”Severus Snape, how dare you disrespect me in this way? Had Albus been alive you would have indulged him long ago, but with me… with me you just…”
The shrill voice of Minerva McGonagall resonated through the dungeons and reached Harry’s, Ron’s and Hermione’s ears at the other end of the passageway leading up to the Potions classroom. They stopped and looked intrigued at each other. They had not once, in their six and a half years at Hogwarts, known Professor McGonagall to have set foot in the basement of the castle. Something very serious must be going on for her to seek Professor Snape out in person.
”I have begged you for days to perform that charm… coaxed you… offered you all kinds of incentives… and still you refuse. And now you tell me - in that waspish tone of yours - not to take it personally?”
Harry and his friends had approached further and could hear the headmistress draw her breath before she exploded in rage.
”How can I possibly not take it personally, when I know for a fact that you performed that magic - ungracefully, grumpily, I give you that - but you did do it, every Christmas, for more than ten years, for Albus’ sake! Why do you refuse me? What do I have to do?” Professor McGonagall’s voice rose to falsetto. At last Snape was allowed to reply.
”I’m not accountable to you for this, Minerva,” he hissed. ”This odious task is not listed in my employment contract. I have no obligation. As for me having performed the spell previous years, to humour Albus… well, let’s say that I have already fulfilled my quota of foolish wand waving by far and now - I have already told you - you must find somebody else to do it! Leave me alone, by Merlin! There are other wizards and witches in the country, no, for you to harass?!”
Snape spoke louder than he used to do, which betrayed some kind of emotion playing on his side as well. The former spy and reformed Death Eater was less controlled and more temperamental, in a healthy way, now that he did not have to practice Occlumency on a daily basis, since Voldemort fell. Harry did not know whether it was this fact, or his own maturing - Harry was eighteen now and not as easily provoked as he used to be - that made Snape appear in a different, more human, light to Harry. In any event , Harry found himself in possession of a newfound respect for his previously hated teacher that was in fact most probably caused by the revelations of Snape’s loyalty to Dumbledore and his former friendship with Harry’s mother.
”Severus, you know you are the only one who…” begged Professor McGonagall.
”Headmistress, please! NEWT students will be here in a few minutes for their last lesson before the holidays and I still have things to prepare. As I told you before, I am sorry I will not be able to oblige you, this once.” Snape interrupted Professor McGonagall in a stiff but polite voice and there was just the least little bit of pleading to it as well. The headmistress, on the contrary, was far from polite as she snarled a Gryffindor lion growl in farewell and rushed out of the classroom so suddenly she almost collided with Hermione.
”Pardon me, Miss Granger,” the fuming professor hissed impatiently and brushed past them, without granting them a look. They heard her lament to herself as she turned her back to them. ”How am I supposed to find someone else? What kind of Christmas will we have this year?”
Ron and Hermione followed her with wide eyes as she disappeared towards the stairs to the Entrance Hall, but Harry’s attention was engaged elsewhere. He had peaked inside the dungeon as soon as Professor McGonagall had sorted from there and had caught the Potions Master with a curious expression on his face. Harry stared puzzled at Snape. What was it… guilt? No - embarrassment was closer. Why? For being caught quarrelling with the headmistress, by his least favourite students? That did not make sense. Snape might be less gloomy as a free man, he still enjoyed antagonising people - he would not usually be ashamed of having a fight with Minerva McGonagall. Snape met Harry’s eyes and scowled at him. People were coming up behind Harry and soon the classroom was full of NEWT students settling down, arranging their cauldrons on their desks.