A little more than two weeks past Christmas, on a cold Monday morning, Harry trudged down into the kitchen without much enthusiasm. They were back to school that day, and even though Severus had agreed to drive him on mornings such as this—where it was too cold to walk—the very thought of being made to step out into the frigid air at any point was enough to make him want to dive back under his quilt once more.
Severus, apparently, hadn't made it down yet, and Tobias was still snoring away loudly on the couch.
Harry didn't much worry about disturbing him, as he'd learnt that nothing short of a cataclysmic explosion could rouse Toby when he was so deep in his sleep. Thus, he thought nothing of it as he called for Curry to precede him out the back door while they both emptied their bladders and prepared for the morning.
Even the brief trip outside had him shivering violently, and Cur Dog was good enough to curl up on his feet once he sat down to breakfast, which at least helped his toes uncurl. He'd worn slippers to go outside, but they didn't do too much to protect him from the elements beyond keeping the wet off.
He was halfway through his toast and yogurt when a brisk tap sounded at the window.
"Curry, move. I gotta let the owl in," he mumbled, pushing lightly at the dog's ribs with his big toe. Cur Dog let out an irritated grunt but did roll to his side and let him up.
Once the window was opened—which let in a brutal gust of winter wind along with the owl—the beautifully plumed eagle owl alighted onto the back of Harry's chair and stuck out his leg. His head pivoted on his shoulders as he glared at everything in the kitchen as though it had all offended him.
"Hold on, I've gotta get the money," Harry soothed, daring to give the proud bird a small pat on the head.
For his trouble he earned a sharp nip at his fingers.
"Ow! Fine..."
The owl clicked its beak at him and shook his leg again, which brought Harry's attention to what was tied to it.
It wasn't the Daily Prophet. And there was no purse clutched in its talons for Harry to pay him. It was a small package and, at a glance, it looked as though it had Harry's name on it.
"You... you want me to take that? It's for me?"
An insistent hoot answered him and another brandishing of the bird's leg.
With shaking fingers, Harry liberated the owl of its burden and the curmudgeonly thing didn't hesitate to take off immediately, soaring out the window as quickly as he'd appeared. Harry didn't waste any time in closing the window back up again, sighing in relief as the draught disappeared.
"What do you think it is, Curry?" He held the package out for the dog to sniff, which Cur Dog did, his wet nose brushing over the brown paper it was wrapped in.
Curry sneezed and lost interest.
"I should wait 'til Severus comes down, huh?"
The dog harrumphed and burrowed his face underneath his tail, curling up to sleep.
Harry's green eyes darted around the kitchen and his ears pricked, listening for sounds coming from upstairs.
He seemed alone enough.
Against his better judgement—but quite in line with his true wishes—he quickly tore the paper from the white cardboard box.
The outside of it was nondescript enough, excepting the scripted name of the store on the lid in shimmering, ultramarine ink. His grasp of cursive wasn't so very strong that he could read it without studying the letters carefully.
Tallywallop's Trinkets & Treasures
Within was a sturdy, cardstock note that declared that the store prided itself on providing all manner of gifts for the discriminating witch or wizard, and beneath that was a type-written note in black ink.
"To better cultivate your taste in music. Happy Christmas, Harry."
Harry frowned as his fingers shifted through the technicolour shredded paper bits that concealed the contents of the box. Finally, his fingertips alighted upon a cold piece of metal, and he pulled it from its tight confines with a strong yank, sending bits of the confetti-like packing material bursting forth onto the tabletop.
In the palm of his hand was an oblong, silver puck. It had few defining features besides what looked like an accidental dent or divot in the surface: a long, horizontal gouge, about the size of his index finger's tip, that traveled horizontally across the puck's surface.
Tracing it with an errant touch, he nearly dropped the gift when a halo of light emitted in a concentrated fan over the top.
The room filled with white noise, interrupted only briefly by the sounds of garbled, discordant speech, much like the interrupted broadcasts that they'd been forced to endure from Snape's old telly.
He settled the puck down in front of him and examined it closely, his nose a hair's width away and his eyes wide.
Another brush of his fingers against the divot sent the colours of light swirling until he stopped his finger's progress. The colour became a deep red and the garbled sounds clear.
It sounded like...
Like a jingle.
"Easy-peasy, sleek 'n breezy,
twelve knuts for a pleasing, greasy,
slicked-back style of your choice!
Hurry! Worry no more and rejoice!
"Never fear a rotten stray,
Sleekeazy's keeps the strays at bay!
Lather up or slick it down,
Your coiffure will be the toast of the town!
"Available at all three Slug & Jiggers locales: in Diagon Alley, Briquabrac Boulevard, and Gewgaw Gallery. Also available for an additional delivery fee when ordered through our company catalogue. Owl today for inquiries!"
Harry's lower lip was hanging, but he couldn't summon up the gumption to care. He'd heard of Sleekeazy's! From Severus himself! And here was an advertisement confirming its existence.
It wasn't so much that Harry didn't believe what Severus had told him... but often the magical world felt very remote. Even after his hellish evening aboard the Knight Bus and under the care of St. Mungo's healers, Harry could still barely believe some of what he'd been told was true about the world he was set to inherit as his own. Yet, this small... thingy, was undoubtably magical in origin. It activated at his touch. The light came from seemingly nowhere. There was no battery compartment. No apparent speakers. He might have mistaken it for a useless rock if it hadn't come so highly polished and wrapped in gaudy trappings.
"We return to our morning broadcast of Ganymede's Gaffes and Guesses," announced a smooth, posh voice. "I'm thrilled to be hosting you on this fine morning of January the ninth, in this bright, new year of 1989. Or, at the very least, it is my prediction that we will have much to celebrate and enjoy in the forthcoming year.
"Before our break, I mentioned that headwinds from the north were encouraging our native Welsh Green population to winter down around Yr Wyddfa mountain, which is a bright sign for speculators in the egg trade, where values have taken a consistent plunge in the latter half of this decade. An oversupply from illegal breeding efforts has led to a glut of unsanctioned eggs for sale appearing at market, but the difficulties anticipated for the coming breeding season are anticipated to put a significant damper on supply. Poachers beware: burns from a Greenie are known to cause life-long nerve damage. It would be best to leave egg collection and itemisation to the Ministry certified professionals, hm?
"Yes." Ganymede chortled as he answered his own rhetorical question.
Harry grinned widely. For all intents and purposes the entirety of that message ought to have been Gobbledygook to his ears—which he'd learnt early on from Severus was, in fact, a proper language—and yet, he'd understood if only because he was still in the habit of stealing the proper news sections of The Daily Prophet from Severus whenever the man went to toss them in favour of his beloved word puzzles.
He nodded along as he'd often seen Uncle Vernon do whenever he listened to the newscast in the morning, his fingers lacing together as he did his best to assume the same posture he imagined a grown, adult man should use when doing... well. Whatever it was that grown, adult men did.
Severus would have said 'work.'
Tobias' uninterrupted stint on their sofa might have suggested otherwise.
"Minister Bagnold was humbled by a rather humiliating hiccup while touring the facilities operated under the auspices of the Wizarding Outreach to the Elderly Department. Rather than touring under the direction of the Head of the Department, she and her entourage were evidently intercepted on their way in to Waldweirness-on-Thames by one of the residents, who—although in the throes of Luenfeldter's dementia—is apparently still well-spoken enough to have convinced Minister Bagnold and her attachés that he represented the department. Evidently, it wasn't until the resident attempted to divest himself of his robes and make use of a lamppost as a urinal that they realised there may have been a mistake made somewhere."
Harry was giggling so hard at the thought of this that he nearly jumped out of his skin when the phone on the wall behind him began ringing. He hopped up, hoping to intercept the call before it woke Toby from his lie in.
He snatched the receiver up and pressed it into his ear, using his hand to try and muffle his voice—either to make him sound more grown up, or to lessen the noise he was making, though either result would have been fine by him.
"Hello? Er... Snape residence?"
"Hello, do I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Snape?" The voice on the other end was a pleasant, feminine one.
Harry cleared his throat, knowing that if someone had ever spoken to Severus before, they'd be expecting a much deeper voice. "I'm Mr. Snape," he imitated, wincing as his attempt at Severus' register made him sound like a congested bullfrog. To his ears it wasn't remotely convincing.
"Good morning, Mr. Snape. I'm wondering if you have a moment to talk. I'm calling from Barclays, in Penrith, about the inquiry you made a couple of months back—"
The phone was snatched unceremoniously from Harry's hand, so quickly that he could scarcely protest with a loud "Oi!"
"Wha's this?" Tobias scathed, pointing at the receiver he'd yanked out of Harry's hand. His eyes looked somewhat wild, and they kept darting to the stairwell, as though he was afraid of his son coming down at any second.
"I dunno," Harry shrugged, unable to contain his urge to sulk just a bit. "She said she's from Barclays. What's Barclays?"
If possible, Tobias Snape's slate grey eyes grew even wider and he quickly turned from Harry without acknowledging him further, his shoulders hunching over as he curled protectively around the telephone.
"'Ello, luv. Whatn ken Aa do fer thee?" He asked, his voice slightly wheedling, and in far clearer English than he usually bothered using.
Whatever it was that the Barclays girl answered, Harry didn't know. He heaved a sigh and watched as yet another owl appeared at the window.
This common barn owl he recognised. In fact, they'd gotten deliveries from him before. He hastened to let him in through the window and knew that the patient beast would happily warm himself in the kitchen on the back of the chair while Harry putzed around for a handful of bronze coins.
"One, two, three, four, five," Harry counted aloud as he slipped them one by one into the drawstring pouch. "Can I have the paper now, please?"
The owl dropped it from its talons and eyed Harry's toast, which Harry graciously tipped him with before he left the way he came.
Tobias was so absorbed in his business on the phone that he didn't notice the bird's coming and going. He'd also, unwisely, turned away from the doorway into the sitting room; thus, when Severus finally entered, looking far too world-weary and irritated for half past seven, he was too preoccupied to pay attention.
"The bloody hell's going on in here?" Snape yawned, his black eyes looking all over the room, from the window that Harry was closing to the paper in his hands, to the silver puck and box of colourful packing materials on the table and finally alighting on his father's secretive posture as he chortled good-naturedly to whomever was on the other end of the line.
"Where did that come from?" Snape demanded, stalking over toward the table and picking up the silver puck. All traces of sleep had disappeared from him and he was as alert and sharp as ever, his eyes narrowed as he looked the broadcaster over.
Ganymede was still speaking, this time on his predictions regarding efforts to increase spending on prisons and the Aurory after a recent inspection of Azkaban, in the North Sea, had suggested that security was suffering from a dearth of human guards on the premises.
Snape's head reeled back away from the source of the noise, perhaps startled by how loudly the broadcast had rung in his overlarge ears.
"Where did you get this?" He growled, brandishing the object in Harry's face.
"It came by owl."
"When?"
"This morning. 'Bout half an hour ago."
"And you just… opened it? Without thinking to have me check it over first?" Severus hissed through his teeth, picking up the white box the puck had arrived in between index finger and thumb, as though it may well bite him. He regarded it with a look of disgust and then flung it against the wall.
"And you!" He turned to his father who had begun negotiating in hushed whispers with whomever was on the phone with him. "Who are you talking to? Anyone who's called the house would have called for me."
"G'bye ma'am." Toby hastily signed off, slamming the receiver down. "Aa've got quentances me own, lad," he protested, drawing himself up so he towered over his son.
To Harry's surprise, Severus actually took a step back, his eyes widening a fraction at his father's stance. He manoeuvered so that the kitchen chair stood between them.
Snape had dropped the puck to the floor, where it wobbled in a figure eight pattern before settling with a small clink. His hands were bracing him on the sides of the chair.
If Harry didn't know that Severus had a wand up his sleeve, he might have imagined the wizard was readying himself to pick the chair up as a weapon.
A loud sneeze issuing from beneath the table interrupted the building tension. Harry bent at the waist to look underneath, seeing that Curry seemed to be dreaming, his legs twitching and muzzle spasming as he dreamt of chasing rabbits or whatever it was that a dog of his size considered sporting fare.
With that additional moment to think, Harry had quite the brilliant idea.
"The lady said she was calling from Barclays," he tattled, doing his utmost to assume an innocent look as he reported on the facts.
It was a gamble, but in the end a gamble which paid off. Severus was far more concerned by this information than by the magical gizmo Harry had received from Tallywallop's Trinkets & Treasures.
Immediately it seemed that Severus forgot his momentary fear in favour of fury. With his teeth bared in a goldenrod snarl, he spat out a single word: "Barclays!"
"Aye," Toby shrugged, not managing to look as innocent as Harry had contrived. "Aa've a coont. Ister a laa anenst a gadgey 'aving a bit a brass now?"
"No," Severus bit out, "but it seems to me that the origins of this mysterious account, given your utterly indigent status, are worthy of investigation."
"Ain't in-dee-gint." Tobias announced with a sneer to match his son's. "Aa've got e-quidity."
"I beg your pardon?" Severus choked, sounding genuinely taken aback.
"E-quidity," Toby drawled, using his finger like a conductor's baton in the air to underscore the word. "E'neuff quid—"
"That is not what equity means!"
"S'wot means t'us." Severus' father shrugged with an insouciant smirk.
"I…"
Harry had never before seen his kuya so lost for words.
"I haven't time for this this morning," Snape glowered and swung his foot out to connect with the table leg.
Moments later he was grasping his toes, hopping on one foot and cursing as he'd not been wearing his boots.
"Harry," he barked through his gritted teeth, his eyes screwed shut, "get your bag and find me my keys."
Harry lost no time in doing so, attempting to shove the puck into his bag unobtrusively as Severus seemed distracted.
"Put. That. Back."
Harry sighed, his hopes dashed. The puck was still gripped in his fingers and he peeled them away with supreme reluctance as he handed the thing over into Snape's open palm.
Snape tapped it once with his wand which cut off an advertisement for self-inking quills and the gizmo fell silent. He stuffed it into his pocket and pointed through the door, which saw Harry marching in front of him.
They paused only long enough for Severus to wriggle into his pre-laced boots and for Harry to don his coat and scarf before they tromped out into the snow.
Once they were seated in the Marina and Severus had manoeuvered out onto the street and off of the snowbank, the silence that had been occupied by activity grew oppressive.
"Will I get it back?" Harry asked, eyeing the back of Snape's head with a sullen expression.
"How do you even know it was meant for you?" Snape challenged, his voice irritated already even though they'd spent several moments without arguing.
"Who else is it supposed to be for?"
"Don't play the dunce, Potter. We receive a magical object via owl. Who else in the house might have been the intended recipient?"
"It had my name on it!" Harry insisted.
"Did it now?"
"Yeah!"
"And you didn't pause to think that maybe whoever sent it may have been using it to entrap you in some manner? You didn't pause and think that it could have been a portkey? Or that it might have carried some kind of curse?"
"I... I forget," Harry admitted, feeling foolish for the first time. "What's a portkey again?"
Snape sighed deeply, and as they stopped at a stop sign, he leant his forehead against the steering wheel.
"If it had been a portkey, and you had touched it, you would have been whisked away before I could have stopped you. Anyone could have gotten hold of you."
Harry squeaked and shuddered. "Anyone!?"
"Anyone," Snape reaffirmed, slowly easing back into first.
"So why did you touch it?" Harry asked. "What if... what if it is cursed, but it works on you and not me—"
"I have a well attuned sense for detecting dark magic, even without casting a diagnostic. I sensed nothing amiss about the radio."
Harry's eyes rounded and he gave a small grin upon finally learning what it was. "A radio? It's a radio?"
"Indeed," Snape bit out. "A quite expensive model, at that. Whoever sent it laid down more galleons than good sense and propriety would allow for to secure you a solid silver, featureless Wizarding Wireless set.
"Incidentally," Snape drawled at length, stretching the five syllables the length of a full sentence, "that is all the more reason to be cautious. Who is it that is trying to woo you with pretty toys and luxury items...?"
"The note said it was for Christmas," Harry argued, wishing he had the radio back in his possession. "So I could... er..." he tried to remember the wording of the note, somewhat in vain. It had used words he never would have chosen, himself.
"What?" Snape demanded, the car swerving a bit as his hand jerked on the wheel. "What is it? What aren't you saying?"
"Calm down! I can't remember what the note said exactly," Harry admitted, rolling his eyes at Severus' classic overreaction. "It said something about music. I think it meant that the radio was so I could listen to more music, you know?"
"Without actually reading the damned thing? No, I don't." Severus groused. "I suppose there's no chance that you still have the blasted correspondence?"
"It'll be on the table at home," Harry told him. "You can read it when you get back."
Snape harrumphed.
"And why would you think it was for you, anyway? I know it's your house, but did you order something? Should I be expecting a package for you?" Harry asked. Then, a horrifying thing occurred to him. "What if... what if someone made the Prophet into a portkey?" He gasped aloud. "Why do you let me take the paper from the owls then?"
"The birds are sent out from the printer in a randomised manner," Snape answered. "Plenty of homes that receive the Prophet are unplottable, and the ways in which owls know their way to their destinations is, admittedly, something of a mystery, even to us in the modern age. In any case, the delivery owls for the Prophet, specifically, have a sense of who is willing to purchase a copy, and they make their rounds accordingly, but without being sent. Our house isn't a number on a list that simply anyone could find. If someone wanted to curse the daily paper, our world would have a much bigger problem on its hands, for he would have to curse all of the papers being sent out."
Severus cleared his throat uncomfortably as they approached the school. He pulled into the lane which allowed for parents to drop off their children and stopped the car near the doors, in the middle of the queue.
Harry climbed out, waved, and was only a moment shy of closing the door when Snape finally answered the first part of his question.
"And far be it for someone to think to send me something on my birthday," he muttered mutinously.
Harry had already swung the door closed and it latched before he could respond.
"Hey! Wait—!" He yelled, but it was no use. Severus had already nosed the bumper out from behind the Austin Allegro he'd pulled up behind and was on his way back down the hill, away from Harry and his crestfallen face.
He stood there, his expression a picture of shock for several moments before he remembered that he'd have to hurry if he wanted to find his seat in time. It would have been a bad look to return for the first day back after the holiday, late.
Still, it galled him that Severus hadn't simply told him it was his birthday.
Harry would have been sure to have gotten the man a gift! Surely, Snape should have known that... and to be such a sourpuss about it, when he'd not even bothered to mention it to his ward? How was Harry meant to have known?
Still sulking as he settled behind his desk, Harry glowered at the blackboard up front. He wasn't sure whether his displeasure was merely residual: the result of his annoyance at Severus both for taking his Christmas gift and for not informing him of his birthday, or because he wasn't at all excited for the upcoming unit that Mr. Fowler had taken pains to outline in chalk at the front of the classroom.
"Oliver Twist!" Mr. Fowler announced by way of introduction and in far too cheery a voice for that time in the morning. He clapped his hands together.
Harry groaned. His head hit the desk in a parody of Severus' own hitting the steering wheel.
"Something to say, Mr. Potter?"
"No, Mr. Fowler."
"Very well," Mr. Fowler clapped again, smiling as he turned to the table where he'd stacked high a pile of paperbacks. "I'll hand these out. Keep passing them back until everyone behind you in your row has a copy, if you please."
Upon receiving his own, Harry glowered down at the cover.
It wasn't that he hated Oliver Twist. He'd read the first bit, about Oliver being abandoned as a baby and the bit about the gruel and drawing straws. In fact, the copy that Severus had given him had beautiful illustrations and was simplified enough that he could readily understand what was happening.
Flipping through the printing from his teacher, however, he found dense paragraphs of text that he had no interest whatsoever in reading.
It had been one of Severus' frequent complaints about Mr. Fowler: that he was poorly equipped for assessing the readiness of his students to learn a new concept, as was evidenced by his soldiering forward while Harry relied on counting ticks in the margins to complete his multiplication work, and his choice of Richard III as an appropriate text for years 3 and 4.
"I like Richard III very much, Harry," Severus had griped as he'd paced one evening, "it is outrageous to expect an eight-year-old to read Shakespeare, however—"
Harry couldn't exactly help but to agree. If it hadn't been for Severus spending all of his additional time at home poring over Harry's assignments with him and explaining every other word, Harry wouldn't have made it through the unit, and he had a feeling that he'd fare just about as well while reading Dickens at his densest and most impenetrable.
"I thought we'd start off with something a bit more fun this term," Mr. Fowler continued. He ducked through the door and into the hallway and came back with a rolling cart topped with a television.
"We'll first be watching through the film adaptation of Oliver Twist—so that you can best understand the plot—and then we'll be delving into key selections from the text. It has come to my attention," he rambled, now looking rather sheepish, "that at times the reading in our previous term might have become slightly... difficult for some of you."
Woody Ward and Alec Benjamin began sniggering behind their cupped hands. They'd made no secret of the fact that they had no clue what was happening in the play they'd been forced to parse through, and their frequent misunderstandings had stalled out class on several occasions.
It wasn't really their fault, Harry thought with a roll of his eyes and a mild sneer he'd picked up from Severus. He crossed his arms.
They'd only been asking the questions everyone else had been too afraid to ask, and about the things that Mr. Fowler had been too dim to realise that a group of seven and eight-year-olds would have no idea about.
The teachers at Rowky Syke could never seem to get it right. Where Ms. Tibbons often treated their class as though they were still in nursery, Mr. Fowler seemed to think he was tasked with readying them for their A-levels.
By that metric, Harry often felt as though he wasn't learning anything at all, with the exception of what he managed to glean at the Spinner's End kitchen table with Severus as his one-on-one instructor. That and what he learnt working at the farm.
The first portion of the film took them up until break, and Harry felt grateful to have something relatively mind-numbing to look forward to for the next several days at the very least.
Perhaps he ought to think about reading through his personal copy of Oliver Twist as quickly as he could manage, he considered, somewhat desperately. If he were to do that, there was every chance that he could act as though he understood what was happening in the story and feign following along in the actual book.
Break during the winters was conducted in the gymnasium rather than outside, and he huddled up near the packed-away risers as was his wont. Every so often he'd join the other boys in a pick-up match, but he simply didn't feel the desire to run around that morning. His misfortune in losing his newest Christmas gift along with the dread over the coming unit kept him from accepting Carl's invitation. Instead, he watched while Nicky played goalkeeper and Joshua Sharpe refused to pass the ball to anyone, which was a frequent complaint about the spritely boy whenever anyone was occasioned to play with him.
Before he took much notice, something brushed against his arm, and he recoiled in surprise, looking up to see that Snowdrop had slid down the painted breezeblock wall to sit beside him, her face pinched. She was refusing to look at him and was instead watching Candace Rhys where she and the other girls were performing some strange rite that involved slapping their hands together in rhythm and alternatively dipping or having the other girls limbo underneath their linked, outstretched arms. All Harry knew was that it involved lots and lots of excessive giggling and that it at times sounded more mystical than some of the spells he'd heard Severus cast around the house.
"I liked it."
"Huh?"
Harry's head jerked up and he looked her over dismissively. He'd not planned on talking to her. Often enough since he'd begun spending time at her grandmother's farm they'd found cause to sit in silence together. It was mutually agreeable.
"The drawing. I liked it."
"Oh. Er... yeah. Happy birthday." Harry offered, giving a small shrug. In all honesty, he'd not intended much by the gift. It had simply seemed wrong not to give the girl something... particularly after the Christmas concert. In the wake of that debacle, he'd felt an overwhelming sense of pity for the siblings. It seemed the least he could do to try and mark their birthdays, particularly given that it seemed that it was the proximity of their birthdays to the Christmas season that had truly driven their mother to such embarrassing lengths.
Then again, when he took a broader view, he doubted if Papagena Hill wouldn't have found an excuse to embarrass her children under whichever circumstances she found herself.
"The donkey is too small, you know. And Mary's s'posta wear blue or something, not orange, but I liked it."
"I'm sorry?" Harry ventured, not sure how to respond to the mixed criticism and compliment. "If I draw her again sometime, I'll be sure to colour her right."
"Yeah." Snowdrop nodded, seemingly satisfied with this. "But you gave her my hair."
"'Cause it was meant to be you," Harry scoffed, thinking the observation silly. "Of course I gave her your hair."
For reasons he couldn't fathom, Snowdrop blushed and scowled. Even the tip of her nose coloured a ruddy peach, like Harry had seen Snape's do when he was in a proper strop.
"And whoever did the costumes made yours orange. So... orange." He finished, wafting a hand through the air as he'd often seen Severus do to underscore a point he thought ought to have been obvious.
Snowdrop's leg kicked out rather violently and she glowered down at her canvas shoe, which—as Harry had come to expect from how Gammy Hill turned her granddaughter out for school—was a pristine white.
She let out a choked, gurgling sound which had Harry leaning forward to peer at her with concern. From his vantage point beside her, he could scarcely see her face.
"Thank you," She bit out, as though bringing forth the words caused her severe physical distress. Afterwards she flopped over, wriggled to her feet in a rather unladylike and undignified manner, and lost no time at all in stalking away from him.
Had it been anyone else, Harry might have felt flummoxed. Given that it was Snowdrop, Harry only snorted and nodded once.
Now that that troublesome interlude had concluded, he only had twenty minutes left during their break to brainstorm over what to do for Severus' birthday. After that their Phys-Ed instruction was set to begin and he wouldn't have the luxury of thinking of anything much beyond whatever strange game or activity the instructor had chosen for the day.
When those twenty minutes yielded no results—he hadn't felt particularly inspired by his dinner nanny lunch—and thereafter his creativity failed to be sparked by the drills they ran afterwards, Harry returned to Mr. Fowler's class in a sweaty, foul mood. There was only an hour to go in the day, and he hadn't a single idea of what to do for his kuya's birthday.
It had crossed his mind that he could draw the man a picture... but somehow presenting Severus with a terrible rendition of Sammy Hagar or Gene Simmons scribbled in crayon made Harry want to cringe.
His fingers tapped against the desk, playing out the beat to 'I Wanna Rock' by Twisted Sister.
It was a shame that his practising hadn't produced any results yet. He diligently picked up the G&L Legacy every evening before bed and did his level best to try and find any note that sounded remotely familiar, but cracking the code of the many-fretted beast seemed hopeless.
Once he thought he'd found the opening note to a song he liked, but then he'd not been able to find the next one after, and he summarily lost the first, original note.
What he needed was someone to show him how.
With little hope for serenading Severus with one of his favourite tunes, and feeling dubious at the thought of presenting the older wizard with yet another of his sketches, Harry dropped his head to the desk in front of him and groaned aloud once more.