No Happy Returns

It was Snape’s birthday.

There was no grinning mob of well-wishers, no cake with more candles than frosting, no pile of presents.

There was no fancy restaurant, no exotic hotel room, no anorexic infant in improbable lingerie.

There were no cards, no off-key songs, no happy returns.

There was a magnificently large, plush divan, a snapping, Floo-less fire, and an unending supply of leather-bound volumes.

There were dark chocolate biscuits and smoke-tinged gunpowder tea.

There was antique music sifting through the air.

There was his cinnamon-eyed wife snugged alongside him, reading aloud in her warm voice.

It was Severus’s birthday.