~~~HP~~~

Wednesday 24 December 1997

As Harry quickly learned, almost nothing put life into more perspective than checking into the AYA Oncology Ward for a week of chemotherapy, instantly ending any lingering animosity between Harry and Snape over the Defense book incident. And since Ron and Seamus's punishment of a two-day suspension - effectively forcing them into zeros for their final two days of exams - seemed to satisfy Snape, they said nothing else about it throughout the week.

Minus the seizures, which Harry, fortunately, did not experience this time around, his second round of Cycle B proved to be just as taxing on Harry's body as his first round. By his second day of continuous infusions, the teen had completely given up on all hope of being anywhere other than his hospital bed on Christmas Day, and based on how awful he felt when he woke up that morning - Christmas Eve, the last day of his actual chemotherapy infusions - he figured he'd be lucky to be discharged by New Year. Every single part of his body hurt in some manner or another, and the sores covering his mouth made eating nearly impossible, even if his nausea didn't threaten to upturn each drop he put into his stomach. His constant fatigue made a simple trip to the lavatory feel as if he was walking from London to Hogwarts, making his usual daily strolls around the ward floor flat-out impossible. He grudgingly left his bed only when Snape or his nurse urged him to get up and move somewhere, and he eventually limited those trips to the recliner by his window. But even those were becoming fewer and farther between as the days passed, and by the afternoon of Christmas Eve Harry still hadn't left his bed where he sat up watching Snape in the lavatory pretending not to be anxious about Mae's Christmas party in a matter of hours.

"You look nervous," Harry not so subtly pointed out, as Snape untied and re-tied his long black hair for the fourth time in the half-hour after returning from Spinner's End dressed in his muggle suit.

Snape stepped back to examine himself in the mirror, brushed away an invisible speck of lint from the shoulder of his navy suit jacket, and returned to Harry's bedside. His dark onyx eyes swept over Harry's body, wrapped tightly in his green bedspread from home, but he made no mention of his declining appearance. He didn't have to. Harry was already well aware of how he always looked just shy of death near the end of his inpatient treatments.

"That's because I am," Snape admitted, focusing on unnecessarily adjusting and smoothing down the blanket over Harry's legs, which Harry assumed was more for the professor's benefit than his.

"Why? It's not like you've never met someone's father before."

As oversimplified and childish as his question sounded, Harry genuinely wondered how someone like Severus Snape - double agent spy for two of the Wizarding World's most powerful wizards who had surely been in significantly more high pressured situations - could be so nervous about meeting a few muggles.

Snape's hands froze in mid-movement, leaving him holding the blanket at an odd angle above Harry's bare feet, almost tickling them. "The parents of my students hardly count as 'meeting the parents," the professor curtly replied. He placed the blanket back down over Harry's feet and leaned against the bed, finally making eye contact with Harry. "Frankly, I did not, and currently do not care about the opinion my students' parents have of me. My job as their teacher is to give them knowledge so they may become contributing members of wizarding society, and I do so in the manner I see fit."

"And you want Mae's dad to like you."

"Of course, I do," Snape proclaimed. "She may not be particularly close to either her father or her brother, but I suspect there are more than a few ways they can influence her if they wish me gone. I am nowhere near naïve enough to believe she would ignore concerns they might have regarding me, specifically if those concerns are about her safety in my presence."

Harry suppressed a threatening smile, not because he liked to see Snape so vulnerable, but because his words resonated with Harry's feelings about himself. Because as stoic and put together as the professor showed on the outside, his inner thoughts about himself weren't too dissimilar to Harry's - unworthy of love. Except, while Snape had enough anger to put anyone to shame, he was also intelligent and humble - Harry internally scoffed at this admission, wondering if he had spiked a fever to be calling any Severus Snape humble - enough to make a decent first impression if he wanted to.

"What about my mum's parents? It sounded like you spent loads of time with them." Harry had hoped his suggestion, though a gamble, would help ease the tension visible in the small muscles in Snape's face. Talking about Snape's relationship with Lily usually had that effect on the man. This time he was wrong.

"Oh yes," Snape frustratedly muttered, "meeting my best friend's parents at the age of nine is strikingly similar to meeting my girlfriend's estranged father as part of a serious, adult relationship."

Harry winced in pain as he pushed himself further up the bed, bending his legs out of Snape's reach. "You could use Legilimency on them." Harry ignored the professor's ' Harry you are being ridiculous' look, and added with a grin, "Then you can make sure you choose topics they'll be interested in talking about and you'll know the exact moment they decide they hate you."

The scowl Snape gave when Harry finished made it abundantly clear that he did not appreciate the joke. Thankfully, a knock on the door announcing Mae's arrival kept Snape from voicing any displeasure with Harry's suggestion.

"Who's ready to get this party started?" Mae rhetorically asked them, gently shutting the door behind her. Although Mae's hard, drawn-out emphasis on the first word reminded Harry of a bad television game show, her enthusiasm to be there instantly relaxed the air in the room, even more so when strolled into Snape's awaiting arms. "Don't you look dashing tonight."

Snape hesitantly eyed himself from his chest down to his feet. "Why thank you, although I do feel a little ridic-"

"I was talking about Harry," she sarcastically said, winking at Harry with a hint of a sly grin before planting a small kiss on Snape's pursed cheek. "You look fantastic too, Sev... We even match!"

Harry's brows furrowed, and he craned his neck to get a better look at her dress. Sure enough, the navy lace dress with three-quarter sleeves and a knee-length skirt matched Snape's suit so perfectly there was no way it hadn't been intentional when Snape had transfigured whatever set of wizarding robes into the muggle attire. The level of detail the man had put into the night was a testament to its significance and made Harry smile warmly.

"You know? You're lucky I love you." Snape tugged uncomfortably on the muggle suit's hem to help illustrate his point. "There are few things I dislike more than social gatherings during the holidays and wearing formal wear… of both the muggle and-" he glanced over his shoulder to the closed door, "- the wizarding variety."

"They're going to love you too, Sev. And not only because I love you." As Mae spoke, she adjusted his blue and silver striped tie in the same way Harry had seen done in Aunt Petunia's sappy romance movies. If they were anything to go by, after one or two messy, typically frustrating, misunderstandings - which hadn't Snape and Mae already have one - they ended with a marriage proposal. Not for the first time, Harry wished Snape and Mae would someday take that step. Even if they had only been dating for a few months, Harry had never seen Snape as happy as he was with Mae, and with so much of Harry's future left uncertain, he wanted to see Snape happy. After sacrificing his young adult years for the war, everything he did for the other Harry, and now putting his life on hold for Harry, Snape deserved something more in life than dark wizards and a dying, not yet adopted, child. Something truly his to build his life upon.

"Harry?" More than his firm voice, Snape's sudden proximity to Harry's head, told him he had missed something the professor had said… something important if the lines of concern across his forehead were anything to go by.

"Erm…" Harry closed his eyes to avoid seeing Snape's apprehension at Harry's confusion. "S'ry, what'd you say?"

When Snape didn't immediately respond, Harry cracked open one eye and immediately regretted it. The professor's expression had become more morose than Harry had seen it in a while.

"Perhaps I shouldn't go tonight." Snape's words, although not entirely unexpected to Harry, were uttered so quietly that it took him a few seconds to comprehend them, and another few to realize it wasn't whatever Snape had originally said to cause the issue in the first place.

"No." Harry adamantly stated, despite his raspy voice making it sound less confident than he wanted it to. "Go tonight, Severus. You're already dressed in the penguin suit, so you might as well have fun for once in your life. What are you seriously going to do here? Watch Christmas movies all night with me on the telly? You hate television. And lame Christmas movies.

"And," Harry continued, not allowing Snape to interrupt him, "if you're worried about something happening here, I have an entire team of people watching checking in on me all night long. But, honestly, if I can find a way to pass out tonight, it'll be the perfect Christmas Eve."

Harry was well aware Snape saw right through his unconvincing lie. He might not know how Harry spent his first five Christmases at Hogwarts - Harry wouldn't have told the old Snape anything about them - but he definitely knew their Christmas Eve at Shell Cottage spent decorating the tree with Dudley far surpassed his current night's plans.

Short-term loss, long-term gain. Giving up one Christmas in the hospital for a lifetime of them sounded perfectly acceptable, so long as he kept reminding himself of it.

"I'll be stopping by home after the party to change out of these stiff clothes and grab some last-minute things for tomorrow," Snape eventually explained, subtly agreeing to go out for the night. Instinctively, he handed Harry the glass of water from the tray next to his bed, which the young wizard took small sips from the straw, nodding his head at Snape's plan. "If things go well, I should be back shortly after midnight-"

"Hold it," Harry interjected, coughing hard from the cold water sneaking down the wrong part of his throat. "If you're already at home when the owls get there at midnight, I wouldn't exactly say the night went well."

"The owls?" Mae asked, a thick layer of skepticism laced in her.

Regardless of how receptive Mae was to learn about their unique world, her reaction to the more absurd aspects of their lives, such as their owl post, consistently amused Harry.

"It's how we mail things," Harry told her as if it were the most normal process in the world. "And on Christmas Eve, any owls delivering gifts usually show up around midnight on Christmas Day."

Mae wrinkled her nose, pondering her level of trust in him to tell whether he was leading her on. "Seems a bit inefficient, don't you think? To use an animal that can't read? How does it know where to go? What if it needs to stop to rest? Where does it leave the post if you're not home? Who feeds them? Or are they expected to find their own food?"

Harry had to grab his side when a sharp pain spread across his abdomen because of his hard chuckle over her perfectly logical questions. "Trust me," he choked out, "there are so many stranger things for you to spend your energy worrying about. With the owls, they seem weird at first, especially seeing them during the day, but then you learn to… I dunno… accept… that they exist and know what they're doing. And I'm sure it's probably someone's job to train them. Or maybe they enchant them?"

Snape shook his head disappointedly. "Had you bothered to pay any attention in History of Magic - yes, I am aware we have already discussed your issues with the course - however, had you listened, you would know owls are both trained and enchanted," Snape lectured, throwing Harry into a memory of being back at school - certainly not in any of Snape's classes - or listening to Hermione ramble on during her early years. Hermione's know-it-all attitude seemed to have diminished significantly when she and Draco began dating, or at least towards Harry; he had no clue how she acted during classes anymore.

"Now," Snape sighed, bringing them back to the topic at hand, "are you sure you're alright with my leaving for tonight?"

Harry could have tried to verbally reassure the man again, but knowing it would fail, he made his point by dramatically grabbing his copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy off his bedside table and opening it to his bookmarked page; one far too early in the book given how many attempts he'd made to read it before his mind inevitably wandered or blanked out. If Snape knew he was lying about reading, he didn't call Harry out on it. He simply dipped his head, then went over to his makeshift bed under the window to retrieve a shopping bag. To hide the bag of gifts, he hastily threw his coat over the arm holding the bag. But, unfortunately for Snape, it didn't cover it completely, giving Harry a perfect view of the boxes wrapped in the same sparkly, brightly coloured wrapping paper - complete with matching ribbon and bows - one would see in the Christmas films Harry would have on all night. The exact kind Snape liked to mock relentlessly.

"Nice wrapping," Harry taunted, another way to show the professor he was fine being alone for the night. "Did you do it all yourself? Tied the little bows and all?"

"Do not wait up for me. I will not wake you should you be asleep when I return," Snape quipped, and Harry had the sneaking suspicion he planned to use a silencing charm on his feet.

After three too many goodbyes and a quick kiss from Snape on Harry's hat-covered head, Harry was finally alone. Trying not to think about how much he missed his friends, he swapped out his book for the television remote and flipped through the channels until he settled on an old black and white Christmas movie he couldn't remember the name of. Yes, his night was already shaping up to be just as depressing as he had predicted.

Think of next Christmas, Harry. Next year, you'll be better.

~~~SS~~~

"Does this thing, supposedly passing for a vehicle, actually run?" Severus asked incredulously as he stood beside Mae in front of the oldest, tiniest, partially rusted red automobile he had ever seen in his life. Presumably Mae's, he now understood why she chose to walk everywhere. "Pardon me, let me rephrase… does it run safely?"

Mae yanked open the door behind the driver's seat, tossed in her purse, and signalled to Severus to set his bag of gifts and the bottle of the newly muggle-labelled, elf-made wine onto the floorboard with hers.

"Listen, the options were pretty slim," she stated emphatically, with a hint of amusement in her tone. In her tight dress, the way she leaned her back against the closed door and cocked her hip at the perfect angle nearly convinced him to reconsider skipping the party entirely and going back to her place. Regrettably, her no-nonsense face clearly said that she wouldn't agree with his suggestion. "I already felt bad for forcing you to wear a suit tonight, which I can clearly see how uncomfortable it makes you. So… since I didn't fancy adding a public bus ride out to Ansridge and back, I asked my neighbour to borrow her car for the night. And yes-" she raised her hand to stop his repeated question regarding the vehicle's working condition, "-for the most part it works fine and is safe. I've borrowed it loads of times from her in the past."

Severus eyed her warily. "Would this neighbour happen to be the elderly one next door?"

He watched her brown eyes dart between his, filled with memories of the terrible night he had met the woman - their fight, his magic, and the shattered window - and the excruciating week following it. As much as he hated to reopen those wounds for her, something about the neighbour felt important; more so than her claims of keeping an eye out for Mae and Jessica, and he had been far too complacent recently to ignore it.

"Mrs Carmichael?" Mae asked, and Severus made a point of memorizing the neighbour's name to research later. "Yes, this is her car. But for what it's worth, she rarely uses it, except for when she lends it to me or Jess on occasion." She ran her hand along the roof. "Does it matter whose car it is?"

"No," Severus blatantly lied. In his former line of work, he had to be cautious of every single item offered to him, and given what he had learned from Jugson and Gibbons, he wasn't exactly ready to abandon the habit. However, the last thing he wanted to do was scare Mae, or ruin such an important night for her, so rather than belabouring the origins of their chosen vehicle, he closed the distance between them, placed a kiss on her cheek - pausing a moment longer than necessary to take in the sweet scent of her perfume - and whispered, "I appreciate your forethought into my comfort for tonight. If you ever want me to apparate us, the next time we go somewhere unknown to me you can give me the address and I will practice ahead of time."

"I'll keep that in mind, Severus Snape." With each spoken word, she flirtatiously walked her fingers up his arm until they reached his face, where she smoothly ran her hand down the side of his freshly shaven cheek. Again, her touch tempted him to cancel the evening, but a quick pat on his cheek dispelled any notion. "Let's get going. I'd hate for your tardiness to be my father's first impression of you. Trust me, you'd never live it down."

"Lovely," Severus grumbled, opening the driver's door for her to get in, and then entered the vehicle himself on the other side.

The interior of the vehicle - if it could even be called that - with its dusty cloth seats and unidentifiable, stale odour did little to reassure him of its dependability. A slight wave of his wand through the air instantly removed the odour, to at least set them up for a slightly more pleasant journey. Regrettably, creating any additional leg room would require too much magic that he'd have to remember to undo before Mae returned it to her neighbour, so he'd have to deal with his legs cramped into the small space in front of him.

All settled in, he waited for Mae to start the car. After a full minute of his girlfriend staring blankly out the front windscreen, he cautiously asked, "You know how to drive this thing, correct?"

His question jolted her out of her trance. "Oh damn! I knew I had forgotten something important!" She exclaimed, hitting the driving wheel with both hands, then hitting his upper arm more playfully. "Of course, I know how to drive! I'm just… thinking…"

"About how to get there?"

She rolled her eyes at his second ridiculous question. "I know how to get to my childhood home, thank you very much." Turning to face him, the seriousness in her eyes heightened every bit of anxiety he already felt about this event. "It's… I'm not sure what to expect tonight."

"At the party?" She nodded slightly. "I suspect it will start with some sort of meal and drinks, and possibly Christmas activities like those silly crackers… although I'm certain they're less festive than our variety-"

"I've never brought a date," she rapidly confessed.

The shakiness of her words, especially coming from someone who was usually so sure of herself, on top of the way she entangled her fingers in her lap ironically eased all of his previous distress. Suddenly, his goal of pleasing her father became secondary to making the night as easy as possible for his girlfriend. While there were plenty of moments in his life where he thought about how things would be different if his parents were still alive, he had never considered how he'd feel about introducing a date to them. He'd likely try to avoid it as long as he could, forever if possible. One look at Tobias Snape would send any of Severus's potential dates running for the hills, never to return. But Mae didn't have, nor did she want that option. She wanted her family to approve of the man she was bringing over and was just as nervous about their reactions as him.

"My father has never met any of my boyfriends," Mae added to break the silence. "When I lived at home, I was too busy to date and then we didn't speak for years, so unless it was a serious, serious, relationship… which there weren't any… I had no reason to tell him about who I was seeing. It's safe to say, I wasn't exactly open about my personal life back then. But now he wants to meet you… and I want him, and Bobby, to meet you too. This is new territory for us all."

Severus took a moment to absorb the gravity of her admission. He was about to enter an unknown environment, one that wasn't hostile, yet not exactly friendly either. Furthermore, her invitation - or more specifically, her father's request to meet him - held its own significance. What had she told her father about their relationship to prompt his interest?

"I'll behave," Severus said, more to cheer her up than to reassure her against any bad intentions on his part. He took her hand in his and squeezed it lightly. "Everything will be alright. While I cannot claim to know the specifics of your relationship between your father and brother, I do know that most families do not invite guests strictly to ridicule. There are few I can name as exceptions, however, I am confident that you would not be you if your family fell into this category.

"Also keep in mind that until last year my life literally depended on my ability to adapt to a variety of, typically extremely strenuous, situations. And I held my own through all of them, or I would not be here tonight. I promise you, I will do everything in my power to make tonight as painless for you as I can. There will be others attending outside of your brother, his wife, and your father, correct?" Mae responded with a rapid nod. "Perfect. We can use them as buffers if things go south, or as a cover to sneak away should it become disastrous. I doubt it will come to that. The most likely scenario is your family and I will have a cordial visit and you'll leave feeling relieved, and perhaps a little contrite about worrying over the whole thing."

Mae sighed. "You're right, Sev, I'm probably making a big deal out of nothing." She lifted their hands to kiss the back of his. "Let's get going."

The hour-plus drive out to Ansridge turned out to be far more relaxing than Severus could have ever imagined. Having not driven in a muggle vehicle since his childhood, it took the first quarter-hour for him to trust Mae's ability to drive and calm down enough to watch the changing landscape out the window. With nothing else to distract them, he enjoyed their lighter conversation, reminding him of their earliest dates - the ones prior to Harry's relapse and their row. Now they mostly saw each other in passing, if at all, and shared meals in the hospital cafeteria. A wave of immense gratitude washed over him as he peeked over at his girlfriend driving. So many others, especially witches with no ties to the muggle world, would not have stood by his and Harry's side through this; through their hurried weekday phone calls because he couldn't get away and their non-existent private dates. She didn't have to stay with him, and neither he nor Harry would hold her leaving against her. But she hadn't left, and her feelings towards him never faltered.

During the few lulls between their conversations, Severus used the quiet to sort through the tidbits of information Mae had given him about her father, and he added those to the research he'd conducted on his own. Now in his mid-fifties, Alan Scott owned the local bookstore, In a Faraway Land, that he and Mae's mother, Carol, opened during the first year of their marriage. Leading up to the diagnosis of Carol's brain tumour, the couple grew what started as a small book stand on the corner into a thriving brick-and-mortar store where the couple knew their customers by name and specialized in sourcing rare texts for the local community college. The store, and the couple, were a pillar of the community, holding food drives and charity fundraisers, including an annual books drive for children in foster care. Public records of the bookstore property showed Alan had listed it for sale the year of Carol's death - which coincided with Mae's story of his newfound devotion to a career in cooking - but the business never officially sold. Instead, Cheryl Scott, Alan's sister and the youngest of the four Scott siblings became a co-owner and took over running the store in her brother's absence. Alan returned to the bookstore at some point in the last decade, and five years ago, the brother and sister purchased the adjacent store and opened a small cafe alongside the bookstore.

Books. If all else failed in his attempt at creating some semblance of a bond with Alan, he could always fall back on his vast library - the muggle parts, naturally - for conversation topics.

The miles passed by quickly, and before Severus knew it, the bustling streets of Guildford had been exchanged for a charming neighbourhood in Ansridge. Mae made a dozen more turns through the winding, quaint streets, finally pulling into the drive of a detached, two-story home resembling a cross between the Dursleys' impersonal house on Privet Drive and Mae's charming brick Guildford flat; definitely unlike anything found in Cokeworth. From the car, he could see through the front picture window, framed with twinkling Christmas lights, directly into the sitting room where six or seven people were gathered around, drinks in hand, and animatedly conversing among themselves. A medium-sized Christmas tree sat between the sofa and a long, dark wooden table that was already covered with trays of sweets The modest ornaments and light adoring the branches told the tale of a man who no longer decorated for the sake of young children, but, unlike Severus, still strived to have Christmas spirit throughout his home. A visible roar of laughter, which Severus could not hear from his position in the vehicle, reminded him of how he imagined Lily's family celebrating the holiday; complete with him longingly staring in from the outside.

"Well, we're here," Mae nervously announced, yet she made no move to exit the car. "Listen, Sev, it's not too late to back out. Yes, my dad has already seen the car pull up and everyone is standing at the window pretending not to be watching us."

Severus glanced over his shoulder towards the house again. Indeed, the people he'd seen scattered around the room a moment ago were now in a line at the window staring attentively at the car.

"Believe me-" she followed his line of sight, "-as long as it's dark inside the car, they can't actually see us in here. Plus, my dad won't recognize this car, so we can drive off… pretend we were just some tossers at the wrong house. They'd never know."

"This is your family, Mae. Rest assured, I would not be here if I was not all in on this relationship and everything that comes with it, including your family." Slowly, so as not to frighten her, he reached across her to pull the door handle open, triggering the little light above them to illuminate. "There. Now they can see us." With no hesitation, on his way back across her, he stopped to kiss her. "And now they have something to gossip about when we ring the bell."

In the stark contrast of light above to the dark night outside, Mae had no chance of concealing the deep flush creeping up her cheeks. "Bold move, Mr Snape. Not really one I would have made, but it's your bed to lie in."

As he exited the car, Severus chuckled when he noticed their audience immediately looked away.

"You're thirty-four years old, Mae, is it really necessary to hide the physical aspects of our relationship from your family?" Severus asked, waiting for Mae on the walkway leading to the front door; their bag of gifts in his left hand and the bottle of elf-made wine in the other.

"Tell me, do you want to think about Harry having sex, even when he's in his thirties?" She countered, brushing by him on her way to the door without so much as pausing to hear his response. From the front stoop, she taunted, "Are you coming or afraid to walk the walk after all your talk?"

Severus did not speak as he approached his girlfriend's side, regretting his decision to cast the first stone and wondering what the hell he had got himself into. The door opening less than a second after Mae's knock did nothing to alleviate those emotions. Nor did the swarm of people who all at once invited them inside, took their coats, and the bottle of wine, commenting on the unfamiliar brand.

At least a dozen people greeted them as they were ushered into a modest, plain sitting room; all introduced as either neighbours, friends, or employees from the bookshop and cafe, and Severus doubted he would remember all of their connections no matter how closely he listened to the rapid-fired list. Bobby, Lauren, Alan - who shook his hand with an apology for the brief introduction and promised to catch up during dinner, then rushed into the kitchen to continue cooking - and Cheryl, were the only four faces he committed to memory. They were the most important, after all.

Cheryl, who appeared to be just as interested in him as Mae's brother and father, handed the couple a red drink in the same champagne flute as everyone else and said, "Severus. That's such a unique name. Is it a family namesake? Or perhaps you're named after someone historical?"

"As far as I know, my given name does not come from anyone in my family." Severus took a tentative, yet polite sip of his drink - a tart cranberry and champagne concoction, not to his usual taste but certainly palatable for the evening. "I can name several Severus throughout history… bishops and a Roman emperor or two, however, it would give my parents far too much credit to attribute my name to any of them."

Cheryl smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "If that isn't a loaded answer, don't know what is. I'll give you credit for the historical references." She toasted her glass to Mae. "You've found a good one."

"I think so too." Mae wrapped her arms around his waist, effectively undoing any reaction from their conversation on the walkway up. "Aunt Cheryl is a history aficionado. She taught world history in Cambridge before coming to help dad at the shop after mum died."

At the mention of her mother's death, the air in the room did not stiffen like whenever Severus thought about his first son. The three family members simply smiled sadly and looked towards the tree - more sparsely decorated than Severus had originally thought - in a moment of remembrance of the past joyful Christmases they all shared. Severus could only hope that one day time would heal his pain, allowing his happy memories to prevail over his tragic ones.

Overall, Severus escaped the cocktail hour relatively unscathed. He found himself in good company, surrounded by either other educators or bibliophiles who worked at the bookstore, leading to a debate on Chaucer's portrayal of marriage as a power struggle. Seamlessly, Severus slipped into his muggle persona as the chemistry professor at a prestigious London boarding school, able to enthusiastically weigh in on Cheryl's plight of the next generation of British children, with Lauren adding in a few anecdotes from her five-year tenure at a nursery school. If anyone were to ask him, it was quite enjoyable to be speaking with a group of adults about topics so mundane they'd never stand a chance in his other social circles, against Death Eater activity, new potion breakthroughs, and Harry's illness. Nevertheless, as the newcomer to the social group, the conversation kept returning to Severus, or his relationship with Mae.

"Where did you two meet?" A dark-haired woman, a neighbour somewhere between Severus and Cheryl's age whose name Severus could not recall, asked. "Alan says Mae is constantly working. Proud of this one, he is-" she pointed with her nearly empty glass towards Mae, causing her to cover her face with her hands, "-but he worries she's missing out on the good parts of life."

"And who says a woman needs a man to have a good life?" Cheryl spoke up, propping her fists on her hips and feigning insult. "No offense, Severus."

"None taken," Severus replied with a small shake of his head.

"So?" The woman urged again, pushing herself to the edge of her seat, "where did you meet?"

Severus licked his lips and peered down at Mae, seated in the crook of his arm on the sofa. She raised her eyebrows in response, silently admitting that she did not know how to proceed without bringing up Harry, a topic Severus had previously requested she avoid. How could he have overlooked such a fundamental aspect of their relationship in his meticulous planning for the party? Obviously, they would be asked how they met! It was one of, if not the, first questions posed to any newly introduced couple. He was fortunate to have made it to this point without it coming up.

And what, if anything, had she told her father about them? Whatever he said here wanted to correlate to whatever she told him previously, otherwise the others could catch them in a lie. Perhaps Mae's distance from her father didn't warrant the specifics of how she met her current boyfriend - during her shift at the infusion centre, and him being one of the patient's fathers?

"We met over the summer in Guildford. I asked him about his… tattoo," Mae rescued him, conveniently keeping the location vague. She nestled herself flirtatiously into his side and confidently continued, preventing anyone from asking to see his Dark Mark, "Then we ran into each other again about a week later, and I gave him my number. You would have thought a woman had never given him her number. It took you what-" she squinted up at him, "-two weeks to finally call?"

"Two weeks?!" The women around the room collectively exclaimed.

"In my defense, I had to go out of the country a day or so later," Severus stated matter-of-factly. "For a friend's wedding in France, to be exact."

"Mhmmm," Mae teased, lightly elbowing him in the ribs. Notably missing from her banter surrounding the start of their relationship was her original assumption that he was up to 'super secret spy stuff' instead of the wedding. He suspected knowing how closely it related to his actual life made the comment substantially less entertaining to retell.

"But," she continued, never breaking eye contact with him, "he did call, and while I was all ready to play hard to get-"

"Ready to?" Severus's exaggerated interjection earned him more than a few giggles throughout the room. "Let's just say it wouldn't have surprised me if you found a way to send objects through the phone just so I could physically feel the sting of your words."

She swatted him in the chest. "Don't you think you're being a touch over dramatic?"

Out of nowhere, a low voice from the dining room added, "Mae has always had a commanding way with her words… could convince you of almost anything. You best be careful with this one, Severus." Severus shifted to the left to see Alan standing by a fully set table with a short glass of amber liquid held tightly in his hand. "I used to tell her mother she'd make a great solicitor someday, but Carol… she knew Mae's heart was meant to help people… to help children. And, as usual, Carol was right."

Mae's face softened at her father's kind words and no one dared to interrupt such an obvious pivotal moment between the formerly strained father and daughter.

"Dinners ready, you lot," the man transitioned. "We've got a choice of mulled wine, Severus's red, or Myra's Christmas Punch. But I'll warn you, one whiff of the punch will probably knock you down for the night. Oh, and cola or juice for those who cannot, or choose not, to drink."

Lauren humbly thanked her father-in-law while patting her growing bump as they all made their way into the small dining room.

Reminiscent of the crowded Weasley meals, the dinner table was so crammed with dishes, food, cups, and bowls that it seemed physically impossible to fit their group around it. Nonetheless, whereas the Malfoys would huff at the proximity of the place settings to accommodate everyone, claiming it was far from acceptable, Severus did not mind the close quarters. Growing up as an only child in a household that barely had enough money to properly feed them meant their small table was rarely filled. Conversely, in his adulthood, the high table at Hogwarts expanded to fit however many faculty members attended the meals on any given day, while at home it was just him and Harry. So, although being sandwiched between Mae on his right and the gentleman who lived across the street on his left might have made the professor nervous in the past, he allowed himself to become immersed in the Scott Family - and their plentiful of friends - for the night.

"Severus," Alan said, no less than ten minutes into the meal, casually turning the table's attention back to Severus, "I hope we're not causing too much trouble by keeping you from your family this Christmas. Do they live around here?"

Severus took his time swallowing back the bite of dinner had just taken before beginning his well-crafted muggle biography of Severus Snape. "I grew up in a small town in Midlands, where I still live during the summer hols. Unfortunately, I have no siblings, and my parents are no longer living-"

A small, sorrow-fill gasp from Lauren across the table halted his well-rehearsed story. Feeling everyone's eyes on her, she muttered, "It must be lonely to spend a holiday without close family. I'm so sorry."

"It's been nearly twenty years since they passed," he explained, deciding the passage of decades was a better excuse for his ambivalence towards his parents' death than admitting their 'unloving' nature during his childhood. "Now I spend my holidays with…" Severus paused at his near slip of mentioning Harry. "I spend it at the school supervising the children who do not go home for the holiday."

"So you spend the day all alone?" Lauren solemnly asked.

"Not always. Some years I join my colleagues at the faculty party on Christmas Eve," Severus lied. His counterpart - and himself before Harry - avoided those events at all costs, choosing to spend as little time around other people during the breaks as possible. He knew better than to say any of that to his current audience, not if he wanted to leave a halfway-decent impression. "And on Christmas Day, the school transforms our dining hall into a small feast for the stragglers, which is attended by all. I'll admit, it makes for a quiet, uneventful holiday, but they need someone to chaperone the children, and having no family of my own to celebrate with, it's the least I can do."

Mae gently grasped Severus's hand on top of the table, understanding the unspoken meaning behind his words; how he had once been part of the 'stragglers' but tonight he longed to be with a child he couldn't speak about to practical strangers. Alan observed Mae's action with a curious eye, an action that did not go unnoticed by Severus.

In the hour after dinner, the guests returned to the sitting room to open Christmas crackers, which Severus had been correct in assuming they would be significantly less entertaining than the wizarding type, while nursing another round of drinks and passing around a platter of cookies courtesy of a neighbour who had lived four houses down since Mae was a child. Severus listened attentively to her tales of the young, timid but bold child who, one summer, believed the tree in her front garden was the home of fairies and camped out under it for three nights straight hoping to see their magic. The irony was not lost on Severus in the slightest. Alan added his own colourful perspective of Mae's childhood, one Severus was relieved to hear bore no resemblance to the horrors of his, at least until Carol's diagnosis. The family never mentioned those years, but based on his own experience with grief and the aftermath of Mae's relationships, he knew it had torn them apart and they were still rising from their ashes, attempting to rebuild their life. And by the time Alan transitioned from family stories into a heated discussion with Greg, one of the marketing associates, about the advertising decisions for their next author signing, Severus wanted to be part of this family; wanted for him and Harry to be a part of this family.

When the author signing debacle escalated into an argument over the first quarter's Teas from around the World schedule, and Mae became preoccupied with baby shower planning with Lauren and Bobby, Severus slipped into the kitchen to refill his empty wine glass. But he never made it. Along the corridor wall outside of the kitchen was a series of photographs giving him a window into the girl who grew into the woman he loved - a formal family portrait in front of a plain light blue background where Mae looked to be around eight years old, an early teenage Mae and her younger brother in front of a more extravagantly decorated Christmas tree, and a ten-year-old Mae dressed in a deep purple tutu and ballet slippers, holding a bouquet of pink and yellow flowers with a tentative smile on her face; the same one dripping in sarcasm that Severus saw too often in his preteen students. Severus leaned in towards the last picture to get a closer look, curious why Mae had never mentioned dancing to him.

"She absolutely loved ballet… all forms of dance, actually… and was so graceful up on stage," Alan said from behind Severus. He gestured to the photograph Severus had been looking at. "That one was at her recital the year before she started pointe. She was furious with me for wanting to take a picture of her in front of her friends, and this was the best smile we could get out of her. The fact that I had been out of town at a conference and almost missed it because of a delayed train probably didn't help."

"Knowing Mae, I can only imagine her reaction."

Alan snickered. "She threatened not to speak to me for a week, but I could see the appreciation in her eyes… even during this embarrassing picture."

He offered one of the two short glasses in his hands to Severus. Graciously, Severus accepted it and, more out of habit rather than fear of poisoning, sniffed the liquid - Scotch - before taking a sip. Alan's eyes narrowed at the action but did not comment on it. Severus whispered "thank you" as he lifted the glass for a second sip.

Alan stood a full step behind Severus - a position that the former spy despised - as they continued to examine the photographs on the wall, Severus filling in the gaps of Mae's childhood and Alan reliving the days each one was taken. The awkward silence stretched on, broken first by Alan with a sentence that sent a chill down Severus's spine. "Mae tells me you have a foster son."

Severus stiffened. It truly should not have surprised him so much. The man had invited both him and Harry tonight, but he hadn't expected to be caught so off guard by it. Suddenly, Severus felt unnerved by Alan's scrutinizing glare, and he wondered about what Mae had said about his relationship with Harry, and her explanation for the teen's absence.

"You could say that," Severus replied, remaining purposefully vague and nonchalant about the situation. But in a move Severus had practically mastered, Alan's lack of response left Severus desperate to fill the heavy void between them. And he did. "It's nothing official. One of my students needed a guardian and seeing as his mother and I were good friends growing up, I offered to help him."

Alan slowly nodded his head, sipping his scotch. Severus gladly mirrored him sip for sip. "My mistake then." He frowned. "Mae made it sound serious."

"I certainly do not take my guardianship responsibilities of the child lightly," Severus backtracked a bit. "We've grown close over the past year, and given his current circumstances, he knows he has a home with me for however long he wishes. I suspect he'll choose to stay with me even after he turns eighteen this summer. As you can imagine, it's difficult being alone, no matter what the law says about the age of majority."

"And here I thought most teenagers were begging to leave home. I know Robert was when we moved him to uni." Alan pointed to a picture further down the wall of Bobby in front of a regal stone structure that could have been Hogwarts. "So, Mae has met him, then? Your foster son?"

"Yes. They're actually becoming quite close, having bonded over a shared love for a video game… something with a kart. A month or so ago, she introduced him to it and now they constantly play it whenever they see each other," Severus replied fondly, unaware of the mistake he made in mentioning how often the two saw each other until Alan's next comment.

"I didn't realize boarding schools allowed outside visitors."

"I beg your pardon?" The professor asked, slow to make the connection between Mae and Harry's meeting at his place of employment rather than hers. "Oh, no… they met at-"

"There you are, Sev!" Mae exclaimed, wrapping her arms around him from behind and saving him. "I hope you're not trying to scare Severus away, Dad. He's made it this far, I think he'll make it the rest of the night."

"He's fine." Severus waved off her worry, silently thanking her for her timely arrival. He pointed to her recital picture. "You never told me you danced as a child."

"Oh...well it wasn't a big thing for me." She shrugged, but Alan's expression exposed her lie. "Uh… Dad… Matty's been looking for you. I think he's heading out and… he has… something for you… didn't say much else."

"Very subtle, Mae. I'll take it as my cue to leave." Alan gave the couple a thorough once over then left them alone in the corridor to a background of Christmas music floating around them.

"Congratulations," she said, gesturing her head to the glass in Severus's hand. "I think it's a solid sign my dad approves of you."

Severus eyed the empty glass debating if there were enough remaining droplets for him to magically refill it. He determined yes, but he couldn't do so wandless and therefore settled for swirling them around the inside edge of the glass. "What would he have brought if he had not approved?"

Mae dramatically tapped her index finger onto her closed, red lips. "He definitely would have brought you Myra's punch hoping you'd get drunk and make a fool of yourself."

"Interesting. What does Scotch mean?" Severus inquired, an eyebrow arched in anticipation.

"He respects you."

"What can I say? I must have a way with people."

Severus turned to face Mae and, placing his free hand on the wall to frame her face, he smoothly leaned over to kiss her to express his growing love and appreciation he had for her. She deepened the kiss to an almost inappropriate level given they were standing in her childhood home, steps away from her family, and had been talking with her father less than five minutes ago.

"Come with me. I have something to give you," she whispered into his mouth. Without giving him time to react, she locked her arm in his, and led him away from the kitchen, around a corner near the front door, and up a staircase too similar to the Dursleys' for his current state of mind and body. Desperate for some much-needed privacy away from the increasingly boisterous party, he followed without protest.

The upper level held three small bedrooms and an even smaller lavatory. The cream-coloured walls were covered with more family photographs at the lower level, creating a Scott Family timeline down the narrow hall. Severus didn't get the chance to look at them, nor did he care, as Mae pulled him through the second door on the right, into a guest bedroom decorated in various cool shades of grey and blue. On the wall opposite the door, beneath a window looking out into the back garden, sat a full-sized bed covered in a plain light blue bedspread and a single pillow. To complete the room, a wardrobe sat against the wall on the left, and a set of bookcases on the right were filled to the brim, not unlike Severus's at Spinner's End and his Hogwarts quarters. Mae plopped herself down on the floor next to the bed, leaning against it with her legs crossed at the ankles, and patted the space next to her for Severus to join her.

She intertwined her hands with his before stating, "This used to be my room. For years, I begged my mum to paint stars on the ceiling, like my friends had, but she refused. Said it was too much for something I'd outgrow in a year. But, you know? If she were still alive, I'd tell her I still want stars on my ceiling." Severus looked up at the plain white ceiling, a part of him aching for the small child who once dreamed of fairies and asked for a whimsical world above her head as she slept and another part pleased she'd never lost her childhood magic. "Bobby said it took my dad forever to change it into a guest room when I moved out. Said he refused to come in here and if it weren't for the books-" she gestured to the overflowing bookcase, "-this would look exactly as it did the day I left.

"It still feels strange to come home and see it blue and not the yellow I lived with for years. I don't think I could live in my childhood home like you do. No matter how much I renovated, all I would think about is the memories in each room. And I had mostly positive memories here, where you…"

He did not need her to explain where she had been going with her statement when she trailed off. "Once I turned eleven, Hogwarts became my true home and Cokeworth became no more than a summer address to me. Then Harry moved in… and, well, there must be something healing about him living in my old bedroom. I think the fresh memories we're building together are replacing the old ones that used to haunt the place, and those are becoming the predominant ones I remember as I walk through it."

He couldn't tell her how the haunting memories he was referring to were less of his abusive parents and more of his first son. Those happy memories of their five years at Spinner's End forever carried a shadow of grief and unless he wished to rid himself of them forever - something he absolutely did not want to do - he had to find a way to reconcile them with the new memories he'd build with the current Harry. His first son held those formative teenage years and his future son would get the rest of his life, and the one year they overlapped? He'd prefer to forget both years rather than have to watch his son suffer twice.

"Thank you for coming tonight, Sev." Her hand cupped his cheek as her soft lips touched the other. "I know you would have rather spent the night with Harry."

"He understands how important this is to you… to us. And I'll be with him all day tomorrow," Severus reasoned. He released a cleansing breath, knowing his next move even if telling her tonight had not been in his original plans. "I'm adopting him… Harry… officially. If things go as planned, the courts have tentatively set our final hearing for the eighteenth of April… three and a half months before he turns eighteen and would age out of care."

At first, Mae said nothing, and Severus waited for her to digest the news of him officially having not only a son but a son battling a disease guaranteed to make their relationship significantly more complicated. He found that didn't care. She had known about Harry from day one, and while she deserved to know the step he was taking for their future, her opinion on it didn't matter beyond her acceptance or decision to walk away. But despite his confidence in their love, the longer her hesitation stretched, the more Severus regretted springing it on her without warning.

"Mae?" He finally prompted when the uncertainty became too much for him to handle. "I understand if you don't want-"

"Do not go there," She cut him off and playfully slapped his thigh pressing next to hers. "You know how I feel about you and Harry. You just surprised, that's all. This is huge news… It's incredible news. It's amazing, Sev, really. Does Harry know?"

"I told him a couple weeks ago," Severus said, still feeling unsure of her reaction. "He'll be an adult right after we make it official, so I don't know how much of a difference it will make-"

"A lot, Severus," she emphasized, shifting her body to face him by tucking her foot under her other leg. "It'll mean the world to him to know he'll always have someone who loves him and supports him no matter if he's an adult. I'm excited for you both. Harry doesn't really seem like the party type, but I throw you a little celebration afterward?"

"Something small would not go unappreciated."

"Consider it done." The small accompanying giggle helped to assuage Severus's initial panic. "So, listen, I brought you up here for a reason, y'know," she said, smoothly stretching across Severus's lap to reach under the bed behind him. "I have something for you."

"Mae-" he protested, but she didn't let him finish.

"Sev, it's Christmas! Of course, I got you a gift." Her voice was muffled as she continued to search for the hidden box under the bed. And while the prudent thing to do would have been to help her, his view of her body stretched across his made it impossible for him to do so. "Here it is!"

She rather ungracefully heaved herself off of him holding a dark green wrapped package, about the size of a large boot box, in her hands and placed it onto the bed above them. Taking her hint, Severus stood, offered his hand to help her off the floor, and joined her on the plush bedspread, side by side sitting up against the headboard.

"We didn't talk about Christmas gifts, so I had to guess what to get you," she started, her nervousness obvious in the way she fingered the side of the box. "And I'll let you know, you're not an easy person to shop for, Mister! Your hobbies are so… specific… but once I got the idea in my head, it kind of fell into place." She placed the oddly heavy gift onto his lap. "I really hope you like it."

Since becoming Harry's father in his old world, Severus had got used to the ritual of giving and receiving gifts. The first Christmas he and Harry spent together had fixed both of their apprehensions in that department, and each birthday and Christmas included more people than the last as he grew the village around him. But none of those gifts were of the romantic sort, and his heart threatened to beat right out of his chest at the thought of Mae selecting something specifically for him.

Upon closer inspection, the wrapping was more beautiful than he'd first seen. The thick, green iridescent paper shimmered between light and dark with flecks of red and silver as he adjusted it on his lap. A matching silver satin ribbon was so perfectly shaped, he almost didn't want to untie it. His fingers fumbled twice trying to open it, more from emotions than the wrapping itself, eventually tearing the corner enough to slide his finger along the edge to reveal a silver-lidded box. Placing the torn paper to his side, he carefully removed the lid and lifted a heavy, delicate leather-bound book. With it sitting on his lap, Severus feathered his finger over the title, The Complete Volume of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, written in gold across the front.

"I was trying to think of a book I could get you that you don't already own, which based on Harry's description of your bookshelves was going to be pretty much impossible," she quietly explained. She nodded to the volume on his lap. "Then I noticed that Harry brings a copy of the first book to the hospital every month. His copy looks so well-loved, I figured there was at least a decent chance you had read it and liked it. So I asked my dad if there were any special editions of it out there, and we found this one. It's leather bound with gold inlaid in the spine, and the pages are sewn in, not glued."

"It's perfect," Severus told her. "I have not, in fact, read this yet. Harry's book came from his friend's father who enjoys the series. She gave it to him as a gift before his first inpatient treatment."

"Even better! You're going to love it," Mae beamed, her pride clear in her voice. "I noticed he hasn't made much progress in it, so maybe you guys can read it together."

"I'm sure it'll help him out. Thank you, Mae." Severus said, reaching into his magically expanded inside suit pocket for the long thin box he had been storing there all night. Unlike the gifts he'd brought for her family, he chose not to extravagantly wrap her's, opting instead for a simple yellow paper with a petite purple bow, Mae's two favourite colours. Her cheeks flushed as he handed it to her. "Happy Christmas."

"Sev," she said, breathlessly, flipping the box around in her hands.

As she tore the paper off as painstakingly slowly as he had, for the first time of the night, Severus felt a serene calm wash over him. This he knew she'd love. This he knew he had done correctly. She threw the yellow wrapping over Severus's lap, joining the green piled up next to him, then skated her fingertips over the top of the velvet box.

"Open it," Severus whispered into her ear, his eyes watching her face, not her hands, so he could see her reaction as soon as she saw the necklace. He was not disappointed. Her cheeks smiled and her eyes lit up the second the lid popped up, both of which grew as she delicately lifted the chain and pendant.

"Severus, this is- this is absolutely gorgeous," she gushed. "The colour, it's so… I already said gorgeous, but that doesn't seem like enough. I've never seen anything like it."

"No, you wouldn't have," he said, his words causing her to curiously look up at him.

"Is this-" Her voice lowered so much Severus read the word off her lips more than heard it out loud. "-magical?"

"Not exactly," he mysteriously replied. "Azunite, the stone, itself has no Magical priorities to it, however, it can only be found by a very specific, rarely seen, magical creature. The colour of the stone is determined by the moon phase when it's mined, although that characteristic does not inherently make it magical."

She held the necklace out to him in a silent request to help her put it on, and it looked more stunning on her than Severus imagined when he saw it in the jewellery shop. She touched the pear-shaped stone and asked, "So what does the blue mean?"

He went on to tell her all about the conditions for the colour of her specific Azunite and answered every question she had about thestrals. The thestrals piqued her curiosity on the subject to a level approaching that of Hagrid, and Severus told her all about nifflers, fwoopers, and bowtruckles. When they nestled down a little lower in the bed - not quite laying down, but in a position he wouldn't want to be caught in - Severus cautiously drew his wand from the same inside pocket and conjured dozens of twinkling stars in a rainbow of colours onto the ceiling just to see Mae's face light up again.