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The Tale of Ebenezer Snape	By : CryingCinderella Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 2912 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and do not make any money from my scribblings about it.

Chapter List
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A/N: The ghost of Christmas present. Let’s see who we’ve to check in on…his nephew Malfoy, his employee, Mr. Weasley…am I forgetting anyone? ;-) But without further ado, the ghost of Christmas present is now brought to you! Please leave a review!

A/N: The ghost of Christmas present. Let’s see who we’ve to check in on…his nephew Malfoy, his employee, Mr. Weasley…am I forgetting anyone? ;-) But without further ado, the ghost of Christmas present is now brought to you! Please leave a review!

            There was a loud thump that shook him from his slumber. Severus Snape sat up in his bed for the second time that night, cursing that when he had returned he had not thought to grab his wand. The thump resounded again, coming from his sitting chambers just outside the bedroom. So many intruders on Christmas Eve, the world had fallen to criminal madness. But he stopped for a moment to recall how the last intruder had been a horrid nightmare, and with strained effort he forced his eyes shut and tried to go back to sleep.

            “Hullo!” boomed the loud voice of an all too familiar man.

            “Dear Merlin,” Severus muttered. He dared not draw back his bed curtains but had no choice in the matter as the pole was ripped from his bed, curtains and all.

            “Oops,” the giant chuckled.

            “How in Merlin’s Beard did you get into my house?” Severus spat staring at the enormous man. He looked exactly as Hagrid did in life only somewhat different, bigger perhaps.

            “I am the ghost of Christmas Present,” the giant beamed. “Come in and know me better, man.” He chuckled and the house shook.

            “I’m already in and so are you and I wish you weren’t. So place find the entrance and do the opposite,” he grumbled and rolled over in his bed.

            “Oh that’s no spirit to have on Christmas, Snape,” the giant chuckled. “Come in and know me better—”

            “Get out of my bloody bedroom before I foreclose on that hut you call a house!” he spat.

            “House?” the giant tilted his head to the side and gazed quizzically at the man in the bed.

            “Are you not Hagrid?” Severus grumbled.

            “I am.”

            “And the bloody ghost of Christmas Pain in my Arse?” he sneered.

            “I am the Ghost of Christmas Present, Adeleaus Hagrid.” He beamed. “Come in and know me better, man.” Again the giant chuckled and again the house shook. Little bits of cinder brick clattered to the floor and the bed seemed to shift positions against the floor.

            “You’re not Rubeus Hagrid?” Severus asked a bit taken back.

            “Many have come before me and many of my brothers will come after me,” he smiled.

            “I see.” Severus was not amused. The man before him looked exactly like Hagrid, only larger, and somehow he imagined Hagrid would be somewhat less jovial at this hour of the night. The family resemblance was uncanny.

            “Did I mention that I’m the ghost of Christmas present?”

            “You did.” He grumbled. “Get on with it, you big absent-minded spirit.” Severus rose from the bed. “And no singing.”

            The giant stood to his full height, his head pressed firmly against the high vaulted ceiling and he frowned. “What good is a bubbly spirit if I can’t sing? Ah, no matter, come with me, and know me better, man!”

            Within mere moments they were whisked out of Severus Snape’s house once more. Only when they landed it was daylight and they were standing in the middle of the street. He could hear cheery buskers piping music through their various instruments and a few carolers singing. A light dusting of snow had covered the street but the sun was warm and Christmas was in full bloom all around them.

            “Where the bloody hell have you brought me?” he grumbled, feeling suitably under dressed in his night robes to be standing in the middle of a public street.

            “Why it’s Christmas day!” the giant chuckled. “Er— shouldn’t have told you that, though I suppose you already knew.” The giant gave him a lopsided grin and began to sway back and forth.

            “I said no singing.” Snape hissed.

            “Fine, be a holiday hater.”

            “Bah. Humbug.”

            The giant called Hagrid strolled leisurely down the street tipping his oversized bowler, which had been covered with holly and ribbon, to everyone he passed, though no one seemed to notice or respond. As he rounded a corner he stopped, stooped down to peer inside a grimy window and then chuckled. “Oh ho! We’ve found the place. Right this way!” He reached for the door but with his massive strength took the whole thing right off its hinges. “Oops,” he chuckled, quickly placing the door back in its frame. “Better readjust,” he said and with a wave of a sprightly red and green umbrella he shrank to a normal size, well relatively normal, he still towered three heads over Severus and had to duck when he entered the doorway.

            “Hagrid where have you brought me?” he did not recognize the dwelling at first, he’d never actually been there, but as he gazed around the tiny house, it dawned on him that he was standing in the home of his nephew, his only living relative.

            “The guests are here, dear,” Draco called from somewhere in the house. He flounced down the stairs and into the kitchen. His wife, Pansy, was standing over the stove stirring a pot of stew.

            “Oh, I hope it’s enough,” she muttered.

            “Our friends are happy to share our meager Christmas feast, and happy to be in good company on this holiday.” He said and pecked his wife on the cheek. It was clear the woman was pregnant; though how far along Severus couldn’t tell. She was weary on her feet and sighed as she sponged a damp and dirty dish cloth against her forehead. “Coming, dear.” She said and carried the stew pot into the sitting room.

            Severus hadn’t noticed the three or four people who had arrived in the sitting room and were chatting merrily amongst each other. “Allow me to welcome you to my humble home,” Draco beamed, and bowed to the applause of his friends. “Kingsley especially, glad you could make it.” He offered a warm handshake to the dark-skinned wizard.

            “Thank you, Draco.” He smiled, though his face had seen better days. It appeared as if he’d been living on the streets and hadn’t eaten or slept in days.

            “Well budge up, you lump,” Pansy said as she swatted at her husband’s behind with her free hand. “Bring the table over here so I can stop holding this hot pot against my belly, don’t want this baby to bake any faster,” she smiled.

            Severus gazed around the house. It wasn’t much, a sitting room with a tiny fireplace, and a small study that branched off from there. The kitchen didn’t appear to have a pantry and the upstairs couldn’t have been much bigger. Hardly a place fit to raise a child, but if Draco or Pansy seemed bothered or worried they didn’t make mention.

            He watched as they chatted merrily amongst themselves, helping each other to generous bowls of the stew. It seemed so meager, a simple broth with little else to it, but not a mouth complained as they downed bowl after bowl of it.

            Sometime later Draco sprung up from the floor where he’d been seated and he clapped his hands. “Let’s have a game, shall we? Keep everyone’s spirits high.”

            “Oh, yes, a game, dear. What did you have in mind?” Pansy asked.

            “Snap!” shouted one of the friends that Severus did not recognize.

            “Oh, or we could do charades,” said Kingsley Shacklebolt. “I’m wicked good at charades.”

            “Yes,” said Draco.” Exactly why we won’t be doing them, no unfair handicaps this year,” he chuckled with a light heart.

            “Phooey,” the darker wizard replied. Everyone laughed.

            “Well if not snap and not charades,” said a witch that seemed familiar to Severus, perhaps once a Slytherin student. “What game did you have in mind?”

            Draco waggled his eyebrows. “Best the Boggart.”

            A rousing cheer rose from his friends, but Pansy just shook her head. “I bloody hate Best the Boggart and you know it.” She took the now empty stew pot back to the kitchen and came in carrying a tiny tart. “Tart anyone?” It was hardly the size of her palm but they shared it equally amongst all seven of them as Draco dragged a heavy trunk out from his study and into the sitting room.

            “Who’s first?” he asked. “Come one, Best the Boggart, if you can!”

            Severus watched as the various companions of his nephew transfigured spiders into giant balls of fairy floss with candy stick legs and an overgrown troll into the fuzzy jewel-bellied doll kind. They all seemed to be having so much fun, terribly unaware of how tiny the house was or how very limited the feast had been.

            “Go on, Kingsley, have a go,” Draco encouraged him.

            Kingsley stood up in front of the trunk and what had previously been a cuddly bunny transformed into Severus Snape. A few gasps and murmurs rose from the various witches and wizards watching him. The formidable shape of Severus Snape drew his wand and prepared to hex Kingsley.

            Severus gazed at his own Boggart likeness and frowned. People feared him that much he knew, but it never occurred to him that he might be someone’s worst fear. But in a matter of moments everyone was laughing again. He looked to the Boggart’s trunk to see that Kingsley had transfigured his likeness into a great big stuffed bat, with googly eyes and heart patterns stitched on its wings.

            A large hand fell on Severus’ shoulder. “Come, man, we have much to see and not much time.”

            They stepped back out of Draco Malfoy’s house and Severus found himself once more on the street. The buskers were still singing and playing their instruments, and various people were strolling down the sidewalk in the snow, arm in arm enjoying each other’s company. The cityscape moved quickly around them though he hardly felt as if he were moving and at once they were in a tiny village at the furthest reaches of Hogsmeade.

            “Whose bloody Christmas Present is this?” he grumbled.

            “Why this is the house of Arthur Weasley,” the giant Hagrid beamed. “Shouldn’t have told you that. Should have let you see for yourself.” He reached for the door but then thought better of it and motioned for Severus to drift inside.

            He hesitated for a moment and then floated his way inside. There was a tiny fireplace roaring in the kitchen, with an even tinier goose roasting on a spit. Two handles protruded from either side of the flaming hearth and at either handle was a red-haired freckle faced boy.

            “You’re turning to fast, George.”

            “No I’m not, Fred. At the rate you’re turning it won’t be done ‘til next Christmas.”

            “Boys, boys, stop arguing and work together. I want the goose to be cooked when your father and Ginny get home.” The woman was older, careworn and haggard looking at best. Her wiry red hair was piled up on her head and held in place with two wooden cooking spoons, one of which had a large chunk missing from its ladle.

            She carried a tiny loaf of crusty bread, which hardly looked big enough to feed all of the mouths that she had set places for around her table. And it was a very crowded table indeed, big enough to seat no more than four but the matriarch of the house had crammed nine place setting around its edge and still left room for a platter in the middle.

            “Has father returned from church with Ginny yet?” a voice asked, coming down the stairs. Ron Weasley appeared at the base of the stairwell holding a tiny wrapped parcel. “I’ve just finished tying the string— is there still time to get it under the tree?”

            Molly smiled. “You boys will do her a wonder of good.”

            “It wasn’t much this year, I’m afraid,” said Charlie, one of the older Weasley brothers as he too came downstairs, “But it’s all we could manage.” Bill followed him down and hugged his mother before heading over to the tiny cluster of loosely bound pine branches that served as their tree.

            “I’m sure she will love it,” Molly brushed a tear away from her cheek as she smiled at her boys.

            “We sold the bed to get it,” Percy said as he appeared in the tiny kitchen. He received a swift elbow to the ribs from both Charlie and Bill. “Oi!”

            “We said we wouldn’t tell,” Charlie hissed.

            “She was bound to notice once we didn’t have sheets to bring down to her, stupid.” Said Percy, rubbing his stomach.

            “Oh, you boys!” Molly cried and pulled her sons into a tight embrace. The twins were saved as they continued to turn the spit. “How on earth will you sleep?”

            “We’ve already figured that out, mum.” Said Fred, shaking his hand and switching off to continue cranking the goose around the fire.

            “It was easy,” said George. “We’ve got a pillow that if we all try really hard to transfigure, we should be able to keep it as a mattress most of the night.” He smiled. “Each of us will get a night.”

            “I’ve already called Tuesdays,” Ron said. “And George wants Saturdays.”

            Their conversation halted as they heard the fumbling of the door lock. Everyone busied themselves in the house as Arthur Weasley held the door open. Ginny, the youngest and only female of the clan, limped into the house and made for her tiny chair. She was much shorter than a girl her age should have been. But after the death of her fiancée some years ago and with the wizarding world mostly crumbling at their feet, she’d managed to catch a rare muggle disease, they called it Polio, and it was crippling her, weighing heavy on her lungs.

            “Service was nice,” she smiled.

            “Oh, Ginny.” Molly Weasley knelt down beside her and wrapped her arms around her daughter. Her brothers rushed over to her and started hugging her but were swatted away by their mother. “Let her breathe, you two back to that goose!” she snapped.

            Arthur closed the door behind them. “Happy Christmas, Weasleys.” He smiled.

            “Happy Christmas, Dad.” His sons and only daughter said together.

            “Happy Christmas, love.” Molly stood and pecked her husband on the cheek.

            Arthur reached into his pocket and pulled out a shiny red apple. “Happy Christmas,” he pressed it into her hands.

            “Arthur this must have cost you a fortune!” she smiled, and gazed at the shiny fruit. “How did you—”

            “Last of my savings,” he admitted sheepishly. “And one for Ginny,” he pulled another apple from his pocket and placed it in his daughters hands.

            “Thank you, dad,” she smiled, and then rolled the apple down the table. “But Ron loves apples.”

            “Oh, no,” Ron blushed and rolled it back up the table. “Dad got it for you, you eat it.”

            Ginny picked the apple up then grabbed a knife from the table. She pressed the blade into the tender flesh of the fruit and giggled a bit when juice split out the side. “I can only eat half,” she said, and tossed the apple to her brother. Ron smiled, and walked over hugging his sister tight. “Happy Christmas, Ron.”

            “Happy Christmas, Gin.”

            The truth be told she could have eaten a hundred apples. Food was scarce in the house that was Weasley but she’d sooner die of starvation than feast alone while her brothers wasted away.

            Molly made quick work of cutting up her apple and giving pieces to her other sons. And then she chased the twins away from the fireplace and carefully moved the tiny goose to the center of the table. “Happy Christmas, Weasleys.” She said with a smile.

            “Happy Christmas, mum,” they said.

            “Spirit,” Severus said, gazing in pity at the tiny goose that was hardly the size of one of Ginny’s withered arms, “Why is their feast so meager? Surely his employer pays him better, knowing he has so many mouths to feed, and knowing the girl is sick…”

            “Does he?” The giant Hagrid turned and tilted his head to the side. “You yourself sign this man’s pay scripts, and yet you wonder why his feast is so meager?” The giant did not chuckle but rather shook his head.

            Severus turned his eyes once more to the Christmas table. Everyone was seated and holding hands, heads bowed. Arthur Weasley spoke first. “We thank you for this feast,” he said and squeezed his wife’s hand.

            “And for my family being together,” Molly added. She squeezed Bill’s hand.

            “And for dad still being employed,” said Bill. He squeezed Charlie’s hand.

            “And that the roof held up despite the snow.” Charlie squeezed Percy’s hand.

            “Thank you for the fire in the hearth,” Percy sniffled a little, and squeezed Fred’s hand.

            “Thanks for bogeys.”

            “Fred!” Molly snapped.

            Arthur chuckled and then cleared his throat. “Something serious this time. You too, George.”

            Fred sighed and cleared his throat. “Thanks for the plumbing that still works,” he squeezed George’s hand a fair bit harder than was necessary.

            “Ow!” his twin grumbled but then shook his head. “And thank you for the clothes on our backs.” He gave Ron’s hand a squeeze.

            “Thank you that Ginny is healthy.” And he squeezed his little sister’s hand.

            “Thank you to the founder of the feast,” she said and looked up. Everyone had lifted their heads from their bows and gazed at her. “Pro— well, Severus Snape. Thank you to Severus Snape.” She said.

            He was shocked to say the least as he heard the girl speak. Although she was no longer young, it was if she were a mere child knowing no better than to mention his name at the family dinner table. Molly looked livid and Arthur looked weary.

            “Thank you to Severus Snape?” Molly huffed. “Indeed! Why if that man were here right now I’d give him a full helping of what’s on my mind and I hope he would choke on it.”

            “Choke on it,” the twins said together.

            “Mother, it’s Christmas, let’s not be spiteful. He pays father’s salary…he’s made this meal possible.”

            Arthur breathed a heavy sigh. “She is right, dear.” He turned his head and kissed Ginny on the forehead. “You see the good in even the worst of people,” he said. “To Severus Snape, founder of the feast, may he stay alive and well this Christmas Day to continue to place food on our table.”

            The rest of the Weasley clan half-heartedly raised their glasses but Ginny smiled and she clanked hers with everyone she could reach. “Bless us all, each and every one.” She said.

            “Bless us all,” they said and commenced with eating their diminutive meal.

            “Spirit,” Severus said, turning to face the giant. But the giant no longer looked like Hagrid. His face had crinkled with age lines, and his bushy black beard and long tangled hair had all turned white as snow. “Spirit?”

            “Ah, Christmas Present is not long for this world…” he smiled. “But you know me better, man.” He clapped Severus on the back, though he hardly felt it.

            “Spirit, what is to become of Ginevra Weasley?”

            “Who’s to say?” he said, as little bits of glitter sparkled around him, fading his image. “I am but the spirit of Christmas Present, how can I know the future?” he shrugged his shoulders.

            Ginny coughed and reached for her glass of water, but her hand was too weak to grasp it properly. The water spilled down her shirt and everyone was on their feet to help her clean it up.

            “But, should things not improve…” he whispered as his figure became transparent. “I foresee an empty chair at this over-crowded dinner table…”

            Severus Snape watched as the scene before him faded and he found himself once more on the street. The Ghost of Christmas Present was fading away and was all but vanished when he heard his words. “The Ghost of Christmas Present awaits, go forth and know him better, man!”

            He did not like the feeling he that lurched in his stomach as he walked aimlessly down the street toward the swirling black mist. What had once been a cheery Christmas day now seemed dark and dreary. A tall and sullen figure stood draped in a cloak that obscured the face of whatever demon lay inside.

            “I am here, spirit,” Severus said, as he approached what he could only assume was the Spirit of Christmas to be.

            “So be it,” she said. And with a clap of her hand, thunder echoed across the sky and the world swirled into darkness.

This is the scary part, kids! ;-) Hope you'll leave a review!! :-)
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The Tale of Ebenezer Snape