"Potter, wake up."

Harry thrashed a bit, struggling under the thick covering, his half-bleary mind believing Uncle Vernon must be calling him out of his cupboard. Then he caught a glimpse of Snape's colorful Christmas tree behind Snape's black robes, and it all came back to him. He squinted up at the Potions Master. "Is it morning already?"

"Very nearly." Snape's voice sounded rather tight. "We'll Floo directly to my office."

More accustomed to the thin blanket in the cupboard at the Dursleys', Harry kicked and floundered, trying to work his way out from under the voluminous duvet until Snape made fast work of it by simply Vanishing the fluffy mass.

"We're going straight to the castle, then?"

"That's what I'd planned. Why do you ask?" Snape cocked an eyebrow at him.

Harry grinned. "Well, you do have that menu for 24-hour breakfast."

"Sorry, Potter. You'll have to wait until you're old enough for your own account." He steered the boy toward the fireplace, allowing Harry the chance to gaze one last time at the Christmas tree before he threw down a handful of Floo powder and shoved Harry into the emerald flames, shouting,"Severus Snape's office, Hogwarts!"

Before Harry could really catch his breath, he was churned out of another fireplace in the bowels of the castle. He recognized Snape's office from some earlier detentions, and within seconds, the man himself had followed him through the Floo, billowing dramatically into being as he stepped from the green flames.

"Here are your belongings, Potter," said Snape, unshrinkng Harry's school trunk. "While most of your effects appeared to be … stored … in that cupboard, several items, including your wand, came from the upstairs of your relatives' house. They are all in the trunk. I would strongly urge you to get into the habit of keeping your wand on your person at ALL times in future."

"Yes, sir," said Harry, opening the hasp and removing the wand from his trunk. He sighed ruefully. "It's going to be a job dragging this lot from the dungeons all the way up to Gryffindor Tower."

"I'll have a house elf take care of it," Snape said, sounding almost as if he were gritting his teeth at doing Potter yet another favor. "Now, get out of my office and STAY OUT OF TROUBLE."

"Yes, sir. I promise. Just let me take this with me…" And Harry carefully tucked the box containing his mother's mantilla under his arm."Bye, Professor! And thanks again."

He closed the heavy oak door behind him and negotiated the quiet corridors of the dungeons, feeling for a while that he might be the only person in the castle… But finally, he heard voices from above and realized someone was already up and in the entrance hall.

Eager for breakfast, Harry ran up the last few steps, prepared to sing out, "Good morning!", but the words died upon his lips. None other than Draco Malfoy was blocking his path, along with Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. A few other voices echoed inside the Great Hall – early risers after the elves' fancy Christmas breakfast specialties – but Harry would have to get around the roadblock created by the Slytherin goons and their leader.

"Potter!" Malfoy's brows drew together as he took in the Gryffindor's unexpected appearance. "What were YOU doing down in the dungeons? That's SLYTHERIN territory." He stated the obvious in a threatening tone of voice.

"Er – just taking a walk before breakfast," Harry said stoutly. "Works up the old appetite, you know."

The aristocratic blond planted himself squarely in front of Harry and pointed at him accusingly. "What I KNOW, Potter, is that SOMEONE –TWO someones, in fact – got into the Slytherin Common Room last night, pretending to be Crabbe and Goyle."

"Pretending?" Harry opened his eyes wide and affected his most innocent expression. "How do you figure?"

Malfoy looked back at him with disgust. "Polyjuice, obviously."

"Poly-what?"

"Polyjuice Potion, you ignorant dolt. As if you didn't already know."

Harry furrowed his brow, shrugging. "I don't seem to recall studying that in Professor Snape's classes."

Undeterred, Malfoy leaned in to confront Harry at point-blank range. "Like I'm sure you also don't recall a couple of spiked cupcakes? Enough sleeping potion in each one to put these two – " he jerked a thumb at his companions " – to sleep and land them in the hospital wing?"

Harry shrugged again. "Why should I recall that? It's nothing to do with me."

"HA! As if!" Malfoy shoved Harry backwards toward the top of the dungeon stairs. "Two people using Polyjuice came with me into the Slytherin Common Room, while the real Crabbe and Goyle were unconscious here on the floor of the entrance hall."

"So?"

"So, Potter, your Mudblood friend is up in the Hospital Wing right now because she stupidly used cat hair in her Polyjuice. I figure you and Weasley were the other two, since the three of you always get in trouble together. Admit it!"

Harry raised his chin. "I don't have to admit anything, Malfoy! Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm late for breakfast." He shoved past the angry blond, but when Goyle stuck out his foot, Harry tripped over it and went sprawling, the cardboard box clattering across the cold stones of the entrance hall.

"What's this, then?" Malfoy pounced on the spill of black lace a moment after the box top popped off.

"Get your hands off it, Malfoy!"

"Ooooh, a GIRLIE scarf!" the Slytherin crowed in delight."Potter's got a GIRLIE scarf!" Malfoy sashayed around Harry, swishing the mantilla by one end.

The dark-haired Gryffindor tried to get to his feet, only to be pounded down by Crabbe's meaty fist.

"Always knew you were really a wuss, Potter. This lacy crap proves it. So much for the 'hero' of the Wizarding world!" Malfoy sneered.

Scrambling up at last, Harry lunged for the mantilla. "Give it here, Malfoy! That was my mum's!"

"That was my mum's!" falsettoed Goyle, grabbing the wafting loose end of the mantilla. "SURE it was your mum's, Potter. Everyone will believe that, right?"The large Slytherin scoffed. "In a Niffler's eye, they'll believe it!"

Malfoy and Goyle stretched the mantilla between them, holding it just over Harry's highest reach.

"Stop that!" Harry shouted. "You'll damage it!"

"Oh, yes!" agreed Malfoy, an evil grin spreading over his face. "Let's DAMAGE it!"

He backed up, and Goyle backed in the opposite direction. Before Harry's very eyes, the delicate lace patterns began to distort and stretch alarmingly.

"PLEASE!" begged Harry. "Please stop! It's going to tear!" He leaped for Goyle's end, but the taller boy used his free hand to aim a punch into Harry's stomach, knocking the wind out of him before the Gryffindor even hit the stone floor.

"Crabbe! You can be the bull! Olé!"

At Malfoy's urging, Crabbe lowered his large head and snorted like an enraged bull. He pretended to paw the stones, then charged toward the stretched-out mantilla.

"NO!" screamed Harry from his sprawled position. "STOP!"

But Crabbe's bull ripped Lily's fragile lace asunder, leaving Malfoy and Goyle holding two fluttering ends.

"Olé! Olé! Olé!"

Malfoy grabbed his torn end and ripped it with his hands into two more lacy shreds, and not to be outdone, Goyle ripped his half once, then handed part to Crabbe, and they each ripped the lace again.

Too shocked for words, Harry slowly pushed himself to his feet, barely aware that a small gathering of holiday students had begun to assemble, some descending the marble staircase, while others emerged from the Great Hall. His mum's mantilla… Ruined… And he'd promised Snape he'd take good care of it… The Potions Master was Head of Slytherin, and he'd never believe his own students had done this… Never mind that he'd rescued Harry from the Dursleys and hosted him in his own home for Christmas Eve – Snape would MURDER Harry for the destruction of Lily's lace… Harry had to get AWAY…

With no plan whatsoever, Harry ran to the main doors of the castle and opened them enough to squeeze his way outside. The clear night sky had begun to gray in the east with predawn light, and he could see well enough to get down the snow-covered steps to the open grounds. There, he took off running, slipping occasionally on the snowy slopes, falling into a couple of drifts, but always heading farther and farther away from the castle. Some instinct called him toward the Black Lake, and upon its shores he finally collapsed, gasping in the frigid gloom.

Hot tears spilled from his eyes, creating faint steam which blurred his vision of the lake and the Forbidden Forest off to one side.

-:- -:- -:-

"What is going on here?"

Severus Snape's obsidian voice penetrated the cluster of loudly-arguing students like fury on Pepper-Up Potion. The strident voices echoing through the entrance hall fell abruptly silent.

"Just a bit of fun, Professor," Draco Malfoy said blithely."Bullfight, as it were."

Snape's eyes suddenly lit upon the shredded black lace dangling from the three Slytherins' hands. "Where … did you … get THIS?"

Malfoy laughed, not having registered the danger infusing his Head's tones. "Oh, we uncovered one of Potter's perversions. He had a girlie scarf!"

Deathly silent, Snape glared black ice at the laughing blond. Surprisingly, as dense as they were, even Crabbe and Goyle caught on before Malfoy that something had gone seriously wrong…

"Is there a problem, Professor?" Malfoy asked rather glibly."If not, I'll just go on to break– "

"Where. Is. Potter. Now?"

Malfoy waved a negligent hand toward the main doors. "Oh, he went out."

"Out."

Snape's black tone finally penetrated Malfoy's bout of joie de vivre.

"Er, yes, Professor." The blond Slytherin frowned. "IS there a problem, sir?"

"You're HOLDING it. Or, rather, what is LEFT of it."

Malfoy shrugged and handed over his bit of lace. "Don't ask me what Potter was doing with girl's stuff, Professor. He probably stole it!"He guffawed loudly before he realized that nobody else in his ever-growing audience had laughed with him. Glancing around, suddenly uneasy, Malfoy jerked his head at Crabbe and Goyle, who tendered their own fragments of Lily's lace to their Head of House.

Snape's fingers trembled with rage as they buried themselves in the remains of the mangled mantilla. Lily had loved it so… And the comb…

Compressing his lips, he screwed his features into the most frightening scowl he could manage, leaned over Malfoy, and furiously demanded,"Where. Is. The. COMB?"

Stumbling backwards, Malfoy shook his head in denial, stammering, "C-Comb? WHAT comb? I-I don't know anything about a-a comb!"

Before Snape could take more than two seriously-threatening steps toward the boy, Hannah Abbott spoke up. "Would this be the comb, Professor? It was in this box. On the floor." She gingerly extended the yellowed box and peineta comb to Snape, then backed hurriedly away.

"Thank you, Miss Abbott." At least the comb remained undamaged, he thought, his fingertips unconsciously caressing the smooth teeth as he glared at Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle. "As for you three … WHAT did you THINK you were DOING?"

Malfoy's pale gray eyes flickered, and Snape cut the boy off before he could voice his latest lie. Or even the truth. "One hundred points from Slytherin," he said coldly. "For disgracing your House with atrocious, destructive behavior on Christmas Day." Behind him, he heard the clatter of emeralds as they caromed upwards in the Slytherin hourglass.

"A hundred points!" Malfoy squawked in outraged disbelief."But you NEVER take points off of Slytherin!"

"Make that one hundred points APIECE." The dark Potions Master gave the blond a most unpleasant smile as more emeralds flew precipitately up to the top of the hourglass. "Never say 'never', Mr. Malfoy."

Ignoring the gaping jaws of students from all four Houses, Snape spun on his heel and exited the stunned silence in the entrance hall, growling in irritation as he passed through the main doors and caught sight of Potter's blundering trail through the snow. How many times had he already had to run after Potter in the year and a half since the child had first arrived at school? How many times had he intercepted Potter? How many times had he had to save him from outside dangers or the boy's own inner demons?

Plunging through a drift into which Potter had obviously fallen, Snape shook his head. The boy still had another five and a half years remaining at Hogwarts…

His nostrils pinched together whenever he inhaled, so the man resorted to breathing through his mouth, his breath frosting in the air as he followed Potter's erratic trail toward the lake. Snape's black robes swept quietly in his wake, drifting over the surface of the snow.

By the time Harry realized someone else had joined him, the eastern sky had silvered and the tears had long since chilled upon his cheeks. The boy kept his gaze fixed upon the patterns of winter lace silhouetted against the growing light. Black tracings from the trees lined the edge of the Forbidden Forest, each tree standing out as an individual by its very shape. One might boast a tall central trunk, with a series of rugged horizontal limbs as its main feature. Another might forego a tall trunk, splitting instead into a graceful, slender fan of thin branches sweeping skyward. The lightning-struck remains of a once-regal specimen stood as a bare sentinel, jagged spars protruding but a short distance from the long-dead trunk, while the sizeable tree adjacent to it managed to echo the fanciful, windswept shape of a carefully-pruned miniature bonsai. So many trees, so many types of winter lace…A few dried leaves fluttered from a single branch on a vase-shaped tree, while a roundish one revealed shriveled leaves clinging like ornaments to most branches, making the tree appear semi-full even in the dead of winter. Against the pale gold above the horizon, a sturdy tree's high-up forked branch held a clump, which Harry thought might be a squirrel's nest.

But the lace was everywhere – regardless of the trees' sizes or shapes, they all contributed to the delicate black lace silhouetted against the brightening dawn. Well, maybe not that lightning-struck spur, Harry allowed, although it did provide a solid contrast to the lace. He sighed, his frosty breath graying the silhouette of a mitten-shaped tree, looking as if it were raising a lacy hand to brush the pinkish streaks now forming amidst the gold…

"Potter?"

Harry cringed. He was dead. Snape had come after him. Malfoy had surely made up some lie to implicate Harry as the one responsible for the mantilla's destruction.

Even as he waited for the final death-blow to land, Harry took comfort in one last thought: Lily's lace might be gone, but the black winter lace would always live on…

"I'm sorry, Potter."

"What?" His verbal reaction to the unexpected apology popped out before he realized he'd spoken aloud. Why would the man apologize? Hadn't he come to do him in? "But – Professor – it's my – well, that is, I promised you I'd…"

"That you would what?" Snape's quiet voice settled next to him as the man sat down to share the fallen log, gathering his robes around him.

"That I'd … take good care of my mum's mantilla," the boy whispered, his voice almost breaking. "And I failed. It was Malfoy, sir. And Crabbe and Goyle. I know you won't believe me, but it's the truth, really it is."

"I know."

Harry's cringing eyes opened wide. "You … you DO?"

Snape nodded. "I do."

The more Harry stared at the man, the more he wanted to believe him. "So," he ventured at last, "you didn't come out here to… to…"

"I came out here because a seriously-distressed student had run out into the snowy night, completely disregarding any attention to his personal safety."

"Oh." Perhaps it would be wiser not to reply to that particular statement.

Man and boy sat silently for a few moments, both watching the eastern sky. An actual vertical beam of light seemed to emanate up from the spot on the horizon where the sun would appear any moment.

"Do you ever notice it, Professor?" Harry asked, wanting to share a comforting concept with the man who had also lost the treasured mantilla. "The winter lace?"

Snape studied the Gryffindor. "I assume that you are not referring to the mantilla lace?"

Harry shook his head, pointing toward the trees. "See? The tree branches make black lace against the sky when they're silhouetted like that. I call it winter lace. I usually just see it at sunset, but if you look before dawn, it happens then, too." He looked sideways at the man and saw the black eyes carefully examining the treetops.

"I'd never thought about it before, but you are quite right," Snape conceded. "Winter lace, you say?"

"That's just what I decided to call it," Harry told him, shrugging. "But I really only notice it when the sun is low. I suppose it's there in the middle of the day, but it doesn't show up as well, 'cause the trees look gray instead of black. I like seeing the black lace against the colorful sunset – or sunrise."

Snape chuckled, the sound curling low across the snow. "You certainly inherited your mother's sense of imagination."

"Really?" Harry beamed. "Do you think my mum would've seen the winter lace in the sky?"

"I believe she would, Potter."

"Lace like her mantilla, right? In a way, I guess I'll think of mum from now on every time I see winter lace. But the best part is, no one can destroy my imagination, like Malfoy did the mantilla." Harry frowned for a moment, thinking. Then he tried to put his newly-formed concept into words.

"You gave me the mantilla as a reminder of my mother, but it's an even greater gift telling me that I have her sense of imagination. I'll always be able to see mum's lace when I look at winter lace. It's like an eternal gift, if you know what I mean, Professor?"

Snape actually smiled, his gaze tracing the patterns of black lace against the breaking dawn. "I do understand Potter. An eternal gift, indeed."

And they sat there in the silence of the snowy dawn, side by side, watching the glorious rise of the sun, squinting as they were immersed in brilliant light, the golden rays sparkling off the crystalline surface of the fallen snow covering the earth's surface.

The light of Christmas had entered the world once again.

-:- -:- -:-