The End of Dignity

A/N:This chapter is a companion piece to the first chapter of Legends of a Lemon Drop Lover. You can read this on its own, but we recommend that you read Legends first.

Disclaimer: We hold no title to Harry Potter and its associated characters and themes. Even the ones that a person would rather not discuss in a public setting.

It was a horrid, despicable day – a day that Severus looked forward to with dread. It was a day which, most unfortunately, came once a year, every year, and he had no excuse – no reason – for missing it. He couldn't claim that he was ill; he was never ill, nor could he claim to be visiting a relative, for all of his were dead. No one would believe him if he claimed to have a significant other. No, he would be forced to participate in the unpleasant, nasty, simply ghastly tradition of the "staff" gift exchange. This gift exchange always turned into Dumbledore giving everyone gifts while the staff would try to pacify his Christmas spirit while not encouraging it.

One Severus Snape was the last to enter the colorfully-decorated room. It was part of the tradition; Severus would wait as long as possible trying to postpone the inevitable before he could work up the courage to face the disgustingly cheerful antics of the deranged Headmaster.

Being particularly careful to scowl at everything that moved (just to make sure he had thoroughly communicated his displeasure), he sidled into the room while trying not to draw Dumbledore's attention unto himself.

That worked about as well as trying to keep Dumbledore from lemon drops, because twinkling blue eyes latched onto Severus and were accompanied by a sickeningly jovial voice, "Ah. There you are Severus, my boy. Now that you have been found, we can begin."

This announcement was greeted with what were supposed to be sounds of agreement, but they came out like groans.

And so the torture began.

Severus was surprised, most everything was seemingly normal this year; it was this fact that made him suspicious. Most years, everyone got it pretty bad from Dumbledore, but there was usually one teacher that got singled out for the most embarrassing gift of the year, and Severus had been lucky so far.

The year he had started teaching, Minerva was given catnip, a litter box, scratching post, ball of yarn, and an instruction book on cat care. This was one of Dumbledore's more comical gifts. Last year, Sinistra had not gotten as lucky as Minerva. Upon unwrapping the spherical package, she gave a small gasp of shock and refused to answer any questions from the other professors, preferring to glare at the Headmaster. Unfortunately for her, the Headmaster supplied an answer to the queries: "It's a comprehensive model of Uranus complete with zooming function and –"

No one listened after that, trying to decide whether Dumbledore had done this on purpose, or if he was actually well-meaning.

And that was what had Severus so suspicious, because this year the worst gift was the stilts that Dumbledore had given to Filius, and those weren't embarrassing, just tacky. That left Severus as being the only teacher, barring the Defense teacher, to have avoided being given the embarrassing gift of the year.

He knew the minute Dumbledore set his stupid, twinkling eyes on him that this was his year; this was it, the end of his dignity.

Severus could have sworn that Dumbledore's mouth twitched as he handed him a package wrapped in lemon yellow paper. "And lastly, Severus. Well, go on, my boy, it's not going to eat you."

Severus would have preferred if it had.

He slowly removed the blinding paper, holding his breath, but knowing that it was pointless. Deciding to spare himself a long, drawn out torture, Severus closed his eyes and quickly lifted whatever it was out of the paper.

He was not surprised when his colleagues gasped. What did surprise him was that whatever was in his hands was soft and smelled faintly of lemons. He opened his eyes to see what could have inspired such a silent reaction from the other teachers; it was like they were waiting for a bomb to go off, not that he would admit to knowing about the muggle invention. He wished he had kept his eyes closed, because there in front of him, held up for all of his colleagues to see, were boxers. THE BOXERS. The ones that were a horrible shade of lime green and had yellow lemons on them.

Severus looked up from his spot leaning against the wall to stare at Dumbledore. Dumbledore merely smiled and said, "I knew you were looking at them in the candy store, and I thought they would be a lovely way to brighten up your wardrobe. I guessed at your size, buy you really are quite skinny underneath those robes; you really should eat more. But, I guessed that those would be your size, and they smell like lemons. Aren't they simply delightful!"

Everyone stared at Severus in shock and anticipation. Everyone except for Minerva, who was trying to hide her laughter in a cup of tea and failing horribly, as the tea spilt over, and she had to mutter a charm to clean it up.

Severus looked down at the hideous . . . things again, contemplating what to do with them, when the wardrobe in the corner fell open, revealing Potter and Weasley. They stared up at him with wide eyes until Minerva pounced on them and began ushering them out of the room yelling something about detention. But everyone still heard Potter's uncharacteristic squeak which was followed by Weasley's comment, "Just be glad he isn't a briefs' man."

And with that Severus banged his head against the wall, all semblance of dignity lost.

A/N:

Ren: I think this enough for this story.

Ceyl: M'hmm.

Ren: What are you looking at?

Ceyl: What? I've got part of the thing done, just did the "Perhaps they laced them with something… anything from Calming Draughts, to Amorentia, to Veritaserum :waves hands as if she is possessed: and then McGonagall's like :points finger in agreement:, "there's the store." It's short, but it works.

[Believe it or not, we were actually still adding to Legends of a Lemon Drop Lover at this point. This story was finished before certain middle-parts of its prequel of sorts, but the concept was all we needed to, err – create.]

Ceyl: This is kind of uncharacteristic for Snape, but the whole idea of Snape freaking about the possibility of what Dumbledore is lacing the lemon drops with :quotes a large portion of what she has just written in that paragraph: seems fitting.

Ren: :nods intermittently to distract Ceyl from the fact that she is writing the authors' note without her knowing… again:

Ren: Say something profound.

Ceyl: :blinks: Giving Snape boxers is bad.

Ren: :laughs: I said 'profound', not 'obvious'.

Ceyl: Define "profound" then.

Ren: Something…that…(dramatic pause)…is not obvious.

Ceyl: Profound. Hmm – what are you writing?! :discovers the authors' note: Hey! Not fair!

Ren: I am found out. Authors' note is over.

Ceyl: I am still trying to think of something profound…