Part 1, Chapter 5: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Chapter 5: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

The morning of Christmas Eve dawned crisply, the sky an uncluttered blue with the weak winter sun shining on the blanket of snow covering the gardens of the Grangers and their neighbours. After their late night, Snape and Hermione were entirely unaware of the beauty of the day, for they were both still sleeping.

It was, perhaps, entirely unfortunate that Harry Potter and Ron Weasley should have been overcome with the spirit of the season and decided to pay an unannounced call on Hermione, bringing with them her Christmas gifts and an olive branch. "We'll take her back to the Burrow with us," Ron said, secretly hoping to charm his way back into Hermione's heart in more ways than one.

"Let's take one thing at a time, mate, all right?" Harry said, ascertaining that he had all of Hermione's gifts stowed in his rucksack. "First, we have to apologise for leaving her on her own for a week at Christmas."

The two Disapparated, reappearing in the Grangers' back garden. "You do the talking," Ron said nervously, one hand going unconsciously to the healed marks on his bum, beneath his trousers.

"I will," Harry promised and knocked briskly on the Grangers' back door.

Snape shifted his position on the sofa and willed the pounding to go away. What a lousy way to dream – wall-knocking so loud that it roused you out of sleep. Who ever heard of a dream doing that?

Unwillingly, but necessarily, Snape opened his eyes and squinted at the clock over the mantel. Nine o'clock? He never slept until nine o'clock!

More pounding.

Pushing himself into a sitting position, he glared in the direction from which the sounds were coming. Someone was knocking on the door out to the back garden – which meant that someone was in the fenced area.

In the next instant Snape was on his feet and striding to the door, entirely unmindful of his stocking feet, the rumpled track suit in which he slept, and the morning disarray of his hair. He took down the ward on the door and threw it open to confront the intruder.

It may be laid at the door of his years of experience at never showing emotion that his consternation was not evident. Potter and Weasley, however, had no subtlety – they were both taken aback.

Potter recovered use of his voice first. "What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded aggressively, his wand in his hand.

"Language, Potter," Snape responded mechanically. What in the world were the whelps doing here? Wasn't the whole purpose of him giving up his holiday to baby-sit Hermione due to the fact that her erstwhile boyfriends would have nothing to do with her?

Snape relaxed slightly; the younger wizards were unlikely to be so unwise as to attempt to duel with him. Both of the boys' faces were a delightful study in nauseated horror. Snape could well imagine how he looked – exactly as if he just climbed out of bed, in fact – and Weasley, for one, would assume he had been shagging the girl. His inner daemons delighted at the notion of an opportunity to devil his two least-favourite students – but a scarcely acknowledged portion of him was furious that anyone would have the temerity to think badly of Hermione.

Leaning one shoulder against the door frame, as if he had all day to block their entrance to the house, Snape folded his arms across his chest and looked the boys up and down once before saying, "A much more pertinent question would be, what are you doing here?"

Weasley found his voice. "We're here to see Hermione. Where is she?"

Snape smiled thinly. "She is not available."

Harry took a step forward. "You let us see her, Snape – now!"

"Really, Potter," he drawled, "I hope you don't imagine that you will receive special treatment from me. You are, after all, nothing but an ..." untalented little boy he projected effortlessly into Potter's unshuttered mind, "...unwelcome guest."

Potter's face went nearly purple with fury and Weasley mustered the courage for which his family was famous. "What have you done with her? I'll go back for my dad, Snape – you don't dare try to keep her from us."

Snape's voice lowered to a deadly whisper. "You, Weasley, have no use for her at all – you made that perfectly clear to the entire population of Hogwarts. I suggest you get out of here whilst you can still do so under your own power."

"Who's going to make us go?" the redhead shot back angrily.

Snape made no effort to suppress the yawn which overtook him at that moment, placing one hand tauntingly before his mouth as if to protect Potter from his morning breath. "I'm sure it will not be necessary," Snape said, narrowing his eyes at them. "I don't think either of you wish to lose fifty points apiece for your House for insolence to a teacher."

"I'm going directly to Dumbledore!" Potter snarled. "He'll sort you out straight away."

"Who do you think sent me here, you stupid boy?" Snape hissed.

"He thinks he can trust you!" Potter bellowed. "He doesn't know what you've been getting up to, does he? You'll be out, Snape!"

Snape's contemptuous laughter was enough to bring Potter's wand right into his face.

"Severus?"

Snape inwardly cursed Potter's loud, carrying voice, while relishing the renewed looks of revulsion on the boys' faces at the sound of his name upon Hermione's lips. Without bothering to answer her, he turned from the door, leaving it open, with the boys standing uncertainly in the snow, and walked back to pick up his freshly laundered clothes and his trousers and coat from a chair.

"You have guests," he murmured to Hermione, with the most infinitesimal quirk of an eyebrow to let her know that her friend still resided within the nasty Potions master.

"Are you going to shower?" she asked, ignoring the gasps of her boon companions. "Don't forget to take your shampoo up with you – I left it beside the sink in the kitchen."

On his own with her, Snape would have repudiated the suggested shower as well as the impertinent remarks about the shampoo – but his desire to bring chagrin to the minds of Potter and Weasley induced him to detour into the kitchen for the shampoo before heading upstairs.

Hermione looked at the boys. "Well? Are you going to continue to refrigerate my sitting room or are you going to come in?"

Harry and Ron piled into the room, closing the door behind them.

"Hermione, what is Snape doing here?" Harry demanded hotly.

"Hello, Harry," she replied, throwing herself upon the sofa and holding Snape's abandoned pillow defensively to her chest. "Happy Christmas to you, too."

"Snape!" Ron exploded with utmost loathing, staring at Hermione as if he did not know her. "You threw me over for Snape!"

Hermione was enraged into insensibility at this utterance. As she stared at Ron, the air about her seemed to blur with the waves of magic which poured from her. Harry, recognizing the signs, stepped between the erstwhile lovers. "Hermione – talk to us."

Hermione turned her anger on Harry. "What do you want to hear, Harry? That you broke our plans to stay together at Hogwarts for Christmas? That Mrs. Weasley didn't invite me to the Burrow, for obvious reasons? That my parents had already made plans to go away for the hols? So, I came home to spend Christmas by myself." Tears were falling on her cheeks, which only made her angrier. She hated it that she cried when she became very angry. "Professor Dumbledore wanted to be sure I would be safe and he sent Professor Snape to watch over me."

Harry came to sit beside her, his face troubled. "We've come to say sorry, Hermione – we want you to come back with us. It's Christmas and we should be together, no matter what." He turned a glare on his best mate. "Isn't that right, Ron?"

Ron's eyes were riveted on the sight of Professor Snape's boots, which were neatly arranged beneath the coffee table.

"Ron?"

Ron wrenched his eyes away from the boots, back to Harry and Hermione. "Tell me he's been sleeping down here," he whispered.

Harry groaned and closed his eyes, as if awaiting Hermione's inevitable explosion. After a moment of silence, he opened his eyes again, to find Hermione staring stonily into the fireplace.

"Your gifts are under the tree," she said. "Please take Ginny's gift, as well."

Harry reached out and laid his hand upon her arm; Hermione turned her face to his. Harry said, "I'll come stay with you, Hermione – and you can send Snape about his business. I'll look after you. We can have Christmas together."

Hermione looked into the green eyes of her best friend. "But who would look after you, Harry? Don't you understand? Professor Dumbledore has arranged security for you and Ron at the Burrow – I don't know how you got away from your guard long enough to come here without escort – and Professor Dumbledore sent Professor Snape here to make sure I will be safe until my parents come home."

"But to have him swooping down on you at all hours of the day and night – it's got to be terrible, Hermione. I couldn't bear it!"

Hermione stood and walked past Ron, whose lips were pressed tightly closed as he looked pointedly away from her. She knelt at the tree and pulled the gaily wrapped gifts for Harry, Ron, and Ginny from beneath the branches. "You don't have to bear it, Harry – I do. And I do not find it to be a burden. Here." She extended the packages to him.

Harry stood and came to kneel beside her at the tree, reaching into the rucksack and pulling out her gifts. "I brought these, in case we couldn't convince you to come back with us." He began to pack away the ones she had given him and Hermione went back to her place upon the sofa.

"You'd rather stay here with him than come have Christmas with us?" Ron blurted, taking a step towards her, his fists clenched at his sides.

"Yes," she said simply.

Ron turned and marched back out of the door into the back garden.

"Happy Christmas, Hermione," Harry said, bending to kiss her cheek. Then he exited the room, carefully closing the door behind him, and he and Ron Disapparated.

In the stairwell, Snape smirked and went up to take a shower.

Snape climbed down the stairs and he continued into the sitting room in search of his boots. Placing the carefully folded tracksuit on top of the pillow and blanket in the armchair, he sat on the sofa and pulled on his footwear. He could hear the girl in the kitchen, but she had not yet spoken to him, so he left her to her own devices as he set about adding logs to the fire. The noise of his activities brought her to the doorway.

"I hope you don't mind coffee, this morning," she said, sounding slightly strained.

"I cannot remember an occasion upon which I have objected to coffee," he remarked, approaching her. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her cheeks bore the signs of tears. "Your guests did not remain for breakfast," he observed neutrally.

Hermione turned from him and returned to her Muggle toaster, removing the bread from its slots and placing them on a plate. "They only stopped by to exchange gifts," she said, placing the plate in the center of the table.

"I see," he said. He poured coffee into his cup. "This is the first morning I have slept late – what happens to the owl post if no one is awake to receive it?"

Hermione laughed, and Snape felt his mood lighten immensely at the sound.

"I found your copy of the newspaper right beneath the window, in the back garden. I'm afraid that the owl must have been quite put-out that no one was up to pay him – I had to spell the paper clean before I brought it into the house."

Snape seated himself and accepted the Daily Prophet with some hesitation. "You're certain you removed all of the sh ... erm, waste product?"

She simply laughed again, and Snape settled down to read his newspaper.

The day passed peacefully enough, with the girl in the kitchen baking, playing her music and singing along. Snape found himself repeatedly lured into the kitchen as if answering a Siren's call. He stirred ingredients for more of the spice biscuits, he rolled out pastry with a precision which earned him her praise, and he dutifully tested the mince pies. In the middle of the afternoon she disappeared upstairs for a purported nap and he was quick to take the opportunity to stretch out on the sofa, undetected, to nap as well.

The smell of the baked goods permeated the air, and the memory of her sweet singing lulled him into sleep, where he dreamt of his mother.

Hermione rose from her nap and quickly showered. Her spirits were good, and she eagerly anticipated her plans for Christmas Eve. A generous application of Sleekeazy smoothed her bushy mass into manageability; she pinned it up and applied her makeup with particular care. Reaching for her diamond drop earrings, she fixed them in her ears, glad that her father had overborne her objections and given them to her on her eighteenth birthday. From her closet, she took out the dress of burgundy velvet and stepped into it, pulling it up over her nylons and magicking the zip up in the back. Last, she slipped on the extremely high-heeled black sling-back shoes which made her legs look so slim and shapely.

When her inner voice demanded to know why she was making such an effort over an evening spent at home in the company of her ugly, old, nasty Potions teacher, she touched up her lipstick and walked out of her room, mentally telling the bitch to shut up!

Snape woke from his very restful nap as the sun went down. After a quick visit to the loo, he combed through his hair again to neaten it and stared at his reflection in the mirror. The face which glared out at him was no more or less unattractive than he remembered, though for some reason when he was with the girl he forgot to be self-conscious. There was never any revulsion in her face when she looked at him – and there never had been, even when she was an insufferable first year.

"There's no fool like an old fool," he told the mirror, forgetting that it was not enchanted and would not enthusiastically agree with him.

The girl came into the sitting room and he caught sight of her when she walked past his chair in a cloud of spicy perfume. His head came up out of his book and he was treated to the sight of her walking away from him, looking not at all like a schoolgirl. He was instantly on his feet and following her.

"Did you nap well?" she asked over her shoulder, treating him to her smile, which was somehow enhanced by the glossy colour she had applied to her lips.

He lengthened his stride and caught up to her in the middle of the kitchen, where he touched her shoulder, causing her to turn to face him.

"Yes, Severus?" she said.

Snape felt his mouth go dry. She was coiffed, made-up, perfumed, and dressed to the nines. The dress, made of a fabric which he very much wished to stroke, bared her throat and collarbone, showing an intriguing cleavage which disappeared discreetly into shadow; it clung to her torso, emphasising her waist before curving over her hips and her derrière and halting somewhere just above her knees. From there, the story was continued by sheer nylons over her calves and down to her dainty ankles; on her feet, she wore a pair of shoes the like of which had been tantalising men of all ages for time out of mind.

In short, the appearance of Hermione as an alluring nymph seriously discomposed him and upset his notion of her place in the universe. Damn the girl!

"Are you all right?" she asked worriedly.

Snape fell back on his old stand-by. "Are Weasley and Potter returning, then?"

A faint frown touched her brow. "No – why would you ask?"

"Surely you're not all tarted-up just to spend an evening with me." He saw the flash of hurt in her eyes and felt a savage satisfaction.

Hermione turned away from him. "My family tends to dress up on Christmas Eve," she said, opening the refrigerator door and beginning to remove the trays of cheeses, olives, and other nibbles she had prepared earlier.

Snape walked out of the kitchen and resumed his place in the armchair, where he picked up his book and pretended to read.

Damn the girl!

Hermione told herself that Snape was Snape, and that one could not expect the Potions master to become a nice man simply because one wished for him to do so. Stubbornly, she continued to set up a small buffet of foods from which they could serve themselves throughout the evening, as was her family's Christmas Eve tradition.

She could not prevent the looks she frequently cast into the sitting room, but she hastily looked away each time he looked up and caught her at it. She also could have sworn she caught him sneaking looks at her when she was unaware. Drying her damp palms on a kitchen towel, she said, "Shall I fix a plate and bring it to you, or will you do it yourself?"

Snape stood from the armchair, placing his book precisely on the end table. "I am not hungry," he stated. "I will patrol the perimeter now."

Dumbstruck, Hermione stood alone in the kitchen, listening to Snape as he pulled on his cloak and let himself out of the house. With tears standing in her eyes, she sat down at the kitchen table and stared at her hands.

Snape kicked his way viciously through the snow as he walked around the house in this ridiculously safe Muggle neighbourhood. The vision of Hermione, a most desirable adult witch, darting coquettish glances at him as he sat in the next room was tearing him apart. She looked like a woman tonight; she smelt like a woman; when he had her body beneath his in the snow, she had felt like a woman – but she was only a child. She was a schoolgirl, his own student, and the thoughts he was having – the desires he was experiencing – were out of line.

She told Potter and Weasley that she wanted to spend Christmas with me, his subconscious reminded him. She called me "Severus" within their hearing. She washed my hair. She doesn't look away – she isn't disgusted – she isn't afraid.

"That's because she has no clue of who and what I really am," he snarled aloud to the back garden fence.

She shares her secrets – she confides in me. She trusts me.

He turned and looked at the windows into the house. He could see her through the darkened sitting room, seated at the table in the lighted kitchen, her head in her hands – the picture of despair. "Hermione, don't," he murmured.

The twisting feeling beneath and slightly to the left of his sternum was undoubtedly some form of indigestion. He marched up to the back door, prepared to go into the house and to participate with the girl in her Christmas traditions; she, after all, was not accustomed to being bitter and alone in the world at this time of year. She had only Severus Snape to keep her company this holiday – she had actually chosen him over her two best friends – and he had repulsed her and walked out on her.

"What a fine way to live up my name – with typical Snape behaviour," he thought as he entered the house, and Hermione looked up at him, her face betraying her gladness at the sight of him.

He forced away every thought, save of her.

"What do you imagine you are going to do with that?" Snape asked as Hermione placed a large container of dark rum on the kitchen counter. The detritus of their meal still sat upon the table and Snape lounged back in his chair, surveying her through half-lidded eyes.

"I'm going to mix the Christmas punch, of course," she said, promptly thrusting him into a state of mute desire by moving a step stool across the room and climbing up to the top step to retrieve a large cut-glass punch bowl from a high shelf. As she reached up to place her hands on the bowl, her dark red velvet dress rode up the backs of her thighs nearly to her bum, and his sudden arousal throbbed with approval.

"Could you help me, please?"

Snape stood, surreptitiously adjusting himself before he approached her and took the bowl from her. "Do you need anything else from up there?" he asked as he set the bowl on the counter. When she shook her head in the negative, he grasped her waist with both hands and swung her down from the step stool.

"Severus!" she laughed, her hands on his shoulders. "What are you doing?"

He placed her on the floor and looked down into her warm brown eyes, a dangerous look in his glittering black ones. "Those shoes are very nice, but are clearly not made for climbing up and down step stools," he informed her.

She smiled up at him and he hastily released her, stepping away. "I believe that I will brew the Christmas punch," he told her. "Where is your cauldron?"

"I don't have a cauldron here! This is a Muggle house!"

"Not tonight, it isn't," he retorted with a wicked gleam as he turned away. He bent to the cupboard from which she always produced cooking vessels and emerged with an enormous soup pot. With a careful flourish, he Transfigured the pot to a cauldron.

"Nice wand waving, sir," Hermione murmured, and he shot her a quelling look.

"You might make yourself useful by zesting the lemons – if you think you can handle that."

Hermione huffed at him and he smirked as he carried the cauldron into the sitting room. When he returned to the kitchen to fetch the rum, he found that she had provided the sugar, the zest, and the carefully sectioned lemons, as well.

She stepped up to stand very close to him and tilted her head slightly, darting a glance up into his face. "I trust you know where to find the brandy?"

Snape was thankful that his arms were full of punch ingredients because he was not sure he could have restrained himself from snatching her up and kissing her if his hands had been free. He must remember to tell her that she ought not to go about looking at men like that!

She turned from him then and walked into the sitting room with a tray of punch glasses. Snape returned to the hearth and knelt there, pouring and mixing in the Transfigured cauldron, which had been securely settled into the hearth. When he had squeezed the lemons into the brew, he looked at her over his shoulder. "Fetch me the brandy, minx."

She gurgled laughter, plainly pleased at this form of address, and brought the half-empty bottle from the end table. "So," she said, watching as he poured brandy into the large ladle and set it afire with his wand, "does Christmas punch brewed by a wizard become, by definition, magical?"

Snape dispensed the flaming brandy into the cauldron and watched it burn there before replying. "You will have to drink the punch, evaluate its properties, and make a report to me."

Hermione Summoned a footstool from its place before the sofa and sat down at Snape's knee. "Two feet of parchment, or three?"

Snape spoke a word to douse the flames in the punch and stirred it three times anti-clockwise before directing his attention to her face. "An ... oral report, I believe," he murmured silkily, allowing his eyes to dwell unmistakably on her slightly parted lips before slowly raising them to her eyes. He watched her blush and heard the slight hitch in her breathing. He continued to look into her eyes for another beat, then forced himself to stand. "We will let it continue to heat for five minutes and then it will be ready for you to begin your assessment. Excuse me; I must wash the lemon juice from my hands."

When he returned to the sitting room, she was placing a movie in the player. "This is one of my favourite Christmas movies," she confided.

"I was under the impression that all of them have been your favourite Christmas movies," he replied with a smirk.

He allowed her to persuade him to sit beside her on the sofa, each of them with steaming cups of punch in their hands, and they watched the story of a man who seemed never to be satisfied with his life. What a fool! He had everything: parents who loved him, friends who valued him, a beautiful wife who thought he hung the moon – and the man wished he had never been born.

Snape kept the punch cups full by the simple expediency of charming them so that they perpetually refilled, and he felt the sense of comfort and security spread through his entire being. By the end of the movie, Hermione was shedding tears and he was looking down at her face, bemused. "Why must you watch it if it makes you cry?" he demanded, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket.

"It's such a beautiful story," she explained, blotting the moisture from her cheeks as if she feared to smear her makeup.

He snorted but curbed his tongue, simply taking her cup and placing it on the coffee table. She stood to remove the movie from the machine and swayed slightly on her feet. "No more punch for you," he drawled, reaching to place his hands on her waist, to steady her.

She turned in his grasp, leaning down to place her hands upon his shoulders, her neckline gaping slightly, admitting a clear view all the way down to the top of her brassiere. "I haven't had too much to drink," she told him, breathing lemon scented rum into his face, "I just stood up too quickly."

Snape deliberately closed his eyes and tried not to know exactly how the globes of her soft breasts would fit perfectly into the roughened palms of his hands. After a moment, she had the audacity to rub the tip of her nose to his, laughing softly as she did so, then turned from him and walked over to the electronic devices. She seemed to ponder for a moment, then she slipped a silver disc into the machine, and soft music filled the room.

"Severus?" She turned to face him. "Please dance with me."

"That would be a bad idea," he said, taking another long drink of the punch in his cup. His eyes absorbed the sight of her; she had dressed for him, made herself lovely for him. Tonight she was his, was she not?

"I can dance," she assured him, reaching down to remove the ridiculously high-heeled shoes, balancing first on one foot, then on the other.

"I am aware that you can dance," he told her, as his arms longed to hold her. "I saw you dance with Mr. Krum at the Yule Ball, the year of the Triwizard Tournament."

She stood with her shoes dangling from her fingertips, a smile upon her face. "You saw me dance with Viktor?"

Why should he not dance with her? Had Krum deserved to touch her? Certainly not! Had Weasley ever deserved her – treated her with that respect? No, never. Just once, she should be touched and held by a man who was fully cognizant of her amazing powers and who felt for her the reverence due to her.

He stood and walked to stand before her, looking enigmatically down into her face. "Of course I saw you dance with him. You opened the Ball, didn't you?"

Without bothering to answer, Hermione stepped into his arms. He received her gracefully, holding her small hand in his own, as his other hand clasped her waist. The music was seasonal, yet somewhat bluesy, the voice of the female singer blending somehow effortlessly with his punch-fortified inner calm, at once soothing and sexy.

She moved close enough to rest her cheek upon the fabric of his coat, and her body flowed with his as if two streams were joined to flow together to the great ocean. He was an adequate dancer, but she was intuitive, responding to his signals almost before he made them. She danced with her eyes closed, completely at ease in his arms, trusting and content. He danced with his eyes open, alternately looking down into her face, which seemed ineffably beautiful to him, and looking at the room, awash in firelight and brightened by the twinkling of the Christmas tree lights.

The amount of punch he had drunk no doubt contributed to his feeling of other-worldliness, but the girl herself was intoxicating to him, as well. He wanted the night to stretch on indefinitely; let Hogwarts, and Dumbledore, and the Order, and the Dark Lord, and the Death Eaters, and the coming war all go by the wayside. He was going to move about this enchanted room with this enchanting woman in his arms, and perhaps when they awoke, as one does from a dream, the constraining realities of their lives might have passed away, leaving only themselves to consider.

In spite of his wishes, time passed, as time will do, and the music came to an end. When they were in a silent room, Hermione let out a small sound of protest and opened her eyes, looking up into his face with an expression of such open sensuality that he was moved to tighten his hold upon her. She felt it as well, he could clearly see it; after nearly an hour of moving chest to chest in one another's arms, she wanted him as he wanted her. Inexorably, he began to lower his head, watching her face carefully for any sign of alarm. She watched his approach with complaisance, lifting her chin and scrunching her eyes and ...

...yawning hugely in his face.

Belatedly, she brought a hand to cover her mouth. "I beg your pardon," she giggled. "I think the Christmas punch has made me sleepy!"

Snape stepped away from her, turning to the fire and using his wand to remove the cauldron from the grate. "Christmas punch can do that to you," he replied neutrally, his back to her. "Why don't you go up to bed?"

He heard her behind him and was acutely aware that she stood mere inches from him; he knew that she was looking at him with that slightly baffled expression she wore when he behaved with the good sense God gave a mongoose and treated her as a student.

"I was having such a lovely time," she murmured, so softly he could scarcely hear her.

"It is very late," he said doggedly, still not turning, but seizing a poker and beginning to push it into the fire.

"I – I'll say goodnight, then," she said, and still he did not turn to face her. "Happy Christmas, Severus."

"Goodnight, Hermione," he replied, clinging to the poker until the ridges of the handle left creases in the palms of his hands.

He listened until he heard her bedroom door close before collapsing on the sofa and resting his furrowed brow upon his clenched fists.

A/N: Thanks to Snarkywench for beta reading and kudos to MagicAlly for Brit-picking.