Kirk and Spock
by Suse

ALL THE DAYS LEFT TO CHRISTMAS

SPIKE/XANDER

Title: Mistletoe
Author: Kayla
RATING: R, quite possibly NC-17 (but only for innuendo)
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Fandom: Buffy
Disclaimer: Still waiting for Santa to get back to me on my Christmas list. Until then, not, they still aren't mine. ::sigh::
Note: I'm trying out the all-dialogue type of story sequence. I get the urge occasionally. Part of the Slash Advent Calendar Challenge situated at: http://www.kardasi.com/Advent
Feedback Email address: kayla6978@aol.com 

MISTLETOE

"Spike? What about here?"

"Little more to the right. No, little more. Liiiitle more. There!"

"Yeah?"

"Lookin' good."

"It does look rather fantastic, doesn't it? Yet another masterful decorating job brought to you by the great and wonderful Xand-man."

"Just needs somethin'."

"What? No it doesn't! It's absolutely-- what's it need?"

"Ummm...back up a bit."

"Oh. Um, ok. Like this?"

"Yeah, that's perfect."

"Mphmmmrrrrm!!"

"Mmmmmm..."

"Holy...Spike! What the hell was that!"

"Been so long since you got any that you forgot what a kiss was?"

"I *know* what a kiss is! But you...with the lips...and the tongue...and--why?!"

"You were standing under the mistletoe, pet. S'tradition, innit?"

"Not like that! When I'm a guy, and you're a guy, and we're both guys, and that means no kissing the other guy, and--mmmmrph!"

"Mmmmmm..."

"Ack! You did it again!"

"Well you're still standing under the mistletoe, you git."

"Well stop it! Blech! I can't believe you *frenched* me! I don't even *wanna* think about where you tongue has been!"

"It must not have been too bad since you still aren't moving."

"...Shut up."

"Look, I'm just tryin' to stay in the holiday spirit an' all. Hold still now."

"Oh no you don't! Back off blondie! You stay away from me with those evil vampire lips of yours. I'm just gonna go over here and--aaahh! Ow!"

"...Pet? You just fell into the pile of mistletoe."

"I *know* that you bleached idiot! Ouch! Arg...help me up already!"

"Mmmm, I dunno. See, you get a kiss for standing under an itty bitty little sprig of mistletoe, what should you get for laying there in a whole pile of it?"

"Spike? Why are you looking at me like that? Spike! Ack! Stop that! Stop with the touching and the lick-mmph!"

"Mmmmm.....yeah pet, just like that..."

"Spike...you can't...you have to stop...oh. Oh geez, right there!"

"That's right. Open up for me Xan. Lemme make you feel good."

"Oh god. Yesssss. Oh. Y-you shouldn't...with the clothes, and the nakedness, and--woah! What the *hell*?!"

"Like that? Want more?"

"Noooooo....fingers...naughty places. Shouldn't--ooooh!"

"Lovely naughty places, pet. Feels good, doesn't it?"

"Good. Oh, oh! Goooood. S-s-Spike...bad, naughty fingers....good. Ba-bad- Oh! Again! Do th-that..."

"Gonna make you scream for me Xan. That what you want?"

"Wanting...scream...fingers! Spiiiike, fingers back! You-ah!"

"Shush, that's better, innit? Who needs fingers? C'mon luv, wrap your legs around me."

"Oh...oh! Spike! Ah!"

"Christ, yeah. Xan! Yeah, squeeze like that again!"

"Spiiiiiiike!"

"Mmm, fuck you're hot. Ah...Xan. Oh yeah."

"Ah...ah...ahhhh! Oh!"

"Uhhhhh! Mmmm...ohhh."

"oh. oh. oh god."

"Delicious, pet. Mmmm."

"Hmmmm. You...that...oh..."

"Yeah? Pretty nice, huh?"

"I, um--"

"Guys? Are you almost done with the--woah!"

"Eeep! Um, B-B-Buffy?"

"I do *not* want to know. I am *not* seeing that. I am going to turn around and walk back into the kitchen now."

"...."

"Erm, Buffy?"

"Right. Going now. Must...repress..."

"..."

"Well, guess she got an eyeful, didn't she?"

"Argh! You-you-- Get off me you undead....creep!"

"Well, if that isn't a lovely change of tune. Prat. Where'd my shirt go?"

"I think it's over there. What the *hell* happened to my buttons?"

"Heh."

"Oh, shut up."

"..."

"So. I guess we should finish. With the, um, decorating. Yeah."

"Whatever. Hand me that hammer would you?"

"Right. Sure, here you-mmmph!"

"Mmmmm..."

"Spike!"

"What? You standing under the bloody mistletoe again!"



Finit

KIRK/SPOCK

GREEN HEART

END

Title: The Best Gift

Author: Jade

Email Address: jade@jadesfic.com

Rating: G

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: HP/SS

Disclaimer: Once again, they’re not mine.

Note: Part of the Slash Advent Calendar at http://www.kardasi.com/advent/

Note 2: Thanks to Alison for the beta.

THE BEST GIFT

Christmas Day dawned gray and cold.  It wasn't snowing, but it smelled like it might start at any time.  Harry had always liked that smell; clean, cold, and crisp.  Nothing about it was hidden; everything was right out in the open.  The world was declaring exactly what would happen, and that didn't occur very often.  He had learned to appreciate it when it did.

His bed was warm and comfortable and he didn't want to leave it.  Getting up would necessitate going down and eating breakfast.  It would mean mingling with the other students and acting like he was excited that it was Christmas.  It would mean pretending to be normal, even though it had been ages since he'd felt anything close to it.  It would take so much more effort than Harry felt able to put out right then, but he knew that he had to do it.

Harry had never really liked Christmas.  Before he had arrived at Hogwarts, the holiday had only meant that he needed to stay home and attend to whatever it was that his aunt wanted him to do, and try hard to avoid Dudley's attacks at the same time.  When Christmas Day came, Harry would watch Dudley getting everything he wanted and then try hard to hide his hurt as he received yet another used, broken gift, or more recently, nothing at all.  Once Harry had gone away to school, the holiday had become marginally better.  Ron had stayed with him their first year and three years later most of the students had stayed behind for the Yule Ball.  It had been nice participating in their celebrations, and he had even started to think that perhaps the holiday wasn’t so bad after all.  Now that he was alone again, though, Christmas only meant staying at Hogwarts when most of his classmates returned home to their loving families.  It was sad and lonely and Harry hated it to no end.  Not for the first time he wished that everyone would just leave him alone to hide up in the tower by himself. 

This Christmas would be the first without Ron and Hermione, and so many of the other people who had become Harry's family over his time at Hogwarts.  It would be the first Christmas since the final battle with Voldemort and it would be the first Christmas since Harry had started to question the value and purpose of his life.

The final battle with Voldemort had come the previous June.  The dark wizard followed his pattern of being most active near the end of the school year and attacked almost immediately after final exams finished.  When the battle was over, Voldemort was finally dead, but that victory had come at a terrible price.  Many students had fallen, especially the sixth and seventh years who had insisted on standing directly against the Death Eaters.  Very few teachers survived that last stand, either.  So many of them had been cut down defending the younger students as the Death Eaters swarmed the school. 

The funerals had taken two weeks to complete.  Harry had been confined to the infirmary and unable to attend.  It still hurt for him to think that he hadn't been present at the final ceremonies for his two best friends and Dumbledore, the man he had come to think of as a second father.  Many people had told him of the services, but it wasn't the same.  He couldn't help but feel that he had failed them by not being there to mark their passing.

It had been half a year now and Harry was getting used to being alone, but the terrible sense of loneliness seemed to be even worse during the holidays.  Harry had almost broken down and contacted the Dursleys to see if he could return to their house over the break, but in the end he just hadn't been able to do it.  No matter how alone he felt being with his aunt and uncle would only serve to make him feel worse.  He had decided to stay at Hogwarts and suffer through the merriment of the remaining students.

As much as he didn't want to get out of bed, Harry knew that he had to.  McGonagall had made it clear that she expected him downstairs for breakfast that morning.  She had explained, and he understood, that his behaviour set the tone for that of the younger students.  As the only seventh year staying at the school over the holiday, it was his responsibility to make sure the younger students in his house didn't get into too much trouble.  He took that responsibility seriously.  Responsibility was one of the things he understood over everything else.  Having it made him feel needed and less lost than he had since that spring.

Harry rolled over and sat up in his bed.  He quickly set the stabilizing spell on his left leg that would allow him to walk at least somewhat normally and then stood up.  A sharp stab of pain shot through his leg and hip, but the limb didn't collapse.  Harry took a deep breath and fought hard against crying out.  He was almost used to the pain now, although he knew that he would always resent it and the memories that it brought back to him.

He was on the ground, his wand snapped and far out of his reach.  Voldemort was standing over him looking larger and more dangerous than Harry had ever thought him to be before.  He scrambled away from the Dark Lord and threw his arm out, vainly trying to find at least part of his wand.  Ron had spent an entire year at school with a broken wand, and although the results had sometimes been unexpected, they hadn't always been a complete disaster.  In Harry's mind, anything was better right then than being completely defenseless.

Harry watched as Voldemort lowered his wand, pointed it at him, and started casting the curse.  Harry didn't recognize the spell, but he knew it had to be painful.  He was right.  The pain lanced through his body like nothing he had ever felt before, and he had been subjected to Crucio several times.  This was different; it was like cutting, tearing, and burning all at the same time.  He thought he was going to faint and he fought hard against the blackness that was creeping into his mind.  Suddenly Harry's hand closed around something that felt like a wand.  He grabbed it and threw a spell back at Voldemort to drive him away.  A green spike of energy crackled across the distance between the Dark Lord and himself and suddenly both of them were crying out in agony.

Harry shivered and pushed the memory away.  He didn't want to think about that battle anymore.  It was enough that he had needed to kill Voldemort and finally release the wizarding word from his oppression, the last thing that he wanted to do was to have to relive it over and over again.

He dressed quickly and headed down to the common room.  He was limping slightly that morning, the cold was getting to his leg more than it normally did, but he didn't think that it was visible to anyone except himself.  A couple of first years and a second year student were already in the common room and speaking loudly.  They turned when he entered and greeted him cheerily.  Harry replied with a nod and a tight smile.  The youngest students were the hardest for him to relate to; they were so untouched by the war that he had been fighting his entire life.  They always made him feel sad for the childhood that he had lost forever.

"Harry, you have a present under the tree," Ben, a dark-haired first year student, told him happily.  The boy looked excited to see what was in the present, surely more excited than Harry himself felt about the same prospect.  He'd never really learnt to appreciate the joy others drew from this holiday.

He had no idea who would have left him a present.  If this had been the year before, he would have known it was from Ron's family, Hermione, or perhaps his godfather.  This year there was simply no one that Harry could imagine leaving him such a thing.  Everyone he had cared so much about was dead. 

"Someone must have brought it over last night while we were all sleeping because it wasn't here when we went to bed," said Jamie, a short, blonde first year student.  She was Ben's best friend and had stayed with him over the holidays when he hadn't been able to go back to his parents' place.  They reminded Harry of how Ron had stayed with him his first Christmas at Hogwarts.  It was hard to look at them and not feel the pain of missing Ron.  It was still so raw and months ago he had given up hope that the feeling would fade anytime soon.

He looked down at Jamie and shrugged slightly.  What the present was didn't particularly interest him, there was little that he needed that he couldn't get for himself if he was so inclined, but he *was* interested in knowing who had sent it.  He didn't know who would have done it.  Who was left who cared enough about Harry to send him a present on Christmas? 

Ben crawled under the tree, grabbed the present, and handed it to Harry.  Harry just nodded and accepted the mysterious package.  It was about the size and shape of a textbook and he became increasingly curious as to what it might be.  Who would be sending him a book?

"Open it," Ben encouraged him.

"Later," Harry told the younger student.  Privacy would probably be best with an unknown present.  Who knew what it could be and what the intent behind the gift might have been?

"Oh come on, Harry," said Tahir, a fifth year student and the only other upper level Gryffindor who had stayed for the holidays.  "You don't always have to be so dour."  The boy came down the stairs and moved to stand next to Harry.  "The rest of us opened our presents while you were still up in your room."

Harry scowled.  He was dour because that was how the world was.  It wasn't a fun and happy place like so many of his fellow students seemed to think.  The world was a place of loss and pain.  It was a place that could take everything good and hopeful in your life and tear it all away from you in a single spring day.  He opened his mouth to say something to that effect and then remembered McGonagall's words about providing leadership to the younger students.  They needed him to set an example and he needed to be able to provide that to them. 

Harry shook his head to clear it, removed the scowl from his face, and replaced it with a mildly indulgent look.  If all that the others wanted was for Harry to play nice and open his present, than he supposed that he could do that.  It certainly wasn't too much to ask.

Harry turned the present over in his hands.  It was gaily wrapped in red paper with green and white trees stamped on it.  There were no ribbons or bows, and the only other distinguishing characteristic was the small tag on the top with Harry's name scrawled across it.  The writing seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't seem to place it.  Maybe the gift was from one of the teachers or staff members, someone whose writing Harry saw on a fairly consistent basis when his work was marked.

The only teacher he could imagine sending him anything was McGonagall, but it just didn't seem like something the Headmistress would do.  If she had a present for Harry, she would simply bring it to him.  She wouldn't need to be stealthy about it.  She wouldn't need to make it into some big secret.

Harry shrugged and then started to unwrap the present.  The paper came off easily to reveal a brown cardboard box underneath.  It had no markings on it that could indicate what was inside.  Harry opened it and saw that it was indeed a book.  It had a dark blue cover and when he pulled it out of the box, Harry could see that it was a photo album.  It was similar to the one that Hagrid had given to him so many years ago, and Harry immediately wondered what pictures might be inside it.

He opened the album to the first page and saw a picture of himself, Ron and Hermione on their first day at Hogwarts.  The three of them were standing in the Great Hall waiting to be sorted and looking nervous.  Harry reached out and brushed his fingers across the image.  The young people looked up at him and smiled, the nervous anticipation leaving their faces for a few seconds to be replaced by recognition.  It had been such a different time.  His heart ached for the loss of that innocence and wonder.  Harry flipped to the second page and saw pictures of them being sorted.  He had always wondered what he had looked like in that moment when he was speaking to the sorting hat, and now he saw that he had looked like any of the other students.  It wasn't possible to tell he had been having a conversation with the hat.  Harry continued to flip through the album and saw pictures of himself and his two best friends from all six of their years together at Hogwarts.

"Harry?" one of the other students in the room asked after a few moments and Harry looked up to find that everyone was staring at him.  Once again he was the centre of attention.  This was part of the reason why he had wanted to open the present in private.

"Yeah?" he asked and was surprised to find that his voice wavered slightly.  When he blinked he was also surprised to find that his eyes were wet with unshed tears.  He missed his friends so much.

"What is it?" Ben asked.  He seemed more subdued now that he had seen Harry's reaction to his present.

"It's just a photo album," Harry told the other students.  The pictures in it were somewhat of a mystery.  Harry had no idea who could have taken them all.  They seemed to be from random areas of the castle, some of them seemingly taken at times that Harry had thought himself alone with his friends.  He closed the book with a snap and then turned towards the common room door.  "Let's go down for breakfast.  We don't want to be late."

Tahir looked like he was going to protest for a moment, but at the last minute the other boy seemed to think better of that decision.  He nodded and then helped Harry escort the younger students down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

***_***

McGonagall looked up when Harry and the rest of the Gryffindors entered the hall.  She raised her eyebrow at him and Harry nodded back at her.  All was well.  They weren't late for the meal, although it looked like everyone who had arrived had already started eating.  On weekends and holidays meals were generally informal and served over a couple of hours, especially in the morning when many students were prone to sleeping in.

The Headmistress smiled at him and reignited Harry's suspicion that it had been her who had furnished him with his present.  It still seemed strange that she would have entered the common room and left it there for him, and the mystery of where the pictures had come from in the first place still existed, but the present itself was something that he could almost see her giving him.  Harry knew that the Headmistress had been concerned about his state of mind since the beginning of the school year.  She knew how much he missed his friends and all the other people who were missing from the school now.

The more Harry thought about the possibility, the more convinced he became that it had been McGonagall.  He decided that he would need to catch up with her after breakfast and thank her.  He really was grateful to have the tangible reminder of his best friends.  Looking at the images had made him feel better, not completely normal again, but at least partially like it.  It really was a great present.

Harry ate breakfast quickly, mainly ignoring the conversations of his fellow students, and keeping an eye on the Headmistress as she spoke with the two teachers who had remained at the school over the holidays, Snape and Redmond.  When McGonagall rose, excused herself, and disappeared through the back door, Harry finished off his own breakfast as quickly as possible.  He excused himself from his table and then hurried out to find the Headmistress.

***_***

It turned out that McGonagall was in her office, which was the first place that Harry had thought to look.  She let him in straight away and seemed unsurprised to see him.  That seemed to confirm Harry's suspicion that it was her who had sent the present.  Since she had taken over the school during the summer, McGonagall had seemed to look out for Harry as much as Dumbledore ever had, if not more.  She seemed more sensitive to what the final battle may have done to Harry and sought out opportunities to make sure that he was still rational and sane.  This gift must have been another part of that effort.

"Headmistress," Harry greeted the former head of Gryffindor house as he entered her office.

"Harry, come in," she said and gestured for him to enter the room.  "I was so happy to see you down at breakfast this morning.  I know that it can be a terrible burden to be the eldest student, but the younger ones do benefit from your guidance."

Harry nodded.  "It helps," he told her.  "Sometimes.  I guess."  He didn't really know what he was trying to say, but McGonagall nodded as if she understood anyhow and Harry suspected that she did.  He knew that she had been a good friend to Dumbledore and taking over the school after his death must have been almost overwhelming, but maybe it had helped her as well.  He wondered if she had the same problem with feeling normal that he did.

"Good," she said with a nod.  "How can I help you?"

"I wanted to thank you for the gift," Harry told her and held out the photo album that he was still carrying around.

The Headmistress looked down at the dark blue book and raised her eyebrow.  She shook her head slowly.  "The gift is not from me, Harry," she told him.

"It's not?"

"No.  Although I now wish I had thought to get you something."

"It's just... the pictures.  I don't know where they came from," Harry explained.  He really didn't understand where they could have come from if the present wasn't from McGonagall.  Surely if there were mysterious pictures from inside the castle, she would be the one who had access to them.

"Can I see?" the Headmistress asked and reached out to receive the album from Harry.  Harry nodded and passed the book over to her.

McGonagall opened the cover and started flipping through the pages.  She made interested noises as she went and smiled softly at the images that greeted her.  Harry knew that she had always had a soft spot for Hermione, who had been one of her best students.  Eventually she closed the book and passed it back to Harry.

"It is a beautiful present, Harry," she said, "but it was not I who gave it to you."

"Do you know where the pictures could be from?" Harry asked.

McGonagall regarded Harry for a long moment and for a while he didn't think that she was going to tell him anything.  Eventually she nodded slightly and spoke.  "You will keep this to yourself?"

"Of course, Headmistress," Harry assured her.  If McGonagall didn't want what she was going to tell him to be repeated, then Harry would never mention it to anyone.  There was no question about that.  He had been trusted with enough secrets in his life that he understood the importance of being able to keep a confidence.

"Good," she said in acknowledgment of his promise.  She turned, led the two of them across the room, and indicated that Harry should sit down in one of the chairs in front of the fire.  McGonagall sat in another that was placed across from Harry.

"I know that there are rumours amongst the students that the castle has eyes.  It's partially true.  The castle does have a strange sort of sentience.  It can tell me when something unusual is happening.  It is tied to both the Headmaster or mistress and their deputy.  That's what allowed Dumbledore and I to always know what you and your friends were up to.  It also holds visual memories of things that go on inside the walls.  It *is* possible to have the castle produce these as photographs, but it isn't something that's done often or something that's available to just anyone."

Harry took a moment to digest that information.  What McGonagall had told him was a surprise, but at the same time it really wasn't.  He had suspected for a long time that Dumbledore had some kind of strange connection with the castle that allowed him to see everything that was going on inside the walls.  He *was* surprised to know that McGonagall had been privy to the information all that time.  She'd never hinted that she knew more about Harry and his friends' activities than was obvious to everyone.

It took him a bit longer to absorb the other bit of information that the Headmistress had given him.  If the castle only spoke and showed its imagines to the Headmistress and her deputy, that meant that only one person other than McGonagall would have had the ability to acquire the pictures that Harry had received; Snape. 

Harry, along with many other people, had been surprised when the Ministry had appointed Snape as the Deputy Headmaster and even more surprised when he had accepted the position.  Harry knew exactly how instrumental Snape had been in the war against Voldemort, but he'd never thought that the man enjoyed teaching enough to want to make a further commitment to the profession.  Personally Harry had always believed that Snape would leave the school as soon as Voldemort had been defeated and Dumbledore had released him from whatever agreement they had.  That didn't happen, though, and the man had remained to continue terrorizing new years of students.

"Snape," Harry hissed softly.  The man hated him.  Why would he send such an amazing gift?

"Yes," McGonagall confirmed with a nod, "Severus." 

"Why?"

"I don't know Harry.  I know that Severus is hard on his students, but he does care about them.  He must have had some reason to do this.  If you want to know it, go and see him."

"I will," Harry agreed softly after a moment of thought.  He wasn't really looking forward to the confrontation, but maybe Snape wasn't as bad as Harry had always thought he was.  After all, the man wouldn't have sent him a gift if he truly hated Harry, would he?

***_***

"Mr. Potter," Snape growled as Harry entered the man's workroom. 

"Professor Snape," Harry greeted him.

"You are uninvited, Potter.  What do you want?" Snape asked.  "I'm in the middle of brewing a potion that's rather more important than anything I suspect you could be here to discuss."

Harry was startled.  Snape had always been unpleasant to him in the past, but Harry had thought that he might at least show him some small sign of acceptance after sending Harry such a present.  He still didn't understand what could have prompted the snarky man to do something so nice.  He understood even less how the man could continue to be so unpleasant afterwards.  Harry briefly wondered why nothing in his life ever went the way he planned it.

"I...," Harry started but then couldn't say the words that he had so carefully thought out before coming to the professor's workroom.  He knew that going there without knowing what to say would only annoy the man, but apparently his preplanning hadn't helped much either.  Harry hadn't felt as nervous since the days before the final battle with Voldemort. 

Snape stared at him for several minutes and then sighed in frustration when Harry didn't start speaking again.  "Are you here for something specific?"

"Yes," Harry told the man with certainty.

Snape nodded sharply and eventually gestured Harry over to the table he was working at.  "Well come here and do something useful while you try and figure out what it is."  The older man held out a knife to Harry and pointed to the bowl of tubeworms sitting on the table.  "Slivered, not chopped," Snape instructed.  "And make sure that they're equal sized pieces.  I don't want to end up covered in boils because of your incompetence."

Harry nodded.  He took the knife and started slivering the tapeworms.  He was very careful to follow Snape's instructions.  The last thing that Harry needed was to irritate the man before he even managed to bring up the topic of the Christmas present he had received earlier that morning.  It took him about five minutes to complete his assigned task.  The grunt of approval his work earned from Snape almost made up for the snark he'd received earlier.

Since starting to work closely with Snape in the war effort, Harry had acquired a respect for the man that he hadn't held before.  It had been grudging at first, he didn't want to like the professor who routinely made the lives of him and his friends hell, but in the end he had to admit that he did.  Snape was smart, courageous and loyal.  He had always been there when his help was needed on missions or in battle.  Unfortunately, he had remained unbearably nasty in class.  It was like Harry had two completely different experiences of the man.  He definitely knew which one he liked more, but he'd never been able to decide which one was the real Snape.

"Have you decided what you came here for, Mr. Potter?" Snape asked as he took Harry's slivered tubeworms and stirred them carefully into his cauldron.  Without waiting for Harry's answer, Snape reached out and pushed a mortar and pestle towards the boy, then passed him a second bowl of dragon eggshells.  "Powdered," he instructed.

Harry nodded again and got to work.  Snape just continued to stir his potion in a perfect figure eight pattern.  Harry couldn't believe that the man was allowing him to prepare the ingredients, especially if the potion was as important as Snape had indicated. 

"I wanted to thank you," Harry eventually said.  He had stayed silent for so long that his voice actually stuck partially in his throat and he needed to clear it halfway through his declaration.  It was excruciatingly embarrassing and he felt his face flush.

"For what?" Snape asked him dryly.

"The photo album," Harry supplied.  He continued to crush the eggshells.  That crunching and the burbling of the cauldron were the only sounds in the room.  Harry couldn't help but wonder what he would need to say in order to get some sort of reaction from the older man.  Why was he always this distant?  What did he think he accomplished with it?  Why couldn't he just act like he had normal human emotions like everyone else?

"You did give it to me, didn't you?" Harry asked eventually.  Snape had been silent for so long that Harry had started to wonder if maybe he had been wrong after all.  But there was no one else the present could have come from.  It had to be Snape.

"Yes," Snape admitted.  He sounded reluctant and annoyed.

"Then thank you," Harry repeated. 

"You're welcome.  Are you finished with those?" he asked and looked down to indicate the shells Harry was powdering. 

"I think so."  He removed the pestle to allow Snape to inspect the contents of the mortar. 

"I suppose that will do," the older man said and Harry knew it to be what passed for approval with Snape.  "You're obviously not completely incompetent, even though you pretend to be so in my class."

Harry didn't respond to that.  He instinctively knew that there was no answer he could give that wouldn't cause Snape to snap at him.  The truth was that Harry had spent the first six years of his education fooling around with Ron in Potions and over the last year he simply hadn't had the heart to do much of anything.  His grades were okay, mostly due to the fact that Harry just wanted to finish school as soon as possible and be out of the place that reminded him so much of all the people he had lost last spring, but they weren't the kind of marks that would allow him to go on and do anything special after graduation.  He was a mediocre student and the truth was that he kind of liked it that way.  At least there were no further expectations of greatness now that Voldemort was gone.

It had been Snape who had found Harry after his battle with Voldemort; who had knelt down next to him, checked for his breathing, and then pried the stick that wasn't even a wand out of Harry's hand.  He had helped Harry stand up and then carried him back to the castle and into the infirmary when Harry's leg had given way underneath his weight.  It had also been Snape who had been there the first time that Harry had woken up screaming.  He had reassured the younger man that the battle was over and Voldemort was gone.  He had also been the one who had told Harry about the injury to his leg that would never heal and the deaths of so many of his friends.

Harry had never considered the older man to be compassionate, and while his actions that day had hadn't been sentimental, he hadn't coddled Harry or sugarcoated the truth of what had happened, they had been undeniably compassionate.  He hadn't been obligated to carry Harry off the battlefield or stay by his bedside until they were sure he was going to live.  And the other man certainly had been under no obligation to give Harry a Christmas present this year, let alone one that was so priceless as those pictures of his lost friends.  He realized the only explanation for his behaviour was that Snape cared more than he wanted to admit.  Harry wondered if it was just him, or if the same held true for all the students at the school.  If it was just Harry, what could that possibly mean?  Harry would have to find someway to ask without agitating Snape too much.  He wanted an answer, not a tongue-lashing from the older man. 

"Well come over here, then," Snape instructed and moved so that Harry could stand next to him on the other side of the table.  "I need to continue stirring this as you add that slowly."

Harry nodded.  He moved around the table and began to add the powdered eggshells.  He watched as Snape stirred the potion.  It was almost hypnotic, a slow, steady movement in that perfect figure-eight pattern.  The motion was so practiced and it suddenly hit Harry how many years the other man had been doing this.  So many more years than Harry had been alive.

"Did you always know that this was what you wanted to do?" Harry asked as he continued to add the powdered eggshells to the potion in the cauldron.

"Potion making?"

Harry nodded.

"Yes," Snape supplied.  He looked down at Harry with a sneer on his face.  "Unlike most of the children that come through this school, I always knew what I wanted to do with my life."

"Does it make you happy?" Harry asked and immediately knew that he had crossed a line that he shouldn't have even come near.

Snape stiffened next to him.  "I can't imagine how that is any business of yours," he snapped.  Snape reached down and retrieved the now empty mortar from Harry's hands and replaced it on the worktable.  "I don't require anymore of your *assistance*.  If there is nothing else, I suggest you leave and rejoin the other students in your Christmas celebration."

Harry took two steps back from the Potions Master, but didn't retreat any farther.  He didn't want to leave now.  Something was happening here between them, something important.  At the same time, he didn't understand why he felt this way.  Snape had never shown any interest in Harry before, but something about him being there just felt right. 

Being with Snape, working with him, and being on the receiving end of his somewhat irrational snark was just so... normal.  Harry felt normal.  That felt like an epiphany.  He had never thought he would feel that way again and now he did.  He wasn't going to let go of that feeling without a fight.

"I don't want to," Harry protested.

Snape turned sharply to look directly at him.  The expression on his face would have terrified Harry the year before, but after facing Voldemort and winning, it took more than Snape's irritation to put Harry off what he wanted.  "That is not my problem.  I really don't care what you do as long as you leave immediately."

"You just never seem happy," Harry observed as he continued the previous conversation.

"Potter," Snape warned and took a step towards him.

"Well you don't, and I just don't understand why you would stay in a position that doesn't make you happy, especially now.  I mean, you could go anywhere you wanted, couldn't you, sir?  There has to be any number of companies that would offer you a position," Harry pressed.  Snape stepped right up to him, but still Harry didn't move.

"I don't see how this is any of your business," Snape growled, "but I made a promise and I intend to carry it out.  My word actually means something to me."

"Surely you can't still be bound by that," Harry reasoned.  He knew that Snape's redemption from the Death Eaters had come with a price.  Dumbledore had given the man a second chance on the condition that he taught at Hogwarts.  It had been Dumbledore's word only that had kept Snape from Azkaban, but now that the man was dead, and Snape cleared of all wrong doings by the Ministry, surely he was free to leave and pursue whatever career he chose.

"You would be surprised at what I am still bound by," Snape said and stared directly down at Harry.  His gaze was intense and suddenly Harry knew what the man's promise had consisted of.

"It's me," Harry said.  "He made you promise to protect me."

Snape didn't say anything; he just continued to glare at Harry.  He couldn't have been happy about his promise being discovered.  When Harry thought about it, the promise wasn't really such a surprise.  Snape had always worked in the shadows to protect Harry and his friends.  Harry had never known why the man had done it, especially since Snape had always seemed to resent his actions.

"I'm not a child anymore," Harry protested, "and Voldemort is dead.  I don't need your protection."

Snape gave him a disbelieving look.

"I will be finished school in the spring," Harry insisted.

"Something which makes me exceedingly happy," Snape drawled.  "I will finally be released from this intolerable duty."