Albus smiled softly at the sound of the timid knock on his office door. "Come in," he called, placing the finishing touches on the tea he had laid out on his little table and chairs by the fire in his office. The house elves who had brought the tea service up to his office had been aghast at the thought of Albus doing such a thing for himself, that was their job and certainly the Headmaster Dumbledore Sir needn't concern himself with such little things, but Albus found it was the little things like this that were the most enjoyable. Besides, a person could forget how to take care of himself if he always let everyone else do it for him.

The door opened and Harry walked in, looking surprised that the sight of Albus sitting down to tea. Though Albus wasn't at all certain why; his note asking Harry to his office for a Christmas tea had been quite straight-forward, he thought. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes. Please, come join me," Albus replied, gesturing at the chair across from him.

Harry took the chair, still looking a bit uncertain. Albus supposed that was understandable; it could be a bit nerve-wracking as a student to be called to the Headmaster's office, even for a benign reason, and Albus hadn't been able to make nearly as much time for Harry as he would have liked since the term started. "I'm not in trouble, am I sir?" Harry asked.

"Of course not, whatever gave you that idea? I just find that tea is more enjoyable when you have pleasant company to share it with," Albus said, pouring them both a cup and adding a dollop of milk and liberal amounts of sugar to his own. "Do try one of the lemon squares; they're my favourites. Though I admit, I am rather partial to lemon."

"I actually really like chocolate," Harry confessed as he slid into his chair. Albus smiled at him at turned the platter so that the chocolate biscuits were facing him. Harry helped himself to two, as well as one of the lemon squares. Albus meanwhile took two of the lemon squares as well, and a few of the other goodies, and then they had a few quiet minutes while they both enjoyed their treats.

Albus made a point to never request any specific house elf for any specific task without an extraordinarily compelling reason, both because he wished to avoid any appearance of favouritism, and because he trusted them to know their jobs well enough to know which of them was best suited for any particular thing he might request. Despite that lack of requesting, and because they really were very good at their jobs, whenever Headmaster Dumbledore Sir ordered sweets (which was not nearly often enough in the house elves' view; if the portraits of Hogwarts were gossipy maiden aunts, then the house elves in the kitchen were grandmothers constantly fretting that their charges were far too skinny) the duty was always immediately given over to Lumi, who made the best lemon squares in all of Britain, and was quite accomplished at other puddings too. As such both Albus and Harry ended up cleaning their plates and going back for seconds - probably not good for Harry's long-term health, Albus acknowledged, especially after the rather large Christmas dinner they had enjoyed earlier, but it was Christmas after all, and the boy had had so few treats in his life - before either of them spoke again.

"How has your Christmas been?" Albus asked once they had both finally emerged from being engrossed in their treats.

It was the right question to ask. Harry fairly glowed as he enthused, "It's been brilliant; the best Christmas ever!" He happily related to Albus the events of the day, including a blow-by-blow recounting of the snowball fight he and the Weasleys had had earlier that afternoon, as well as everything else that he and the other boys had been up to earlier that week. "And I had a whole pile of presents at the foot of my bed this morning," Harry concluded, and Albus had to suppress the sadness that welled up within him by how amazed Harry sounded by this fact. "It was less presents than Dudley usually got, but all his are only from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, and maybe one or two from Aunt Marge, and I got presents from loads of different people."

"Presumably because there are ‘loads of different people' who care about you and wish for your happiness," Albus said. He assumed from the way Harry had said it that the boy had already put that together, but there seemed no harm, no harm and a world of good, in pointing it out.

Harry's cheeks pinked a bit and he ducked his head bashfully. "Yeah, I guess so."

Albus favoured him with a fond smile. "Go on then, I'm sure you're dying to share what all it is that you received."

Harry nodded, and launched into a description of his presents with as much detail as his recounting of the snowball fight earlier. A box of chocolate frogs from Hermione Granger and a book on famous Seekers in Quidditch history from Draco Malfoy - nothing from Ronald Weasley, but as he, unlike Hermione or Draco, had been stuck on Hogwarts campus for the holidays that was hardly surprising. A flute from Rubeus Hagrid, also not surprising given that Harry and his friends visited the man not infrequently. Molly Weasley had sent the jumper that Harry was currently wearing, as well as a tin of fudge, which Albus thought denoted a remarkable degree of restraint on her part. Albus had decided, after much deliberation and conferring with Poppy who had in turned conferred, anonymously, with a Paediatric Mind Healer from St. Mungo's, to give Arthur and Molly an overview of what Harry had experienced at the hands of his relatives. While Albus currently had no intention of trying to foster Harry with the Weasleys fulltime, as he didn't think Harry would get the special attention he needed and deserved in such a large family, he did hope that Harry would spend plenty of time with them to get a better experience of healthy family dynamics.

The revelation that Minerva had apparently given a box of Bertie Bott's to all the student in her House that had stayed behind over the break was surprising, but only momentarily. Minerva was far too fair-minded to single out any one child for a treat that had not been earned, even if she felt that the child deserved it, but there was nothing stopping her from giving out treats to all her charges. And Albus knew that she had been feeling almost as guilty as he had for what had happened to poor Harry, believing that she could have done more to convince Albus of the Dursleys unsuitableness as guardians. Albus had tried to tell her that, even during what most of the Wizarding World saw as their hour of triumph, he had been so worried about the potential danger to Harry both from a possible future return of the Voldemort and the very real and immediate threat of the Death Eaters still loose, that he likely wouldn't have listened to anything short of testimony that she had seen Harry's aunt and uncle blatantly abusing their own son, but that didn't seem to offer her any relief. Guilt was funny that way. That, and Albus thought that perhaps she doubted that he could ever be that panicked; people tended to forget that, whatever else he was, Albus was still just a person, and subject to the same follies and foibles as anyone else. Albus had used that to his advantage on occasion, but he also had cause to find it extremely inconvenient on others, and it was always a bit off-putting.

"But these were my favourite of everything I got," Harry said, pulling an envelope out of his robe. His tone was pitched as though he were confiding a secret, but Albus could have guessed it by the fact that it was the only present he was carrying on his person - aside from the jumper, of course, but that was likely a purely practical consideration as the castle could get very could in the winter, especially after one has just come inside from a snowball fight - which meant either that he was reluctant to leave it behind, that, despite his conspiratorial tone, he was eager to show it off, or both.

Harry reached into his envelope and pulled out a small stack of photographs, perhaps ten or fifteen in total. He placed them on his lap and picked up the first one to show Albus. "This one is from Neville and his Gran," he announced. He did not, Albus noted, actually hand the picture over, instead placing it on the table between them. Out of respect for Harry's obvious reticence on the matter, Albus did not attempt to pick the picture up or move toward him, instead leaning in closer to get a better view.

The photo depicted two women lying in adjacent beds at St. Mungo's with their husbands standing beside them and each with a baby in her arms. "That's Neville's mum and dad," Harry said pointed to the couple on the left, unnecessarily so as Albus had readily recognized the young Alice and Frank Longbottom. "And that's my mum and dad, with me." Harry continued, pointing to the other small family. The couple, upon hearing Harry refer to them, looked up briefly to wave at Albus and Harry, but shortly their attention was once again taken in by the infant in Lily's arms. They were quite absorbed, and no one looking at the picture could doubt how very much they loved their new son.

"Neville and I were born at the same hospital, only a couple of hours apart, and when we were real little sometimes our mums would let us play together," Harry told him. This too, Albus knew already, but he listened intently all the same and made no attempt to interrupt. Harry had spent his whole life only knowing his parents through other people telling him about them, and he seemed to be enjoying being able to inform someone else for a change, even if he was only passing on second-hand information. "Neville's gran's letter said she was sorry that the picture isn't just me and my mum and dad, and she would look some more to see if she could find any, but Neville really wanted me to have this one."

Albus felt a minor burst of surprise. To all accounts Neville avoided even the slightest mention of his parents. In fact, when Augusta Longbottom had sent in the Hogwarts acceptance letter for him, she had been quite clear that her grandson was very sensitive about the subject of his parents, and that no one should bring them up unless he did so first, and if anyone tried to tease him or pick on him for it, then the bullies would be punished, or she would be having words with the Headmaster. Augusta was a formidable woman; it was no wonder she and Minerva got on so well.

"That was very thoughtful of him. Mr. Longbottom seems a very good friend," Albus said.

"He is," Harry confirmed. "And I never had a picture of my parents or of me and a friend before, so I like that this one is both." Albus smiled at Harry, but he couldn't seem to say anything past the lump in his throat.

"Sir? Do you know if Neville's parents died too? Is that why he lives with his gran?" Harry asked.

"I believe that is something that I will leave to Mr. Longbottom to decide how much and when he wants to tell you. Suffice to say for now that they are not deceased, but are unable to take care of their son at the moment," Albus told him.

Harry nodded. "It's just that Mrs. Longbottom said that if I ever wanted to talk to Neville about my parents that he'd probably get it. That's why he wanted me to have the picture."

"Mrs. Longbottom is a very smart woman," Albus said. "You'd do well to listen to her."

Albus let the silence sit for a minute or two, not wanting to cut Harry off if had anything else to say, before prompting the boy again. "Did you want to show me your other pictures?"

"Oh, yeah," Harry said, reaching to his lap to grab the next one. "The rest of them are all from Professor Snape."

Albus was well past the point where he should have been no longer surprised by these little revelations, and yet he could not help but be amazed by the changes one little boy had wrought in Severus Snape. All the staff of Hogwarts - save perhaps Sybill Trelawney and the ghost of Cuthbert Binns, but those two were often off in their own little world - had tried at one time or another to drag Severus out of his shell, but he had spurned all attempts. Severus had always seemed... not happy, nor content, but comfortable, maybe, in his bitterness. Then Harry had come along. Albus wasn't sure if it was his connection to Lily or if he reminded Severus of his own less than idyllic childhood or if it was just that Severus found it much easier to open up to someone who needed to depend on him, rather than someone who expected Severus to lean on them. Whatever the reason, Albus was glad they had found each other.

The pictures were of Lily, of course, though much younger than she was in the other picture with the Longbottoms. In the first she looked barely more than nine or so, and she was completely arrested in time in it, as it appeared to be a Muggle photograph. She got progressively older as the pictures continued and after the first three she began moving in the pictures, having apparently learned how to develop magical photographs. With each picture Harry gave Albus a brief description of where Lily was, or what she was doing, and Albus began to suspect that, should he look at the backs of the photos, he would see Severus's cramped script.

Various other people appeared throughout the photos, Lily's friends and even her parents in two or three of them, but it wasn't until the very last one that Severus showed up. It was a picture of just the two of them out by the lake, taken sometime in their fifth year Albus would guess from their apparent ages. Severus was looking more than a bit gawky and so very much the surly teenager that Albus had to stifle a few chuckles. Lily looked up at them, smiling and waving, and gave Severus a poke in the side when he did not seem inclined to do the same.

"I think my mum was really pretty, don't you think, Professor?" Harry asked.

"Your mother was a lovely woman, inside and out," Albus assured him, and Harry sent him a beaming grin in response.

Now Lily was giving Severus a playful shove and he, making a clear show of his exasperation, gave a half-hearted wave up at Harry and Albus. But as soon as Lily turned her attention away from him, the exasperated expression dropped and he regarded her a look of such fondness and longing that not even young Harry could have missed it, though Albus suspected that some of the nuances of the feeling might have one over his head.

"Do you know if my mum ever forgave Professor Snape?" Harry asked, and Albus blinked up at him in surprise. "I'm not sure what he did, but I know it was something that made her really mad and not want to forgive him. But I think she must've eventually, because they were such good friends, right?"

Albus considered his next words carefully. The truth, that due to both needing to keep Severus status as a spy under tight wraps, and Severus's own insistence that he did not want Lily told any of the part he had played in both putting her family in danger and protecting them from it, Lily went her grave believing that her former best friend was a faithful minion to the man who had murdered her and her husband, and was about to murder her son as well, seemed far too harsh for an eleven year old boy. On the other hand, he did not wish to lie to Harry either. "I'm sure that, wherever your mother is now, she's looking down on Severus very fondly - when she's not watching over you, of course," Albus finally settled on.

Harry smiled, seeming satisfied with that answer. Then he turned back to his photographs, which had taken over most all of the table, despite a good amount of overlap.

"It's quite a collection you have," Albus said admiringly.

Harry nodded. "And the best part is, I showed them to Hagrid earlier and he said he would owl all my mum and dad's old friends to see if he could get even more, and find them an album to put them all in."

"That's thoughtful of him," Albus said, making a mental note to reach out and ask Rubeus if he needed any help tracking down those old friends. Come to think of it Albus might have one or two photographs of his own lying around somewhere.

That caused another idea entirely to occur to him, and after asking Harry if he wouldn't mind waiting few minutes, Albus excused himself back to his rooms.

Albus had only one picture of his entire family together, taken sometime shorty before Ariana's sixth birthday. The five of them all looked so happy in it that the picture often ended up face down in the back of his closet. But just as often it could be found on his bedside table, or on the desk in his office - it tended to migrate around a fair bit depending on Albus's mood. At the moment it was sitting on the mantle of the fireplace in the main room in his quarters, where he could look at it often while going about his business, without having to see their expressions too closely.  He wasn't sure anymore which was older, the photo itself or the plain wooden frame it was in, but the two had been together for at least ninety years now, ninety-three this August. Albus didn't know if so short a time was enough for a plain object to absorb ambient magic, or if such a thing was even possible without a deliberate action by a caster - the more he learned about magic, the less he seemed to know - but Albus tended to believe it was on both counts. And if the frame really did have some sort of latent magic for the remembrance of those loved and lost, then Harry needed now more than Albus.

So with a brief apology to the happy family, and a promise to buy a new frame in the future, Albus removed the photo and went back out to his office proper.

"It's not the most impressive present, but I believe you may have a use for this," Albus said, handing the frame over to Harry.

"Thanks, Professor," Harry enthused, taking the gift gladly. He set the frame aside for the moment, setting the picture of his family and the Longbottoms on top of it, before carefully collecting the rest of the photographs to put back in his envelope. He gathered them in chronological order again, this time with the one with the youngest Lily at the bottom, leaving the one with Lily and Severus for last. He stared at the photo for a long moment, and then glanced over at the frame and the photo of the two families biting his lip in consideration.

"How foolish of me," Albus said airily, summoning another picture frame of his from off a shelf. This one was not particularly special, though it was a fairly handsome one, silver with green accents that nicely matched the ribbon on his Order of Merlin, First Class, which he was receiving in the picture contained within. "I'm certain that with such a nice collection you're bound to have more than one photo you wish to have framed."

"But your picture," Harry protested.

Albus smiled at him. "At the risk of sounding immodest, I must confess that I've gotten so many awards over the years, I've forgotten what most of them are even for," Albus said conspiratorially, and Harry gave a snicker of amusement. "I like your pictures much better."

"Thank you!" Harry said, even more enthusiastic than before. He immediately placed the photo of Lily and Severus within, and then held it up for both their admiration. The green accents also proved a lovely match for Lily's eyes, as Albus suspected they might.

Albus allowed Harry a few more minutes to admire his pictures in their new frames before bringing up the last topic he wished to discuss. "I did have one more thing I wanted to give you."

Harry looked up at him with surprise. "But you've already given me two Christmas presents, sir. I don't need anything else."

"Well then don't think of this as a present so much as me returning something of yours. Your father lent it to me before he died, and it's high time it was returned to you." Albus reached under his chair and pulled out a parcel that was, despite his words, wrapped up much like a Christmas present.

Originally, Albus had been planning on leaving the gift anonymously for Harry, ostensibly because it was far too much to ask to expect an eleven year old boy not to get into any mischief whatsoever when given an Invisibility Cloak and, even if Albus personally believed a little mischief to be a healthy thing in a child his age, it wouldn't do for it to appear that the Headmaster was condoning such behaviour. There had also been, Albus admitted to himself, more than a little guilt in that decision. Albus wasn't sure if the cloak was quite big enough for two full-grown people to fit under it and move around, but certainly one adult, even an adult carrying a small child, would be able to use it to travel undetected. It seemed to Albus that it was his fault that Harry had grown up without either of his parents, and even the knowledge that there was simply no way to be sure of whether or not the cloak would have made a difference - they had all been so certain of the Fidelius Charm, and the attack had been so sudden - did little to alleviate his conviction. Guilt was funny that way.

After the revelation of Harry's home life, however, Albus had been reconsidering his original inclination toward anonymity. It was important now that Harry learned that not all the adults in his life were like his aunt and uncle and that there were ones who could be trusted to take care of him and to care for him. Of course, Severus was already making marvellous strides on that front, but as Albus had been such a large part of hurting Harry, even inadvertently, he wanted to be a part of helping Harry to heal too.

Harry, all of his reserve vanished at the mention of his late father, took the parcel and tore into it with all the gleeful abandon that Albus would typically expect to see in a child his age. It did Albus's heart good to see near tangible proof that Harry's capacity for joy had not been broken by his horrible relatives. Having ripped open the paper, Harry stroked a wondering hand over the slippery-smooth silver fabric before looking up at Albus, questions in his eyes.

"Trying draping it over your arm," Albus suggested.

Harry did so, then his eyes went wide when his arm disappeared. "Wicked," he said softly.

"Indeed," Albus agreed, his voice rich with fond amusement. "It is an invisibility cloak, a particularly fine one at that. It will, as the name suggests, render anything you place underneath it invisible."

After that Harry was quite eager to test the cloak out, using it on various pieces of furniture around the room and on his own body parts. Eventually Albus had to conjure a mirror, so Harry could see, or rather not, the results when he hid the whole of himself under it. Albus let the boy play, declining to do anything to refocus Harry's attention or speed him along and, as such, it was a good while later before Harry returned to his seat.

"I do wish to speak to you seriously for a moment," Albus said, and the boy nodded and looked at him attentively. "Now, under the circumstances I'm not going to forbid you to use the cloak on school grounds or even ask that you don't. All I want you to do is to keep in mind that the rules we have are here to protect you and the other students, and if you took advantage of the situation and ended up in harm's way because of it there are a large number of people who would be distraught, myself included. This is a very serious responsibility I'm giving you, but I think you can be trusted with it. Do you agree?"

"Yes, sir!" Harry said, sitting up straighter and obviously feeling very proud of himself and pleased. It had been something of a risk, giving him the invisibility cloak, but a calculated one and one that appeared as though was going to pay off. Trust was a two-way street, after all, and it would be unfair for them to ask Harry to trust them without showing that he was trusted in turn.

"You're very welcome. Happy Christmas," Albus said.

"Happy Christmas to you too, Professor. I hope you've had a good one," Harry said.

Albus looked at the boy in front of him who was, despite the horrors life had seen fit to bestow on him, safe, healthy, and above all, practically glowing with happiness. "Yes I have, Harry. A very good Christmas indeed."