasant Christmas dinner they had all enjoyed, and she was the reason he was out under the stars, in the softly falling snow, laughing like a loon.

With a contented sigh he slid down to sit beside her while she slowly caught her breath around hiccups and spurts of giggles. "Happy Christmas, Brie," he said, hoping she'd hear everything he was feeling right then in his voice.

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"Happy Christmas, Severus," she replied, looking up at him from her supine position, pleased that he looked perfectly content right then. It was all she ever wished for for him and she'd been wracking her brain for weeks, trying to figure out how to give that feeling to him for Christmas. She was fairly sure she'd succeeded and felt a wave of her own contentment wash over her. Sitting quietly, they studied the star strewn sky for a few minutes.

"Come on," she finally said, pushing herself back up into a sitting position. "Let's go back inside and see if the House Elves have any of that pie left. Then we can read those books Albus got us as presents."

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"Sounds perfect," he replied as he pushed himself to his feet, reaching back down and helping Brie up onto hers as well. It really, truly did.