Chapter Nineteen: Christmas Day
Winter came as quickly as I'd thought it would. Snow began to fall around Hogwarts and while it looked very pretty in a magical, winter wonderland sort of way, I personally rued the day that the decision was made to use stone to build the castle. It was freezing. I felt like I was trapped inside an iceberg all the time, except those nice, warm times when I was down in the dungeons with Severus. I much preferred the time I spent down there with him to the vast expanses of weekend that I stayed holed up in my cold room, trying to snuggle under the blankets and wishing someone would bring me hot chocolate. Unfortunately, that wish was never fulfilled, though I did go for coffees with Johnny a lot. He was the only thing that could make me leave the relative warmth of the castle, although I had to glare at him when he laughed at me for wearing four sweaters and three scarves out to Hogsmeade.
Soon, Christmas Day was upon the castle. I woke up that morning feeling oddly rested, even though I'd barely gotten any sleep the night before. Even if some of the magic had worn off Christmas over the years, I still got too excited to sleep on Christmas Eve. Taking a quick shower, I threw on a pair of black jeans and a pretty green turtleneck and ambled over to the Great Hall. The path I had to take to get there, while confusing in my first week, was like second nature now, and so before I knew it, I was entering the Hall and moving up to take my regular place next to Severus at the staff table.
"Happy Christmas," I said to him cheerily, smiling as widely as I could. "You're not going to get to me today, because it's Christmas and it's a time for niceness. In fact, if you're a jerk to me, I'll just pretend you're offering to make me a sandwich."
He stared at me for a while, one eyebrow raised. "Merry Christmas," he finally said, sounding as though it were causing him great pain to do so. "Though it kills me to exchange pleasantries with you."
"I think wholemeal today, thank you," I said joyfully, piling bacon on my plate. Severus sighed next to me and I giggled to myself, pleased to know that I had beat him in a match of wits. I knew that sandwiches could solve anything. The door to the Great Hall burst open with a bang, and I paused in my butter-spreading to see what the commotion was. To my immense surprise, a huge man in a red coat and hat was handing out bulging stockings to everyone. "Er… what's going on?" I asked, wondering what on earth had changed in my absence from the school. It was Minerva, two seats down, who answered me; Severus was spreading butter so hard that it was a miracle he wasn't snapping the toast.
"It's something new we're trying out this year," she said with a small smile on her face. "Instead of leaving the presents by their beds, Hagrid's handing them out at breakfast. Adds a sense of occasion to the whole event, I think. In fact, it was Severus' idea -"
"Minerva!" Severus slammed his toast down on his plate, saying her name extremely loudly and sharply in a 'keep talking and I'll rip out your still-beating heart and eat it in front of you' sort of a way. I was glad I wasn't in her shoes, but seriously? Severus thinking of something as sweet as a new Christmas tradition? Something told me he had an ulterior motive, but I decided to let it go for now and concentrate on what Hagrid was doing. I stared down at the giant of a man, terrifying first years with his bellowing 'ho ho ho' and the fact that he was swinging the sack of stockings so violently they could have taken someone's head off.
"That's nice," I said. "I mean, the younger ones would probably like it. Don't know about the older ones though. They always think they're too cool for everything. Damn teenagers."
"Now, there's no need to be rude about the students, Raphaela," said Severus, the merest tiny hint of a smile playing across his face. Before I could cry out in immense outrage at his blatant hypocrisy, I was hit in the face by a flying red projectile. I fell backwards in my seat and ended up sprawled on the ground, the teachers staring at me as though I'd gone mad. My nose throbbed in pain but it didn't seem broken; I wiggled it with my fingers to make sure. It hurt like a bitch, but I couldn't feel any displaced cartilage moving about in there so I judged my status as unhurt.
"Sorry Raphaela," came a gruff voice from the other side of the table. "Thought you were gonna catch it."
"That's okay," I called out, struggling to get to my feet, right my chair and pick up my stocking all at the same time. Somehow, I managed to regain my composure and sit back down at the table in time to get properly excited about Christmas presents. I looked at Severus, who had turned a shocking shade of maroon as he awkwardly clutched a stocking at arm's length, as though it were a bomb. "You open it, Severus," I said with a laugh.
"Er… yes, of course," he said, drawing the box out of the stocking and staring at it, eyebrows furrowed. It was covered in green and silver wrapping paper with pictures of cross-eyed reindeer on it.
"I thought the reindeer were too cute to pass up. And green and silver are your colours. Sorry for the shit job I did wrapping, I was never any good at it," I said, pulling out a parcel from my own stocking. Severus' head snapped towards me and stared as though I were insane.
"This… this was you?" he asked, seeming utterly shocked, but in a not entirely unpleasant way. "And don't swear in front of the children."
"The students are too far away to hear me swearing my tits off," I said, adding an expletive just to annoy him. "In fact, I can say cock bugger shit fuck and nobody will be any the wiser."
"Vialle!" Oops. McGonagall was staring at me like I'd pooped on her hat. "I do believe in free speech, but some things should not be said at the breakfast table."
"Sorry," I said quickly, then turned back to Severus. He was still staring at the unopened parcel in front of him. "Open the damn thing, you old bat."
He glared at me, but unwrapped it anyway. A long scarf came tumbling onto his lap, which he regarded with a mixture of surprise and wariness. It was a particularly nice scarf, black and green with silver serpents stitched in near the bottom. "This is… not entirely revolting."
"Well, I'll take that as the best I'll hear from you today," I said cheerfully, opening my first present. It was a pair of gorgeous emerald earrings and a silver snake bracelet with diamonds for eyes, which I put on immediately. The snake promptly swallowed its tail and tightened around my wrist until it fit perfectly. The enclosed note read for the future head of Slytherin house, with love from Mum and Dad. I giggled at their sentiment and showed the note to Severus, who simply scowled. I barely had time to quickly eat some bacon and a few mouthfuls of toast after unwrapping all my presents, before the food melted away and I was left, once more, with nothing to do.
"Severus?" I said as he stood up, preparing to leave the Great Hall. He paused and looked down at me, an almost friendly look on his face. "Um… are you doing anything today?"
"I had not made plans, if that is what you meant," he said, still frozen in front of his seat. "Why do you ask?"
"It's just that when I'm not in the dungeons with you or out with Johnny," (he actually scowled slightly at this) "I'm just hanging around my room with nothing to do. And it's a bit sad to be doing that on Christmas."
"Do you have a point?"
"I just figured it'd be nice to have some company when I do nothing again."
The expression on his face was one I couldn't entirely make out, but he didn't look angry with me like he usually did. "I can think of no reasonable excuse not to."
So, on Christmas Day of the first year of my (sort of) new job, I spent the day with Severus Snape. After the third time I replied to his barbs with suggestions for sandwich fillings, he gave up trying to offend me and was nearly a pleasant human being. He even made me laugh a few times, though I'm not sure that was intentional. It was only in the mid-afternoon, when the sun began to set, that I realised something I'd missed earlier.
"I haven't heard anything from Johnny today," I said suddenly. We were sitting in armchairs in the living room of his quarters, a roaring fire warming my toes and steaming mugs of hot chocolate (laced with booze at my request) to comfort us. "Weird, 'cause we've kind of been dating a while." I swirled the dregs of my hot chocolate lazily and finished it off, resting the mug back on the dark wood table between our chairs, and noticed that he had quite a peculiar look on his face. He stood up suddenly, turning to the door and beginning to walk towards it.
"I have suddenly remembered something I meant to do. You can show yourself out."
Bloody impossible, that man.