Needfire

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize. All credit goes to JKR.

little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
--
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don\'t be afraid

look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains the red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms
and i\'ll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won\'t be a single place dark or unhappy


--excerpts from \"little tree\"

-- e.e.cummings


Chapter 22 - Happy Holidays


The bed was jolting. Snape groaned and put a foot on the floor to stop it, thinking he was drunk. It didn\'t help.

\"Happy, happy Christmas!\" Hermione sang loudly. \"Wake up, Snape!\"

\"Stop shaking the bed, Hermione.\"

\"Crab.\" She was walking on the mattress, reaching up for the velvet curtains, sending them back to the bedposts with extravagant motions, their wooden rings rattling loudly along the drapery rails, letting in the air, the morning, the holiday.

\"Wench,\" he muttered, and grabbed the tail of her nightshirt -- one of his own shirts, which she had raided from his armoire -- to pull her down where he could kiss her thoroughly and tease a nipple. \"Here is my happy Christmas present for you.\" He guided her hand under the blankets to his cock, which was already leaping.

\"Saint Nicholas you\'re not,\" she muttered against his mouth. \"Your beard is scratchy. And I hope I\'m getting more than this...there\'s not even a ribbon on it.\"

\"Let me tuck it in its warm, wet stocking,\" Snape whispered to her. \"See if you like that better.\"

She started to laugh. \"And then I suppose you\'ll want to take it out again.\"

\"And put it back...\"

\"And take it out...\"

\"And put it back...\"

\"Idiot man.\" She sat up to look at him, pushing her tumbled hair out of her face, flushed and smiling.

It was a good Christmas, the best he could remember, spending late-night Christmas Eve in front of the fireplace in his rooms, once his hallway rounds were done and Hermione\'s duties in the Gryffindor common room were finished. Sitting on his lap and pointing her wand at the flames from time to time to make them dance, she had told him all the Christmas traditions she could remember, everything he had missed as a child. And now shortly he would give her his gifts, and see her smile again. He had not slept until almost dawn, watching Hermione sleeping next to him, in his bluish wandlight.

\"I did get you a gift,\" she said now, bouncing across him to clamber out of bed and rush to her school bag, in his parlor. While she was out of the room, Snape summoned his own small box from the armoire and hid it beneath the blankets, between his knees, out of sight and general touch. She was back within moments, breathing quickly, bright-eyed, and kneeling on the bed expectantly.

Snape looked at the book-sized, flat package that rested on his chest. \"It\'s a book,\" he announced.

\"Of course it is,\" Hermione said. \"But you must open it. See which book it is.\"

He slid his eyes at her. \"It will be something educational. I know you. A lesson planner, or more lust potions.\"

She poked his ribs. \"Snape!\"

\"I\'m opening it, I\'m opening it.\" He struggled to a sitting position, propping himself on pillows. Hermione\'s eyes gleamed. He began carefully to pick the package open, so as not to tear the festive paper.

\"Oh, Merlin, Snape, you\'re supposed to tear open packages!\" And she reached to help him. \"You would think no one\'s ever given you a present before.\"

\"Bloody few,\" he muttered. She sobered a moment, then smiled and spoke again.

\"Well, that trend is over. What do you think of it?\"

It was a Muggle book on nutrition. Snape leafed through it, finding whole sections on balanced diets and the chemical makeup of many foods. There was also a section of recipes, enough like potions that he paused and began reading seriously. How like her to give him such a present, something to improve himself, and yet -- how enjoyable. He was deeply involved in a recipe for asparagus soup when Hermione prodded him again.

\"Snape!\"

\"What?\"

\"Did you get me a present?\"

\"It would be inappropriate for a Hogwarts professor to buy a gift for a student,\" he said primly.

\"It is also inappropriate for a Hogwarts professor to fuck a student,\" Hermione said.

\"I would like to think we could get through a conversation without that word coming out of your mouth.\"

\"I say it less frequently than I did. Snape. Happy Christmas!\" Apparently there would be no repressing her good mood today.

\"Your gift is under the blankets,\" he told her now, turning back to the book. She looked a little crestfallen, but snuggled against him anyway, pulling the blankets over herself. She read with him and pointed out the high protein recipes.

\"And these with spinach. I think you\'re anemic.\"

Snape set the book aside. \"Come here,\" he said. \"I\'ll show you anemic.\" And in the resulting happy wrestling, her knee touched something unfamiliar under the blankets, and she let out a cry.

\"You did get me something!\"

\"I did say it was under the blankets.\"

She dove under like a seal into water, and surfaced immediately with the small package, wrapped in green and silver foil. It was only seconds before the paper was off and crumpled in the middle of his bed, and the box open.

\"Oh, Snape.\" She held the sickle, turning it, watching the play of light along the blade.

\"It\'s sharp,\" he reminded her.

\"It\'s beautiful. But what else is here?\" She found something small still wrapped in tissue in the box. In a few moments, the netsuke for the thong of the sickle lay in her palm, a carving, in white marble, of a lovely and feminine hand, holding a snail shell. She stared at it for so long that Snape feared she didn\'t like it, but when her gaze lifted to his, and he saw the sheen of tears, that fear vanished.

He put his hand along her jawline and spoke seriously. \"White, to remind you that you are already clean.\" He leaned to kiss her. \"When you feel the need to rasp yourself into redness, my apprentice, I want you to look at that hand, that white hand, and tell yourself you are pure. You are clean. Happy Christmas, Hermione.\"

~*~

The Christmas Feast, as usual, saw the Great Hall rearranged so that all the students and teachers who had remained at Hogwarts could sit together at one table. Snape sat between Minerva and Flitwick, and Hermione, several seats away on the same side of the table, was between Potter and a Ravenclaw girl whose name Snape had never bothered to learn. Hogwarts Head Girl had not stayed with him long that morning, needing to get back to her Tower to open the gifts from family and friends, and share the day with her fellow students.

Dumbledore began the meal with his usual toast, a few platitudes and cheerful announcements, and then the feast appeared and everyone tucked in. Snape found himself unaccountably hungry, and was considering the nutritional content of many of the foods on the table. Instead of limiting his menu to grains and fruit, he had several slices of goose and a heap of chestnut stuffing as well. If I continue to be happy, I shall grow fat, and then who will be afraid of me? Unskeleton Snape.

He unobtrusively slid his small gifts to Flitwick and Minerva, who seemed pleased with his choices. Flitwick swished his new swizzle stick at the plum pudding and made all the holly leaves, placed as a garnish, circle the table in a brief spiky parade. Minerva unwrapped a precious and tiny garnet bottle of his sandalwood and cardamom cologne, specially distilled for her in the potions dungeon. She dabbed a tiny amount on the new linen handkerchief he\'d purchased for her, one edged with red and gold spider silk ribbons from a lingerie shop in Diagon Alley. She sniffed deeply before she tucked it into her sleeve pocket. \"If it weren\'t so public,\" she whispered to him, smiling her three-cornered smile, \"I would kiss your pasty cheek, Severus. Thank you.\"

And of course, Dumbledore insisted they all pull crackers together, and wear the stupid hats that came out of them. Snape\'s hat was a French chapeau, plumed in gaudy purple. He kicked it under the table immediately. Minerva fished it out and put it on herself. She did not like the maid\'s mobcap that had come in her cracker. She offered it in trade, which Snape refused with a curl of his lip and a sneering glance. Flitwick had a leprechaun\'s bright green top hat, and sat beneath it, smiling cheerily. Snape could not see Hermione\'s hat without leaning far out over the table, but Malfoy was wearing a dark colored derby with a flickering blue hatband, and staring across the table at Potter. Something in Malfoy\'s gaze reminded Snape of the way he felt when he saw Hermione unexpectedly: hungry, predatory, territorial, and ever so slightly ill-at-ease. What\'s happened to Slytherin\'s princeling? Coveting a Gryffindor as well? What\'s wrong with us? What\'s wrong with our own kind, that they no longer satisfy us?

~*~

The days between Christmas and New Year\'s Eve passed swiftly, and relatively uneventfully. Snape and Hermione found time to be together most days, although she only spent a night or two with him during that time. It seemed she and Potter had much to talk about; their heads were always together at meals, and they were forever in the library, whispering, drawing schematics he could never quite see when he skulked by, looking for his apprentice, longing to pull her into some dark corner and steal a tender morsel of her time and her lips. When Potter saw him doing this, those green eyes of Lily\'s seemed to follow him knowingly; and was it Snape\'s imagination, or did Potter seem to know what was going on between himself and Hermione?

When he passed them in the library for the third time on New Year\'s Eve day, shuttling pointlessly between shelves, carrying books and putting them in the wrong places (for which Madame Pince would have had his head), he finally heard Hermione following him.

\"What is it you want?\" she hissed. \"Can\'t you see we\'re busy?\"

Snape glanced around them, and tugged her into a small alcove near a window. He risked a single, deep kiss, his tongue sweeping into her mouth for mere moments. It was not enough, for either of them. \"I want you,\" he whispered hotly, and set her away from him.

Hermione glanced around them as well, and softly closed her scorching palm on the front of his trousers, her fingers cupping his testicles. \"And you shall have me,\" she whispered back. \"I want us to be fucking at midnight, to ring in the New Year.\" And then she was gone, back to Potter, leaving Snape gaping, alone with his erection in the Restricted Section. He should have known better than to dare a Gryffindor. Lily had taught him that. But then he blinked, staring into space. It was the first time, outside his quarters, that he had initiated sexual contact with Hermione. Here be dragons, Snape.

By the time Hermione slipped into his quarters that evening -- quite early, only an hour after dinner in the Great Hall, Snape\'s desire for her had risen to a frightening pitch. The mere thought of what they had dared -- a single kiss and a quick caress -- in relative public in the library, had occupied his mind almost to the exclusion of all else. He had tried to distract himself by spending the afternoon readying the Potions classroom for the start of classes after the New Year. It didn\'t help. He had knocked back a shot of Jameson\'s, hoping to take the edge off. It didn\'t help, either. Instead it warmed the blood in his veins and made him think it might be a good idea to go looking for her again to see what more she might dare, in that Restricted Section. Recognizing his own stupidity, Snape took himself off to his quarters for a long and calming tub bath, which only made him wish for company in the hot water, fragrant with fir essence. Finally he stomped off to dinner, was abrupt to Minerva and Flitwick when they asked if he wanted to join them on the top of the Astronomy tower at midnight to watch Hagrid flying his hippogriffs in celebration, and stomped back to his quarters to wait for Hermione.

\"Where have you been,\" he demanded, rising from his armchair, meeting her halfway across the parlor, yanking her schoolbag from her fingers, and quickly disrobing them both with a flick or two of his wand. Their clothing fell in a mingled heap on the floor, and Snape lifted his young lover into his arms and carried her off to bed. She was chuckling by the time he deposited her on the green sheets, but that quickly ended as she welcomed him into her body, already wet and luscious with desire, and met his heated kisses with nibbles and demands of her own. He took her quickly, to slake his immediate thirst, and afterwards she lay panting and flushed, but unsatisfied.

\"Well, that was rude,\" she muttered, but with the faintest of smiles. \"You owe me, Snape.\"

\"I\'m aware of that. I\'ll make it up to you.\" He moved to the side, but his left hand slid down her belly and into the moist curls between her legs, slick and hot still with the evidence of his own pleasure. His clever fingers found a sensitive place and circled it until she was arching off the bed, and then his mouth took over the job, sucking, biting, until she gasped her ecstasy. Her fingers tangled in his hair, holding him against her, trembling helplessly, gradually writhing over the bed until her head dangled over the far side. The mingled taste of their desire was exciting to him and he fed there greedily, taking her to a second peak, and then a third, stronger than the first two.

When he finally relented, she was weak and sweating. Snape crawled up next to her and kissed, open-mouthed, the arched column of her throat, bent over the edge of his bed.

\"Merlin,\" she whispered shakily, and allowed him to drag her under the blankets to lie completely wrung out, on his chest. He was amused by the tremendous yawn she gave.

\"I hope that will suffice for now. Happy New Year,\" he told her.

\"Not until midnight,\" she said, \"and remember there is yet another task for you then.\"

\"Yes,\" he said. \"Making love at midnight, I remember. Are you sure you wouldn\'t rather go up to the Astronomy tower, and watch Hagrid flying his hippogriffs in formation to celebrate?\"

Her drowsy pinch of his buttock was half-hearted. With another yawn, she drifted to sleep.

A few minutes before midnight, according to the clock over the bedroom fireplace, Snape woke his lover by trapping her beneath him and settling firmly between her legs. She looked up at him drowsily, but waked when she felt his hardness probing at her entrance.

\"You\'re selfish tonight,\" she said, but she was already wrapping her legs about his waist to assist him. He had taken no more than a few long, slow strokes when there was a knocking on his door.

They both froze, heads turning, as if they could see through the bedroom wall and the outer door to the hallway beyond.

\"Expecting someone?\" Hermione asked dryly.

\"You know I am not. Ignore it.\" He continued to move, and the two of them had just begun to settle into a slow rhythm when the knock came again, louder this time, accompanied by a voice they both recognized.

Minerva McGonagall, pounding on the door, demanding to know if Snape was inside.

\"Fuck,\" muttered Snape.

\"Language,\" taunted Hermione, but her smile faded as he stared down at her, black eyes even darker with concern.

\"Stay here and be silent,\" he said, withdrawing from her body and belting his dressing gown around him. He yanked the bed draperies closed and closed the door to his bedroom before hurrying to the door of his quarters, not a moment too soon.

Minerva was steadily dismantling his wards, he could feel them dropping, and she had the last one down and was through the door before he could flick his wand to tidy himself or swish the pile of discarded clothing into hiding. The best he could hope for was to block her view, and so he stood in front of her, glowering as intimidatingly as possible.

Her blue-eyed stare was furious.

\"Do you know what\'s going on in your House\'s common room, Severus? You\'re not there, and Draco is not there, and those idiot Slytherins have all but destroyed the room.\" Her gaze flicked up and down him, taking in his tousled hair, the hastily belted dressing gown, and his bare legs. Her eyes narrowed. \"You weren\'t sleeping,\" she informed him. Her lip curled a bit, reminding him of himself. \"And you positively reek of sex.\"

\"Why were you in my House\'s common room?\" he demanded furiously, attempting to distract her through his own anger. \"What need have you of anyone, or anything, Slytherin?\"

Minerva gritted her teeth. \"I had need of at least one of my seventh year students, someone to control the other notional Gryffindors at midnight, to get everyone to bed shortly afterwards. But my Head Girl is not in her room -- in fact, she\'s nowhere to be found, and neither is Harry. So I went to Slytherin, looking for Draco, since Harry must surely be nearby.\"

\"I see. And?\"

\"As I said, no Draco, either. Severus, what have you been doing?\"

\"I would have thought it obvious,\" he said archly. \"Ringing in my New Year.\"

\"Merciful Merlin,\" she said. \"It looks like you\'ve been rolled in Knockturn Alley by a cheap...date. No wonder you weren\'t interested in Hagrid\'s little celebration.\" She pushed past him, intending to sit in one of his armchairs, and it was then that she saw the pile of clothing.

Snape\'s heart began to pound. He needed to swallow and suddenly could not.

Minerva\'s incisive gaze moved from the clothing -- Hogwarts school robes, and the smallest corner of a Head Girl badge peeping from the pile -- to Hermione\'s schoolbag, on the floor next to a chair. That tatty, red and gold schoolbag with the picture of Gilderoy Lockhart drawn childishly on the side. Unmistakable.

Snape felt his knees go weak. This is it, he thought. The moment I\'ve been dreading. We are discovered. We are undone.

\"Extra tutoring,\" spat Minerva now, clutching at the back of the armchair. \"Such concern for the Gryffindor Head Girl. Vanishing for hours at a time, never in her rooms at bed check, which I\'ve just let slide thinking she was studying somewhere else -- and you, accusing her parents of abuse, recommending she not be sent home over the holidays -- Merlin, Snape, you vile Slytherin bastard, where is Hermione? \"

\"Minerva --\"

\"Don\'t speak to me! How dare you corrupt the morals of that girl! How dare you use your position to -- to --\"

\"It isn\'t like that,\" he interjected.

Minerva raised her wand and pointed it at him. \"Where is she? And don\'t lie to me, I\'ll know it if you do. Snape, if you\'ve hurt that girl, I will slit your throat myself.\"

\"Minerva --\"

\"She\'s right here,\" came a voice from behind him.

\"I told you to stay in there,\" he gasped, whirling. Hermione was wearing his other dressing gown, much too large for her, the sleeves folded back more than once, the shoulder seams reaching halfway between her elbow and shoulder, the hem nearly touching the floor. It made her look even younger than she was, and it was clear she was naked underneath. Daddy\'s little girl, playing dress-up.

Minerva burst into tremulous gasping. \"Oh, Hermione, what has he done to you?\"

The barefoot sixteen year old came further into the parlor, and despite Snape\'s efforts to keep her behind him, stood in front and leaned back against him. \"Nothing I didn\'t want him to do to me, Professor McGonagall,\" she said now. Snape drew a shaky breath and put his hands on her shoulders.

\"Hermione, go back inside and close the door. This is between Minerva and me.\"

\"Not when it concerns both our futures, it\'s not,\" she said.

\"You dare to touch her in front of me!\" Minerva gasped.

\"I would dare much for Hermione,\" he said shakily. \"And have done so.\" His hands clenched on her shoulders, and she looked up at him, her eyes glowing. She turned in his hold and pulled his face down for a kiss, brief, but sincere, and very much like applying accelerant to Minerva\'s fiery fury.

\"Young woman,\" said Minerva, now, very pale, her lips thinning. \"You will take your things and go to your room and wait for me there. We must discuss your punishment, but first -- Snape, you realize this means dismissal.\" Minerva\'s voice was shaky now, as well. Snape realized how very much she was hurt by what she had discovered. Her favorite student, Hogwarts Head Girl, shagged by her dear friend, the newly vile Potions Master.

\"Wait a moment,\" said Hermione, speaking to her Head of House.

\"Don\'t make this worse,\" said Snape.

\"She needs to understand.\"

\"I\'ve already seen and heard too much tonight,\" said Minerva. She turned on her heel. \"Snape, meet me in Headmaster Dumbledore\'s office in ten minutes. That should give you time to clean the...smell...off yourself.\" She waited at the door, holding it open, pointedly waiting for Hermione to pass through ahead of her.

\"Go,\" said Snape in her ear. \"I\'ll find a way to communicate with you, but later.\" He gave her shoulders one last squeeze. \"I...\" his voice dropped to a whisper, to tell her the one thing he could never tell Lily. The thing that would gut him, and leave his heart in her small, square hands. \"I love you. Go.\" He gave her a little shove towards Minerva. Wordlessly, with several backwards glances of astonishment, Hermione gathered her things and left the room.

Minerva had one last parting shot. \"I cannot tell you how this hurts, Severus.\"

He turned on his heel, so she would not see the water that rose in his eyes. A moment later the door slammed and his quarters were silent. They were not tears for his love, or even tears for their discovery, though that hurt as well. They were tears because he had hurt a good friend, and with that one action, lost her forever.


~*~

It had been a harrowing scene in Dumbledore\'s office. Minerva, her last ounce of control gone, could hardly speak in her spluttering fury, and so Snape finally told the story himself. Dumbledore had looked at him coldly. No one was seated.

\"I am disappointed in you, Severus.\"

\"I understand.\"

\"If only you showed some remorse...I might be able to accept a resignation. But as it stands, I must sack you instead.\"

\"I have no remorse for my actions,\" Snape said. It was true; were it to all be done again, he would still teach Hermione Druidism, he would still celebrate the rituals with her at the Stones, and he would still have fallen in love with her, made love with her, and done anything he could to protect her, including hurting her if it were for her own good. \"But what will you do to Hermione?\"

\"Miss Granger,\" said Dumbledore, with heavy emphasis.

\"Will you expel her? Transfer her?\" I know what you want, you bastard, thought Snape. You want her here, with Potter and Weasley, your three pawns. None will be allowed to leave -- unless they die trying, noble Gryffindor children that they are -- until your business with Voldemort is finished.

\"By rights I should do both. But...\" and the old man looked Snape up and down, in his black clothing. There was not a trace of the famous Dumbledore twinkle in his icy blue eyes. \"Were I to expel her, that would put her in reach of your predatory hands. And a transfer would not be much better. No, I think -- I think that we will simply strip her Head Girl\'s badge and privileges from her and confine her to the dormitories after classes and meals, until she graduates.\" His head swung to Minerva. \"Minerva, my dear, go and find Hermione, and make sure she gathers up her things from her room, and take her back to Gryffindor Tower to be with her peers. Once this gets out it won\'t be easy for any of us, but she cannot be allowed to retain her elevated status.\"

Minerva, wet-eyed with rage, Snape\'s Christmas hanky clutched in her hand and dabbing at her nose, left Dumbledore\'s office.

Dumbledore put both hands on his desk and leaned forward. \"You will pack your things tonight, Severus, and be gone before breakfast. Never darken the door of Hogwarts again. Never attempt to communicate with Hermione again while she is in my care, or I will see to it that charges are brought against you. As it stands, her parents may choose to bring them against you themselves.\"

\"Let them,\" said Snape, putting his own palms flat on the desk and leaning aggressively towards the older wizard. \"They are unfit parents, and I have proof of that. It would destroy Hermione for that to come out, but I will bring counter charges on her behalf if that becomes necessary. Is that clear, Headmaster?\"

Dumbledore met and held his gaze for a long, long moment. He did not respond to Snape\'s threat. Instead, he said, \"There is that one other job you do for me.\"

Snape\'s lip curled into a vile grin. \"I think you can consider that task completed, sir. I\'ll not spy for you any longer.\" However, I will spy for Hermione, and the other children Voldemort has in his wicked sights. And I will find a way to communicate with Hermione. She, and Potter, and Weasley -- and even Malfoy -- need my information more than ever now. You will not keep me from her in this way.

\"Severus, you owe it to Hogwarts to continue to funnel such information as may be helpful.\"

\"I owe Hogwarts a great deal, that is true. But I\'ll not spy for you, Headmaster. I\'m not your whipping boy with Voldemort. You\'re never surprised by the information I bring you, anyway -- I\'m always the last to know, it seems. You don\'t need me, and you haven\'t for a very long time.\" He straightened away from the desk and turned to leave.

\"Severus.\"

\"Make it quick, Albus, I have packing to do.\"

\"Where will you go?\"

Snape turned, and was surprised to see a look verging on pity in Dumbledore\'s eyes. \"I have no idea,\" he said, and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

~*~

In the end, there wasn\'t much to pack. He would send for his books once he had a place to stay, except for Hermione\'s present, which went into his luggage, and a few of his most precious Potions references. His clothing was shrunk and stuffed into a carryall. He went to his office and fetched all his druid clothing and tools from their locked cupboard and looked around the office and classroom for the last time. Despite all his protestations about how he despised teaching dunderheads, he was proud of his accomplishments here.

But, mostly, he was sorry to leave Hermione, Minerva, and Flitwick behind.

Angharad: \"Someday there will come one that you do not wish to hurt. And when that time comes you will find that \'must\' must equal could, or you will lose that one as well. \"

It seemed that day had come; but at least he had told her he loved her. He had managed that much.

He took some Floo powder from the urn on his office mantelpiece, tossed it into the fireplace, and said, \"Malfoy Manor.\"

Then Snape stepped inside with his bags, and vanished.