Presents

Hermione is awake early on Christmas morning. She stares up at the canopied shadows for a moment, and then she decides that it feels just like any other ordinary December morning because there is nothing in the air...no tingle of red excitement or golden joy...but a slight chill where the cold has seeped through the dormitory's Warming Charm. She supposes she could fix that; her wand is right next to her on the bedside table, but she's too snug and comfortable beneath the weight of the covers to move right now.

She sighs softly, her breath hovering above her in a light mist, and she remembers other Christmas mornings here at Hogwarts. If she closes her eyes, she can almost hear the ghosts of the past, almost feel the giddy urge to throw on her robes and run skidding into the boys' dorm to wish them. And now she knows that there's a special, wicked kind of loneliness to be had at Christmas, and although she's always liked her quiet and solitude, she can't help but feel the wistful, dull ache that settles around her heart with a grey and leaden weight.

A soft pop jolts her from her thoughts, and a gasp of surprise squeaks from her lips. One of the Gryffindor Tower house-elves (Hermione knows all their names; this one is called Dory) stands next to her bed, her arms full of brightly-wrapped presents. She's wearing a flimsy paper hat, like those you find in Muggle crackers, and a wreath of silver tinsel is wound around her neck.

"Oh, sorry, Miss... Dory is waking you." The gifts Levitate to the foot of Hermione's bed, and Dory wrings her long hands in apologetic consternation. "Dory is sticking her hands in the oven for punishment."

Hermione grimaces and rubs her hand across her eyes wearily. She's still no closer to bringing forth a wave of house-elf enlightenment on the issue of payment and punishment. "No, no, Dory," she says quickly, "I was awake. Do you think you could bring me a cup of coffee instead?"

Dory seems to consider this trade in punishment for a moment...her ears twitch nervously...and she nods timidly. "Yes, Miss."

Hermione smiles and sits up in bed after the house-elf has gone. She takes a moment to fix the Warming Charm...her goose-bumps smooth away in the glow of renewed warmth...and she starts to open her small pile of Christmas presents.

Her parents have sent her a boomerang and various bits of Kiwiana; the gifts practically scream duty-free shopping. What does amaze her is the fact that Hermione Granger, Hogwarts, Scotland, is how they've addressed the parcel and it's still managed to arrive here. It's almost like Hogwarts is just as mystical and surreal a place as the North Pole is. So, her parents still have a little faith in magic, after all. The thought cheers her up a bit. She wrinkles her nose at the kiwifruit-flavoured chocolates and sets the box aside to give to Hagrid this afternoon. He invited her to Christmas tea, and she said she'd be delighted because Hagrid is good company even if he can't cook.

A cup of coffee materialises on her bedside table. Hermione curls her fingers around the mug and takes a sip. It's bloody Nescafe. Tears start to prickle in her eyes, and she drops her nose to the rim of the cup, breathing onto the surface of the coffee so that damp steam warms her face. She really bloody misses the coffee she had in a little cafe in Australia in July. She puts the coffee cup back down and sniffles a bit. It was the rich, bitter kind of coffee that comes from an espresso machine...the kind that comes with company and the warmth of her mother's smile.

The next present she opens is a Christmas card with a red-nosed Crup wearing a Father Christmas hat on it, and a packet of lime Opal Fruits... from Ron. Hermione's suddenly reminded of the snide miserliness of the presents Harry used to get from Vernon and Petunia Dursley. She taps the Crup's Rudolph nose. "I hope he's not insinuating that I'm a bitch," she mutters. She wonders if Harry made Ron send her a Christmas present, and then she feels a moment of smug superiority for being the 'bigger person' and having sent him a proper present (the special edition Chudley Cannons Uno deck that she bought Before for him and sent anyway because she hates Quidditch even more than she hates Uno).

Harry's present is the one that makes her really cry...the kind of tears with huge sobs that hurt when they swell up her throat. She brushes her fingertips across the gilt lettering on the hardcover of the illustrated version of Hogwarts: A History, and then she cries some more as she hugs the book to her chest and longs for the unabashed warmth of his friendship and the comfort of his smile. He makes so much space in his life for all of them...the Weasleys and Teddy and Snape and her and even the Malfoys...that she's almost ashamed of her tendency to selfishness and bitterness sometimes.

She opens his card and smiles as she reads:

Dear Hermione,

I sent that potion book to Snape...you never told me how hard it would be to get hold of. It was printed in 1975! I hope he likes it. He actually wrote back last week. His letter was short and sour, but I guess I was glad to get it anyway. He made me feel like a bit of a stupid git... sort of made me miss DADA class with him for a moment. He told me to chuck his memories away because, and I quote: If you don't understand how memories work by now, Potter, I'm astounded that you're still in the training programme. Pensilver threads are only copies of memories. I do not have a hole in my memories simply because you are being bloody sentimental. He forgot to add, you idiot, but the implication was there. Merlin, I'm glad he lived.

Love, Harry.

Hermione opens the rest of her presents and mulls over Harry's words. In the end she decides that he's absolutely right: Being at Hogwarts, alone, is better than walking into one of Voldemort's traps and only just escaping with your life. A life without that fear, a world that's painted in fresh hope, is a much better place to be right now. She's smiling as she climbs out of bed to face the day.

Hermione runs into Snape on her way to Hagrid's hut. He's standing on the stairs just outside of the Great Doors, gazing out at the frozen-over lake like some brooding and dark anti-hero from a Jane Austen novel. Never mind that, Hermione thinks, he looks like Count Dracula with his collar flipped up like that. The ends of his Slytherin scarf ripple in the winter chill, and she nods politely as she walks past him. He may have been positively gregarious the other day, but Hermione knows that this is Snape, and he's not likely to be predictable about being in a good mood today.

"I suppose that I have you to thank for Potter's gift this morning, then?" he says suddenly when she's two steps below him.

She tucks her hands into her pockets and turns to look up at him. He's still staring off at the lake. Hermione can't blame him for escaping the Great Hall; Hermione heard the teachers still lingering over their Christmas cheer as she passed through the Entrance Hall. He hasn't escaped entirely unscathed, she notes: there's a speck of red glitter on his shoulder.

She pauses for another beat, waiting for his thank you, but when it's not forthcoming she smiles and says, "Merry Christmas, Professor Snape."

While Fang gnaws on a huge ham bone, Hagrid serves her a fat wedge of Christmas pudding and tells her about his upcoming visit to France for New Year's Eve. Hermione gazes down at the dark fruit pudding and prods it with her spoon. She's surprised to note that it feels soft. Although, from the fumes that sting the back of her throat, she suspects that he's drowned it in half a bottle of Butterbrandy. She declines Hagrid's very generous offer of a bit of custard skin, so she gets the lumps instead when she spoons a dollop of custard onto her plate. When she takes a tentative taste, she knows where the other half bottle of Brandybutter has gone to.

"Mmm, good," she lies, and she takes another mouthful for good measure to make Hagrid smile. But she frowns when she bites into something very hard, and she's surprised to pull a Knut from between her lips.

"Supposed ter be a Sickle," Hagrid tells her. There's a wobbly blob of custard nestled in his beard, and Hermione looks away from it because it looks very much like a glob of snot. "I didn' have a Sickle so I put a Sickle's worth of Knuts into the puddin'."

"Well, that makes sense," Hermione says, and she digs through her slice of Christmas pudding and finds nine more Knuts. "Did you get any nice Christmas presents, then, Hagrid?" she asks.

Hagrid beams at her and wipes his mouth (removing that blob of custard, thank God) before he stands up and goes to stand next to a new painting...a huge scarlet and gold Chinese Fireball that is roaring realistically on its canvas. "Harry gave me this one... innit somethin'?" He strokes the frame gently, and Hermione's sure that the same ache she'd felt this morning is bruising his heart right now. "He's grown into such a good man."

Hermione smiles at the painting...it is exactly perfect for Hagrid, yes...and she nods. "He has, Hagrid," she says. While he's got his back turned, she feeds her pudding to Fang quickly.

"Did yeh wan' some more puddin'?" Hagrid asks her when he sits down again. His eyes are rather red-rimmed, and Hermione suspects he's missing both Harry and Dumbledore very much. She's glad she came down this afternoon, and suddenly she doesn't feel quite as selfish and self-absorbed any longer. Relief winds through her like a smooth ribbon, and she relaxes in the warmth of Hagrid's hut. Fang lopes over to the little wood-burning fire, collapses, and starts snoring loudly. "Tha' dog's stuffed 'imself today, he has," Hagrid comments.

"I suppose that's sort of a Christmas tradition," Hermione allows. Although the alcohol in the pudding probably did the trick, too. She hopes it's not counted as cruelty to animals. She gazes out the frosted glass at the snow drifts and the slick expanse of the wintery lake. "What do the merpeople do during winter?" she asks suddenly.

Hagrid stops cleaning his teeth and shrugs his mountainous shoulders. "Much the same as we do, I 'spect," he says. "Stay indoors. Keep warm." He gets up again and puts a kettle onto his Aga. "Tea always does the trick," he adds with a hearty chuckle.

Hermione asks how they keep warm, and Hagrid tells her that all Beings and creatures have their ways, which Hermione takes to mean that Hagrid doesn't know the answer. She lets it slide, though, and nods. "Hagrid?" she says instead, her mind drifting back to Syrena like the thought is anchored to a Summoning Charm. "Did you know the selkie who lost her skin, the one who went to school at Hogwarts?"

Hagrid almost drops the sugar bowl. "How did yeh know abou' that?" He shakes his shaggy head. "You and Harry and Ron always knew more than yeh should've."

Hermione shrugs. "When we were gathering Algae Grass last month, I met a little selkie. Syrena told me about her... the selkie who lost her skin, I mean."

Hagrid snorts loudly. "Shoulda known! Syrena and her adventurous little heart." He sighs. "Her parents should put 'er on a leash the way she's always swimmin' about." He gives her what she can only describe as a long-suffering look. "So, yeh've made friends with Syrena, then, have yeh?"

Hermione nods. "I take a walk around the lake most mornings, and she keeps me company a lot. I've only spoken to her a couple of times."

Hagrid gives her a weak-hearted lecture about the dangers of swimming in the lake, but then he grins. "Syrena is me favourite, really." He sets a mug of bitter tea down for her.

"So, did you know Leenash, then?" Hermione asks again, leaning forward, her eyes alight with renewed curiosity because it had slipped her mind to ask Hagrid about the mystery of the lost selkie and what had happened to her before Dumbledore had brought her back to the loch.

"Not s'posed ter talk about it," Hagrid prevaricates. But then, true to form, he lets a secret slide from his lips like a silvery lining. "She was very sad after Kraken ate her skin, Eileen was. Broke me heart ter see her comin' onto the grounds fer Magical Creatures an' never so much as lookin' at the lake."

But Hermione wasn't listening to Hagrid as he spoke about how she'd dropped CoMC like a hot potato as soon as her OWLs were over and done with and never come onto the grounds again... because Hagrid hadn't called her Leenash.

He'd called her Eileen.

Hermione's fingers flick the through the pages of the book quickly until she finds the picture of Eileen Prince that she'd shown Harry in sixth-year, and she knows that she's cracked the puzzle. Eileen's long, sallow face and dark hair makes her almost a mirror image of Syrena. Hermione holds the truth of the selkie who lost her skin and learned magic like a jewel in her hands, and she stares at the girl's sad face.

And then Hermione tries to imagine...and the new mystery blooms like a Lumos in the dark...what happens when a selkie and a Muggle have a child. Because she can see the strange facets of Severus Snape in a new light, now... his winter-grey complexion and his lank, dark hair were no doubt inherited from his mother.

But is that all he inherited? she wonders.

A/N: Mentions of custard skin and Opal Fruits are dedicated to my favourite non-achieving Brit: Adrian Mole.

Thank you to everybody who reads and reviews The Silvering Divide. Writing this story has been a shining and silver experience.

Thank you to Gelsey for killing stray commas and being a wonderfully supporting friend. Big hugs.