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The Twelve Days of Secret Santa	By : CryingCinderella Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 32182 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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A/N: Oh goodness, her curiosity is going to be the death of her. This chapter is moving us right along, but wait til you see what's in store for the 8th day...

She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t thought of it before. It was more than the perfect idea. While Hagrid loved all beasts and creatures Dumbledore loved rare beasts and creatures. She grinned at her handiwork and leaned back against the door to her office. A terrarium covered the entire surface of her desk. And inside were seven very peculiar creatures. They looked like tiny lizards, each a different color of the rainbow; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Their skin was shiny and smooth like a snake, but their tails were thick and fluffy like a bushbaby. Multi-coloured creatures were not uncommon in the wizarding world. Nor were creatures that flew, but multi-coloured half-lizard half-flying miniature mammals that could also sing were quite rare indeed.

            She’d woken early from her dreamless sleep and realized that the seventh day had arrived and she hadn’t decided on a present for the headmaster. As she’d brooded over Sunday’s breakfast, along with her copy of the Daily Post, the newest Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes catalog had arrived. They’d been the cover feature and she’d left a bowl of cinnamon honey porridge half eaten at the table as she dashed from the Great Hall and made haste to the owlery.

            With a special note at speed delivery she had a rather large package delivered to her study within the hour. And it was everything she had hoped it would be. They were perfectly friendly, each one eager to leap out of the glass cage and scamper over her shoulders. And when she asked them to sing a popular tune they twittered in gibberish amongst themselves for a moment and then assembled themselves against the big log in their terrarium and began to sing.

            The only difficulty now would be getting the rather large land tank to Dumbledore’s office. Fortunately for her Sunday’s meant that the Headmaster was most likely attending the students on a last minute dally into Hogsmeade. With a simple levitating spell she charmed the tank to float along side of her as she made her way out of her chambers and up through the corridors of Hogwarts.

            Upon her return to the study she quirked a brow up on her forehead. On her desk was a large square covered by a thin gray sheet. Pulling the sheet back she gazed blankly for a moment at the glass tank that rested there. It was an aquarium, filled with clear water and little else. Tiny black pebbles covered the bottom of the tank but if there were any flora or fauna inhabiting the place it must have been invisible. Hermione stepped closer to her desk to further examine the aquarium. She tried several revealing spells and one disillusionment charm but nothing appeared in the tank.

            It wasn’t until she sat down at her desk that she noticed the tiny drawstring pouch resting next to the aquarium. It was a brown leather pouch the string pulled loosely closed and it felt as if it contained marbles. Hermione turned it over in her hand before pulling the strings and opening the pouch, pouring its contents into her palm. Seven smooth glass marbles rested in her hand. They appeared to be clear glass though each one had a deep swirling coloured mist inside. Two were a deep green, and two were a brilliant but dark blue; two were purple and one was white.

            Hermione did the only logical thing to do when presented with an empty tank of water and seven shiny marbles. She dropped them into the water and watched. At first they just sank to the bottom and rested against the tiny black pebbles. But after a moment the white marble started to wiggle. And then the blue ones and the green ones and finally the purple ones. They started to float up from the bottom of the tank and spread out through the water. As they rose the marbles seemed to expand. It was like watching jellyfish only instead of tentacles they were growing gossamer shimmery wings. They drifted through the water effortlessly; graceful, elegant movements, drifting about in the tank like lazy water faeries.

            They swirled around one another, the white one moving slower and then faster bouncing up and down as the purple ones chased it through the tank. Hermione watched in amazement as they floated about; they truly were like enchanted jellyfish. An hour passed before Hermione even realized that she’d been gazing at them, lost in a trance of beauty and wonder.

            She shook her head and sighed. There was so much grading to be done and her lesson plans for the week still needed tweaking. Tearing her eyes away from the faerie fish she gathered her papers and lesson plans from within her desk and headed up toward the staff lounge.

            “Hermione, play a round of chess with me?” Remus Lupin offered as he knelt down on the floor near the fireplace. She had been laying on the thick fluffy rug with the fire blazing beside her for nearly four hours, milling over papers, marking them up and down the grading scale; sifting through her lesson plans trying to determine if she was overloading her students the week before the holiday.

            “You know I despise chess, Remus,” she said without lifting her eyes from Thursday’s sixth year Hufflepuff lesson plan.

            “Yes, a fact that I’ve always found strange considering it is a game of logic and strategy, both things you are more than proficient at and you seem to love.”

            Hermione sighed and laid her quill down across the parchment. “I won’t play you in a game of chess, but I suppose I can take a break from my work for a little while…that was your real reason in pestering me, wasn’t it?” she smirked ever so slightly.

            Remus gave a sheepish grin and nodded. “Yes, I suppose so. I do hate to see you so hard at work on the weekends.”

            Hermione shrugged her shoulders. “Lesson plans have to be done.”

            Remus nodded and turned his eyes to the fire for a moment. “Having a good week otherwise?”

            “Yes, the students are getting rambunctious, but I’m sure it’s nothing compared to how they’ll be this week.”

            He chuckled. “I know, my Defense students have been worse than normal’ hexing each other behind my back every chance they get. Must be holiday fever.”

            It was Hermione’s turn to chuckle. “I think the whole bloody castle has caught it. Between the students anxious to get out of here and the whole staff with the Secret Santa thing,” she shook her head and then met her old friend’s gaze. “How have your presents been?”

            Remus shrugged his shoulders with a bit of a smile. “Different…is a way of putting it I suppose. I keep getting strange trinkets and baubles that look as if they’d be little or no use to me…perhaps more useful to someone with a more keen…” he cleared his throat, “…inner eye.”

            Hermione couldn’t help but chuckle. It sounded as if Sybil Trelawney had drawn Remus’ name and the gifts sounded all too familiar from what she had received the year before. She rolled her eyes thinking back on how each gift had been wrapped in smoky purple wrapping paper, scented heavily with musky perfume. “I take it your inner eye has predicted quite well who drew your name?”

            “Indeed,” he said and then nudged her in the arm. “What about you? Who’s drawn your name?”

            Hermione reached around to her stack of parchment and pulled out a tightly rolled scroll. With a tap of her wand it unrolled and revealed an intricate chart of sorts. “That’s just the thing, Remus. I haven’t the slightest idea. I’ve been charting it, trying to figure out it and I just can’t seem to pinpoint anyone in particular!”

            He laughed upon seeing the chart, amazed at the effort she was putting into her search. “You know you’ll take all the fun out of it this way.”

            “It’s driving me bonkers! The logic just doesn’t make sense…”

            He read down the list. At the top of the parchment she had numbered a list from one to twelve where the first seven numbers had their respective day’s present written out next to the number. And below the numbers were a set of three columns; one listing every member on staff, the second one just a tiny box— some were filled with x’s and the others with question marks; and the third column had notes scribbled in Hermione’s quick but somehow still neat handwriting.

            “You really have gone all out for this and you still have no idea?”

            “That’s what’s troubling me!” she cried and began to point to the chart. “I know for certain that it cannot be Dumbledore, McGonagall, you, Neville, or Hagrid because of your Gryffindor house association. And I know that it cannot be Sybil Trelawney because she drew me last year.”

            Remus nodded. “Right, then how did all of these other people get their names crossed off the list?”

            “Well— it’s not Professor Sprout because when I enlisted her help she off-handedly let slip that she had drawn another name. And I saw Madam Hooch sneaking into someone’s office with a gift and then sneaking out without the gift.”

            “Alright, but what about Severus?”

            “He asked me to deliver one of his presents, clearly addressed to someone that wasn’t me, Remus.” She frowned. “Not that it would have been him anyhow.”

            “I see,” Remus shook his head. “I think you’re thinking far too much about this, Hermione. Perhaps you should just have fun with it.”

            “But some of these gifts are quite extravagant!” she squeaked a bit louder than she had intended. And then her face flushed. Extravagant wasn’t the only thing the gifts had been. Most had been quite personal and luxuriating; the bath going so far as to cause a series of somewhat intimate if slightly inappropriate interactions thereafter. Just the thought made her center tingle; the hair had still not begun to grow back between her legs, it were as if she’d been waxed.

            “Be so lucky you have someone who cares so much…” he rolled his eyes and reached into his robes withdrawing a tiny pink jingling bauble. “To foresee holiday misery with,” he tossed the bauble onto the floor and watched it roll around helplessly.

            “I suppose so,” she said trying not to laugh at the same pink jingle bauble she had received on the fourth day of Christmas last year. “But one of the gifts was a very specific childhood memory that I know I’ve never discussed with anyone here.”

            “Perhaps it was a more general muggle childhood memory that could have been a lucky guess?” he offered.

            Hermione shook her head. “No, this one…” she trailed off. She wasn’t quite ready to discuss how the little red sled had magically been restored in her study that morning. “The point is…someone knows me a bit better than anyone on staff still in the possibilities category should, I think.”

            Remus chuckled a little and then rose from the floor. He extended his hand to Hermione and she accepted his help, also coming to her feet. “I think you’ve had enough milling about with your papers for one night. And I’ll bet you haven’t even started on your present for tomorrow.”

            She nodded her head. “You are right about that,” with a warm hug she gathered her papers and bid goodnight to her old friend. “I’ll see you tomorrow? At lunch maybe?”

            “Sure,” he said and escorted her out of the staff lounge.

            Hermione found herself walking alone back to her chambers. Perhaps she was putting far too much thought into the gifts but it really did bother her to not know who it was. Though she supposed by Friday all would be revealed. She just wasn’t sure she could wait through five more days of presents before finding out.

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The Twelve Days of Secret Santa