When Harry woke in the morning to streamers of light illuminating the four members of KISS's faces, he scarcely remembered how he'd gotten into bed. The last night had been such a blur after he'd lost his battle with sleep at St. Catherine's that it seemed a marvel he'd made it up the stairs and into his own room.
Perhaps, at that, Severus had carried him. Then again, he was wearing his pajamas, and Harry couldn't quite imagine Snape changing him.
Fuzzily, he could sort of remember struggling into the sleep pants and almost tripping over the too-long hem in his state of sleepy disorientation.
Without feeling any sense of urgency or hurry—least of all the anxiety produced by Dudley's loud footfalls down the stairwell on Christmas morning as he hurried to the present pile—Harry felt at liberty to lay still in his bed, soaking in the stillness of the morning and a night's sleep undisturbed by recollections of the lorry driver, or snakes, or eggs, or the colour green.
He laid about for perhaps fifteen minutes, doing nothing more than scratching his nose when it chanced to itch. The silencing spell must have worn off on the first floor because from below he heard the plodding footsteps of Tobias Snape and the brisk tread of Severus' own feet on the floor.
Funny how he could so easily tell the difference.
Low voices exchanged words at irregular intervals, not truly holding a real conversation.
He was only roused from his spot when someone knocked on the front door. He propelled himself to look below from the window out of curiosity.
After all, although there was no such thing as Father Christmas, it wasn't every day that Severus or the constantly busy circumstances of his life allowed him such a luxurious lie-in.
Without his glasses preventing him, he pressed his nose to the glass before he realised that the additional proximity he gained without the obstruction provided by his glasses was less useful than his prescription would be if the idea was merely to get a glimpse of who had gotten it into his head to visit on Christmas day.
With a sigh he wiped the lenses on his pajama shirtfront and resumed his sentinel, peering down.
What he saw through the filthy glass was a bobbing cloud of yellow. One strangely independent bushel of the brassy cotton-wool waved about on top, independent of the main body of the poodlesque thing that lay beneath.
For all that the strange formation of hair confused him, however, the voice that spoke to Severus as he opened the door was unmistakable.
Squeaky, high-pitched, and decidedly feminine, it could only have belonged to his music teacher. He watched as they jaw-jawed at one another for a few moments, the window too dirty for him to see whether they were being as obnoxious as they had been the other night, when he finally saw Ms. Tibbons press a large, lopsided thing into Snape's waiting hands.
She clasped her fingers together before her, bounced happily on her tiptoes a couple of times as Severus set whatever it was inside the door, and offered him a small wave before she took her leave, walking out to a silver Ford Fiesta. She sidled into the driver's seat with some effort, as a snowbank stopped the door from opening fully, but eventually Harry saw steam spill from the muffler, and she departed, waving again at Severus who had stood in the doorway to see her off.
Harry both felt and heard when the door closed and the wards fizzled back into play. His bedroom sat directly above the entryway.
Moments later, he heard the stairs making noises as Severus' footfalls triggered all of the creaky floorboards.
"Harry?" He asked through the door, his knuckles tapping against the wood. "You awake in there?"
"I'm up," Harry replied, jumping from his place at the desk, lest his kuya see that he'd been spying on him and Ms. Tibbons through the window.
"Join us downstairs, if you would."
"Kay," he fished around for a clean shirt and trousers. "Lemme get dressed—"
"You can get dressed later. Socks should be sufficient."
With that, Severus could be heard treading back down to the ground floor and Harry frowned at the closed door, the back of which was covered in a poster of Deep Purple.
'Weird,' he thought, using his toes to slide clothes around on the floor until he unearthed the socks he'd worn the day before. He pulled them on and hurried out the bedroom, closing the door behind him so that Curry wouldn't get any ideas about harassing Wheat. The massive dog seemed far too curious about the tarantula for Harry's taste.
As he slowly took the stairs, trying to avoid sliding on the narrow flight as his socks slipped about, he emerged into a scene that looked nothing like the sitting room he'd come to know and appreciate.
Seemingly overnight, it had transformed from the drab, dusty parlour into a surprisingly festive tableau.
He blinked to make sure that he wasn't seeing things, removing his glasses to clean them once more. Upon replacing them, he saw that his eyes had not, in fact, deceived him. There was even a tree.
A tree! In Severus' home!
He couldn't help the small whoop he made as he ran up to it, inspecting the boughs for the source of the sparkling lights.
They weren't electric, like the ones that his uncle struggled each December to untangle before he looped them around their aluminium tree. Severus also hadn't bothered to drape each branch in tinsel, something Harry had always resented his aunt for, mostly because he was the party tasked with making sure every last strand of it was removed promptly after the Christmas season.
Hanging from the real fir were little chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil and stamped with dragons, and bite-sized cakes and confections of every sort, many of them bearing the name of that same chocolatier that made the special bar Dumbledore had shared with Severus and himself in the wake of the accident: Honeydukes.
"Can I—?" He asked, already reaching for a piece of candy with both sides of the wrapper twisted invitingly.
Severus' amused voice came from the approximate location of the sofa, which was behind him. "You may have three pieces off the tree before breakfast, and we'll reevaluate before supper. I imagine you won't want to miss whatever Mrs. Padiernos brings with her."
"Thank you!" He nearly shouted, knowing exactly which three pieces he most wanted to snatch. There was that first piece of candy that had caught his eye, a square of fruitcake, wrapped in a cellophane wrapper, and one of the chocolate coins. He carried them with him in his hands and sat on the floor before the sofa, glancing between the two Snape men who both seemed to be in strangely good moods.
"Are the sweets on the tree all you noticed?" Snape asked, rolling his eyes a bit. "If I'd known that all my other efforts would be for naught, I might have gone to bed a bit earlier."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, pushing a piece of candied cherry into his mouth with his index finger. "All the lights are really pretty, Severus, I didn't expect anything, honest—"
"Well, you failed to look underneath the tree, which, as I've been reliably informed, is where the real meat of the holiday is kept."
"The meat..." Harry squinted at Severus quizzically, and then at Tobias when Severus' expression betrayed nothing. Toby's face wasn't nearly so dispassionate, and it seemed that he had to rub a hand over his stubbly face and mouth to keep from grinning at the boy. Without saying a word, he inclined his head toward the tree behind Harry, and finally the boy turned to look again.
Beneath were far more gaily wrapped packages than he ever would have expected, particularly given that he'd assumed there would have been none at all.
Gasping, he stumbled to his feet.
"Severus, you didn't have to get me anything!"
"Certainly I didn't," the man agreed, his voice sardonic.
Harry's mouth went dry, which was an unfortunate thing when one was trying to swallow a cheekful of fruitcake. He struggled to get it down, delicious though it was, and mumbled for the other two to wait before he darted back up the stairs once more.
As he returned, he could sense the confusion. Severus even looked a bit put out, presumably as he assumed that Harry would have been far more enthused over the pains he'd taken to ensure a happy holiday.
With that in mind, and with a wide grin on his face, Harry blocked their view with his back as he shuffled back in to the room, crouching down near the base of the tree to deposit his contribution.
He stepped back and turned away so that the Snapes could see what he'd added to the pile.
It wasn't much, but underneath the lowest branches, he'd at least managed to add another two packages, small though they were.
"I should of brought them down earlier," Harry apologised, wringing his hands. "I didn't know we were gonna be doing this."
"It's alright, now sit," Snape commanded. He made to get up but before he could, Tobias pushed him down into his cushion once more with a little shove that had Severus' back bouncing against the back of the couch.
"Sit, lad. Issa Deddy's wuk ta give oot t' gifts."
Severus huffed impatiently and spoke in an undertone that Tobias couldn't hear for the fact that Cur Dog had leapt up when his master had and was hounding his heels, baying excitedly while Tobias stooped beneath the tree.
Harry had heard what Snape had said, however: "That would have been a first."
Harry winced in sympathy, although he wasn't entirely sure for whom. For all that Tobias was trying now, Severus was in no hurry to forgive his father for his failings in the past. And really, Toby could still be quite unlikable when he got it in mind to be.
"Hair-ee," Toby enunciated in his peculiar fashion. He passed a slight package back to the boy who palmed it and tested the weight of it in his hands.
Most of the gifts were wrapped in brown butcher paper, though there weren't too terribly many of them to begin with. For all that the done thing was normally to use utterly garish designs and colours, he found the uniformity of the brown wrappings to be somehow appropriate.
It was a very Snape thing to do, eschewing the frivolities of normal Christmas-time trappings. In fact, it was one of the only Snape-ish things about the entire arrangement, which was a bit comforting.
It had thrown him enough that Severus had taken the time to put such a morning together, even though he didn't want to insult his kuya by saying so.
Severus yawned and blinked lazily, resting his head on his fist against the arm of the sofa. "Are you going to open that?"
"Er... I'll open when all of the gifts are passed out," Harry answered, grinning a bit.
It was his first proper Christmas gift. He had no intention of appearing overly eager.
But then... what if Severus thought that he wasn't interested in all of the trouble he'd gone through?
"Unless... unless you wanted me to open it now?" Harry asked, his index finger listing down the seam that had been sellotaped closed. He looked over to gauge Snape's reaction and found nothing in the man's face to indicate that he felt any one way about it.
"It makes little difference to me," Snape shrugged. He accepted Harry's present from under the tree, settling it onto his knees and raising an eyebrow at the festive holly boughs that decorated the wrapping.
It took no time at all for Tobias to finish parceling out the assorted packages. Mostly because Severus only had the one item from Harry, Harry had two, himself, and Tobias had one each from Severus and Harry.
Even with the disparity of only a single item, Harry winced to see that Snape had one less present to open. He was suddenly very glad that he'd thought to get the man something. Had he not, well... then Snape would have had nothing. Even given the fact that he'd clearly gone far out of his way to ensure a happy Christmas morning for the boy he had accepted into his home.
It wasn't much, what Harry had gotten Severus. He'd begged Gammy Hill for real wages rather than milk and eggs for a few weeks, just long enough to send away for something from a catalogue he'd found in Penrith one Sunday afternoon after they'd stopped into a record store following Mass.
Pamina Hill had not only graciously agreed to pay him up to the amount needed, but she also allowed him to order it to her house. It had been arranged for many weeks earlier, to allow for the international shipping.
In fact, given her reaction to the gift's prompt arrival, Harry considered it a minor miracle that it had arrived on time.
"I'm sorry it's just the one..." Harry offered, eyeballing the paltry offering that Snape was still palming between his large hands.
In response he earned a scoff. "Don't devalue the gift by apologising for not getting me more, Harry."
He sounded annoyed. And he hadn't glanced at Harry as he said it, but Harry couldn't help but to grin. From his perspective, it looked like Severus felt pleased enough that Harry had at least thought to furnish something under the tree for him.
"Go ahead and open that," Snape coughed and pointed imperiously to the small parcel in Harry's lap. "That one first."
"Erm, alright."
He slipped his finger under the tape and delicately pulled the paper back, unfolding the wrappings like the foil wings from the sides of a chocolate bar.
"Oh," he said, staring down at what he held in his hands when he'd opened enough to read what it said on the front. "This is—this is about the orphan boy, right?"
"Oliver Twist, yes," Snape nodded.
"Thank you, Severus," Harry grinned. Although he wasn't a voracious reader of any sort, it was nice to know that Severus remembered their conversations, even from months back.
He must have really meant it when he said he intended on gifting it to Harry.
"I found you an abridged and simplified version—with illustrations—as the prose in the original might have been a bit too challenging for your current reading level."
"Thanks," Harry said again, flipping through and inspecting the ink and watercolour paintings. He saw in the early pages a despondent youth with hair like straw and watery blue eyes. He was smudged with soot and wore clothes that were poorly fitting.
He half wondered if that was what he looked like. If that was what all orphans looked like.
"'Ee'll turn thee inta a reet l'al swot," Tobias opined with a roll of his rheumy grey eyes. He'd stolen Severus' reading chair and was lounging in it, one long leg tucked at the foot beneath the thigh of the other. He looked to be impatiently fidgeting with his small parcel, turning it sideways, longways, upside-down, and back again in his mounting agitation.
"Reading one novel by Dickens does not a scholar make," came Severus' sneered reply. He waved an errant hand at his father, as though bidding the man to simply get on with it. "Go on."
"Ga'an what?"
"Open it. Before you destroy the box."
Tobias didn't waste any time as Harry had in faffing around with the paper. He curled his gnarled fingers into the wrapping and tore it away, letting it fall over his shoulder with a dismissive flourish.
The box must have been light, for it seemed to bounce slightly in his hands, suggesting a certain level of weightlessness.
Indeed, when he managed his way into the cardboard, he was frowning. He withdrew a single piece of parchment, squinting and wrinkling his hawkish nose as he leaned in close to decipher the writing.
"Deek 'round t' tree?"
"Well?" Snape huffed with a small sneer at his father. "Are you illiterate in addition to being insufferable? Go feel the corner. And note that I did not write 'deek.'"
Tobias ignored this as he slowly rose to his feet, whinging a bit about his aching joints.
"They weren't bothering you when you jumped to get to hand out our gifts," Snape retorted, crossing his arms. He looked unnaturally defensive, even for him. His scowl was black for a man who had just gifted his father something, and his sock-clad foot was tapping out a rapid rhythm on the floor.
If Harry didn't know any better, he would have said the man was anxious.
"What's to feel?" Tobias asked, hobbling over to duck behind the tree in a way that was clearly exaggerated. It failed to earn any sympathy, and at that point it occurred to Harry that this must have been Toby's way of antagonising his son further.
A bold move for a bloke whose son had gotten him a Christmas gift while he'd offered nothing, himself.
"Arl be deevaled! Issa damned boggle!"
"It's not a ghost, you lackwit! Pull it out here. And be careful about it," Snape commanded, leaning forward and over so he could observe as his father put his weight into dragging whatever it was from behind the tree.
Harry at once saw—or rather didn't see—why Tobias had thought his present to be ghostly in origin. Whatever it was was very nearly invisible, though the flickering light from the tree seemed to distort over its surface, suggesting a large, boxy shape.
Upon bringing the great, invisible mystery out into the full openness of the room, Tobias stared down at it, perplexed. Beside him, Cur Dog crept forward and began to nose at the approximate dimensions of the unknown object, feeling it out by touch and scent.
Harry thought it may have been roughly cubical in shape, or at least the front of it appeared rectangular. He blinked owlishly at the perplexing conundrum, looking askance at Severus when it seemed that neither he, nor Toby, nor Curry could make heads nor tails of the strange thing's significance.
Severus' face was impassive, but in the way he pursed his lips slightly to the left, Harry thought he read a bit of smug satisfaction in his body language. His coal black eyebrows had twitched up, as though unimpressed by his father's sleuthing abilities.
It seemed clear to Harry that Tobias' patience was running out, but he seemed to at least understand that it was best not to baulk at a gift given in earnest, at least so far as he could tell.
The old man cleared his throat, looking as though he was meaning to hide a scowl behind his none-too-subtle cough, and addressed his son.
"Well, lad? Ebn doon thump, ken we say: nevva av we sin owt laik it..."
Surprisingly, to this Severus snorted. He continued to chortle as he stood and walked over to join his father by the magicked item, stooping until he was crouched before it.
"Move, if you would," he told Curry, with brusque indifference, and he then nudged the dog away. "'Da, take your hand off it."
His wand, which he'd had stashed up the sleeve of his soot-grey jumper, he withdrew with little fanfare. Without any additional embellishment to play up the reveal, he gently tapped the top of his gift to his father and dispelled the enchantment that concealed it with a muttered "Finite Incantatem."
From the top to the bottom, it appeared as though paint were dripping down the face of what was revealed, although, curiously, the paint was what was invisible, rather than that which lay underneath.
Which, as it turned out, was a brand-new television set.
Tobias let out a strangled yip and dropped to his knees before the screen, kneeling beside his son as he marveled at the telly. If his bad joints were protesting, he gave no indication of it.
It was sleek and all black, in a streamlined plastic casing: not a hint of the antiquated wood so popular in the generation before anywhere. Below the screen was stamped the name: "PRINZ" in silver letters.
Harry wasn't quite ooh-ing and awe-ing, but it was a near thing. In some ways it felt as much a gift for himself as it was a gift for Tobias. In fact, he felt a stab of misgiving when he thought of the way that the eldest Snape had badgered his son over the old set since he'd arrived.
Severus really hadn't had to go through all the trouble...
But Snape himself was knelt near the back, plugging the set in and shoving the old Baird set to the side.
"Whoar's it frae?"
"Dixons."
"Dixons? Nowt Radio Rentals?"
Snape recoiled with an affronted look to his father. "What do you take me for? I paid for the set in full."
"Nae Dixons in Pereth—"
"I drove all the way to Carlisle."
The antennae were promptly moved over and readjusted until the picture came in clear. Harry was warned under pain of death not to move or jostle their positioning: "Or so help me, God."
As if he'd do such a thing, he sulked, crossing his arms as the commercial for a department store cut away to the programme that was actually airing.
It was an odd, twee show. The characters—reindeer—were sculpted out of clay. Evidently, the one with the stuffed-up sounding voice had been born with an unforgivable deformity that shamed his father.
The Santa Claus character reminded Harry vaguely of Headmaster Dumbledore, however; including the way in which he condescended to poor, deformed Rudolph.
They all watched for several moments, absorbed in a clear, colour picture without frequent interruptions, before Snape sneered when Donner capped his son's bulbous nose with mud.
He stalked back to the couch and sat down heavily, seemingly satisfied that his father was now transfixed by the glowing screen that occupied the place of honour in the room.
"Harry, you've another one to open."
"You first," Harry argued, shaking his head. Severus had fully orchestrated the whole day, and it didn't sit well with him whatsoever that he should have to watch as everyone else around him opened the products of his hard work and generosity without having any hope that the day would improve for himself.
"Let's not argue," Snape drawled, leaning his head back against the backrest. He appeared tired. "I went through considerable trouble to procure that for you," he said, pointing at the large, cloth-covered box that latched on the outside.
It was, in fact, the same box that Harry had seen Ms. Tibbons handing to his kuya only an hour or so earlier.
"I don't wanna argue," Harry contended with a shake of his head. "But you should open that..."
"Why? What would it hurt for me to wait?"
Perhaps he ought to have been prepared for Snape's quarrelsome nature, even on Christmas morning. Even so, Harry found himself flummoxed and flustered by his obstinance.
"'Cause I went through 'considerable trouble' too! That's two weeks of mucking and milking, Severus—"
"Very well, very well—quit whinging." The man's hand came up to wave Harry's complaints away. He pulled on the twine that haphazardly circled the small package and drew it away. "Shall I expect an aged cheese of some sort? Something sheep's-milk based, given the labour that went in—"
He fell silent. His eyes narrowing as the Christmas paper fell away and beneath there were the signs of postage.
No less than seven stamps and exotic postage marks covered the entire upper portion. He examined the return address.
"What could you have ordered me from Terre Haute, Indiana?"
Rolling his eyes at the man's uncharacteristically dull-witted question, Harry prodded him; an effort to egg him on.
"A new seat for the loo," he announced, his voice betraying both his impatience and the fatuous nature of his retort. "Go on and open it, Kuya."
With agonising slowness, Severus smoothed the paper that covered the box before he opened it, his emotions inscrutable from his expression alone. If anything, his eyes were empty and blank as he stared down at the gift, seeming as though he thought whatever it contained may well bite him should he open it too quickly or with too little care.
Sighing dramatically, Harry dared to nudge him with his elbow. "Ga'an!"
Quick as a whip, Snape's head swiveled. He no longer looked unreadable, he looked irritated beyond belief. "Again, but properly."
Harry sighed again, this time with even more theatrics. "Go on and open it," he enunciated.
As quickly as he'd been slow before, Snape tore into the package without any more hesitation. Into his lap spilled thick, black cotton, featureless from the initial impression.
"You've gotten me a..." Snape stopped and looked flummoxed. "I can't even guess. What is this?"
Before Harry could answer, however, Snape's hand fell on the additional papers contained within the parcel, and he quickly snatched it between his fingers to read, pulling it close to his face and squinting as though he didn't have perfect—nay, gifted—vision.
"I... I don't know what to say."
Harry grinned. "Try it on!"
"What? Now?"
"Yeah!"
"You know, I thought I was already a member..." Snape commented, more inanely than was his wont. He didn't seem inclined to pull his jumper off, but he did hold the shirt up to his front to get a feel for the fit.
"I found your card in the desk," Harry nodded, "but membership is five US dollars a year. I paid you up for a few more years..."
"Harry, this was..." he looked down at the KISS Army emblem appreciatively, tracing a finger over the fresh screen printing; a great improvement over his own faded shirt. "This was entirely unnecessary..."
The boy shrugged, feeling himself flush a bit.
"And I happen to know that the membership doesn't come with a shirt."
"I wanted you to have one," Harry quibbled, aware that he sounded a bit defensive.
The rest of the package contained a renewed membership card and the shipping manifest that explained in several weeks they ought to expect an additional package containing a new poster, concert photographs, KISS ARMY NEWS, and a few other pieces of 'collectible' paperwork and documentation.
Severus chuckled over some of it, his eyes softening as he looked the card over, flipping it between his fingers.
"You realise that membership confers very little except additional opportunities to spend money, do you not?"
Harry crossed his arms. "No. Being in... in an army is cool, Severus," he told the man, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "No one likes KISS more than you do—"
"I'm absolutely certain that there are bigger fans out there than myself."
"You deserve to be in the fan club!"
Amused, Severus shook his head, a small grin-smirk pulling at his lips, exposing a sliver of his yellowed tombstone teeth. "Thank you, Harry."
"You're welcome!" Harry nearly shouted, throwing his hands up. He was glad to finally be able to end the irksome back and forth.
When he looked back from under his messy fringe at Snape it was to see that the man was clearly gloating for some reason, although it was impossible to say whether it was over the gift or feeling as though he'd won the pointless exchange.
Glancing up, Harry saw that Tobias was still watching the Christmas special, which seemed ridiculous given it was obviously intended for children. He seemed too in awe to tear his eyes away from the new telly.
A little blond elf that reminded him a bit of Joshua Sharp from class had apparently decided that the doll he was meant to be making would be better if he took a hammer to its front teeth. Harry didn't agree.
Tobias chuckled to himself watching the chief elf take his delusional grunt to task, which caused Harry to wince in sympathy.
For all that he felt bad for Hermey, however, Harry somehow felt skeptical that the misfit elf would have the successful future he'd evidently been envisioning in dentistry.
Dreams of that sort were delusional.
Harry looked down when something knocked into his shin, and he saw that Snape had used the ball of his foot to knock the other upright present into him, offering a pointed raised eyebrow that seemed to express that the older wizard was impatient to finish the gift exchange.
"Is this one from Ms. Tibbons?" Harry asked a bit flippantly as he dropped to his knees before the enormous, thin case.
Severus scoffed, giving a small sneer. "Certainly not."
"Only, I saw her handing it off to you this morning," Harry challenged as he popped one latch and then the other, seeing a peek of orange velveteen lining within.
"Your instructor was gracious enough to keep it safe for me until this morning."
Whatever Harry would have thought to shoot back with was strangled when the hinges squeaked and the lid opened in full. He instead gasped and reached in to withdraw the flame-red guitar out of the moulded lining, testing its weight in his hands as he held the body in one palm and the back of the neck in the other.
"And... she may have helped me out when I went to the pawnbroker looking for a suitable gift." Severus finally admitted, probably because he figured that Harry was now too preoccupied to rib him over his suspect relationship with Tabitha Tibbons.
The guitar was heavy enough that Harry's outstretched arms began to tire. In spite of the way they shook, he was too afraid to bring it any closer lest he drop it and do the guitar some sort of unspeakable and unforgivable damage.
After a moment of indecision, he brought it closer to himself and propped the body up against the small pin that stuck out of the bottom, leaning the neck and headstock over his crossed legs.
The longer Harry went without speaking, the more details Severus seemed to offer up, free of outside compulsion. Harry glanced up at the man and saw that his fingers and palms were tightly pressed together. He watched as Severus drew in another deep breath, seemingly in preparation of offering more of the story.
"Most of what they had on the back wall was far too expensive, of course. I wasn't prepared to beggar myself over purchasing you a guitar," he sneered, looking indignant. Harry could only assume (or hope) that it was because of the prices on the other guitars and not because Severus resented having bought him the thing he now knew he valued more than anything else he owned.
"That one," he pointed, "was evidently a Fender knock-off. It was, in a word, affordable."
Harry nodded, still shocked into muteness. His finger rubbed on the logo at the headstock. A sparkling, golden, loopy "G&L" where the ampersand was a treble staff. Underneath, in all lowercase, was stamped "guitar by leo."
"Who's Leo?" Harry asked, saying the first thing that came to mind after his brain had emptied itself in his shock.
"The broker told me that it was probably more of the counterfeiting attempt. The style, according to him, is a copy of the Stratocaster," Severus explained, looping a finger in the air in an approximate tracing around the crimson body.
"It doesn't say Fender," Harry countered. "Maybe it's not a fake..."
Severus merely shrugged. "Tabby—" he coughed: a startling, violent hack, "Tabitha, seemed to think it was of passable quality when she picked it up to examine it."
His kuya shrugged then, looking mildly irritated. "She didn't think it was a counterfeit either. After we'd left, she said that the owner probably assumed anything that wasn't a Kramer, a Gibson, or a Fender wasn't worth selling or researching. Apparently that's all anyone wants these days."
After a moment of working his jaw ineffectually, Harry stroked his thumb down the strings over three strange bars that stuck up from the white plastic cover. The sound it produced was terribly out-of-tune and weaker than he'd expected an electric guitar to sound, but he was no less pleased with it.
It was his. For him. And from Severus, no less.
"I think it's brilliant." He beamed.
Of course, in response to the discordant noise produced by Harry's light strumming, Severus visibly winced. For all that he liked his music loud, Harry had learnt that the man was sensitive to anything that didn't sound as he suspected it ought to.
"You will be needing lessons," he cautioned him with a frown.
"You'd get me lessons, too!?"
Snape snorted and then growled, looking thoroughly disgruntled. "That depends. Do you intend to make the best use of my well-spent funds and actually practise? I won't waste my pounds if you refuse to spend time on your own doing your damnedest to not break my eardrums."
"I'll practise every day!"
Harry watched as Severus' nostrils flared, his lips flaring into an expression of bland disbelief. "That remains to be seen."
"I will!"
"I certainly hope so."
Ignoring him now, Harry turned back to the guitar he cradled in his arms, his left hand experimentally shimmying down the neck as he'd seen Bruce Kulich do on stage and as he'd seen in pictures of his favourite guitarists from some of Severus' music magazines. He depressed the strings over a few frets and strummed again, refusing to wince when the notes weren't in anything resembling a proper chord.
"I really like it, Severus..." Harry began, hoping not to offend Snape by his next question. "Do you know why it... why it sounds like this?"
"I'm not certain I understand you," his kuya said, his voice kept even. At least he wasn't being judgmental...
"You know, shouldn't it go 'WRNNNNGHGHHH,'" Harry sang out, the feigned chord loud and nasally in an attempt to imitate the noises he heard on their cassettes, "instead of kind of..."
He hesitated, not sure how to express what he meant. "Plucky? I thought it might be louder, is all. Do I have to do something with these knobs?"
Experimentally he twisted one of the three on the white plastic cover, strumming again. There was no appreciable difference in the guitar's tone.
Snape sat back, observing him with a small frown. "Ah, yes... I..." he hesitated and ran a hand over his thin mouth, looking slightly troubled. "For that you would need an amp. For the time being I was only able to get you the guitar. Tabb—Tabitha has agreed to help me locate one for a reasonable price, but until I can do so, you will need to play it without electricity."
His black eyes pierced Harry, the regret suddenly draining away as he now looked deadly serious. "Consider it additional incentive to improve through practise. Attend your lessons I arrange—I've been given to understand that most instructors will have an amp you can use in session—and do what you can in your bedroom. If you show adequate improvement, we'll see about an amp for you to use."
The pall of disappointment Harry had initially felt over hearing that his present was, in a way, incomplete was surmounted by excitement and the rousing vigour of a suitable challenge. "You better start putting some money away, Severus," he assured the man, for the very first time not nervous about the thought of his kuya spending additional funds on him. "I'm gonna get so good—so, so good—you'll see. I'll be..." He hesitated then, scouring his brain for Severus' professed favourite guitarist. "I'll be better than... Jeff Beck?"
Severus stared at him blankly. "Granted, that would be impressive..."
"Oh, he's not your favourite!" Harry exclaimed, mortified even as he interrupted the man. "Who is he..." he closed his eyes and screwed up his face as he scoured his brain.
"Angus Young!"
His eyes opened to see that Snape had wrinkled his nose, the large beak-like proboscis having flared ever so slightly with his expression of disdain.
"Ok... that wasn't a good guess. That guy from Def Leppard?"
"There are two 'guys from Def Leppard,' Harry. They have two lead guitarists."
"Er..."
"Suffice to say," Snape began, stopping Harry before he could begin listing every guitarist from every band from whom he knew Severus owned an album, "I would be hard pressed to choose a favourite guitarist."
And then, what was—in Harry's mind—a miraculous concession. "Steve Clark or Phil Collen from Def Leppard were fine choices though, Harry. May I also recommend Randy Rhoads or—"
Whatever it was—whomever it was—that Snape had said was impossible for Harry to hear. The man had gone from his normal, even speaking voice to a hushed mumble at the last second.
"Who?"
"...z fawk..."
Harry frowned, perplexed, until Severus let out an expressive—and seemingly embarrassed—sigh and repeated himself loudly enough to be heard.
"Oz Fox."
"Oh..." Harry said, thinking hard. "Er... who's that?"
"The guitarist from Stryper. And you're not to say a word of that to anybody," Snape forbade him, his hands turning into tight fists against his knees.
"Okay," Harry agreed, with a non-committal shrug. He couldn't fathom why Snape's head was dipped low enough that his too-long hair covered his face. The tips of his ears were a startling red. "I've never even heard of them. Have you ever even played Stryper for me?"
"No."
"Okay," Harry said again, somewhat indulgently. "I won't tell anyone, Severus, honest."
"See that you don't."
If Oz Fox was one of Severus' favourite guitarists, Harry was going to have to give Stryper a listen. He resolved to hunt down the cassette wherever it was that his kuya had hidden it within the house.
He clearly felt guilty about liking it, whatever it was, and that meant that Snape probably had stowed the album away where Harry wasn't likely to circulate it in the tape player.
They paused to resume watching Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, both having run out of things to say.
In all of the excitement over the new Prinz telly, Tobias had seemingly forgotten that Harry had gifted him with anything. The discarded parcel lay by the place where he'd been seated, which was honestly just as well.
Without anything to go off of for inspiration, and with hardly any time to prepare, Harry had merely drawn Severus' father a picture of Curry—or at the very least he'd made a valiant effort to that end. Truthfully, it looked more like a hairy banger with legs and ears.
He almost hoped that it went unopened for the remainder of the day.
The subject of his artwork was stretched out on his long belly, ears twitching as he paid close attention to the images on the screen. His tail—as long and thick as braided leather cordage—thumped the floor, sending small plumes of dust and hair spinning about to catch the light off the tree.
Inside the winter cave of the Bumble, Donner, Rudolph's mother, and another young doe, Clarice, cowered before the Bumble's terrible hunger.
Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Severus heave a deep sigh as he slumped over his lap, resting his elbows on his knees and catching his jaw in the cage created by his long, thin fingers.
"What is it?" Harry whispered to him, worried by the uncharacteristic sadness he read in Snape's body language.
"Promise me you'll never be this stupid, Harry." He murmured back, frowning while Rudolph single-handedly attempted to take on the snow beast and was summarily knocked silly in the attempt.
Wrinkling his nose, Harry looked from the telly to Severus and then back again. "It's only a cartoon, Sev'rus."
Curry barked loudly, and a moment later there was a loud knock at the door. Their dog rushed to the entrance and stood to his full—nearly human—height against the door, his claws scratching uselessly at the woodgrain.
Pushing to his feet and exhaling dramatically through his nose, Severus blinked, his lips pursed. "Never mind. Forget about it."
He hurried to the door and—for lack of a collar he could grab—looped an arm around the great beast's ribs in order to haul him away from whomever was calling.
"Give us a minute!" He shouted through the door as he stalled for time. He attempted to wall Cur Dog off with his legs, shuffling from left to right in a strange sort of jig until the dog seemingly gave up.
"Go! Sit—stay!"
Curry didn't move a muscle and only when Severus turned back to the door did he rush forward to push his head through Severus' legs so that it nearly looked as though Snape was riding astride a rather diminutive horse.
"Bleeding—! Ah, Pamina. I can't say we were expecting you," Severus addressed the woman at the door, his voice changing perceptibly from the oath he'd merely minced to the passably friendly greeting he issued to Gammy who stood on his doorstep. "Or I guess I ought to say Happy Christmas... I don't suppose you'd like to come in?"
Harry wrinkled his nose. Although there was nothing wrong with the way Snape had phrased the invitation, it was clear enough that he'd prefer not to have anyone in the house, expected guest or otherwise.
Hell, he'd not even let Ms. Tibbons in, whom he at the very least harboured some manner of softer feeling for.
"Only for a moment, Severus, if you don't mind. I'm meant to stop by Nicky's house for the remainder of the afternoon. They've graciously invited Snow and I over to Christmas supper."
It was clear from the way she spoke about the Hendersons that she couldn't find it in her heart to approve of Nicky's parents, which Harry could hardly blame the woman for after the shameful display two nights earlier.
"And where is the young lady, may I ask?"
Knocking the snow off of her shoes before she stepped in and closed the door behind her, Gammy nodded toward the Ford Cortina parked up by the kerb. Steam came from the tailpipe, indicating the motor was still running.
"Keeping warm in the car. She didn't care to come in."
"A pity," Snape lied.
Harry could have whooped for joy. He'd worried upon seeing Gammy that his nearly perfect Christmas morning might be ruined by being made to share in company with the most unpleasant person he'd met since leaving his relative's house.
Here another Christmas miracle: getting to see Gammy without being made to suffer Snowdrop Hill.
Hallelujah.
Harry smiled.
"Hi, Gammy." He piped up, turning on the sofa until his cheek was pressed against the back. He paid no attention to Tobias, who was so pointedly ignoring Pamina Hill's presence that he had scooted two feet closer to the television. The man's interest in the proceedings was betrayed by the way his eyes would dart over every so often, sizing up the intruder into his home.
"Hello, Harry," Gammy beamed at him. She made her way over to him on the couch and leaned down to kiss the top of his head which made Harry both flush all over and duck to try and hide the grin on his face. "You know Babs and the girls have missed you the last week or so. She looks almost disappointed whenever she sees that it's me coming to milk her."
For all that Harry was certain that wasn't true—cow's couldn't look sad, could they?—he couldn't help but to smile back and shrug.
"Stand up to greet your guest, Harry," Severus commanded from where he stood against the wall with his arms crossed. "It's not polite to remain seated when someone is calling, even less when you're entertaining a lady."
Perhaps for anyone else Harry might have resented the convention, but he was happy enough to scramble quickly to his feet if it meant paying deference to Gammy. He had no wish to disrespect her.
"Oh! Stop, Severus—I know Harry's a perfect little gentleman," she clucked, now looking down into her canvas tote. She waved her hand a bit inside, pushing through whatever it contained before she let out a small, triumphant noise and pulled from within a cylindrical, wax-paper wrapped cheese wheel.
"For you and your family, Severus," she announced, handing the bulky wheel over to the wizard who had to scramble to catch it as she dove back into her bag. "I've had too much milk left over without Harry and Nicky visiting as often these last few weeks, and I started a few wheels aging. I also brought some bread and I thought I'd remembered to pack away a jar or two of the preserves from this year's bilberries—that is, if I haven't completely lost my marbles..." she trailed off, clearly muttering the last bit to herself.
"Oh, they've fallen beneath the presents for the boys, do you have a spare hand?"
Snape shifted so the cheese wheel was held between his side and his elbow and accepted each item as it was handed to him until he looked as though he were a beleaguered mule, struggling beneath the weight of its pack.
"Harry," he began through gritted teeth, "if I'm not mistaken you have a hand free."
"R-right," Harry stuttered, embarrassed at his lapse. He darted forward and relieved Severus of at least half of the loaves and glass jars, hurrying into the kitchen to set them down on the crowded bench beside pots of dried rosehip and hogweed sap. After a moment's thought, he carefully moved the potions ingredients away from the bilberry preserves.
No one wanted to mix those up.
His arm reached through the doorway and he received the additional provisions from Severus, who was putting on a polite face as he patiently listened to Mrs. Hill's commentary on the fracas they'd all witnessed Friday night.
"And of course Genie went and disappeared again after," Gammy explained, shaking her greying head.
Severus said nothing at all, merely nodding along in order to prompt additional disclosures. His face seemed steeled in a sympathetic yet bracing expression. To Harry's surprise, the older wizard was better than he might have expected at providing a listening ear.
When it didn't seem that Gammy would say more, Severus coughed into his fist. "Is this... the usual way with her?"
"Oh, her swanning off when she decides my home doesn't suit her? I'm sad to say it is. I've never had much luck in keeping her home," Gammy fretted, wringing her hands. "I'm not certain she's always been so... so nasty. Really, I'm very, very sorry, Severus."
"You've no need to apologise."
"She's always been combative, yes, but... but I can't ever manage to lasso her for more than a day or two anymore... not for the past nearly four years. I promise her food, and a room... and she can see Blossom as often as she likes..."
Snape coughed again, looking quite sincerely sorry. His eyes landed on Harry then and he gave him a pointed look. "Harry, I'd appreciate it if you took your present upstairs, where it'll be out of the way."
"I wanted to say goodbye and Happy Christmas to Gammy—"
"I'm certain she'll be here when you get back."
When Harry looked to Gammy for confirmation he received an encouraging nod in response.
"Okay..." Harry hurried to the guitar case and settled the G&L back in its belly, latching it with care. "I have stuff for Nicky and Snowdrop anyway."
"Oh that's too kind of you, dear," Gammy beamed at him as he hefted the case up the stairs.
Midway he stopped and managed to make out Severus' muffled voice.
"It is unfortunate—and forgive me if I overstep my bounds here by saying so—but I'm certain you're no stranger to the... challenges presented by a persistence in abusing drugs. If you will permit me, may I only say that I regret that your family is suffering from such an affliction. It is clear to me that you have come to mean a great deal to Harry—"
"—too kind," Gammy sniffled, sounding on the verge of tears. "You're far too kind—"
Without any more excuse to linger on the steps, Harry reluctantly continued to lug his new guitar up the remaining stairs and into his room. He laid it with reverence on the floor and pushed the case under the bed, where Curry wouldn't nose around it.
Hastily, he found the two additional drawings he'd done for Nicky and Snowdrop—only 'cause he'd had to, he would have said, for he still wasn't especially fond of either of the siblings—and he shoved them under his arm, hurrying down the stairs and arriving at the bottom out of breath.
From that angle, he could see that Tobias seemed to be grinding his teeth, his lips bloodless and taunt and the creases around his eyes showing clear signs of strain. That his eyes were still on the television was merely incidental. He wasn't watching, he'd been listening. Rather rudely too. He hadn't bothered to even stand up, much less introduce himself to Mrs. Hill.
"—and I'm not sure when it started. I might have asked you—please forgive me, Severus, but I know you spent time with Bertie—but you were ahead of her in years."
"I didn't know your daughter at all, Pamina. I'm sorry. If you showed me a photo of her from Rowky Syke, I'm certain I couldn't pick her out of the class unless she looked exactly like her daughter."
"Oh there's a resemblance, certainly, but I've always thought that Snowdrop is a bit... sturdier than Papagena."
Harry nearly snorted. That was a rosy way of putting it. He'd once overheard Tobias Snape commenting on a decidedly portly woman's appearance. He'd—loudly—whispered to Severus that the woman was built 'like a brick shithouse.' Harry found that to be a rather more apt description of Snowdrop's physique.
"Genie was a frail little thing. She's always been small-boned. Anyway," she blithely continued, perhaps mistaking Snape's forbearance for interest, "Blossom's features are a bit different, aren't they? She's a much stronger jaw, for instance, and her mouth—well I suppose it's a bit like yours, isn't it?" Gammy rambled, missing the way Snape frowned at the possible slight.
Severus' hand came up to rub over his mouth and lips self-consciously as his brows drew down over his eyes.
"Things have never been easy with Genie. Not her entire life. We lost her father when she was very young, of course, and it was never me that she got on best with. I can't say I'm not used to her running off... or that Blossom and I didn't expect it when I asked her home again. But it never gets easier. There will always be regrets," she took a deep breath and gave a tremulous smile to the floor. "I'll always wonder what I should have done differently; especially when I see her living out as a waif and stray. She has a home with us. She just..."
When she trailed off, Severus nodded, but with a peculiar tilt of his head in Harry's direction, which caused Gammy to look up and see that Harry had rejoined them at the bottom of the stairs.
"Oh Harry! Listen to me carrying on when I have Christmas supper waiting for us and Snow in the car—though, like as not, she's probably happy enough with the Cortina all to herself. What is it that you had for me?"
Harry withdrew the crinkled papers from underneath his armpit, extending them out to the woman with a sheepish shrug of his shoulders. He'd signed them, dated them, and written the names of the intended recipients in the top corner, as Severus had bade him do when he'd noticed that Harry was attempting to come up with something to gift the two children he was forced to spend additional time with.
"It's for their birthdays," Harry admitted. And then, when that sounded as though he'd deliberately not gifted them something for the holiday, he added, "and Christmas... I forgot that it was all so close together. Sorry."
"These will do just fine," Gammy beamed, appraising the terrible drawings with an expression that a more reasonable adult might have worn when traipsing through the halls of the Louvre. She looked over Snowdrop's picture, the wrinkles by her eyes crinkling. "Is this meant to be Babs?"
The woman needed her eyes checked.
"It's the donkey. And that's Snow riding on its back. 'Cause she was Mary."
"And this one for Nicky, who is this? It doesn't look much like a shepherd..."
Not at all it didn't. At least Harry didn't imagine that most shepherds wore camouflage trousers, black singlets and eyepatches. Harry had followed Nicky's description when he'd painstakingly described the character to him in one of the other boy's fits of passion. Of course, Nicky kept saying how Snape allegedly reminded him of the hero of the film, so Harry had given the man long, lank, black hair, a large, triangular nose, and had drawn angry eyebrows on him.
"That's Snake Plissken," Harry admitted, feeling a bit irritated. Obliviously it wasn't a shepherd. Shepherds didn't carry guns...
Then again, the guns he'd drawn looked a bit like grey, L-shaped sticks. He actually wasn't entirely sure what a real gun might have looked like. Maybe it was an easier mistake to make than he thought.
"Snake Plissken?" Snape asked, coming up beside Harry and craning his neck to look at the drawing. He scowled, the bit of skin between his brows and above his hawkish nose wrinkling. "And who is this Snake Plissken?"
Heaving an exasperated sigh, Harry pushed up on the paper a bit, forcing Gammy to draw it closer to herself and away from Snape's irritated glower.
"He's not real," he bit out, only just managing to remain civil enough to avoid incurring Snape's ire. "Nicky likes him. He's from some film. He's played by Kurt Russell."
"That's not what Kurt Russell looks like," Snape said with a scoff, pointing at the paper he could no longer see. "That looks like—"
He stopped short of saying 'me,' his lips firming up into a tight gash across his lower face. Snape shook his head, his cheeks reddening as he fought with himself and his words.
"That... that's not at all what Kurt Russell looks like, Potter."
"Okay," Harry answered, barely holding back from rolling his eyes. "Well, I've never seen him, I drew what Nicky described."
Her eyes darting between them with a mix of apprehension and fondness, Gammy smiled a tepid smile and reached out to squeeze Harry's arm. "I'm certain that they'll both love their drawings, Harry, thank you. I'll see that they make it into their hands this evening. Now, if you'll excuse me, I oughtn't leave Blossom to her own company longer than necessary. Happy Christmas, both of you," she offered with a curious look to Toby, who was still seated, unmoving, on the floor. His shoulders were tense, but he'd refused to look back at their guest.
"And to you, Mrs. Hill," Severus intoned, breaking from glaring at Harry to see Pamina Hill to the door. "We appreciate your visit. Please take care on the roads this evening."
Once Gammy was safely back to her car, Severus shut the front door and shook his shoulders a bit, probably to throw off the winter chill that had swept in through the opening.
"Merlin, can that woman talk."
Even though Harry wished to defend Gammy, he couldn't exactly argue the point. He'd not anticipated that the visit would last as long as it had, nor that she would have offered up so much commentary on Friday's events.
"Maybe she was embarrassed..." he offered, hesitating as he said so.
Snape only harrumphed and turned to the kitchen, where Harry heard him clinking plates together. "There can be little doubt of that."
"It's not her fault..."
"And yet she insisted her daughter come, even when anyone with an ounce of proper sense could have seen the fracas coming from miles off," Snape called through the walk-through.
When he emerged several minutes later, he was carrying a long, wooden tray he must have transfigured (for Harry had never seen that they'd owned anything of the sort), that he'd furnished with much of the food that Gammy had brought them.
He set the tray on the ground in front of the sofa and took a seat beside it, with his back up against the sofa's front.
"Join me. It would be a tragedy to waste all of this," he directed, pointing to the other side of the tray where he clearly expected Harry to sit on the ground as well.
There were plenty of seats unoccupied, but evidently, Christmas was not a day to stand on—or sit on, rather—ceremony.
With the promise of food, Tobias had finally stopped pretending to ignore them and was the first to begin slathering a slice of bread with butter and cheese.
"Isn't Lola meant to be bringing food later?" Harry asked, not wishing to pass up some of Lola's cooking if it were available.
Shaking his head, Severus bit into his own slice of bread, which he'd topped with some of the jam, and, curiously, sliced corned beef.
"That's expecting too much of her today. I'd prefer she didn't have to drive. I'll go pick it up."
"Oh," Harry sighed.
"And it'll be several hours. She told me last night to come closer to seven. You'd be best served to eat up now."
So they ate, and hours later, ate again. This time off of a table full of Lola's best made efforts. That evening, they watched an hour or so of special Christmas programming on the new Prinz set before Snape urged Harry off to bed, cautioning him that he expected him to at least crack his new book the next day, and to do his best to familiarise himself with the guitar.
Although Harry wasn't so chuffed about the expectation that he ought to start immediately on Oliver Twist, he consoled himself with the excitement that came from knowing he was well on his way to being the next great English guitarist. While the thoughts dancing in his head weren't quite of sugar plums, he at the very least dreamt pleasant things about his future life on the big stage.
A/N: I am not actually certain whether KISS Army was still operated out of Terre Haute in '88, but if not: this is a fun Easter Egg. It was begun in Terre Haute in 1975 when two teenaged fans called in to the local radio station and asked for them to play KISS. When they couldn't accomplish this by asking nicely, they began calling themselves "The KISS Army" when calling in or writing letters to the station (sometimes even threatening to blow it up if their demands were ignored).
Once the local stations finally began playing KISS's work, they often mentioned KISS Army and listeners calling in to the station became curious about enlisting themselves. They managed to sell out a show at the local University after cooperating with KISS's publicist in an on-air enlistment drive, which led to them becoming the official fan club for the band.