InsaneJournal

Current mood:	uncomfortable
Entry tags:	contributor: janus, dec15, fandom: harry potter, year: 2009

Dec. 15, Harry Potter, Severus, The Holly and the Ivy
December 15, 2009
Title: The Holly and the Ivy
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing/Characters: Severus
Rating: G
Words: 541
Author's Note: With kind thanks to Pyjamapants for working as beta in the middle of the night.

The Holly and the Ivy. It had always been Severus' favourite Christmas Carol. It was the one that had always seemed most magical, most referential to him personally. It spoke of potential potions ingredients and hope. It had a lily, and it had a deer. It bridged the awkwardness between the conflicting Muggle and wizarding traditions that were his birthright.

He did not hear it often, but when he did he noticed it as friendly, bearing holiday warmth. It was a song, and as he did not sing, he had not read it. When he heard it he noticed the feeling of the song and the images of the few selective words he liked.

Then he had seen the statue in Godric's Hollow. Then the boy had been named 'The Chosen One' - the saviour. He realised he had to see himself in the song then, as all the words became clear. It was as if he had written it from his own point of view. It was no longer a paean to the season that included happily coincidental allusions to a childhood friend. It was a monument to his own pain.

Lily was the mother - first a mother, always a mother, a mother forever more. Now she had no chance to become anything else or to do anything otherwise. Ever. She had become nothing more than a vessel for her son. The verses iterated and reiterated it in every. single. verse.

He was full-grown, and Lily never would be older than a teen-ager. Severus bore a blossom - the memory of the girl. His hands were red with blood. Severus bore thorns that repelled nearly everyone, and their thorns pierced him in turn. He lived in a world of blood and thorns. He was undeniably bitter, and the here was so much that caught in his throat.

'Gall' had been the word that caused him to look at the carol more closely. It had been galling to see that statue - to see the girl and the hope of his early childhood frozen in eternal tableau with that... that... vicious, careless, thoughtless, arrogant... git! Still, it pleased Severus to apply the word to Potter that Potter had so often applied to him. Yes, that git and his miniature clone.

Severus sighed. It was so easy to get carried away by the bitterness - the bitterness of gall. Suffice to say that as he had looked at that statue, the word had sprung unexpectedly and descriptively to his awareness, and with it he had become aware of the song.

But the chorus spoke of sunrise, of running free, of a choir. Perhaps the choir was a symbol of the lost part oneself, the one that cared if one lived or died, the one that mourned for oneself when one was ashamed, the one that was proud of oneself in times of accomplishment. These were signs of hope.

Holly was, after all, protective; ivy was, above all, verdant. The song was stark. The song was hard. The song was true. But it demanded that one live on, carry on, work on. For some unforeseeable dawn. If holly bore the crown, if he were represented by the holly, as he surely must, the crown meant that he lived.