“It’s the most wonderful time of the year.”

Harry snorted, resisting the urge to pull his wand out and cast an ‘incendio’ at the radio. It most certainly was not the most wonderful time of anything. He was stuck on Privet Drive with the Dursleys for the first Christmas since he was 10 years old. He had been lucky during his first four years at Hogwarts, when he had been allowed to remain at school during the winter holidays, but this year he hadn’t gotten off that easily.

His misfortune was partially the fault of Delores Umbridge, who seemed to be out to get him, and partially the fault of Lord Voldemort and his attack on Arthur Weasley. An attack which he felt slightly responsible for, after seeing the attack in a vision sent to him by the evil wizard himself. He had planned on spending the holidays with the Weasleys, but he had felt uncomfortable with the idea of spending several weeks with the family of the man whom he had practically witnessed being attacked. Dumbledore felt that if he would be alone in Gryffindor tower for the holidays, it would be much safer for him to return to his summer residence to protect him from Umbridge’s latest schemes.

As upset as he was to be at his relatives’ home for the duration of the break, he was quite certain that his aunt, uncle and cousin were far more bothered by his presence.

As a matter of fact, he was convinced this was the reason he was stuck decorating their house with Christmas decorations while they took their precious Dudley ice skating. Not that he’d want to go with them, anyway. At he got peace and quiet while they were gone.

Except for the blasted radio!

During the term, he often grew used to sharing space with other people, and therefore felt uncomfortable when it was still and quiet. When the Dursleys were home, his uncle was usually ranting about some perceived injustice or the television was turned up so Dudley was able to follow his programs wherever in the house he was.  He hadn’t had to suffer with absolute silence since he was 11 years old and locked in his cupboard under the stairs. Shuddering at the memory, he changed radio stations until he found one reporting a news broadcast. Anything was better than that sappy, cheery, upbeat Christmas music.

He cursed as a glass ornament shattered in his hand and he stuck his bleeding finger into his mouth as he went to retrieve a broom and dustbin. He hoped his aunt wouldn’t notice the missing sparkling bulb, if she had the slightest hint that he had broken one of her fancy decorations his uncle would beat him into next week and he’d probably be locked in his room for the remainder of the holidays.

He set back to work, putting the last glass ball on the tree as the familiar sound of his uncle’s voice echoed up the walkway. Hastily, he opened the door to the basement and tossed the empty boxes down; there would be plenty of time later to straighten them up.

“Boy, get some cocoa made, Dudley is chilled!” Petunia ordered, “Well don’t just stand there--get moving! I expect dinner will be ready by 6?”

“Yes, Aunt Petunia.” Harry replied, his jaw tight. He really hated living here, even if he’d only be there for a few weeks. One day was too long of a visit.

Resisting the urge to pull out his wand once more to take care of his relatives, Harry took several deep breaths. It would be over soon, there was no reason to do something that would likely get him expelled. His aunt and uncle continued to fawn over Dudley, ignoring him as he served them their warm beverages, and he retreated back to the depths of the kitchen to finish cooking. He could only hope they’d let him eat with them once it was complete.

“Mum! Harry didn’t clean my room!” Dudley whined, thundering down the stairs, “I can’t find the slacks I wanted to wear for the Christmas party!”

“Potter!”

Harry cringed as Uncle Vernon’s voice rang through the house. Nothing good ever came from that tone of voice.

“Boy! You get up there and get to work or no supper for you!”

Harry trudged upstairs, his uncle’s ranting still continuing long after he disappeared into Dudley’s massive bedroom.

“Ungrateful brat…took him in and raised him when no one else wanted him…better find those slacks and have them pressed…lock him in the blasted cupboard if he even takes one step out of line!”

Harry sighed, rubbing his temples in a vain attempt to fight off a headache. He had been ‘home’ for only 3 days and he was already more than ready to leave. This would possibly be the worst Christmas ever. It wasn’t the manual labor, he was used to that. It was the lack of love. Every Christmas he had spent with the Dursleys had been the same: Harry cooked and cleaned with no reward whatsoever, Dudley sat on his lazy arse and got more presents than most kids got in their entire childhood. Vernon would drink heavily, Petunia would cater to his every request, well, have Harry cater to his every request. It was very mechanical and orderly, everything the exact same from year to year.

Harry had experienced 4 magical Christmases before this, though, and as he threw another candy wrapper into the garbage bin, he could think of nothing other than what he had been expecting for this holiday season. He would be sitting around the fire with Ron, Hermione and Ginny. Mrs. Weasley would be cooking, the whole house smelling like a delectable meal. Sirius would ask them for help decorating and there would be presents beneath the tree and wizard carols playing.

He was overwhelmed with sadness as he listened to his uncle begin a tirade over some story he had seen on the news. He shouldn’t be here. If only he hadn’t had this stupid connection with Voldemort, if only it had been anyone other than Arthur Weasley that had been attacked! Anyone other than the family who had practically adopted them as their own. How would he ever be able to face them again after all of this was over and done with? What if Mr. Weasley died?

Time passed slowly as he worked on Dudley’s room, and as he heard the dishes and silverware clanking downstairs he realized he’d once again be missing dinner. Tears prickled his eyes, but he pushed them away, knowing it was ridiculous to be upset over something he couldn’t change. Who cared if he was missing Christmas Eve dinner? It wasn’t as if he usually included in their traditions anyway, he was just the annoying pest who was forced upon them, he wasn’t part of their family. At least, not in the way that was important.

“POTTER!”

Harry swore softly, knowing that tone of voice very well. He was definitely in a world of trouble now. When he walked into the kitchen, he found his aunt holding the garbage can with broken glass out towards him, a scowl on her face, “Can’t you do anything right?”

Harry’s stomach fluttered and he tugged anxiously on the bottom hem of his shirt. He should have covered it up, what a stupid mistake to make! He was definitely in for it now. He braced himself for the blow he knew would be coming and he was not surprised when the meaty hand of his uncle slammed into the side of his face, throwing him into the wall. He was even less surprised when he was dragged down the hall and tossed unceremoniously into the cupboard he had grown up in.

It was much too small now that he was growing into a man instead of a scrawny child.

He had a sneaking suspicion that he’d be stuck in the dark ‘room’ for awhile and he wished he had eaten some of the left over bits of food he had found in Dudley’s room.

Was it January yet?

**

Severus Snape sighed angrily, moving from his desk to the fireplace before flooing up to the headmaster’s office. Leave it to Harry-bloody-Potter to ruin an already miserable holiday. He had been put in charge of monitoring the wards around 4 Privet Drive for the days surrounding the full moon, since Lupin was out of commission due to his affliction. He hadn’t put it passed the brat to intentionally set them off, knowing it would ruin Snape’s holidays.

His irritation grew when he realized Dumbledore was nowhere to be found.

Leave it to the old coot to disappear when he was needed the most. What was he going to do now? He couldn’t just ignore the warning, but he wasn’t about to swoop into Little Winging, especially if the wards were going off due to Death Eaters in the area. He couldn’t afford to be exposed as a spy among the Dark Lord’s followers by showing up to rescue their number one target. There had to be someone else to do this.

Taking a steadying breath, he decided the logical step would be to floo call Grimmauld Place and see if there was someone there who was better equipped to handle this situation. Several disappointing minutes later, Snape stormed from the castle, his jaw set in a determined, furious line.

It wasn’t Molly’s fault that she was needed at the hospital with Arthur. He could completely understand her priority being her family over the teen who always seemed to find himself in peril. Likewise, he wasn’t willing to let the mutt go on a rescue mission. He could just envision the look on Dumbledore’s face should Black’s live come to a tragic end on his insistence that he travel to Surrey.  With Lupin howling at the moon, he was hoping that some other adult Order member would be at headquarters, but he had known even as the thought had crossed his mind that he was not that lucky.

He had never been lucky. He was going to have to waste his evening travelling all over the country because of that boy, the thorn in his side for 5 years now. He reached the apparition point and scowled, “There better be Death Eaters knocking down your door, Potter, or else you’ll wish there was when I get through with you.”

He arrived two streets over from Privet Drive, and he involuntarily shivered as the wind drove the cold air right through him, despite his thick robes. As he turned onto Privet Drive, he noticed with a surge of annoyance that everything seemed to be in order. So help him Merlin, if Harry was not in danger…

He spent the rest of the walk thinking of ways to torture the boy-menace.

He knocked on number 4, a scowl embedded on his face. All he had to do was lay eyes on the boy then he could be on his way. With any luck, he’d still have a vial of sleeping draught in his office that could knock him out for the next 24 hours, allowing him to miss his most-loathed holiday.

He wasn’t sure why he hated Christmas so much, it wasn’t a holiday that was celebrated in his own dysfunctional family, and as an adult he didn’t have anyone to share it with aside from the random students who neglected to return home during the optional break. None of them were worth the fuss, though, and certainly not worth ruining his reputation as the abrasive, callous potions professor.

His musings were cut short, however, by the door slamming open and a purple faced elephant of a man growling, “What?”

“I’m looking for Potter.”

“What do you want with him?” the oaf asked, looking Snape up and down with a look of disgust, “You’re one of them, aren’t you? Get off my property!”

“Where is Potter?” Snape growled, giving Vernon the icy glare that frightened most adult wizards and petrified his students, “I don’t have all night to stand here while you try to comprehend what I am telling you.”

Snape pushed past the man, pulling out his wand, declaring “Point me Harry Potter.”

The wand jerked slightly to the left, pointing down roughly 30 degrees. With a nasty sneer, he jerked the sliding lock on the cupboard under the stairs into the open position. There was no way they’d have a teenager locked into such a confined space, especially not the precious golden boy.

The first thing he noticed was blood running down the side of Harry’s face.

The second thing he noticed was that the boy was either asleep or unconscious, and considering he hadn’t budged when light and noise had assaulted his prison, unconscious was the most likely scenario.

He pulled the boy out, gently laying him on the floor and running his wand over the boy’s small body in a diagnostic scan. Relieved to only see a moderate concussion, he turned his wand to the gigantic tub of lard standing near the door, “What happened here?”

“Clumsy boy, he’s always running into things.”

Snape looked down at the fist-shaped bruise on Harry’s face, “Extremities, I suppose?”

“If you have ever spent any amount of time with the miscreant, you’d understand my need to discipline him. No respect for others’ property, defiance and attitude at every turn…he deserved a lot worse than he got, I’ll tell you.”

“I am well-versed in Mr. Potter’s disregard for the rules.” Snape hissed, “And although I would greatly like to throttle the boy sometimes, I would never actually do it. Idiot muggle, don’t you know who this child is and what he is destined to do? If people in our world got wind that you were abusing the boy-who-lived…Where are his things, I am taking him back to school at once.”

Vernon paled considerably at what Snape assumed was the idea of a bunch of wizards storming his house and demanding vengeance, but he quickly moved to the basement to gather Harry’s trunk and bird.

“Ennervate.” Severus spoke quietly, pointing his wand at Harry, who’s eyes flew open with a gasp.

“Professor?”

“Indeed. Are you able to stand?” Snape drawled, disliking the chalky white complexion of the boy in front of him. The last thing he needed was Potter passing out and further injuring himself. This was turning out to be one horrible night, as he had accurately predicted once receiving the alert from the wards.

Harry carefully rose to his feet, his face paling further than what he professor would have thought possible, and Snape guided him to a chair, “Sit while your things are gathered, we’re going back to Hogwarts.”

“But Dumbledore said-“ Harry began weakly, his pupils dilated much further than Snape would have liked.

“I do not care what he said, I will not permit you to stay here one moment longer.” Snape drawled, trying to remain indifferent, but finding it hard. He was hoping that this injury was the first Harry had received, but something about the uncle’s demeanor told him it wasn’t. He had assumed his relatives catered to him as the rest of the wizarding world did, but apparently he was wrong. He hated being wrong.

He wondered if Dumbledore knew how his golden boy was being treated…what good were the protections of the house if he was in just as much danger indoors?

**

Vernon arrived with Harry’s trunk moments later, although it seemed like an eternity to Harry, and Snape tapped it with his wand, reducing it to fit into his pocket, “Up, we’re going to apparate. Have you ever travelled via side-along apparition?”

“No.”

“It is highly unpleasant, which will only be compounded by your concussion. I would suggest bracing yourself for the worst, and whatever you do, do not let go. Certainly even your pea-sized brain can handle that?”

Harry nodded, swaying slightly as the motion compromised the little balance he still maintained. He clutched Severus’s arm tightly, not wanting to see what would happen if he did indeed let go, and all of a sudden the world spun around him and he felt as if he were being pulled through a tube from the inside out.

When his feet touched land again, he turned away and retched, only able to bring up a bit of bile. He grimaced, realizing that the reason he wasn’t violently ill was because he hadn’t been fed since returning to Privet Drive. His head throbbed unmercifully and he looked over to the castle, frowning at how far away it seemed from the entrance gates.

“Are you ready?”

Harry mumbled what he hoped sounded like a yes, not wanting to move his head for fear it would fall off. In his usual fashion, Snape stalked towards the castle, his robes billowing behind him. Harry put one hand to his head, carefully trailing behind him as the throbbing intensified. He felt another wave of nausea rush through him, and he took a few deep breaths to steady himself. This sensation was almost immediately replaced with dizziness and the sensation that he was falling.

When his knees hit the ground, he realized he really had been falling.

“Honestly, Potter, can’t you do anything without dramatics?”

“Sorry sir.” Harry whispered, struggling to pull himself to his feet. If he felt better, he would have glared at his professor—the least the git could have done was help him to his feet if he was so insistent on hurrying back to the castle.

He shivered as the cold wetness from the snow seeped through his clothes and he wished he had thought to ask Snape to cast a warming charm or something. Judging by the furious look in his professor’s eyes, though, he didn’t dare ask now. He’d probably just get sneered at with some scathing remark about ‘of course, the celebrity must be warm, after all, the world does revolve around you’.

His teeth began to chatter and he wrapped his arms tightly around himself to try and keep warm. The castle still seemed miles away. This was possibly the worst Christmas ever. He was lost in his own laments and didn’t realize the professor had stopped until he bumped into the back of him, the sudden jarring sending him sprawling back to the frozen ground.

“Idiot child.” Snape muttered, extending his hand, which Harry gratefully accepted to pull himself back to his feet. He shivered once more, resisting the urge to rub his arms to try and keep warm as the older man’s eyes narrowed, “Are you cold?”

“There is a foot of snow on the ground.” Harry responded softly, his voice lacking the impertinence that he usually reserved for his professor.

Harry was shocked as he was enveloped in a warm cloak, and glancing at his professor, he could tell the man was surprised by his actions as well.

Snape coughed lightly, “We wouldn’t want Dumbledore’s favorite student to freeze to death.”

“Thank you sir.” Harry responded bewilderedly, wondering if he was dreaming. He was half-expecting to suddenly wake up in the darkness of his cupboard, because this was definitely out of the ordinary. Not only did the one person who hated him as much as Voldemort did rescue him from his aunt and uncle’s house, he was now caring about Harry’s wellbeing? What on Earth was going on? He must have hit his head harder than he had thought to be having such a vivid hallucination.

“No, Mr. Potter, you aren’t dreaming.”

He had to be, otherwise, how could Snape read his mind? But then if he were dreaming, and Snape was in it, it would be a nightmare, and this definitely wasn’t a nightmare. Harry’s head hurt and he was confused, and suddenly he felt close to tears again. He bit his lip, the palm of his hand resting against his head once more as he willed it to stay on his body and not fall off. The way it was throbbing, he was certain it might possibly explode into a million pieces.

He smirked, wondering what Dumbledore would think if he walked over to the entrance gate and found Harry’s body, wrapped in Snape’s cloak, headless.

Wow, he really did hit his head harder than he thought. And for some reason, this seemed funny to him.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the anxious look Snape gave him as he started to giggle. Once the laughter started, he couldn’t stop, and soon he was laughing so hard that he had to stop walking in order to catch his breath.

“Mr. Potter?”

Harry laughed harder at Snape’s voice, which was now etched with alarm. Great, he was finally cracking up in front of Snape of all people. It took several minutes for his laughter to die down and he suddenly felt exhausted. His vision blurred as he tried to see how far away from the castle they were, and just as his legs gave out beneath him, a pair of strong arms caught him and hoisted him up.

**

“Happy Christmas, indeed.” Snape sneered, laying Harry down on the sofa in his quarters. He had contemplated taking the unconscious boy up to the hospital wing, but with Umbridge loitering around he had changed his mind. Unfortunately, that only left his own private chambers to accommodate the boy until he was healed.

Not that he’d ever admit it aloud, but he was more than a little alarmed when he started noticing behavior changes in Harry. He knew that it wasn’t an uncommon side effect of a concussion, but he had first worried that he was channeling Voldemort, as he had heard happened before. But after listening for a moment, he realized the laughter was, while slightly hysterical, not tinged with malice as was the case with the Dark Lord.

He had just started to relax when Harry began to lose consciousness.

Of course, nothing about the boy could ever be considered easy. He had carried the boy the remainder of the way to the castle, thankfully not spotted by anyone. He was much too tired to try and explain why Harry Potter was unconscious and in his arms.

It was well after midnight now, and the events of a busy day and night were starting to catch up with the professor. Summoning some potions, he healed the cut on Harry’s head, then charmed a cold compressed to remain secured over the wound to prevent swelling. He had fully intended on giving Harry a potion for the pain, but he didn’t think waking the boy would be a good choice at this time, so he hastily scrawled a note and left it on the table beside the couch, instructing Harry to take it if he woke.

He was in the process of covering the child when he realized Harry’s clothing was soaked and cold.

“Idiot child.” He muttered, although he was mentally berating himself for not thinking to charm Potter’s clothing to keep him protected from the cold. It was second nature to him as a grown wizard, he hadn’t even considered that Harry would need such a charm, and someone to charm it for him since he was not allowed to use magic during the holidays away from school.

After casting a few spells, he felt confident that all of Harry’s needs were met and he would indeed survive until morning. They could then go from there to decide where Harry would spend the remainder of the winter holidays.

He  covered the boy with a green Slytherin blanket, then paused and pointed his wand at the fabric, changing it into a Gryffindor crimson. After all, he didn’t want to have to hear whiny protests from the boy once he woke. It was for his own sanity, not to be nice.

He was nearly to his bedroom when he heard the boy began to shift on the couch.

“What…where…?”

“Sleep Potter, we’ll talk in the morning.”

The boy’s voice was thick with sleep as he mumbled, “Happy Christmas, Professor.”

Almost inaudibly, as the door clicked shut behind him, Snape’s voice responded, “Happy Christmas, Harry.”