Chapter 14 Snow Days

Kenna stared wide eyed at the white that laid across campus. It was early on a Saturday morning but over night they had gotten at least a foot of snow. She'd awoken to the extra light it brought in through her window. It looked untrodden and absolutely perfect. Most of the castle would be awake soon, but she wanted nothing more than to run about in it.

She heard movement and lifted her nose away from the chilled window. Dumbledore, still in his night gown walked out, wrapping his robe around him. He glanced around the room before making eye contact with her in the window ceil. Slowly, he made his way over and also looked down across the grounds.

"Our first snow has come pretty late this year." He said offhandedly. "Unfortunately, most of the kids will be headed home today and not have enough time to enjoy it."

He was correct. Today would be the first day of winter break, and most of the children would be taking the 11 am train back to London for the three-week holiday. They had discussed at a staff meeting that there would be a total of seven students staying for the holiday. Two Gryffindors, Three Hufflepuffs, and two Ravenclaws. Kenna could already feel the change in the castle. It remained festive, but everything seemed to slow down from the hecticness of students bustling to and from classes.

It reminded her of the days before the students arrived, without the anticipation. While she wasn't often a fan of the quiet anymore, she couldn't help but relax at the undivided attention that she would get over the holiday break. Christmas! She had learned about the holiday in October and was even more excited at the prospect. Hagrid took her into the forest to look at trees, and they'd wrapped a great big red ribbon around the one that he would cut down the following week. Flitwick had told her that she could assist him in decorating once the students had officially left.

Dumbledore had even suggested she start a Christmas list of the things that she wanted, but she couldn't think of a single thing. Maybe for her friends and family to be healthy and to always come home. She liked that idea.

"Are you ready to get dressed?"

The child made a final glance out the window before nodding and taking the offered hand. Dumbledore had arrived home a few weeks prior with an array of heavier coats and mittens. He had even been charming them before she went on her walks with Hagrid to maintain warmth. The cool air on her skin didn't feel as icy and unwelcoming as she knew winter could get.

That day they picked out brightly colored leggings and a sweater that had polar bears on it. When they returned to the main room, Fawkes was ready to be released into the snowy air for his morning flight.

The castle appeared to whisper with some anticipation for the winter holidays, but the snow continued to suck much of the noise out of the air. Even the students were an octave quieter during Breakfast.

"Would you like to stay up here at the castle, or go down to the train station with Hagrid?" Dumbledore asked her between bites that morning. Most of the teachers had already made their way off castle property or would be soon for the holiday, so the two of them sat alone at the head table. Kenna looked up at the dining hall's ceiling before deciding.

With Hagrid!

He chuckled and nodded his head.

"We'll go up and get your warm coat then."

A few hours later she found herself trotting beside Hagrid and Fang, keeping up with the larger school population as they walked down to the train. The students were in a frenzy with the snow and had scattered about through the fields as they walked, each trying to either create their own path. Some ran ahead of the group with balls made of snow in one hand and their wands in the other. The past week had been a bit quieter in the halls, with student testing and grades due before Winter break, but the energy appeared to have returned.

Bill and Emari stayed relatively close to Hagrid and her, she could hear their conversation about the animals that survived the best in the snow. Bill also seemed to be complaining about the cold and how his warming spell only lasted for a fraction of the time he wanted it to. On another day Kenna may have engaged with them more, but that day she embraced the snow and her own distractions.

The forest was nearly silent as they walked along the edge of it. It was as though all the creatures had fallen into hibernation. Kenna was sure that it wasn't the case. In reality, she realized that with so many students whatever did live in the forest was probably avoiding the trails. As if they knew their chance would come once the students had all filed away.

Kenna's memories of snow hadn't all been positive, and in the few memories, she could identify she never had the advantage of a warm coat and mittens, much less a spell to keep her warm. She adjusted her blue mittens and watched as her boots created footprints in the snow. Her socks were even water-resistant, so her feet felt cozy and warm.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when she noticed Bill was watching her and had slowed down to walk beside her, "Kenna, what did you want for Christmas?" Bill asked her when she looked up at him.

She shrugged. "I don't know, I've never celebrated."

Bill appeared to pause for a moment. He nodded his head. He always seemed to do a good job not making her feel bad for not having experienced the same thing normal kids had. Most of the students reacted or gave her a look that was sad and hard to decipher. He smiled at her, returning to the present. "Well… lookout for a gift then."

Kenna frowned. "You don't have to get me anything," She stated, surprised.

"I know!" Bill responded. "First Christmases though are really special. You should've seen Ginny's. She got more gifts than everyone else combined. Not to mention my mom loves finding things to give to people, she does a lot of knitting leading up to the holiday season. Just…" He paused, "It might not be the newest gift you have."

Kenna looked up at him again. She knew he had a big family, so she couldn't imagine everything in their house is new.

When the train was fully in sight Hagrid came to a pause and surveyed all the kids as they began to make their way onto the train. Charlie and Emari both gave Kenna a hug and ruffled her hat, wishing her a happy holiday. She and Hagrid watched as the students filed onto the train. A few opened the windows and waved once the train started rolling down the tracks. Kenna waved back up and at them. Her hand only fell once the train became a speck on the horizon.

Hagrid patted her back, his hand guiding her to turn around so they could begin their trek back, this time alone.

The only sign students had been there in the first place were the tracks in the snow.

The following week, Kenna found herself sitting in the dungeons with Severus Snape as he worked on some of the potions needed for the next quarter. Dumbledore had dropped her off with the excuse of needing to do some shopping. They were both suspicious that the shopping mentioned was for the holidays.

Kenna found herself in the seat she normally sat in during classes, she also seemed to resort back to the same rules, even though there were no students present. She was quiet and focused on her own work.

Well, sort of.

After an hour of them both doing independent work, Severus watched her carefully. Her book was open, but as he had noticed more often than not, her eyes were on the ingredients he was crushing and sliding into the caldron. He paused briefly to stir, once clockwise and five times counterclockwise. Then it would sit for fifteen minutes before he added any of the other ingredients.

It was only a Pepper-up potion, he considered. A recipe he knew by heart and one rather difficult to make many mistakes on. Laying down the ladle, he looked up at Kenna.

"Come here"

Kenna slid off her chair and walked around. She stood next to him, but her head came up to the edge of the counter he was working at. Not pausing in his chopping, he motioned to the storage room where the door was open.

"Get the cubed mandrake roots on the third shelf, and bring them and the stool here."

The small girl did as she was told and she held the glass jar with both her hands while the stool levitated behind her, following as she walked across the room. A casual display of magic that was still too advanced for her to be able to use. She set the jar on the table. Severus took a step to the left and motioned for her to place the stool down. It slid into position. Kenna looked at him and at the stool.

With a smirk, he nodded his head. He didn't mind her showing off or using her magic when others weren't present. Despite it still (technically) being against the rules for underage magic, very few of the staff minded when they were alone with her. The castle had such a strong magical signature, and there were so many magical people that it'd be difficult for the ministry to track any purposeful underaged magic.

In this case, Kenna was a smart child, and while Severus struggled to trust most of his first-year students with anything she had clamped on to following directions and doing as she was told. She soaked up information faster than a sponge and seemed to listen and hang off his every word, in and out of classes. Snape realized by October that rather than reading or doing the work she should be doing when she was in his class, she listened to his lecture and watched the students as they made their attempts at their potions. Once he'd seen her duck down before a potion exploded, giving him enough warning to send a protection spell around it. For her to know what was about to occur, she had to know that the ingredients were being placed in the wrong order, and for that, she had to be paying closer attention than he had accounted.

She slid onto the stool placed next to him and slowly stood to her full height on it. Her head came to about his elbow.

He stopped his chopping and handed her the knife, walking around her. With his fingers over hers, they finished cutting the basil leaves. Kenna seemed relaxed at the motion as they did it together.

Pulling out the roots he shifted them around and showed her how to cut them into even smaller cubes, followed by crushing them into a paste. They worked together quietly, and he only needed to say the occasional words. "A little smaller." While she did ask to stir, it was the only thing he didn't allow her to do, but Kenna seemed content with the tasks he gave her. He noted that after only showing her once she was very careful with both the sharp knife and also making sure that her cubes stayed approximately the same size.

Is this a pepper-up potion? She asked inside his mind.

Over the weeks that they'd spent time together, they'd somewhat established it as an appropriate form of communication. He knew Dumbledore had explained to her that most people would not prefer she enter their minds, Severus allowed her a bit more space to capitalize on her unique skill. Severus kept a space in his mind open to her, though he was very careful about blocking other pieces of information. It also helped him keep his Occlimency up to par- a skill that he had practiced for years and years.

Correct. How did you know?

She sent him what looked to be a picture of the page on pepper-up potions in the second-year potions textbook.

Like the rest of the staff, he paid close attention to what information she had seemed to absorb from the students, and he could already tell that her first few years of school would only be reviewed. Kenna was an extremely gifted child. She had the ability to excel in just about anything she found herself curious or passionate about. As she finished the ingredients he nodded his head when he checked them. He scooped the edges of mortar with the pestle and crushed a few of the larger chunks a little bit more. When he finished he let Kenna look over his shoulder at it. She nodded her head and watched the process of stirring with one hand and pouring with the other.

Is potions really an art? She asked.

Severus didn't stop what he was doing but considered her words for a moment. "I believe so. It is very delicate, and not all wizards or witches are equipped for the detail-oriented nature of potion-making."

Why do you write in your books?

Severus paused and glanced down. He had a potions book open on the counter that he was working on prior to her arrival, writing notes and comments in the margins for his own reference. "Sometimes the book can have errors or be improved."

Kenna's eyes widened and she looked up at him. The potions book can be wrong? She seemed incredulous.

"It is written by people and people can be wrong."

While still a bit skeptical she nodded her head and looked closer at his handwriting on the edge of the paper. He closed the book. It was way more advanced than the textbooks he used for his classes. He knew well enough to keep her away from anything that she could use in the future. "We need to wait another hour for the potion to simmer and cool so I can bottle it. What book are you reading today?"

Kenna jumped down from the stool and moved around the table, closing the book she had been reading and lifting it up for him to see it. It was a famous wizard's history book. Professor Binns said I should write 5 paragraphs about a famous wizard in this book, she told him. The Potions professor almost rolled his eyes. The Ghost that she referred to was supposed to be teaching her the basics of history in a very child-friendly way. Writing an essay was a bit less than child friendly.

Severus also walked around the table to set the book in front of them and open it to the index. He looked down the list of her options. "Glover Hipworth" He pointed at the page number. Kenna looked closely at the page and then let her fingers slide to find him in her book. "He created the pepper-up potion." Her eyes widened and her nose quickly buried itself into the book, reading the information about the potioneer and his life.

An hour later and Kenna already had an outline in her head for her short essay. She and Severus talked about the main points in the book that she should remember to add. After the potion finished, she watched Severus charm the bottles not to break, and then filter the potions into them. She got to put the corks in herself.

Kenna and Severus made their way up the stairs from the dungeons and down the hallway to the infirmary to deliver some of the potions they had worked on. They walked past a window to the courtyard and Kenna stopped to look outside. It was snowing again! A nice layer of two more inches settled across the courtyard, covering the footprints of the children that had left earlier. She kept looking up and out the windows at the flakes as they fell.

Shortly after they delivered their items to Poppy, Kenna stopped at the main entryway. Severus continued walking but paused when he realized she was distractedly looking at the doors. One of them was wide open, and a cold breeze entered the otherwise warm school. She looked to him, her wide doe eyes looking up at him with a sense of want that he knew he wouldn't be able to deny.

"Can we please go outside?" she asked. Severus wanted to say no, but something in him stirred too much at her wide orbs and slightly slurred words. He sighed. With his wand, he tapped her head with a warming spell and conjured up a big black coat, green mittens, and a green cap. He wrapped her up as much as he could, and then put a spell on himself, insulating his robes.

One last transfiguration of their footwear and he pushed open the door a little more.

Kenna was outside like a bullet, immediately sprinting down the stairs before he could warn her that they may be slippery. She tripped on the second to last step and went headfirst into the snow. Severus almost ran down to see if she was okay, but she popped her head up like a goffer and stood. Then she turned the corner and jumped into a plot of snow. She kicked it and touched it with her hands. Severus shook his head and made his own way down the steps, looking out over the grounds and observing the quiet. Winter break was usually quiet and calm and by far one of his favorite times of the year.

He could hear the child behind him moving about and turned just in time for a ball of snow to fly past him.

Kenna stopped with wide eyes, waiting on his reaction and wondering if it was a good idea in the first place to throw the snowball at him. She'd seen the kids do it on their way to the train. Throwing a ball was a lot harder than she thought it would be. Did your elbow swing first or was it your wrist?

He considered the ball she'd thrown as well. Then, with a light flick of his wand, the snow behind her came up and dropped over her head. They both froze. A second later she twittered with laughter like a fledgling bird, taking off running across the courtyard. She stopped at another patch of snow and threw a ball at him. It landed with some space, but Severus made one of his own, lobbing it over to her. He threw soft enough for her to dodge it easily, and she ran trying to scoop up more snow.

Every few steps she would trip a little, but she managed alright on her own. They threw the snow back and forth for a few minutes.

When her cheeks were pink from running around, the young girl raised both her hands and ran up to him, grabbing his own hand. Her mittens were cold on his fingers, even with his warming spell. "Can we please build a snowman?" She asked. And for the second time that afternoon, Severus didn't have the heart to say no.

They started with a small snowball and she rolled it around the courtyard, only when it got too big did she need help, and they had to move to a totally different area to get the second snowball the right size to stack. By the time they had the third, the snowman was almost a foot taller than her. She brought Severus the rocks and he placed them for the eyes and then transfigured a stick into a carrot and two others into better-looking arms. He conjured a hat and even lifted Kenna high enough to place it on the snowman's head.

Her big grin stared up at him, and he couldn't help the small smile that developed on his own face.

As she adjusted her green hat she looked over his shoulder. Her eyes widened and she took off running past him. Severus followed her trajectory to see Dumbledore walking up the pathway to the school. Kenna tripped and fell flat on her face for the fourth or fifth time since they'd been outside, but bounced up again and ran straight into the man's arms when he crouched down and opened them up.

Severus could almost hear her telling him everything they'd done that day mentally from where he stood.

While she chattered in their heads, Dumbledore lifted her up and carried her over, looking at the snowman with a knowing grin. When he looked over at Severus the twinkle in his eye seemed to become stronger than it normally was. Severus scowled at him in return.

"It sounds like you two have been quite busy. Maybe we should all go in to get some hot chocolate to warm up?"

Kenna found it to be a fantastic idea and verbalized such.

Severus wiped off his robes as they all approached the staircase to return inside. "I need to go downstairs and clean up." He mentioned offhandedly.

Dumbledore chuckled, knowing that the young professor wasn't comfortable with the fact that they'd been caught outside in the courtyard making a snowman. Kenna on the other hand squirmed and let out a disappointed sound. When she had wormed her way out of Dumbledore's arms she attached herself to Severus in a hug. Size-wise it was a bit awkward as she hardly reached his waist. He patted her head in an equally awkward way.

Dumbledore realized that Kenna did have the ability to direct her thoughts to one person at that moment, as she nodded her head in response to whatever Severus had responded with and seemed to move back toward him with a wave. The elder man watched the younger as he nodded in response, but didn't totally move, looking over the work of their snowman. As Dumbledore and Kenna walked away, he swore he also saw Severus adjust how the hat lay on the Snowman's head before walking in through a different door.

Kenna continued to quietly ramble at him as they walked up the stairs, going as far as to tell him that she actually got to cut some of the ingredients of the Pepper-up potion she'd helped with, and also identify some of the stories about the potioneer that created it.

"Did he let you stir the potion?"

She shook her head and pouted.

"Do you know why?" Again, she shook her head. "In potions, the stirring has some magical properties and must be done very specifically. Normally we funnel our magic through a wand, but in a way, magic can be funneled through how you stir. When you're young, it's hard to control the rate at which this happens, and can cause a potion to be more…"

Likely to blow up?

She clarified.

Dumbledore chuckled and nodded his head. Once they reached the office, the hot chocolates were already placed on the coffee table and steaming hot. Kenna slipped off her mittens and hat and settled into her chair, adjusting impatiently in wait. It was then Dumbledore noticed the green in his office and chuckled.

Flitwick earlier in the week had given Kenna a blue feathered quill, and Professor Sprout had made sure that her gardening gloves would be yellow. It appeared as if his staff was in a small battle of bets for her favorite color.

Unfortunately for them, she appeared clueless about their house associations.

He sat across from her and watched as she took the first few sips out of her cup. She had grown quiet once more. He was glad to see though, whatever she was thinking, she has a small smile on her face.

A/N: Thank you all for sticking around through thick and thin! Here's another Chapter. Hit me up if anyone wants to Beta, as I have a pretty good layout for the next few.