Current mood:

accomplished

Bleak Midwinter - for melfinatheblue
For: Melfinatheblue
Title: Bleak Midwinter
Author: *not telling yet*
Rating: G
Word Count: c.1540 words
Comments: For Melfina, whose number one squee is Lucius Malfoy and for whom Snape is wonderful - I hope this, though it's not at all racy, fits the bill.
Thanks to: my super secrit beta readers for all their encouragement :-)


The thick black cloud hung overhead like a large, oppressive blanket, the icy wind sharp on his face as he made his way from the house out to the stables. “There’ll be snow tonight,” he thought, pulling his cashmere cloak more tightly around himself against the cold. Closing the stable door behind him, he took out the rather worn-looking old wand that used to belong to his father and tried to light the lamps with it. At first attempt the wand tip emitted a few sparks that failed to catch, but at second attempt the lamps roared into life and cast their warm glow across the straw-covered floor of the stable. The light caught the gleaming white feathers of the peacocks strutting about in the darkness around the legs of the horses.

Lucius flicked the wand again and watched the horses’ troughs and buckets refill with food and water, and then he thrust his hand into a large sack full of grain and cast one handful after another across the stable floor for the peacocks, who immediately began to peck around for it. Nothing he couldn’t have got the remaining house elves to do for him, of course, but recently he had increasingly relished this touch of nature, this escape from the manor and its seemingly never-ending stream of unwelcome house guests.

He picked up a brush and began to absent-mindedly groom his prize stallion, brushing the length of its back with long, even strokes as he mulled over his situation. After his release from Azkaban he had felt relieved, indebted, honoured, even, that the Dark Lord wished to use his house as his base of operations, and he had bowed low and told his master so in glowing tones – not that he would have done differently even if he’d wanted to. But within a matter of a few days the harsh truth of his circumstances had become clear: he was not allowed to play the gracious host, apart from those rare moments when he was referred to as such in mocking tones, but rather he had become the lowest of the low, a prisoner in his own abode. His house had been commandeered for use by those who no longer respected his authority, his cellar of fine wines turned into a makeshift prison for whatever poor unfortunates the Dark Lord deigned to have there. Sure, some of them had deserved what they got and more besides, but it was the desecration of his home with their stench that he objected to – and to being unable to sleep because of the moans and cries emanating from the cellar below. After a couple of nights he had, of course, cast a spell over the ground floor to silence them and get a good night’s sleep, but he found that his liege liked to hear the sounds of his victims in the night and drew some sort of perverse comfort from it. He had paid dearly for that attempt at civilised comfort.

The grooming finished, he patted the horse’s neck and threw a blanket onto its back, sorry that this brief respite was nearing an end.

* * * * *

Severus Snape paced the floor in his study, his footsteps the only sound resounding around the circular walls. This first term in his dream job had hardly gone as expected. He had known his remit from Lord Voldemort since the summer: To preside over Hogwarts, indoctrinate staff and pupils alike in Pureblood wizardry, to weed out dissenters and deal with them. The laws regarding Muggleborns would be brought in by the Ministry to strengthen his position before the first term began.

What he hadn’t banked on were the medieval methods of his fellow Death Eaters, the Carrows, who seemed to hold any underage witch or wizard in as much contempt as Mudbloods and half-breeds. He was incensed at the torture of the children of Purebloods and hard-pressed to find ways to continue to justify the Carrows’ behaviour to the flood of anxious parental owls he’d received. But he also knew that to remove the Carrows would be to sign his own death warrant and end his influence at the school. He had to be seen to tow the party line.

His fellow teachers, far from welcoming one of their own number to Dumbledore’s legacy, had been very cool towards him since Charity Burbage’s disappearance, acknowledging his existence and authority to the bare minimum extent that they needed to. And his ‘allies’, Alecto and Amycus Carrow, treated him with the contempt he had come to expect as standard from those desperately trying to curry favour with the Dark Lord.

It was as though the whole school was conspiring against him. Even the portraits in the Headmaster’s study, which had opened to him as he had been properly elected by the Board of Governors, were boycotting him: rather than talking to and advising him as they had Dumbledore (who’d told him on many occasions how valuable their wise advice had been to him), they had walked en masse from their frames on his first evening as Headmaster and had never returned. Only Phineas Nigellus, with his natural leaning to and support for anything Slytherin, had popped in occasionally to make some snide comments about the current political climate and give updates on any news from Number 12 Grimmauld Place, where his twin portrait hung. And of course there was the newly hung portrait of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, the most recent Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which now hung at the far end of the study on a pillar between two windows, where Albus enjoyed an unbridled view of his former estate. Unlike the other portraits, Dumbledore’s face had stayed in place, keeping a watchful but silent eye on proceedings in the office. In all those long four months he had not offered any advice, not disappeared, but just watched. And this night, so shortly before Christmas, with snow already on the high ground around the school, Severus had had enough. Fed up of his isolation, of being ignored and misunderstood, both willingly and unwillingly, he turned as he reached the study door, his step quickening as he marched dot the far end of the room where Dumbledore’s portrait hung and stopped a nose length from the kindly, wrinkled face staring hard at him.

“Why are you still here when all the others have gone?” he demanded icily, trying to keep his voice steady.

The familiar figure in the portrait almost smiled and moved from side to side, as if transferring his weight from one foot to another, sucking on some kind of sweet.

“Because, Severus, I believe as firmly as ever the no one is beyond redemption. Everyone needs and deserves that second chance.”

Snape snorted and turned away. So typical.

“If you’re waiting for the best from me, old man,” he replied, “you’ll be waiting a long time. I killed you, didn’t I?”

“Oh Severus,” said Dumbledore, shaking his head, but his eyes still twinkling, “you may have killed a dying man, but it was what we’d arranged. And it was done with love, love for a person with striking green eyes. That’s the important thing – never forget that.”

Severus turned, his eyes downcast. “No, he said slowly, “I could never forget that.”

* * * * *

The stable door opened and Lucius turned sharply, his hand reaching automatically for his wand, afraid of who he might see. He breathed a sigh of relief as the familiar elegant form of his wife Narcissa leaned round the door, her white-blond hair, like that of the peacocks, glinting in the lamplight.

“There you are, darling,” she exclaimed, a smile, rare for these days, crossing her fair face, and a warm glint in her eyes. “I was wondering where you’d got to.”

She came in and shut the door behind her, walking across to him. She was just an inch or two away from him now, so close he could feel the warmth, both physical and emotional, radiating from her. He was momentarily overwhelmed with gratitude towards her, as he had been several times over the last few months. She had always been such a trophy wife for him: the right breeding, looking the right way, saying and doing the right things, smoothing the right paths, allowing him to be what he wanted to be. But it was only very recently that he’d appreciated she was so much more than that, recognised her courage, the steeliness of her character, her ability to maintain integrity at her core and be a fortress for them all. And the passion behind her mask – he’d realised that latest of all.

She straightened the lapels of his cloak and pulled him toward her, the meeting of their lips sending warmth and love flooding through him. A moment all too soon ended. Maybe that fool Dumbledore had been right about something: Where there was love, there was hope.

“I’m not the only one who has missed you,” she said, turning away but reaching for his hand. “You’d best come back up to the house before they send out a search party.”

Silently, their fingers entwined, they hardened their faces, shielded their minds and headed back to the Manor.

* * * * *