19

The next morning, Snape was a bit lonely at the Head Table. First he enjoyed it greatly because he liked some quiet in the morning. Drinking a cup of coffee undisturbed was pure bliss. Since it was the weekend, the house elves had made a greater variety of dishes for breakfast and Snape enjoyed small samples of everything. When he put a little smoked salmon and trout on his plate, a glass of champagne appeared beside the plate.

The first students arrived, Snape was enjoying a little roast beef on buttered baguette.

The potions master was halfway through a mini pie filled with vegetables and goose meat, when finally, the first colleague made an appearance. It was McGonagall.

"What were you thinking?" she said accusingly. "Leaving without providing us with a sobering potion! You have no idea how much these old men can drink! And they insisted we all drink with them!"

Snape assumed that the 'old men' in question were the Dark Lord and Dumbledore. "They are both accomplished brewers, they could have whipped up a sober-up potion in no time."

McGonagall snorted. "In the condition they were in? Certainly not! – You don't happen to have a dose with you?"

"No," said Snape but he called for Happy, the house elf which seemed to have taken a liking in serving him, and sent the tiny creature to his private store room for a bottle.

"I experimented a little the other day," Snape explained while he poured a dash of the potion into the witch's tea cup. "This can be taken with your tea."

"A new potion? Has it been tested?" The deputy headmistress eyed the cup suspiciously. "I don't want to be your guinea pig."

Snape shrugged. "Suit yourself. It worked for me but I'm of course too small a sample to claim it has been tested."

McGonagall took the cup and took a big sip. "You survived. Given how I feel, that is good enough for me."

"You didn't ask about side effects," Snape teased. "What if you grow a tail now?"

"No problem," McGonagall grinned at the potions master shrewdly. "I have a tail in my animagus form. I'm used to having a tail."

When the other teachers arrived, the potion bottle was passed down the table. Nobody grew a tail.

The advent calendar brought lots of Christmas ornaments, sweets and beauty products. Somebody at the Hufflepuff table got a badge flashing "Merry Christmas" in changing colours. The house of the badgers liked it so much that the students started to try to make their own. McGonagall and Flitwick hurried down to the students to explain the necessary spells to those who had not yet learned them in their regular lessons.

"That advent calendar was a great idea," muttered Dumbledore. "They learn more and they even enjoy it."

Astoria Greengrass got the most interesting gift of the day at the Slytherin table. It was a small handheld mirror which – according to a little poem written on its back – showed the holder their true love.

When the girl looked into it, she blushed and glanced toward the group of seventh years who sat a little down the table. Snape wondered who of boys was destined to be with the younger Greengrass sister. The girl was a true Slytherin, clever, powerful and always looking out for herself and those she deemed important to her (in that order).

The other girls of her group squealed excitedly and asked to borrow the mirror. Astoria allowed it and a lot of giggling, blushing and squealing ensued.

Snape watched for a little while before he went down to the table and asked the witches to show a little more decorum.

"Would you like to look, too?" Astoria asked innocently.

Snape glared down at the girl. "Certainly not, Miss Greengrass," he sneered. "I know where my heart lies."

"Awww! How romantic!" cried one of the girls. Snape had to fight down the need to deduct points from his own house.

When finally, all children had opened their gifts, it was the adults' turn. Dumbledore was thrilled when he discovered a muggle knitting magazine. "I love knitting patterns!" he informed the Dark Lord who was a little lost about what to do with his new shoe tree. Snape had to explain what it was good for.

Snape got a very decorative little bell which was covered in small red bows. It would certainly look great on his Christmas tree should he ever choose to put one into his quarters.

After breakfast, Dumbledore tried to rope Snape into supervising another workshop for the youngest students but this time Snape had a valid excuse.

"I'm honoured that you think you can't do without me," he informed the headmaster, "but if I am as irreplaceable as you claim you should have thought of it before you rented me out to the merpeople. You will have to excuse me this weekend but I have to brew."

Dumbledore had to admit that it was certainly not possible to make flu potion and supervise a group of children at the same time.

That was why Snape spent the day in his private realm. He brewed in his lab and spent the short periods where the potion had to sit before the next step in his living room. Eilidh was awake and visible and Snape fed the tiny dragon flies. Of those, he always had a supply in his store room because the common housefly was used in a surprising number of potions.

Eilidh accepted the flies graciously – as far as a highland dragon can be gracious – and by the time the potion was finished and Snape was only waiting for it to cool enough to pack it for the merpeople the lizard reacted to her master approaching the terrarium with climbing the highest rock and making her impatience known with a small hissing noise.

The highland dragon had not breathed fire yet although Hagrid insisted they were able to. Snape just hoped that the flame was as small as Hagrid said it was going to be.

A day of bonding resulted in Snape being able to pet the small creature. In the afternoon Snape put one of the bows from the advent calendar gift around the lizard's neck. He wanted to take the animal out of its tank but avoid the risk of misplacing it when it became invisible. He tested his plan by waiting for the dragon to fall asleep and really, the animal became invisible but did bow did not.

Proud of his idea, Snape put the little creature onto his shoulder and carried it with him for the rest of the day.

When he brought Eilidh to dinner, everybody admired her. Hagrid came to sit beside Snape to have a better view of the fascinating creature.

When the half-giant reached out to pet the dragon, it happened. Eilidh breathed fire at the gamekeeper and set light to his beard. The flame was, Snape was relieved to notice, only little bigger than the flame on a candle.

"What a temperamental young lady!" Hagrid laughed good naturedly as he extinguished the flames in his beard with his bare hands. "I should have asked permission."

"I'm not sure it would have made a difference," admitted Snape. "I'm not sure we are close enough for her to obey me."

"That will come with time," promised the half-giant. "You made a good start with her, Professor. She is staying with you and she accepts your bow."

After dinner, Snape tried to take Eilidh with him to the library to look up her egg shells in some of the older potions books. Hagrid had said, after all, that highland dragons had been quite common in the past and therefore the potions master expected their parts to be more commonly used as ingredients in old books.

Madame Pince stopped him at the door.

"I saw what that pet of yours did with Hagrid's beard at dinner," she said sternly "You will not take it into a hall full of books! And before you ask, no, you will not borrow any books. If you want to read up on something, leave your pet in your quarters and return here."

Snape decided that checking the books was not so urgent and returned to his quarters for a quiet evening with his pet and his miss-me-not. It had been several days since he last had time to stare his fill of his apprentice and that was much more urgent than reading up on historic potions recipes.