39 – The Christmas Warning

Snape was standing center stage, and it felt like he was under a high-powered microscope, hundreds of eyes scrutinizing his every move. The silk handkerchief was still covering his ornament as Slughorn described the rules of the First Annual Christmas Challenge. "The goal is to capture, and dare I say"—Slughorn turned to Dumbledore and chuckled—"showoff the skills you've learned from your venerable Hogwarts professors. We want to see what you've learned in Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, everything except the Dark Arts, of course." Slughorn let out a nervous chuckle after that. "Normally, we save the best for last, but in the case of Mr. Snape here, we might just see the best first." He winked at Snape and said, "Off we go, Severus. Show us the ornament that you've brought to life, and remember, Miss Rouge Arrow will be judging. Tom Riddle caught an unfortunate case of the dragon cough and could not attend."

Snape felt drenched in sweat. How was he going to do this?

Slughorn waved a wand, and Snape's likeness appeared on two giant mirrors on opposite sides of the room. Slughorn then tilted his wand to the right, and the mirrors moved from showing Snape's profile to zooming in on his ornament. As if standing center stage, being viewed from all angles, wasn't bad enough, there was now a close-up of his ornament for everyone to see. Slughorn gave a hearty laugh and nudged Dumbledore. "I said this event would be big."

Dumbledore offered a small, obliging smile. "Off you go, Severus."

"Yes, Headmaster." He removed the silk handkerchief for the rest of the class to see. The winter scene came to life—the juniper trees were blowing in an invisible wind, skaters moved all over the frozen lake, performing acrobatic feats seen in the Muggle Winter Olympics, occasionally falling, but always returning to form.

The class was utterly silent for the first minute as the scene played out in magnified view on the mirrors. There were murmurs, the most common one being, "How in Merlin's name did he do that?"

"Severus," said Dumbledore, "would you care to explain what you've done here?"

"Of course, sir. This is a winter scene from Spinner's End showing—"

"Mr. Snape. Pardon my interruption," said Dumbledore, "but I'm curious about the magic giving this scene life. I know it can be done in more ways than one, but please share for the benefit of your fellow classmates."

Snape wasn't worried about providing a plausible explanation for his ornament. He was concerned about getting it close enough to James and a few of the other students that had come in last—maybe there hadn't been enough of the potion to protect them from the Dark Tourist. Maybe the potion in the chalice was a paper tiger.

He looked around the room for targets, his eyes briefly settling on Lily before darting away. He couldn't even force himself to look at James, but eventually he identified two students that had come in late. If he could just get the winter scene close to them, focus for a few seconds on what he wanted the Dark Tourist to do, all wouldn't be lost. The blue ice from the doppelganger root (kicking up from the skaters) would do the trick, and he would have two people to bring to Voldemort.

"Yes, of course," Snape finally answered. "Don't let the movement of the trees fool you. This is a multi-layered Accio charm coming from two directions, giving the illusion of a swaying tree. Here, let me show the back of the class first." He took a step from the stage, casually walking to his first targets.

"Mr. Snape, if you don't mind, I think it would be better if you stayed on stage." Miss Rouge Arrow's blurry amber hue, for whatever reason, deteriorated for just a second, and Snape could see her eyes clearly—she knew exactly what he was doing. Voldemort had completely underestimated her. Or was this all in his paranoid imagination? The vision of her became blurred again as quickly as it had cleared up. "There won't be enough time for you to go around to everyone with so many ornaments to show today," she explained. "And of course it will be beneficial for us all to see your demonstration."

He stopped and looked to Dumbledore and Slughorn—both were waiting for his reaction. "Of course. How incredibly foolish of me."

As he headed back to center stage, he could hear Voldemort telling him that he'd made yet another pig's ear. He was messing up every big task that he'd been assigned.

The next few minutes that Snape spoke became a bit of a blur to him. The words flowed out naturally. The lie he was telling didn't feel like one—it felt like the truth. He went into greater detail about the Accio charm. He spoke about the singing worms and other Forbidden Forest items that went into the potions, powering the ice skaters. He even talked about a modified Glacius charm used to freeze the lake, keeping it cold enough that the skaters could kick up ice. It was all a blur, and when he finished with his explanation, Slughorn was beaming. "Very impressive, Severus. For a minute there, I was wondering if you'd stolen some secrets from Dumbledore himself."

Dumbledore and Miss Rouge Arrow remained quiet. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Dumbledore whispering something to her, and she nodded. He tried to catch a quick glance to see Lily's reaction to it all, but she was staring straight ahead.

"Well, thank you," he said. After stepping from the stage and returning to his seat, the chatter died and the class politely applauded, knowing the contest was all but over. As the other students began their demonstrations, it felt like Snape's ornament was the difference between one made by a first-year versus a fifth-year student. One of the ornaments was a shoddy version of Santa Claus that attempted to go down a miniature brick chimney, except he got stuck and never made it out. The Santa kept saying, "Ho, ho, ho," over and over. Over and over. The student told the class that the Santa would come through the fireplace any minute, but after the one hundredth ho-ho-ho, Dumbledore let out an exasperated sigh. With a slight flick of his wand (unnoticeable to everyone except Snape), the chimney crumbled and the Santa fell to the stage speechless.

A litany of horrible ornaments followed: James's reindeers got tangled, immobilizing one another; Sirius's stars fell out of a blue night sky lighting the stage on fire (kind of), making it smoke like an old pipe; Remus's angels couldn't quite take flight, doing nosedives into the floor and scurrying over it like erratic mice. Nothing seemed to work, and with each passing ornament, Snape racked his brain, knowing that he was running out of time to perform the curse. He was trying to think of any way he could reach his targets. It kept going that way until finally there was only one demonstration left—Lily's.

She removed the handkerchief that was covering her ornament, and Snape's mind blanked. Two black figurines, a boy and a girl, glided across a crisp, white ballroom floor, slow dancing with one another. The boy occasionally dipped the girl, lowering her with graceful ease, before pulling her back up close to him, nestling her head on his shoulder. In the corner of the ballroom, there was a tiny, miniature record player, Sinatra's voice crooning,

Someday, when I'm awfully low

When the world is cold

I will feel a glow just thinking of you

And the way you look tonight.

"It's for the ball," offered Lily to the class which, for only the second time that day, had gone completely silent. "It's Muggle music. It's all I had."

Snape stared at the ornament, then at Lily, then back to the ornament. It was—

"Lily, this is beautiful," said Dumbledore.

"Thank you, Headmaster, but I did get a little help."

Dumbledore smiled and winked at her. "Sometimes, we all need a little help. I'm glad you've made a full recovery."

Snape tried to get Lily to look at him. He wanted to make eye contact with her so badly, to give her a smile, show her that he was sorry, but she merely thanked the class and took a seat to thunderous applause. She never once looked at Snape.

Slughorn stood to address the class. "By golly, I think we might have a close race."

Snape dropped his head and stared at the floor. He could've cared less about the Christmas Challenge and if he won with Voldemort's ornament. James was giving Lily a congratulatory half-hug and whispering sweet nothings into her ear.

"Well, who's it going to be?" Slughorn looked at Miss Rouge Arrow.

She motioned for Slughorn and Dumbledore to join her. They huddled for a few minutes, and after some debate, she announced Lily as the winner.

The entire class applauded. Slughorn then announced that he would be keeping her ornament and enclosing it in a protective glass case to show all through the holiday. "I want the younger Hogwarts students to see what they can achieve if they take my class." He let out a hearty laugh.

With a flick of his wand, Slughorn moved two rotating glass cases into the center of the room. They reminded Snape of the kind in a jewelry store in a Muggle mall, all the gold, diamonds, and glitz shining under the bright white lights. He carefully placed Lily's ballroom ornament in the first case, and it began rotating for everyone to see. "Thank you Snape and Lily for your wonderful ornaments today."

Dumbledore nudged him.

Slughorn smiled. "Yes, thank you to the entire class for your wondrous attempts at—"

"Magic is very challenging to do at times. You all have put forth a brave foot into a bigger world today," said Dumbledore.

Snape rolled his eyes.

"Very much indeed," approved Slughorn. "With that, please enjoy the ball this evening and—"

"What about the prize?" asked Remus. "Remember? The winner was supposed to see all of Tom Riddle's new magic from Albania. Can she show us?" He looked to Miss Rouge Arrow.

Dumbledore stepped to the front of the class. "Mr. Remus, I can assure you that Miss Rouge Arrow already knows or could easily learn everything that's in Tom's magical repertoire. One of your greatest Hogwarts lessons will be not only the magic you can and should do, but the magic you should leave on a dusty shelf to be forgotten. Some don't take that lesson very seriously and only later understand the consequences when it's too late. It's a lesson that I'm afraid Tom hasn't mastered.

"I will personally show all of you some new magic that I think you'll find very interesting. With that, I would like to give Miss Rouge Arrow the opportunity to return to her assignment with our finest aurors."

Miss Rouge Arrow thanked Dumbledore and the class. "And don't forget, Professor Slughorn, we need Mr. Snape's ornament for the showcase as well."

"Oh dear me," said Slughorn. "You're right. Severus, can you please add your ornament to the second stand? The first-years will love this one as well."

"Are you sure? I kind of wanted to—er—continue to work on it. Make it better, you know?" Snape was out of options.

"We'll give it back after the holiday, Severus. You can always visit it here," Slughorn reassured him.

Snape didn't feel like there was anything else he could do. Maybe he could steal it back after everyone had left. He begrudgingly placed the winter scene on the rotating glass stand were Miss Rouge Arrow, not Slughorn, waved her wand and encased it completely in a solid block of glass, allowing room only for the ornament itself to play its scene. The blue dust kicked up from the skaters and latched onto the glass momentarily before falling down again to the lake.

"That's quite an encasement," said Slughorn. "What charm is that?"

"A modified one for temperature control. We wouldn't want that lake to melt now, would we Severus?"

"No… Of course not."

"Will you be visiting Hogwarts again, Miss Rouge Arrow?" asked someone.

It was difficult to tell what she was thinking. An outline of a smile formed in the amber hue. "Perhaps."

"Thank you again, Miss Rouge Arrow," said Dumbledore. The class politely applauded.

As she headed to the door, Snape watched her closely, and for the second time that day, the blurriness became clear for a second. It startled him to see that she'd turned around to look directly at him. She silently mouthed the word, "Don't." It happened in a flash. Before he could even begin to process if it was a figment in his imagination, Miss Rouge Arrow had vanished. Snape looked around the room to see if anyone else had noticed. He didn't think it was possible to apparate on the Hogwarts grounds—had she just done that?

And what did she mean by don't? What was there left for him to do? If she'd realized the ornament was supposed to be for the Dark Tourist, and it most certainly appeared that she did, having completely outwitted Voldemort on that one, what else could he do? His ornament was encased in a block of glass.

The wafers. He almost said it aloud. He still had the three wafers in his Slytherin room.

As the class filed out into the excitement of the day, prepping for the ball, laughing with friends, stealing tastes of pilfered fire whiskey, Snape was left with the thought of three wafers and an image of Lily and James holding hands as they walked down the hall.

"Don't," he said. "Don't what?" The more Snape considered the question, the more he thought he understood what Miss Rouge Arrow meant.

Harry looked directly at Severus Snape. "You wouldn't… you couldn't."

Snape stood and walked quickly out of the room.