thanks for the great responses guys, i'm so happy you are having fun with this!


🎄 🎄 🎄 Fairy Lights 🎄 🎄 🎄

o.O.o

Why he wasn't going towards his own room was beyond him. Maybe his brain was frozen like the rest of his body and he followed Potter blindly. Or perhaps it was Potter's cluttered "W-we should h-have a d-drink to w-warm up," that made him turn left inside of right. Perhaps, something entirely else dictated his moves, but the fact remained, he was following Potter on empty corridors then they both walked into his chambers.

Hovering, colourful fairy lights, not the muggle kind but actual fairies, lit up once they entered the room as if they sensed their presence.

He hated colourful fairy lights, found them too ostentatious. He always preferred the warm-lighted ones even as a child, but his father had insisted on the colourful ones.

Potter, too, it seemed preferred this kind. There was a bunch of fairies nestled in pine branches over the fireplace and another group all the way up on the handrail of the spiralling staircase leading up to the bedroom. They barely twinkled, just enough to bring a dim light to the room, but not enough for Severus to see details.

He knew the layout of the room, had lived in one just like this in the past twenty years. There was a bathroom to their left, but Potter did not go that way. He went straight to the fire, spelling it from smouldering ambers to roaring flames. Severus walked there too, his steps slow but not fully conscious or thought through. He was too aware of Potter's presence as if his whole body had tuned in for the other professor.

Potter took off his heavy, soaked coat and let it drop to the ground. The shirt underneath, which Severus remembered to be deep red and simple cotton now in the dim light looked like black silk, stuck to broad shoulders and slim waist. Severus denied his eyes to go further below, but of course, with his brain still frozen, he had lost control of his own body. What he saw, chased the rest of the coldness from his bones.

Potter looked over his shoulder, the fire glinted on his glasses, and he said in a quiet, rough voice, "T-take your clothes o-off." He was still shaking.

The sentence sent a wild shiver down Severus' body, and he took off his coat and placed it over the couch even before his mind could register that Potter only meant this so that the fire would warm them up more easily. He didn't even suspect that Severus was far from cold, that the only reason Severus wanted to get rid of his clothes would be to cool this burning heat that raged inside him.

As if to prove how oblivious to everything Potter was, he started unbuttoning his shirt, his motions hurried, eager to get right out of the disgustingly wet and cold material. He let it drop to the ground then leaned against the mantel, carefully avoiding the branches with the glittering fairies.

Severus, still a couple steps behind Potter, just stared, unabashed. As Potter stood right in front of the fireplace, only his front was lit by the fire's light, his back was in complete shadow – or would have been, if fairy light from above on the railing wouldn't shine on him. Colourful blotches of lights highlighted the smooth skin, glimmering continuously. When either the fairies or Potter moved, the light created the surreal image that Potter's skin was waving over his body like silk in water. Beneath the skin, he could see every hill and dip of the muscles, tensed up as they were to hold Potter up.

Potter turned around, but the lights stayed, shifting over strong arm, bare chest, flat stomach.

"Aren't you cold?" Potter asked, voice stronger now, and still completely oblivious to Severus' strange thoughts, thanks god.

"No," Severus breathed in deep, hoping the air would chase this insanity out of his mind and would blow out the fire in his body. But it was only fuel to the fire as he felt the scent of pine, and ocean and he took a step towards Potter. Potter recoiled slightly, it would have been unnoticed at any other moment, but Severus' senses seemed to be on the edge now. Severus could only imagine with what hunger he could have stared at the man that it frightened even Harry Potter.

He felt a certain kind of apprehension in the air between them and it made him wake up finally. "Warming charm," he lied easily, and he walked to the fire. The previous moment, because it was not longer than that, was broken, and all was back to normal. He could even feel the cold once more and he welcomed it.

Potter huffed a laugh, then raised his wand and flicked it. Two glasses or red wine appeared on the mantel, he took one of them, while handing the other to Severus.

More alcohol wasn't a good idea Severus was sure, yet he took the glass and ignored the little spark of fire he felt as his fingers brushed against Potter's.

"To Christmas," Potter said tilting his glass.

"To Christmas," Severus echoed.

They drank in quiet for a while, then Potter produced a towel for Severus to dry his hair, while himself took a fluffy blanket and sitting on one end of the couch he huddled in it. Severus took the other side, as far away from the half-naked man as possible.

"I wanted to feel like I'm one of you, not just a student anymore." Said Potter out of nowhere, as if answering a question that was never asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"Why I socialize so much with the other professors," Potter explained, looking at the fire. "It may have been only three years for you, but I've seen a lot as an Auror during that time. Yet when I came back, I felt like seventeen again. I had to talk to them, get to know them better, to see them as colleagues and not my teachers."

"Why? What does that matter?" Severus asked. "I was the same age as you, when I started teaching here, and never felt the need to chat with Sinistra about my students dating just to feel like one of the professors."

Potter laughed. "I bet you didn't." He placed his empty glass on the table then turned towards Severus. "It mattered to me, because I wanted to feel equal to you. I always perceive my teachers to be above us, regular wizards, but it turns out you enjoy a good gossip as much as any of us." He smiled.

"Not all of us," Severus noted.

"Not you, of course, you stand above all this nonsense like model cars, knitting, or gossiping. It makes one wonder what you do in your free time. We have a bet you know."

Severus raised an eyebrow and drunk the rest of his wine, too, putting the glass aside. "What about?"

"What your secret is."

"My secret?" Severus huffed. "Oh, I have none of those."

Potter laughed out. "Hah, yes, I'm sure. You're the most open person in the world."

"Open enough," commented Severus. "So, what was your bet, Potter. Something dark and dangerous? Something vile?"

He just waved a hand, nonchalant. "Nah, I didn't bet. I didn't have to."

"What makes you say that?"

"I know what your secret is, Snape." He said with confidence. "Why ruin their fun?"

"How could you possibly know what sinister thoughts go on in my mind, Potter?"

The smirk that crossed Potter's face was dangerous. "You'd be surprised, Snape."

Severus huffed, turning away, hopefully hiding the blush those words caused on his face.

Potter yawned loudly, then stood up, the blanket falling off his naked upper body. "It's late, you should go," He said softly.

Severus looked at him, eyes drawn unconsciously to the bare skin, defined now even more by the light of the dancing flames.

"Unless," Potter started saying and heat rose in Severus' body once more, as he thought how that sentence might be finished. But of course, these implications were in his head only and Potter said, smiling, "You want to help wrap all the gifts tomorrow, so I won't have to wake up early."

"Gods no," Severus gasped aghast. He stood and gathered his damp coat from the back of the couch and walked to the door. "Good night," he said.

"Good night," he heard Potter's soft voice as the door closed behind him.


🎄 🎄 🎄 To be continued 🎄 🎄 🎄