Severus Evans and the Impudent Brat: Chapter Eight
Year One: Severus Evans and the Impudent Brat

Chapter 8: The Night Before Christmas



It was the night before Christmas, and Severus had been summoned to the headmaster's office.

"And a Happy Christmas to you," he sardonically greeted as he walked in. "What business couldn't wait till after the holiday?"

"No business, Severus," said Dumbledore. "Just a request for advice from Harry's father regarding his gift." He held up a bundle of cloth that shimmered and flowed like silver-gray water. "Do you think it appropriate?"

Severus frowned. "An invisibility cloak?"

"A very special invisibility cloak. Belonging to a former student, but, alas, apparently long abandoned. I happened across it when I was sifting through a few oddments in an old storeroom."

"It must be worth a fortune."

"If it's what I think it is, it's more valuable than you can begin to imagine. But apparently not to its previous owner."

There was a strange twinkle in Dumbledore's eye.

"You're quite sure?" asked Severus, waiting for the other shoe to drop. "The owner has never inquired about it, all these years?"

"Not at all."

"And so you want to give it to Harry." Severus shook his head. "Do you really think he needs further incitement to mischief?"

"Perhaps." Dumbledore winked. "There is mischief, and there is mischief. And I suspect that a great deal of the undesirable kind of mischief you suffered by the former owner was aided and abetted by this very cloak."

His jaw fell. "You don't mean--Potter? He...?"

"Don't you see a certain poetic justice, here, Severus?"

A smirk tugged at his mouth. "I do. But you are the last person I would have expected to mete it. You always favored Potter."

"Did I?" Dumbledore raised his eyebrows, his blue eyes gleaming at Severus. "What I favored, Severus, was for my students to learn how to resolve their conflicts without resorting to the Dark Arts."

Severus wanted to point out that James Potter had spent seven years loudly denouncing the Dark Arts with his right hand while liberally employing them with his left. Instead, he said, "Speaking of the Dark Arts, I am increasingly uncomfortable with the presence of Professor Quirrell."

"Good. Continue to be so--and continue to keep a close eye on him. I know I can count on you."

"Of course."

"And," Dumbledore went on, "bear in mind this cloak may prove useful in helping Harry not only to engage in mischief but to avoid it as well."

Severus stiffened.

"By all means," he agreed. "Give Harry the cloak, with my blessing."


Harry seemed not to have much appetite that Christmas Eve. Severus had promised that Harry could stay the night in Severus' own rooms, if he wished, and Harry had leaped at the invitation. All through dinner the boy kept looking up at him, eyes bright with anticipation, and finally Severus excused himself from the High Table and walked down to the Gryffindor table.

"Come along, Harry," he said, lightly touching a hand to the boy's shoulder. "But don't be crying to me if you're starving by bedtime."

"I'm not hungry," said Harry, fairly bouncing as he walked.

"Mm-hm." Following the bouncing boy, Severus walked down to his rooms and opened the door, letting Harry enter first.

"Oh!"

Harry walked over to the little tree sitting on top of the work table. Severus drew the door closed and settled on the sofa. Streams of light, red and gold and silver and green, spiraled and snaked round the small evergreen.

"Oh," said the boy. "How..." He looked, suddenly, to the photos on the mantel. "Can you do that?" he said, pointing.

"Oh, really, Harry."

"Really, Professor."

"You were a baby."

"Please."

Severus shook his head, fixing his eyes on the old photograph. "It was a childish trick, by a silly young man," he murmured.

"Please? Even if I'm not a baby."

"Oh..." He pulled out his wand. "All right. It's very simple, really."

Harry plopped to the floor directly in front of Severus, looking up earnestly.

"Better still." Severus patted the sofa next to him. "Get up here. I'll show you how it's done."

Severus nearly fell off the sofa from the impact of his son hitting the cushions. "Can I really?" Harry breathed out.

"Of course you can. Elementary wand work. If you've been paying any attention at all in your classes, even a lackadaisical scholar like yourself should be able to learn it by now."

He glanced sidelong, raising an eyebrow. Harry looked to him, waiting.

"All right." Severus looked out into the room. "More than anything, it simply requires concentration. Focus. Mental discipline is the foundation of magic. Like... so." He held his wand poised, brought his thoughts to a fine point, and snapped the wand precisely. "Gryffindor red." He shifted his mind. "Slytherin green. And a Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night."

Harry laughed.

"You know that one, do you?" Severus felt a little smile emerge. He trailed more sparks, red, then green, through the air.

"Of course," the boy said scornfully. "It's not like they didn't let me bring books in the cupboard--"

The wand clattered to the floor, sending up an echo of red and green.

"The cupboard?" Severus repeated, staring at his son.

The boy gaped back at him mutely.

So help him, God, if Albus Dumbledore had known about it and said nothing all these years...

Severus leaned over and picked up his wand. "Accio, Moore." A slim volume flew from a corner shelf into his hand. "Here."

Harry beamed, looking over the book Severus had handed to him. "You have Muggle books?"

"A few." Severus started tracing red and green spirals. "I grew up among Muggles. That book was one of my absolute favorites as a child--the Christmas I always wished I might have." Severus snorted. "In my youth, Father Christmas got sidetracked at the Pig and Poppy before he made it round to our house."

Harry frowned.

"Never mind." Severus snapped his wand back and forth, sending forth a crystalline stream like glittering white snow. "Read the book to me, while I conjure visions of sugarplums."


"Good, Harry. Good."

The boy was clearly pleased. Having watched the light show Severus had crafted to accompany the story, Harry had been eager to try his own hand. Once he applied himself, the boy caught on quickly; what he lacked more than anything, Severus noted, was confidence.

"How do I make pictures?" asked Harry.

"That will come with practice. For now, just keep making patterns with the path of your wand." Severus leaned back, folding his hands and watching the colors spiral from Harry's wand: red and silver, green and gold.

"You've made good progress, for so short a time of study," he remarked. He feared he might be overindulging the boy in praise; but it was Christmas. One evening of laxity would do the boy no harm.

Harry shrugged, and the sparks shrugged with him. "You said it was simple."

"I don't mean only this. I mean your studies as a whole. Since coming to Hogwarts."

Harry shrugged again. "Tell me about my mum," he said.

And don't ask about before coming to Hogwarts. "All right," said Severus. "What do you wish to know?"

"Everything."

He couldn't help but smile. "Well. Your mum's name was Lily Evans, and she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. We grew up in the same town, and we were in the same year at Hogwarts. She got sorted into Gryffindor--just like you, Harry. I was heartbroken, because I was certain I would be in Slytherin--and so I was. Even so, despite being in rival houses, we kept up our friendship, your mother and I. For a few years. Then... well... things didn't go terribly well for a while. But by our last year we were engaged to be married, and we got married less than a month after we'd been graduated, and we lived happily ever after--for three years."

"And then..."

"Let's not talk about that tonight." Severus looked over to the picture of Lily. "I worked briefly at an Apothecary while I was waiting for Old Sluggy--I mean, for Professor Slughorn--to step down; he was the old Potions master, here at Hogwarts. Then you decided to put in an appearance; I've always suspected that tipped matters in my favor. Within the week after I'd told Professor Dumbledore we were expecting our first child, Professor Slughorn had put in to retire at the end of the school year. By September I had a good job and a handsome, healthy baby boy." He smiled again. "Your mother was very happy, of course, but I was utterly mad with joy. I woke Professor Dumbledore at four in the morning to tell him you'd been born."

"You never," said Harry, grinning.

"I did. You may even ask him yourself." He picked up his wand and flicked a few sparks that fanned out like fireworks. "It was your mother who gave you the name Harry. As I knew of no rival suitors by that name," he winked, thereby astonishing the boy, "I saw no reason to deny her wish. And of course you got your second name from me."

"Second name?"

Exasperation flared up in him, but one look at Harry tempered it. "Yes, Harry. Am I to understand that your aunt and uncle never used it?"

"They told me I didn't have one."

He was going to fucking kill them.

"Severus," he intoned. "Your full name is Harry Severus Evans."

"Oh." His gaze drifted to the photograph on the mantel. "Your name's Severus, is it?"

"They didn't even tell you my name."

Harry looked back at him, and Severus could see the alarm rise in his eyes.

"Harry." He spoke softly, barely audibly. "Harry, my dear boy. If I promise--if I swear that I will not be angry with you, only with Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, will you please, please tell me the truth?"

A little smirk twitched on the boy's face. "I'd like to see you angry with Uncle Vernon."

"That is one Christmas wish that stands a good chance of coming true," Severus dryly assured Harry. He sobered again. "So, Harry, what exactly did they tell you, about me, about your mum, about--before?"

Harry looked down, fidgeting. "They said that you were both killed in a car crash, and that it was all his fault, and that she should never have married that awful boy." He glanced up, half apologetic. "That's all they ever called you. That awful boy. I think I'd even thought it was your name--when I was little and stupid, of course."

Severus closed his eyes, breathing in sharply.

"And," he said, opening his eyes again, "they said nothing to you of your background. Of magic. Of being a wizard."

Harry shook his head. "They tried to keep me from coming to Hogwarts. McGonagall must've--"

"Professor McGonagall."

"Professor McGonagall must've sent a hundred owls, trying to reach me. It took Hagrid to get past Uncle Vernon, in the end."

"I see." Five months had gone by, and not one word about it, from Hagrid or from Dumbledore. "Well, Hagrid certainly can be a force to be reckoned with."

"He took me to Diagon Alley, to buy my things," said Harry. "It was lots of fun, and he even took me out to eat, and he told Uncle Vernon he'd be watching and if they didn't get me to the train on time, he'd kick their bloody--"

"That will do, Harry." Hagrid wasn't such a bad sort, after all, if one could overlook his forgetting to tell important things, or forgetting not to tell even more important things. "So you got to the train, and found your way to the platform, and here you are."

"Thanks to the Weasleys."

"How's that?"

"I couldn't find the platform, till they saw me and showed me what to do."

"Hagrid forgot to tell you that little detail."

"I don't think he remembered I didn't know. He'd've told me, I'm sure he would."

"Yes, Harry, I'm sure he would."

The boy stretched, yawning, and quickly tried to hide it. "All this work," he said. "Takes it out of a fellow."

"Indeed." Holding back a smile, Severus waved his wand. Mincemeat pies and two mugs of steaming apple cider appeared beneath the tree. "Have a bite before we turn in?"


The boy was asleep within minutes of resting his head on the pillow. Severus watched him, curled up on the blankets and sheets he'd arranged on the sofa. He was still so small, his boy; too small to have such a mortal enemy--

He shook his head. Not tonight, he told himself. Just for one night, put it out of your head.

As if he could ever forget, when everything served only to make him remember.

He went into his bedroom. From beneath the bed he retrieved a small stack of presents, wrapped in shining red and gold. He crept back into the sitting room, his stealth quite wasted as the boy was sleeping soundly, and arranged the packages under the tree. It didn't seem like much. He hoped it would be enough. It was his first real...

The sparkling spirals shimmered and blurred. He drew a hand roughly across his eyes.

It would have to do. They would make it do. If Harry's Christmases had been anything like his own, it would more than do.