The snow was falling even heavier Snape noticed as he and his traveling companion set out from the woods that separated the quiet Muggle town from the giant Muggle-infested store. He panted softly as he staggered a mere inch from the exertion of side-apparating a grown man. With a scowl, he thought how it wasn't enough that he had to lower himself to step inside the store, but to have an over-excited yapping puppy … err … Arthur Weasley tag along—it was undignified!

"Severus, are you certain there are rubber ducks there? I'm fascinated by rubber ducks as you know."

"For the last time, Arthur, yes, I'm sure the idiots still sell them for their sniveling children.

"Oh, really! Can we go and look at them, Severus? Please!" Arthur whined, bouncing up and down like an over eager house elf.

Snape sighed. He had hoped that this would be a simple and quick affair but he should have known better. "Dear Merlin, get a hold of yourself, man! Yes, you can look at the baby toys if you wish. Now, please for the love of Merlin, act like you have SOME experience with Muggles. They aren't accustomed to grown men being stimulated over rubber ducks!"

"But ... but rubber ducks, surely, they have some function in Muggle society, Severus." Arthur's eyes glazed over slightly as he thought about the yellow objects. "I mean, it is just exhilarating to learn its purpose after so many years and to touch one ..."

"Yes, Arthur, they do. They are for the amusement of babies. Without cleaning charms; they have to encourage their spawn to stay in the bathtub."

On their way to the front of the store, Snape noticed a tall woman surrounded by a crowd of women. "Okay, ladies, we just need three more then we can get that protest party going!"

The crowd surrounding her let out a collective squeal as they moved amassed towards the doors. Snape shook his head and sighed at the peculiarities of Muggles.

Thankfully, he and Arthur were nearing the door first. Suddenly a thought occurred to Snape. He belatedly wished he had discussed with Arthur about automatic doors.

"Arthur, just walk in—" he started to say as the door opened for them to pass through. Arthur stopped as if stupefied and simply stared. Snape was beginning to think that he would have perfected the art of sighing as a crowd began to line up behind the two wizards.

"Hey, mate, mind walking in any time soon?" a random fellow yelled. This seemed to break Arthur of the "spell" and he walked in, amazed as ever.

"Did you see that? The door just opened as if someone cast an "Alohomora!"

"Yes, Arthur, I saw it. Now come on. People are starting to stare," Severus replied as he grabbed a hold of the other man's arm to propel him forward and away from the doors.

It was not meant to be though as a loud screeching somewhat resembling a beep sounded.

"What in the Bloody hell is that sound?" asked Arthur as he reached into his pocket to draw his wand.

"Arthur, get your hand out of your pocket now!" Quickly locking eyes with the man, he hissed, "You're about to expose us in a building crawling with Muggles! As for the noise, it's just the store's security system, Arthur. It seems as if our cores have set it off. "

~Litterbox Xmas~

Harry had a rather strong impulse to bash his head against the counter, or a wall ... maybe even the floor, if his back hadn't been a bit stiff from hoisting boxes of inventory earlier that day. Either another idiot was trying to steal something, or one of his idiot coworkers still hadn't figured out how to disable the security devices in the merchandise. With a rather theatrical sigh (he felt he deserved to be a bit theatrical every now and then), he shuffled towards the doors.

As he looked up to see who was the most likely one to have set off the alarm, Harry's eyes widened in shock, his pace slowing to a halt. What are they doing here? he thought frantically. Before he could make a quick retreat, Mr. Weasley glanced up and spotted him.

"Harry?" the man said hesitantly.

Snape's attention snapped over to him, a faint sneer taking over his features. "Potter."

Harry bit back a groan. "Mr. Weasley. Professor," he greeted, his tone a bit strained. He asked quietly, "How did you find me here?"

"Find you here, Potter?" Snape scoffed. "I do believe it is you who found us." He looked like he was about to utter some cutting remark when he abruptly noticed the young wizard's attire. "Why are you dressed like that, Potter?"

In Harry's opinion, the answer to that was rather obvious, but he responded anyway. "I work here."

"You … work … here?" Snape asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, Professor, I work here. My relatives thought it was best if I helped 'pay back' all that was owed to them for my upkeep over the years and forced me to get a job. So, you see, sir" Harry nearly spat out the 'sir,' "I'm not the pampered prince you thought I am."

"Such cheek, Potter. It's a shame I can't take points as it is the Christmas holiday, but I'll be sure to remember it for next term.''

Harry gritted his teeth in attempt to bite off the comment on just where Snape could stick those points.

"Why are you here?" Harry asked through clenched teeth. No one else could piss him off like Snape could.

"Potter—" a new voice spoke.

Harry turned around slowly. To his alarm, it was his boss, Denise Price. The gravelly voice immediately set him on edge.

"Yes, madam?"

"Potter, we do not tolerate such rudeness to customers. If you don't want this day to be your last here, you will agree to be these fine men's personal shopper!" The dark-haired woman dared Harry to contradict her.

Being Gryffindor, he did just that, becoming fully aware of Mr. Weasley's pity and Snape's smirk, "But—"

"No buts, Potter, and I will see you in my office at the end of your shift!"

Harry groaned. If he was fired, his relatives would kill him. He wasn't quite sure anymore if he was exaggerating or not. "Yes, madam," he replied quietly, hanging his head. Well, he could do this. He was a Gryffindor after all. Turning towards the adult wizards, he said as politely as he could muster, "What can I help you find today?"

"Rubber duckies," Mr. Weasley nearly shouted.

Harry loved Mr. Weasley. Really he did. He was like a father to him, but at that moment he wished he could claim ignorance.

Walking towards the toy department, Harry tried not to grimace as the two wizards followed him. Snape looked more annoyed than he had ever seen from the Slytherin before, while Mr. Weasley was practically leaping with joy. It was horribly embarrassing to say the least that he knew both men. In fact, the minute they walked into the aisle with the infamous rubber ducky, a young child looked up and screamed at the sight of Snape.

"MUM! It's the grim reaper!" the child screamed before rushing out of the aisle.

"Charming place you work at, Potter," Snape sneered, throwing a vicious glare towards the retreating child.

"Well, we're here," responded Harry, pointing towards the little yellow toys. Exactly two seconds later, he covered his ears and prepared himself for an attack as a loud squeal erupted.

"WEASLEY, SHUT UP!"

That answered that question of who was squealing. Harry grimaced, glancing towards his best friend's father. Forget a bit embarrassing. This was beyond that. This was to the level of mortification times two million. He prayed for a second that something—anything would save him from this.

To Harry's relief, his mandatory radio he had to wear sounded. "Potter, we have a situation in the electronics department. Some girls fighting over the last copy of a CD. See to it." He gratefully pressed the speak button and informed security that he would be there in a moment. Even though he knew he was walking into a situation, he was sure it would be nothing. He had faced down the evilest creature of the century, fought dragons and lived to tell about it. Breaking up a fight between teenage girls couldn't be that hard. Also, it meant freedom—Mr. Weasley was still enthralled by the rubber duckies, and Snape still taping his foot, impatient to get the shopping completed. Harry turned to address the older wizards.

"I have to go. There's a situation in our electronics department. If you need any more help, anyone would be glad to help you," he repeated the line he'd been trained to say. He gave a brief smile and began to walk away—only to realize that the older wizards were following him.

"What?" Harry hissed, forgetting to watch his temper.

"We cannot willingly allow you to walk into a situation by yourself. It might be a trap," Arthur said seriously for first time that day.

"Eh, I doubt it. It's just a bunch of teenage girls, and I don't think Vold—" He stopped when he saw the death glare Snape shot his way. "I don't think HE would send teenage GIRLS to do his bidding."

"Ms. Weasley—"

"Ginny—"

Both adults started and stopped at the same time. Harry shook his head. "That was different. These girls are fighting over a music disc."

"All the same, Harry, we would feel better accompanying you." Mr. Weasley's voice was apologetic yet firm.

With a sigh, Harry nodded and led the way to the electronics department. Even from several aisles away, the swarm of girls was easy to see and hear.

"I want that!" one girl shouted.

"I had it first!" another yelled, trying to rip the round disc from the other's hand.

"OW, someone bit my ear, owwwww!"

"Don't you smack me, you little—"

"Get off of me. You're hurting me!"

Harry rushed over where he saw a crowd of at least twenty girls.

"Great, they need someone to break up a fight and they send the new guy," he muttered, barely heard over the roar of noise.

Harry wished he could cast Sonorus, or even a silencing charm on the lot. "GIRLS!" he yelled over the noise. Despite his yelling, no one heard. He then noticed Snape in the background, fingering something but that wasn't his concern at the moment. Harry tried to yell again, much louder than he normally did. "GIRLS!" Instantly, the noise died.

"One of you and only one of you, tell me what is going on!" Harry commanded, not unlike how he had to conduct some of the DA meetings the previous year.

A girl with flaming red hair, blue eyes marched over to him.

"There is only one Hanson: Snowed In CD left, and I got here first and picked it up!"

A girl with black hair smirked, "Yeah, but then you tripped and dropped it so it's mine now!"

The previous girl spoke again. "YOU tripped me on purpose and then all the other girls showed up." I think that girl over there," she pointed to a girl with brown hair who was crying and holding her ear, "got bit by that girl." Here she pointed to a blonde girl. "That girl immediately smacked her back. And then, that girl in the pink shirt was trampled, and her arm is now all at a weird angle."

Snape sighed heavily and walked over to the girl. He grimaced, recognizing a broken arm immediately. "Let me see your arm."

At the odd look the girl shot him, Snape calmly replied, "I have some experience with these sorts of things."

Still looking unsure, the girl allowed Snape to examine her arm. Running his hand over the girl's arm and casting a wandless Diagnostic Spell, Snape was able to see that indeed the arm was broken.

"Mr. Potter, do you think you could escort these young women to the front desk and see that they get someone to tend to their injuries?"

At this, the group of girls all started talking at once.

"But what about my CD!" the girl with the broken arm cried.

"Your CD! I saw it first!" snapped the brown haired girl.

"ENOUGH!" Snape roared, finally losing the little control he had on his temper. "You will ALL do as I say! You are lucky that you get to walk out of here on your own and not with a police escort!" With that he snatched the CD from the black haired girl and handed it over to the girl with the broken arm. "For your troubles, Miss," he softly spoke, being almost, well, nice.

"There's no need for either of these girls to walk away empty-handed." Arthur smiled pleasantly before casting a nonverbal and wandless Geminio spell. About twenty CDs magically appeared out of nowhere all around the electronics department. "Well, I'll be. There you go." Arthur's eyes held a familiar twinkle. "Now everyone can have one of those DCs."

Snape glanced at Arthur before shaking his head. Somehow, he knew this would come to bite him in the ass later. He just hoped it wasn't him that ended up in trouble this time. Turning towards Mr. Weasley, he had an odd look on his face as he spoke.

"Perhaps we should have Mr. Potter walk between us for his protection. After all, we wouldn't want anything to happen to the precious Boy-Who-Lived," the man said, spitting the last part out.

"What an excellent idea, Severus."

Harry, however, felt differently, but he knew it was useless to argue. With a sigh, he stepped forward. The trio of wizards resumed their quest; Snape and Mr. Weasley searched for any sign of danger, and Harry indulged in a pity party.

"First, I get lambasted by my boss, who is nothing more than a tattletale that runs crying to the Dursleys for every little thing," Harry grumbled, dragging his heels as he continued. "Then I get forced into escorting two grown wizards around to get a rubber duck, a sodding rubber duck!" His green eyes darkened slightly as he stared off at something. "Of course I'm the only one around here that has to do anything. So naturally I get called to break up a brawl over a lousy CD from a band of Malfoy clones."

Harry suddenly smiled at the brief mentioning of ferret boy. He wondered how the ferret would react to that observation. For several minutes later, he devised different scenarios of Draco's reaction, including one where he had let it slip to Lavender, Padma, and Parvati that Malfoy was a Muggle look-alike. Knowing the gossip trio, they'd probably end up telling the entire school that Malfoy came from a family of Muggles and really wasn't a pureblood. Forgetting all about where he was, Harry laughed out loud.

"Mr. Potter, certainly you do not find your inability to protect yourself from a group of mere Muggles amusing?" a languid drawl to his side said.

This jolted Harry out of his reverie immediately and brought him crashing back to reality. Snape was there. He had forgotten all about Snape. Instinctively, he looked up at the man.

"Um, no, sir," Harry quietly replied.

"Well, you must think it hilarious that Mr. Weasley and I are wasting our valuable time to follow you around, since you seem incapable of following even the simplest instructions."

"No, sir."

"By all means, Mr. Potter, feel free to share your little joke with us. We could certainly use some entertainment." The man's dark eyes bore deep into Harry's soul.

Knowing Snape would blow a cauldron if he found out what he was thinking, Harry quickly broke eye contact with the older wizard to avoid the man using Legilimency on him. Harry then picked up his pace as they passed through the clothing section and neared the pharmacy. Seeing the displays of the various prophylactics and other embarrassing items up ahead, he made a detour by turning down the nearest aisle to avoid them.

As much as he liked Mr. Weasley, after all the man was the father of his best mate and Harry's possible future father-in-law, Harry had no desire to answer the man's questions about Muggle family planning and feminine hygiene. This was especially true since they were in the middle of a store full of shoppers. In his haste to escape that disaster, Harry inadvertently created another one.

They made their way down an aisle that was filled with completely useless gift sets and As Seen On Telly items that no one in their right mind wanted. Well, Harry guessed unless they were affected with insomnia and were watching an infomercial at three in the morning.

Out of nowhere, the silence was broken as they walked past a giant display of the Christmas Edition Billy the Big Mouth Bass. All Harry could do was watch in horror at what happened next. Wands were drawn followed by.

"GIDDYI—"

"BOMBARDA!"

"REDUCTO!"

"NO! STOP!" Harry exclaimed as he tried to keep them from destroying the talking plastic fish on the shelf. His warning, however, came too late. Little flaming pieces of plastic shrapnel went flying through the air, littering the floor and the shelves.

"It's all right, Harry. I think we got them all."

Harry did a face palm.

"Mr. Weasley, that was a toy, completely harmless."

"Mr. Potter, that toy was anything but harmless. If the Dark Lord can possess a living being, it is certainly plausible that he could use an inanimate object like this."

"Professor, it turns on automatically. It isn't possessed."

"Surely, Potter, a spoiled prince such as yourself is quite familiar with Muggle toys and realizes that a toy like this requires someone to activate it."

"No it doesn't," Harry argued, glaring at Snape. Why did this man always have to be so argumentative? "It has a sensor that senses motion and when it detects the motion it starts singing."

"Really?" Mr. Weasley said excitedly.

"Yes, Mr. Weasley," Harry replied, trying to keep his groan at bay.

"The things that these Muggles dream up, just fascinating, absolutely fascinating."

"Arthur, I hate to interrupt this impromptu Muggle Studies lesson, but it appears we have some Muggles to obliviate." Snape's dark eyes glanced at the onlookers. The large crowd of shoppers and employees alike had gathered around, staring wide eyed and slack jawed at the Billy the Bass carnage all around them.

As Snape and Mr. Weasley spent the next several minutes obliviating the witnesses, Harry sank to the floor and wished he had his invisibility cloak. Couldn't some go right? Well, it could it seemed. Because when he glanced up, Snape was running off and Mr. Weasley was nowhere in sight. Shrugging, Harry decided that he had better things to do at the moment than to worry about those two.

~Litterbox Xmas~

A few moments later, Snape was almost to the toy department (where he just knew that pathetic excuse of a pureblood Weasley was) when something to his left caught his attention. His dark eyes darted towards the movement. Within seconds, he stopped dead in his tracks. It couldn't be—but—how? He watched the entire video as it looped through several times on the telly. The man looked eerily similar to himself. However, that man was … dancing, specifically dancing the tango with some unknown dark haired woman.

No matter what Snape did, he couldn't look away. It was eerie to see himself dancing. He hadn't done such since he had shared a dance with Lily when they were younger. Though, his dance with Lily was nowhere near as steamy and passionate as the current one projected on the telly. Without a doubt, though, he knew that the look he'd always had around his first and only love was the same look his doppelganger had.

Fifteen minutes later, Snape sighed heavily. The video had played over a hundred times, but the song echoed just as clear as it had during the first time he had watched. Had someone secretly captured him and Lily together when they were younger? However, his doppelganger was his current age, well, around his age so obviously not. Shaking his head, he pushed all his questions away. Watching this … obsessive and addicting video … wouldn't …

Closing his eyes, he attempted to glance away. However, his eyes returned a few moments later. Growling quietly, he wished for nothing but to destroy that stupid, addicting video that kept playing repeatedly sucking him in. He clenched his teeth as he watched his doppelganger danced once more with the dark-haired woman. Perhaps it was his mind playing tricks on him now, but she looked eerily similar to—

"No, dammit, I will not travel down that road," he growled to himself before rapidly rushing towards the toy department. He was going to drag that red-haired menace kicking and screaming if he had to. In his humble opinion, this place was evil! But first they had some items to purchase before they could return to the castle.