A Matter of Black and White

You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of canon but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land beyond Book 7 whose boundaries are that of the imagination. Your next stop—the AU Zone



…My sincere thanks to all of those who have encouraged me to continue writing even though the publication of Book 7 has thrown some of my plot elements into the realm of an AU. I hope this satisfies the thirst of all of those who still want more Snape after the last book.





CHAPTER 35—WATCHING AND WAITING



Aurora awoke to the satisfying sensation of finding herself nestled against another warm body, their peaceful early morning breaths rising and falling in gentle tandem. Severus’s arm was wrapped around her, and she nuzzled her nose against his bare side. She distinctly caught the musky scent of the previous night’s exertions, which was mixed with the spice of the various potions that permeated Severus’s chambers, skin, and very being.



The dire revelations of last night seemed a distant reality. Waking up next to Severus, sliding along those surprising satin sheets of his, knowing they had finally consummated something to which they had been building for so long…it was enough just to lie there in the warmth they had created. The world could come later.



Finally, she lifted her head enough to look at Severus. He was awake and watching her under dark lashes. His glassy black eyes still betrayed a man prepared to deal with morning-after regrets, but their cool wariness melted as soon as she made a contentedly incoherent murmur into his warm chest.



“How ever do you teach foreign languages when you can’t enunciate properly?”



There was tenderness under his sarcasm, and suddenly Aurora couldn’t imagine any other way of awaking except to his dry wit. Still, she wanted to assure him that that self-protective tongue of his wasn’t necessary with her. Besides, there were far better uses for it. She raised herself over him and gave him a long good-morning kiss.



“Was that clearer?” she asked slyly when at last they broke apart.



“I’m not quite sure I caught it.” He rolled on top of her and gave her another kiss. “What was it that you were trying to say?”



“Good…” She gave him a little peck. “…Morning.” She gave him another.



“Good indeed,” he said with a smirk. “You’re here with me, and all the blasted students are leaving for the holidays. What more can a man ask for?”



“The students…” Aurora groaned.



“Those tend to be my exact sentiments. Fortunately, we can forget about them until January.”



“No,” Aurora moaned. “I can’t. Not yet. I’m scheduled to chaperone their trek down to the train station this morning. They must be ready to go by now.”



She got out of bed and scampered around his room collecting her scattered clothes. She felt his bewildered eyes following her as she raced around his chambers. One moment they had been happily entwined in each other in bed, the next she was racing away. She felt his confusion as much as their mutual regret. This was not something from which she wanted to dash away. He was watching her intensely as she gathered her cloak from his front office. For once his quick tongue seemed to be at a loss for something to say.



“I’ll make the Contraceptive Potion for you,” he declared abruptly.



Aurora was a competent brewer, and there were some potions that she preferred to make for herself. There was, however, such intensity in the way Severus volunteered to brew the contraceptive for her. He was reaching for something to do, some way to express how he felt about last night. From anyone else, she supposed she might have been offended. After all, he was volunteering to create something that would, biologically speaking, make it as if their encounter had never happened. But this was Severus, and Aurora knew that there was more than just pragmatism that went into his brewing. For him, potion making was practically akin to making love.



Besides, she recalled, she had never bought a proper replacement for the potions kit she had lost at the beginning of term. She didn’t have the powdered Mandrake root she would need anyway.



She gave him a kiss. “That would be nice,” she agreed. “Can you bring it to lunch?”



“Of course. Brewing will give me something to do until I can see you again.”



Severus Snape trying to be romantic—the very attempt made Aurora weak in the knees. She gave him another kiss goodbye and then dashed up to the main levels of the castle, where students with trunks were starting to congregate. Never before had Hogwarts seemed so crowded, and never before had she been so eager to have the “blasted students” out of the way so that she and Severus could have a very happy Christmas.



* * *



But “blasted students” were only one category of impediments to happiness, as Severus Snape had so many times learned. He had never had a happy Christmas, and it was only Aurora’s dazzling light that had sparked a brief hope in him for anything more.



Despite the holiness of the season, his father had held a surprisingly hostile attitude toward Christmas. Christmas made people happy, and anything that made people happy had always triggered an irritable twitch in Tobias Snape. His father’s only perverse delight within the month of December had been to rant about all the pagan customs that passed themselves off as Christian during the holiday. For a man who had always silenced any whisper about the magical world from either Eileen or Severus, he was remarkably verbose when it came to preaching against decorating Yule trees, feasting, hanging holly, or other unholy rites. There had been no gift-giving, no cooked goose, no merry caroling, and certainly no warm family gatherings in the Snape household. Wishes of “Happy Christmas” had always had the same false sting to Severus as Madame Malkin saying he looked handsome in his first set of loosely fitting school robes.



With such a history of unhappy Christmases, Snape should have known better than to expect that Aurora would be his own private Christmas angel, bringing with her an entire holiday filled with days spent kissing under the mistletoe and evenings spent sipping Swiss cocoa by the fire. He had no sooner finished brewing her potion for her, imagining how the two of them would pass the time in a student-free castle, than he was summoned by the Dark Lord. There had been a new mass breakout from Azkaban, and his services were needed to administer the High-Proof Cacao which alleviated the effects of long-term exposure to Dementors.



Wishing he could slip some cyanide into the Death Eaters’ potions, he stomped his way up to the Owlery and found Aurora’s bird. Around the little phial of Contraceptive Potion, he wrapped a brief note.



Summoned. Breakout. Must attend to escapees. Would much prefer administering this potion. –S.



Later that day, while he was stirring some Patronus beams into a thick, rich brew, Lilitu found him. The Patronus beams glimmered a little brighter.



Potion taken. Thank you. But you can administer to me any time. Preferably sooner rather than later. –A.



He wrote back:



Brewing done tonight. Should be back tomorrow. Will tend to you then. –S.



The next afternoon:



Waiting all day for you. Anything wrong? –A.



Subject allergic to chocolate. Festering hives. Must administer antihistamine. Will be gone several more days. –S.



Hurry back or I’ll send reindeer after you. –A.



Before he could send Lilitu back with his answer, the little golden bird was joined by a school owl carrying a postscript.



Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? –A.



Pardon? –S.



How/when do you usually celebrate Christmas? –A.



I don’t. –S.



Good. You can pass the Eve with me. You will be back by then, won’t you? –A.



The part of Snape that knew not to put his hopes in Christmas plans knew better, but he wrote:



Hope to be. What did you have in mind? –S.



We’ll watch for Christmas together. –A.



Snape had no idea what this last message meant, but he liked the idea of spending any sort of eve with Aurora. He spent the next day imagining what they would do the night of the twenty-fourth—a far preferable occupation to having to think too much about the ugly, pock-marked face of his patient. Perhaps she would have another snug little gown like the one she had worn to the Christmas party. Perhaps she would wrap herself in that soft cloak again, hiding a surprise underneath. He hoped he would be able to unwrap her like a Christmas present.



Presents.



Of course there would be presents. Ordinarily, Snape would never have presumed that anyone would think to give him a gift, but this was Aurora after all, and she probably had something for everyone in the castle, right down to the littlest house elf. Snape rarely felt compelled to reciprocate gifts—giving something in return tended to create a whole cycle of unwanted presents, and Merlin knew that he didn’t need any more of the crimson and gold-striped socks that Dumbledore gave to the staff each year. In this case, however, he could hardly expect to spend Christmas with Aurora without having a gift for her.



But what?



As soon as he was finished administering to the half-mad, chocolate-allergic Death Eater, Snape Apparated to Hogsmeade. It was already late in the evening, and most of the people in the High Street were now leaving the shops with their Christmas presents in hand. Some of the shopkeepers were already starting to lock up to spend the holiday with their families or at least to drink some mulled wine at the Three Broomsticks.



A dim light was still glowing through the murky windows of Tulkinghorn’s Rare Books. Snape ducked in just in time to see the store owner—a crease-browed, low-jowled wizard take his keys off their peg to lock up. Tulkinghorn turned around and caught Snape square in the eye as he reached for the keys, clearly signaling that he had every intention of locking up, regardless of whether there was still a customer inside. Snape, however, was never one to be out-stared, and he sent the proprietor his best Death Eater glare to communicate that he would be doing his last-minute shopping at the store, even if it meant blasting through a wall to get to the books. Tulkinghorn replaced his keys on the peg.



Snape stalked briskly up and down the aisles, trying to decide what might most please Aurora. Holiday shoppers had thinned the selection down to the shabbiest editions of books on the most boring subjects. He could not give Aurora a dog-eared copy of Doxies for Every Occasion. Nor could he buy her the lone copy of his very own book, Judging the Quick and the Dead, even though it pained Snape to see the book collecting dust on the shelf and he tucked the book under his arm for his own piece of mind. The runes section was especially pitiful, featuring only the most standard titles, all of which Snape had already seen lining Aurora’s bookshelves.



“Don’t you have any more unusual runes texts?” He asked the owner with a snideness that barely masked his last-minute-shopper’s panic. “I thought this was supposed to be a rare book store.”



Tulkinghorn stared at him from watery eyes that might have frozen over with their coolness and wordlessly led him to the “Muggle Curiosities” section. The area was much less picked over, and the shopkeeper handed him a tightly-bound tome with gilded lettering that read The Exeter Book.



“The Muggle section?” Snape asked incredulously. He flipped through the first few pages filled with the lifeless Muggle facsimiles of an old manuscript in mainly Roman characters. “This is not a runic text.”



“No, sir, most of it is in English.”



Snape took another look at the writing. Though he recognized all but a few of the letters and even a couple of the words, there was no way he could call the writing English. Had the old man already had a go at his eggnog? “This is not English.”



“Old English,” the shopkeeper said with boredom. “The modern translation is at the back,” he added condescendingly.



Snape flipped to the back and indeed found a section of modern lines. Though he hated to admit it to the insolent shopkeeper, he imagined the polyglot Aurora would find the text intriguing. Still, it wasn’t exactly what he had had in mind.



“I asked for a runic text,” Snape reminded the shopkeeper.



The old man’s jowls trembled slightly as he shook his head and took the book out of Snape’s hands. He flipped through the first half of the book. He found the page he was seeking and then pressed the book upon Snape.



“Exeter Book,” Tulkinghorn recited. “Early collection of Old English texts. Also includes rare usage of runes in Muggle literature. Poem known as ‘Husband’s Message’ believed to include runes as clues to husband’s exiled location for his wife.”



Snape studied the page and indeed found the runes that Tulkinghorn had described.



“Sir can study the modern translation if he likes,” the owner sneered.



Snape snapped the book shut. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll take it.” He paid for his purchases and left the store, followed closely by Tulkinghorn, who seemed keen not to let any more customers get between him and his Christmas wassail. Snape then trekked from the village to the castle, pondering the various ways he would like to pass the Christmas Eve with Aurora.



She met him at her door with a kiss. When she showed him into her chambers, where mounds of pillows and cushions were stacked by the fire, Snape had hope that some of his more pleasurable Christmas wishes might come true.



Aurora pressed some hot cocoa into his hands, cutting off any of his typical protests against sweets with a knowing reference to his Milk-em addiction. “You can’t tell me you don’t like chocolate,” she reminded him.



He sipped the thick dark chocolate and settled himself on a cushion next to Aurora. “What exactly did you have in mind tonight?”



She grinned at him as knowingly as if she had been a Legilimens. “There’s plenty of time for that later,” she said coquettishly. “It’s Christmas Eve. Tonight we celebrate.”



“Just as long as celebrating doesn’t involve carols from Celestina Warbeck,” Snape sighed.



She laughed. “You’re in luck. There’s no caroling involved in a Holdahexe Christmas. Neither are there talking snowmen nor red-nosed reindeer.”



“That’s a relief.” He took another look at the pillows all around them. “This is all part of the ritual then?”



“In a manner of speaking…something to make us more comfortable for the ritual anyway. You see, Christmas is the time between the old and the new, between what fades into darkness,” she flourished her wand toward the fireplace, which erupted in white flames, “and what passes into light. Tonight we watch for Christmas in the fire…to see where the past year has brought us and where the new one might go.”



“So this is all a bit of holiday fortunetelling?” Snape asked skeptically. Such matters hardly seemed on par with the awesome power of other magical Holdahexe acts.



“I’ll admit that it’s hardly our most refined science, but it is our tradition. Besides, it’s been known to be remarkably accurate, though as with any divination its predictions often don’t become clear until we’re looking at them in hindsight.”



Well, at least she wasn’t going all Trelawney on him about focusing his Inner Eye. A bit of Holdahexe magic couldn’t do anything but help divination after all. “What do I do?”



“First, get yourself comfortable,” she said, settling herself deeper into the cushions. “Then focus on the fire. Allow yourself to hover over the pinnacle of this Eve. Let yourself float between today and tomorrow. Then repeat after me.” She began to chant in an unrecognizable tongue, translating each line into English:



“Heu-nakt nokmal d’Veld begin’n.

Tonight the world begins again

Im dunkelst Oor, laz paz Yr Zinn’n.

In the darkest hour, let go of your sins.

—Gibt Weg fir Moorgen.

—Make way for the morrow.



Ine Kend d’Veld vill rett’n;

One child will save the world;

Auk Doo mit Eem kann’s rett’n.

Save it with him.



Oond frish will d’Felds mit pyr vaiss Snay,

And fresh be the fields with pure white snow,

Oond klar vill Papyr mit Skriiben, nay,

And clean be the unmarked parchment.

—Moorgen skribt Yr Fayt.

—The morrow writes your fate.”



As she spoke, the white flames wove into unexpected shames, their pale smoke twisting into half-formed images like a partial Patronus. The chanting washed over his mind like rhythmic waves, making the images in the fire more pronounced. The pointed tips of the flames started resembling turrets like those on the castle. The fire crackled. There was a flash and the turrets flattened into the rolling surges of an empty sea, expansive and desolate.



Snape shivered at this bleak image and reached for his guide into these magical flames. Aurora had stretched across the cushions, her head resting on a thicker pillow as her eyes grew heavy in the trance of the fire. Snape lay down next to her, his eyes never leaving the fireplace, but his body now fully aware of its warm neighbor.



The figures in the fire shifted once he had settled into this new position. Two white flames swirled around each other like dancers. Then they seemed to fall and roll over and over each other as if making love. He felt his eyes growing heavy with sleep; they were content to take their rest with these visions fresh to their sight and Aurora’s body soft and warm against his.



But somewhere behind his eyelids, a final vision came. Blue eyes stared wide at him in fear, then shut and fell into a pool of white and gold.



* * *



AN: Thanks for waiting for the update everyone. I hope the longish length of this chapter makes up for the delay a little.



A few notes on the Holdahexe prayer. I realized that it is very definitely inspired by the Goo Goo Doll’s song “Better Days.” (See http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/song/335026.html for lyrics.) The language isn’t anything real, though it is inspired by German since it would make sense that the Holdahexe would be working with old Germanic spells. I’m thinking that their spell language has evolved differently from the modern spoken language, something like how the canon’s standard spells are influenced by but aren’t exactly Latin.