Wonderful chapter 42

Fun and games

Good to his word, Joe brought over a mug containing a dark colored drink over to Severus. The little wizard sat there at the table of Muggle children who had mugs of their own in various states of empty or fullness. Not touching the mug, Severus took a sip of the liquid that was under the head of foam. A smile spread across his face and he unconsciously said, "An infusion of sassafras root." Luckily none of the other kids took note of this. Sev continued to sip the root beer from where the mug sat on the table. He looked around at the Muggle children. He was glad they were mostly as young as himself. The older kids seemed to be at another table, except for one older boy sitting with the younger. For this reason Severus kept an eye on that one. His wariness was not unwarranted.

After a few sips, Sev felt it was safe to reach out for some of the half eaten treats; A handful of popcorn, a handful of crisps, a handful of tiny chocolate bits. Being preoccupied by the treats he only half noticed one of the boys from the older kids' table march up to the one older boy at the little kids' table.

"Sitting with the babies Barney?" The boy said before bumping into the boy called Barney making the soda in front of him wobble at the edges of the mug, but not spill out.

"D-Don't call me Barney," the boy nervously stood up to the bully. "My name is Barnard, not Barney."

"Whatever you say, Barney."

This exchange made Severus nervous. This was how Toby acted before something worse was on the way. Instead of the something worse, the boy looked around the table and laughed before chortling, "Barney and the babies," and walked back to his table in obvious awe of the other older kids.

One of the girls who's age seemed to be a few years older than Sev, but a few years younger than the bullied boy, lay a kindly hand on Barney's arm as he sat there embarrassed. "Don't let that thug Mike bother you, Barnard," she said. This made Barnard smile.

The threat of danger over, Severus went back to sipping his soda. There was a part of him that felt bad for 'Barney'. There was another part that thought he should have knocked this fellow Mike on his fanny. He didn't like being lumped in with the Muggles as one of the 'babies' either. These thoughts fled from his head when Joe announced that there was to be some games in which the winner of each would get prizes. To be fair, Joe had arranged a prize for the younger players and the older players of each game. Some of the games were those of skill, some were of luck. As the smaller kids lined up for the first game, Severus saw his mother looking at him from where she and his father sat. He knew what she was thinking, even if he couldn't hear it, 'no magic.'

Waiting anxiously in the line to play the first game Severus was certainly not intending to use magic, but as all of the wizarding world knew, sometimes magic just happened.

The first of these games was simple enough. There was a milk bottle on the floor. Each child was handed five clothes pins and they were to drop them in an attempt to get them inside the mouth of the bottle. This proved more difficult than imagined for the first girl who only got one inside.

"Okay," Joe bellowed out. "There's your mark to beat. Jenny has one."

'I can do better than that,' Sev thought to himself.

As the adults were letting the girls go first, the next player was the girl who had comforted the bullied boy at the table. She got three in. "Kate has three, that's the number to beat now," Joe announced as if it were as important as the outcome of a Derby.

Of the next two girls one got none, and the other got two. "Let's see if the boys can do any better," Joe continued as the boy closer to Sev's age stepped up to play. "Sorry girls, looks like the boys have taken the lead. Harvey's gotten four." Now it was Severus' turn. "Think you can beet that Severus?" Joe asked. Sev nodded nervously as he was handed the clothes pins. He was hoping he at least matched it. He didn't want to be beaten in a game of skill by a girl. The first pin shook nervously in little Snape's hand as he aimed with utmost concentration. Like a missile it went right in the bottle though at first Sev was sure it was off course. It took less time for him to aim the next one. In it went. The third went in, and the fourth. By the time of the fifth one he was barely looking where he was dropping it. "Whoa," Joe commented. "Toby, you need to sign your boy up for the dart team." Severus blushed with this statement. "Well that's the winner for the younger ones," the bar owner declared and handed the boy a colorfully wrapped object that Severus didn't recognize. It looked to him like a gigantic piece of candy.

While Joe was fixing the game to be harder for the older kids, the winner of the little kids category was running over to where his parents were sitting. Ignoring the fact that his father was nursing the one beer he had been allowed, he asked his mother, "Can I eat it now?"

"How'd ya know it's something to eat before you open it?" Toby answered before Ele could say anything.

"It's candy, isn't it?"

"Could be," Ele answered. "Could be something else."

"Daft boy doesn't even know it's a Christmas Cracker," Toby couldn't resist putting in.

"And where would he have seen one before?" Ele was trying not to be annoyed at Toby, but Toby was making it hard. "You take one end," She fixed the paper in her son's hand. "And I take the other, and we pull . . ." The loud bang made Severus jump. His initial shock was replaced by glee at the sight of about ten pieces of candy and just as many molded plastic animals that had fallen out of the cracker.

"You can eat one of the candies now," Eileen told her son. "I'll hold on to the rest until we get home."

Popping the sweet into his mouth, Severus turned back to the games. The older kids, who were ten to twelve years old were standing on a bar stool making it a yard further for them to drop the clothes pins into the milk bottle. It looked like the boy Barnard was in the lead with four. The bully Mike was now truing to duplicate Severus' five, but his last one went awry. "Well," Joe announced. "It looks like we've got to have a tie breaker." He indicated to Barnard he should climb back up onto the bar stool.

"Barney should have played with the babies," Mike could be heard to say behind him.

"You best keep your tongue in yer mouth Mike Stone. You shouldn't rightfully be here, but I promised your dad I'd keep you out of trouble. Keep it up and you'll not be included."

Mike made a face, but he didn't huff off or say he didn't want to be included in the kids games. Barnard got only three this time, but it was enough to win. Mike only got two.

"And the second winner is Barnard," Joe said as he handed another cracker to the older boy.

Severus wondered what would be inside that one, as Barney looked a bit old to be playing with plastic animals. "Kate," Barnard asked the girl, "Will you take the other end of the cracker? You can have half."

Kate smiled and tugged on the cracker. There was another bang and candy along with something else fell to the floor. The crackers for the older kids had pound coins in them. From the look and sound about five. Severus saw the boy called Mike step on one of the coins as Barnard and Kate picked them and the candy up while giggling. True to his word Barnard gave half of the candy to Kate. "Then there's two pounds for you." He handed one more to the one Kate had picked up. "And two for me."

"Look around a bit," Joe instructed on hearing this. "There should be one more in that one."

Barnard and Kate looked around on the floor not finding it.

"You won't find it," Severus spoke up. "If he's standing on it." He pointed at Mike. If there was one thing Severus couldn't stand, even then, it was a cheat. He was about to find out what a lot of people couldn't stand, even if he had done the right thing.

"Little tattle tale," Mike growled at Severus after being made to move his foot off of the coin.

"All right you," Joe told Mike. "You're out of the next game."

Mike made another face and went back to the older kids table. One of the other bar tenders that worked for Joe brought something out from behind the bar for the next game before removing the milk bottle, clothes pins, and the bar stool. The something the man had brought out was a short board and a cylinder which the board was placed on. "The object of this," Joe informed. "Is to balance, then go from one side to the other, staying on as long as you can."

Again this was something that Severus had never seen before. Apparently Jenny hadn't either. She couldn't even balance on it. Despite this first bad going, the other three girls seemed to be very adept at it. Kate was the best of them at this game as well. Now it was Severus' turn. He was not going to have as much luck with this one. He placed his right foot on the board, but when his left went up, the rest of him went down. There was a loud "Oooh," as the boy thudded to the wooden floor.

"All right there Sev?" Joe asked the dizzy boy.

Sev nodded as Joe hoisted him back to a standing position. "Your turn Kenny," Joe told the other little boy. Kenny did better than Severus, but not as good as Kate. "The winner is, Kate." Joe went to where he was keeping the crackers. He seemed to know which ones had what in them by the colors. Inside of this one, as the others, was candy, and a silky scarf with flowers on it that only a girl would have liked. "Wow, thank you Joe," the polite girl said as she wrapped it around her neck.

As this skill was hard enough, the older kids had no extra handicap put on them. Most of the older kids could stay on very long, but Barnard failed as miserably as Severus had. Mike was over at the older kids' table snickering. The winner of the older kids' round seemed to be a friend of Mike. He let the trouble maker pull the other end of his prize cracker. Again candy and coins fell out. Looking at Mike, the winner let him have one of the coins. Narrowing eyes on Mike's face made the winner hand over another one before moving away from his 'friend.'

There were five more games. Severus didn't win any more of them, but he was having so much fun, it didn't bother him. After that they entire pub began singing Christmas carols as a lady with glasses played an old clunky piano in a corner. During this part of the party, Severus sat in his mother's lap almost falling asleep. He didn't know many of the carols, but he liked to hear them. Eileen was most enthusiastic. It surprised her son. He didn't remember her singing too much around the house, but this was Christmas. All sorts of wonderful things happened on Christmas. When Tobias was not singing, Eileen would elbow him and Mr. Snape caroled as well.

During one song, 'It Came Upon A Midnight Clear,' Ele began to sniffle.

When he saw tears rolling down her cheek, her son asked, "Mum, what's wrong"

"Nothing," Ele said with a long sniff. "Just remembering." She wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand. In-between the songs there was talking and clinking of glasses. Severus asked again, "Remembering what?"

"When . . ." Sniff. "I . . ." Sniff. "Was a girl."

The next song that started up was 'Jingle Bells,' which didn't have the same effect on Eileen. A few songs along though, she was sniffling again. This time the concerned boy asked, "Did something sad happen at Christmas when you were a girl, Mum?"

This question startled Eileen back out of the tears. "No," she said with a look of curiosity on her face. "No, Sev. Christmases were very happy when I was a girl."

"Then why are you crying?" It didn't make sense to the boy.

"Because girls cry when they're happy too," Toby interjected an explanation.

"They do?"

Eileen had to admit, "Yes, we do."

After the last song, Joe announced there would be a complementary buffet of more substantial food that night as he and one of the other men rolled in a long table of food from the back. "Merry Christmas everyone," Joe said beaming with holiday spirit. "And don't forget, there's going to be a special guest a little later on. He's very busy, but he promised to pop in for an ale."

There was an intake of breath from all of the little kids. They knew who that guest was going to be. Sitting in Eileen's lap, Severus was no exception. He added the whisper of, "Father Christmas."

"Well, we better get up to that buffet," Toby said. "Before the fat man gets here." Toby joined the line already forming at the table of food. The chance to get plenty of anything free was the best thing to Toby. At the end of the table there were complementary glasses of cheep sparkling wine, Joe wasn't about to give out champagne. Toby had had his one beer, but he wasn't going to pass up the free drink. The sour look that Eileen gave him didn't change his mind. "It's Christmas," he bemoaned as she and Severus passed him by on the way to the food. Ele shook her head in aggravation. 'If he has anything more than that,' she told herself, 'I'll hex his hair off.'

tbc