Dinner with Harry was much more of a tolerable affair than the picture Severus had built up in his mind, and though he would never have admitted it out loud, he found the boy to be fairly good company when he wasn’t babbling incessantly about Quidditch or snivelling into his robes like a toddler.

They had just finished eating when there was a knock at the door, and something told the potion’s master he wasn’t going to like what he found on the other side.

He ignored the first knock, busying himself with clearing the table with several flicks of his wand.

 “There’s somebody at the door,” Harry said, following the second round of knocking.

 “Hmm. It is usually you,” he commented.

The boy laughed. “That doesn’t make any sense. Shall I get it?”

 “No. I will go,” Snape sighed, making his way towards the door.

Opening it, he was irritated – yet not surprised – to find Albus Dumbledore standing there.

 “Hello,” the headmaster smiled pleasantly.

 “Good evening headmaster. What can I do for you?” he asked, scarcely able to hide his annoyance.

 “Forgive me Severus, I couldn’t help but notice that neither you nor Harry were at dinner…” Dumbledore began. “And well… I do hope I’m not disturbing you?”

 “As a matter of fact, we were just finishing dinner ourselves,” Snape told him, hoping he would take the hint.

 “Ah. Then it would appear that I’m just in time,” the headmaster beamed, producing a plate from beneath the sleeve of his robes. “I brought mince pies!”

Harry appeared behind him before he could provide another, less subtle response.

 “Hello Professor Dumbledore.”

 “Good evening, Harry. I trust you are enjoying your Christmas Eve?” the old man smiled.

 “Yes, it’s been brilliant, sir!” Harry nodded, glancing up at the potion’s master and tugging the cuff of his sleeve. “Aren’t you going to invite him in? It’s rude to make someone stand on the doorstep, you know?”

Biting his tongue to prevent him from saying all of the things he would have liked to, Severus Snape stepped aside to allow the headmaster through.

And that was how the three of them came to be sitting at the table, eating mince pies on Christmas Eve.

Severus didn’t know what was more of an annoyance – watching the brat inhale the pastry as if somebody might take it away, or catching the knowing smiles from his boss out of the corner of his eye.

 “Chew this one before you swallow it, perhaps?” he suggested, as Harry reached for a second pie.

Harry flushed. “Sorry, sir. It’s just… I’ve never had mince pies before. I always wanted to try one.”

 “Never had a mince pie before?” Dumbledore enquired, surprised. “I was quite sure muggles enjoyed them as much as wizards.”

The boy shrugged, bowing his head and concentrating on getting the pie out of its foil case.

He hadn’t said his muggle relatives didn’t eat mince pies of course, but Snape knew it was unlikely that they had ever deigned to offer him one.

 “Thank you for bringing them, Professor,” Harry said, more softly. “It was really nice of you to do that.”

 “You are most welcome, Harry,” Dumbledore assured him. “And I must say that I, too, have thoroughly enjoyed myself. Perhaps, I may have just started a new tradition.”

 “Tradition?” the boy frowned, puzzled.

 “Something that we do to mark the occasion, year on year. I’m sure that even non-magical folk have them. Perhaps your Aunt and Uncle do the same things, every year at Christmas? To make it special?” the headmaster suggested.

Harry thought about it. “Well… they do let my cousin Dudley open one present on Christmas Eve every year. Right before bed.”

 “And as such, it is a Christmas tradition,” Dumbledore confirmed. “Perhaps, this can be ours.”

The boy smiled, biting into his pie, and Severus refrained from pointing out that he had no intention of being sat around a table eating mince pies with either of them a year from now.

 “Well, my boys, as enjoyable as this has been, I think that I shall now retire and leave you to your Christmas Eve,” Dumbledore said eventually, standing up.

 “So soon?” Snape drawled.

 “Alas, I am old, and it is nearly past my bed time,” the headmaster told him, producing a wine bottle-shaped gift wrapped in festive paper and handing it to the potion’s master. “To replace the one we drank, Severus. And not forgetting Harry, of course…”

 “For me, sir?” Harry asked in awe, as the headmaster handed him a box, packaged in the same brightly-coloured paper. “Thank you!”

 “No opening them until the morning, mind,” Dumbledore called over as his shoulder, as he headed back towards the entranceway. “Although…”

The headmaster stopped, right outside the guestroom, which was the last room on the left before the corridor which led to the entrance of Snape’s quarters.

 “I think perhaps your relative’s tradition is one we might observe, also,” he said, tapping his hand against the door twice and giving Harry a wink. “Merry Christmas, Harry.”

Confused, Harry moved across to the door, opening it and peering inside.

He gasped.

 “What is it Potter?” Snape demanded, following him. Had the child never seen a room full of dusty old books before?

But stopping directly behind the boy, Snape observed that there was no longer a single dusty book in sight.

Instead, the room contained a four poster bed and a small pinewood desk and chair. The soft furnishing were maroon and gold in colour, and the walls were adorned with every manner of Quidditch paraphernalia.

It didn’t look like his spare bedroom at all. In fact, it looked very much like the bedroom of an eleven year old Gryffindor boy.

Trying to count to ten, Severus Snape turned to give the headmaster a piece of his mind, only to find that the meddlesome old fool and completely vanished from the room.

 “You never said it looked like this,” Harry told him, confused.

 “Until this evening, I can assure you that it did not.” 

The boy looked up at him, frowning in confusion.

 “It would seem that the headmaster is concerned about your sleeping on the sofa,” Snape elaborated.

 “You mean… this is for me?” he breathed. “And you’re really okay with it?”

 “I was hardly given a choice in the matter, Potter. However, if it means that you will relinquish my sofa and I can return it to its original use, I… see no harm in you making use of this room, for the time being,” Snape told him, stiffly.

Harry’s face lit up as he stepped inside the room and looked around.

 “Wow. I never had a room of my own before…” he murmured, more to himself than anybody else.

Wandering over to the desk, Harry noticed a small stack of books, and picked one up from the top of the pile.

 “’Babbity Rabbity’s Christmas Wish’,” he read aloud. “I’ve never heard of this one before.”

 “Having spent a large part of your life in the muggle world, that is hardly surprising,” Snape said. He himself recalled the story from his own childhood, and did not much want to revisit it.

As if on cue, Harry turned to look at him, those green eyes full of hope again.

 “Could you read it to me?”

 “Unless you have lost the ability in the last 3 seconds, I am fairly sure you are quite capable of reading to yourself, Potter. In any case, you will likely find that book beneath your age range now,” the potions master said.

He saw the boy visibly deflate before is eyes.

 “However, perhaps a game of Wizard’s Chess, once you have changed in to your night clothes?” the professor suggested. There, that was a fair compromise.

Harry gave him a weak smile, shaking his head as he put the book back down.

“It’s okay, sir. You don’t have to do that. It was just… I never got a chance to read any magical children’s books. And my Aunt Petunia always used to read a Christmas book with Dudley when we were little, so I just wanted to have that too… just once. I know it’s babyish, but we don’t have to play chess instead. I’ll just read in my room for a bit.”

Harry’s disappointment was palpable, and it served to remind Snape that this child had never experienced a true Christmas before.  He had never eaten mince pies, perhaps never received a present and, indeed, had never known the pleasure of something as simple as having a Christmas story read to him by an adult.

Severus Snape sighed.

 “Very well, Potter. But I will not do voices. And this will be a one-time occurrence. Do I make myself clear?”

Harry nodded, a huge smile lighting up his features.

And so no sooner had the boy changed into his pyjamas, he situated himself on the sofa beside the potions master, watching the older man expectantly.

Clearing his throat, Snape opened the book, hoping to get this over with fairly quickly.

 “Once up on a time–” he began.

 “Wait,” Harry stopped him.

Snape turned to look at him, ready to give the child a piece of his mind for prolonging this ordeal.

Harry scooted closer, settling himself against the potions master’s chest. “Okay. Ready.”

Swallowing his pride, Severus began again. He would deal with Albus Dumbledore in the morning.

 “Once upon a time, in a land covered by snow…”

OOOOOOO