Kristmas Wish Fulfilled for: alisanne
From: hogwartshoney

Title: Let It Snow
Characters/Pairings: Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Rating: NC17
Kinks/Themes Included: Oral, Anal, Fingering,
Other Warnings/Content: none
Word Count: ~11,120
Summary/Description: When Severus eventually finds Potter at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, he’s surprised not only by what Potter makes, but what they mean to him.

Author's Notes:Unending thanks go to my faithful beta, H, who has helped this fic along in all the right ways. Merry Christmas, Prompter #3, I hope this fits the bill. And thanks to the Mods for running this most excellent fest ;o)



Harry watched, mesmerised, as tiny snowflakes floated in gentle swirls and settled on the roof of the little house and the tree next to it, both already heavily laden with the white flakes. He knew a moment’s happiness at the purity of the scene before him and he wished, not for the first time, that he could immerse himself in that world and just be happy…

“MUMMY!! He’s looking at it again. It’s MINE! Tell him to STOP!”

Harry startled as Dudley‘s meaty hand swiped the snow globe away from the table, and he glanced nervously in the direction of the tv room where Aunt Petunia sat in front of the television.

“All right, Duddikins, in a minute. Mummy’s watching her show!”

“No, Dudley, wait! I wasn’t-”

“I want him to STOP LOOKING AT IT, Mummy!” Dudley’s face turned an alarming shade of red, but there was no response from Petunia in the next room.

Suddenly, Dudley’s eyes narrowed and he fixed Harry with an evil glare as he pointedly lifted the snow globe over his head and then dashed it to the floor. The delicate glass shattered, and the house and tree within skated across the floor together with the glitter and ‘snowflakes’. Harry felt as though his own heart had broken right along with the globe, but he barely had a moment to catch himself before his aunt came into the kitchen, her face a-thunder.

“You awful, dreadful boy, destroying Duddy’s present! Go to your room!”

He cringed. “But I didn’t-”

“NOW !”

Crestfallen, Harry crawled into the cupboard and winced as his aunt slammed the door shut and threw the bolt on the outside, engulfing him in darkness.

There’d be no supper tonight.


*****


Severus Snape scowled at the cauldron in front of him, There were only so many Cheering Charms that a person could cast upon themselves before things started to go awry, and after several weeks of feeling as though every step he took was wrong and every thing he did was questionable, he finally acknowledged the strain on his magic and decided to give it up as a bad job.

A side effect of being in close proximity to the negative energy left behind by the Dementors, the quacks at St Mungo’s had said unsympathetically. Not long enough to kill a person, and obviously he hadn’t been Kissed, but still, the experience had been long enough to suck almost all the life and the will to live out of him.

Blood loss had been one thing, but even with his wound closed and his battered body on the mend, being remanded to ‘The New Azkaban’ pending his trial was probably designed to finish him off. Those bastards hadn’t known that it would take more than that to do away with Severus Snape - if his own father’s fists and boots couldn’t do the job, not to mention the Dark Lord’s bloody snake, then some arsewipe in a Ministerial position certainly wasn’t going to get far.

But then, unexpectedly…..

Potter, bespectacled and livid, had rushed through Azkaban’s holding bays in an un-self conscious haste, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the entire staff had paused, their mouths agape, as they followed his progress, turning to follow his path the way sunflowers track the sun. Whether it was solely his fame that had caused all the gawking, or whether the presence of Kingsley Shacklebolt and Auror Robards had anything to do with it, Severus didn‘t know, but he himself held his breath at the sheer power surrounding the young man when Potter slowed to a crawl and stopped at Severus’ bedside, the very air seeming to vibrate with magic. Everything was suddenly brighter, clearer, although he didn’t know whether the healers had thrown open the curtains as Potter and his entourage arrived.

He couldn’t help but notice that it was no longer a child who stood before him, no petulant student hurling curses at him as they ran across the grounds of Hogwarts, no imbecile shouting ‘Coward!’ at his retreating form; no, the past year spent doing Merlin-knows-what had obviously changed Potter, the war had changed him, had changed them all. Severus was mortified to find his cock fully erect from the adrenaline rush of sheer power, all his senses fully alert and a ridiculous tingling in his fingers and toes.

So, Severus had held his breath, Occluded, and waited.

“Snape…” Potter’s voice was gentle yet surprisingly emotional.

Severus narrowed his eyes, ostensibly to glare at the man before him, but more to reduce the chances that Potter was able to penetrate his defences or notice anything untoward. Severus had still held faith in his abilities to throw off any Legilimens, but Potter was clearly agitated, and, after all, the boy had done it once before….

“Why are you here?” Severus had croaked, after clearing his throat repeatedly.

“I hadn’t heard- I didn’t know where you’d-”

Ah. Still as eloquent as ever.

One of the healers was very quickly at Potter‘s side.

“Mister Potter, Sir, I’m very sorry, but you can’t-”

The man’s words died in his throat as Potter rounded on him. Cautiously, Shacklebolt stepped just that bit closer to where Potter and the Healer stood eye to eye. Severus was reluctantly impressed.

“Healer Sanders, I’m sure you will soon realize that Mr Potter can, and, indeed, will.”

“Yes, but one does not simply walk into Azkaban-”

“In this case, Mr Potter has the full backing of the Ministry and the Aurors. We have the required papers signed and are here to escort Mr Snape out of here.”

For a moment, Healer Sanders stood flummoxed, eyes wide, his mouth doing a passable representation of a goldfish. Severus was almost amused.

That had been months ago, and Severus had regained much of his strength. He knew that he had to thank Potter, or, at some point, at least show him some gratitude for actioning his release, but he was at a loss. He had considered sending an owl, but one really ought to do more in a situation like his than send a mere note “Thanks for saving my life”

Things with Potter had always been so complicated.


*****


Harry walked listlessly through Diagon Alley, nodding only half-heartedly at those passers-by who sought him out, smiled at him, perhaps raised their hand in salutation. His earlier conversation with Ron still played heavily on his mind

BOY WHO DEFEATED VOLDEMORT QUITS AURORS!

Harry threw the Daily Prophet across the kitchen table with a muttered curse and held his head in his hands. His elbows rapped sharply against the old wooden table and he winced as he scrubbed his hands over his face. Bloody newspapers! It wasn’t enough that Harry had taken so long to come to terms with his own decision, let alone to actually make it, but to have the recent event splashed across the headlines in large, flashing colours was laying it on a bit thick.

Ron made a sympathetic noise. “Look, mate, you know that they’re only going to be more interested in you now that you’ve left. You can’t just sit around doing nothing.”

“I know, Ron, but, for right now, I just… I dunno, I just need some time.”

“Time,” his friend repeated.

Harry looked up to see Ron’s concerned look, and he understood his friend’s confusion. They’d planned to become Aurors almost as soon as Harry learned what Aurors were. They would be Harry and Ron, Potter and Weasley, Aurors Extraordinaire, partners against crime and defeaters of all things bad and evil.

Only, Harry had defeated the great evil. Not alone, of course, he mentally chided himself. He’d needed his friends, couldn’t have done it without them, but, after vanquishing Voldemort, what was left? Harry’d already lived out his life’s dream, had fulfilled the prophecy and was now facing a future of….

Yeah.

He didn’t know. He just… didn’t know.

“Yeah, Ron,” he said on a sigh. “Time.”

Ron cocked his head and looked at Harry with kindness and sympathy, but said nothing more. He was, after all, a master tactician and knew when to withdraw.

Harry left the hustle of the streets for the relative safety of George‘s joke shop. Navigating past the shelves of Fizzing Whizbees and Skiving Snackboxes, he meandered through the shop towards the back room, sure to find George there.

The scene that greeted him was unusually chaotic, which, for the shop, was saying a lot. George stood in the middle of a room crammed with all manner of boxes and trunks, papers and other items. He had a large basket cradled in his arms that was filled with moving blobs that…. hummed.

“Hey, Harry, see if you can grab those two Puffskeins over there, will you? They‘ve managed to get out of the box they were in, the tricky little blighters.”

Harry dutifully fetched the small furry creatures and handed them to George.

“Harry, mate.” There was a lengthy pause. “Are you- alright?”

Harry sighed. “I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m wasting my life.”

George pushed aside the basket of Puffskeins amid their tiny sounds of protest and sat next to him. “You’re not wasting anything, Harry, you’re taking a break. You’re- you’re just taking a moment to breathe, for Merlin’s sake. Is this about today’s article in the Prophet?”

“Front page flashing headline, more like.”

George huffed a gentle laugh. “Yeah, well, you can’t accuse them of being subtle.”

Harry managed a half-hearted withering look.

“Well, how about you not waste your time by helping me sort though this mess!

Secretly, Harry thought that would be diving head-first into certain chaos, but after mentally reviewing his list of non-existent plans, he shrugged.

“Where do we start?”

Hours later, he and George had pretty much set the place to rights and were enjoying a well-deserved rest with some Butterbeer. George was chattering away about a new variation of Puking Pastilles when Harry noticed a glimmer off to one side. He turned his head slightly, still half-listening to George, and searched the shadows for the object. He detected movement and, instinct and battle-wariness springing to the fore, he had his wand in his hand before he even assessed what exactly he was dealing with. This was, after all, a Weasley joke shop.

The object turned out to be a glass sphere about the size of his palm. Seemingly empty, it had nevertheless managed to pry itself away from the papers and other detritus surrounding it and had made its presence known.

Reluctantly - again, joke shop - he bent to pick up the globe, casting a few standard low-level spells on it to determine whether there was anything untoward surrounding the object, but it seemed devoid of harmful magic.

“What’ve you got there, Harry?” George’s voice broke into Harry’s thoughts, and he turned around, the globe in hand, to show it to his friend.

“Ah! So that’s where it ended up. Been searching around for a few days for that, the sneaky thing.”

“What is it, George?”

“Supposed to be a larger version of a Remembrall. Remember those? Size of a large-ish marble?”

Harry nodded, remembering Neville’s from First Year.

“Well, they were small enough to keep getting lost, and, after all, a Remembrall’s no good at reminding someone that they’ve forgotten something if they can’t be found! Quite a dilemma.”

“And so this is-”

“A prototype for a new one. Fred’s idea, really-” and George’s face clouded over for a moment, both men taking the time to let the pain of loss go through them.

Harry smiled wistfully. “It reminds me of a snow globe my cousin got as a Christmas present one year.”

“A what?”

“Snow globe. It’s a Muggle thing - they make little scenes of places and put them in the globe, fill it with water and glitter and snowflakes.”

“Snowflakes? Inside the water? How’s that work?”

“Not real snowflakes; I guess they’re plastic or something…”

George nodded. “Okay, so what do the Muggles do with them?”

“They shake them, and the water stirs up the snow, and then… the snow falls over the scene.”

George appeared nonplussed. “Yes, but why?”

Harry sighed, still halfway in his memory. “So that they could go somewhere, if only in their minds, or be reminded of a place they’d visited. Some people collect them, although I’ve only ever seen one-”

“Show me.”

“What?”

“Make one. Come on, use that globe and make one.”

“George, I can’t just ‘make one’.”

George levelled him with a look. “Harry, you’re the most powerful wizard alive. I’m pretty sure you can conjure up a snow globe.”

Harry paused in thought. Maybe he could; after all, he still remembered what they looked like, and it would be fairly simple Transfiguration to put an object inside the globe…

He lifted his wand and levelled it at the sphere in his hand, closed his eyes and tried to remember everything about Dudley’s snow globe. The tiny house, the tree, but all he could feel was the darkness, the shock of Dudley’s actions and Petunia’s punishment…

No. That would never work. He’d have to think of something else, another image to project.

He thought of Christmas at Hogwarts, first year, and remembered being in awe of the decorated trees in the Great Hall, how they blazed with hundreds of fairy lights and the way they virtually spewed forth merriment.

Harry smiled, warmed by that memory, so simple and yet so powerful. He cast the spell and felt his very happiness and contentment spiral around and through his magic, bursting from his wand in a gentle glow that settled upon the glass sphere in his hand. The glow intensified for a moment, and he squinted a bit to shield his eyes from the light, and as it subsided, there in Harry’s palm was the globe with a tiny Christmas tree inside, aglow with twinkling stars and gently cascading snowflakes.



The silence was absolute for a heartbeat and then George whooped in delight.

“Blimey, Harry, I know I said you could do it, but I didn’t think you could actually do it, y’know? That’s amazing!”

Harry was momentarily speechless, staring in awe at his creation. George clapped him on the shoulder.

“Brilliant! Can you do another?”

As it turned out, Harry could. Several more, in fact.


*****


Severus walked through Knockturn Alley and directly into Gringotts. The fewer people he saw, the better he liked it. He quickly completed his transactions with the goblins who were no less surly than before the war and, donning his gloves, he pushed through the heavy doors and stepped out onto the snow laden street of Diagon Alley.

He’d been pondering over what he’d come to think of as his “Potter Dilemma”. The fact that he still felt the need to thank Potter, to show gratitude in some way, irked him. It wasn’t easy being saved; lord knows he’d always been the one to do the saving where Potter was concerned, but the difference between the dismal despair of Azkaban and this, still dismal, but not exactly despairing, life now… thanks were in order.

His discreet enquiries had earned him raised eyebrows (Minerva) and amused, almost-smug looks (Albus’ portrait - damn him), but had also yielded an address.

93 Diagon Alley.

The Weasley joke shop.

Charming.

Today he’d decided to simply walk past the place to see what he’d be up against, do some low-level reconnaissance and generally get a feel for the place. Old habits died hard, after all, and Severus never went anywhere these days unless he was confident that escape was easily attainable.

The weather was no less horrible than usual, the heavily overcast clouds projecting gloom onto the buildings and shoppers below. Severus refreshed the Warming Charm on his cloak and robes and strode off towards the apothecary at the far end of the alley. He planned to take a look at the shop on his way past and decide his plan from there.

He had no sooner passed the new, Muggle-styled coffee shop where Fortescue’s used to be when his eyes were assaulted by a large, gaudily coloured and very brightly-lit sign hanging from an equally gaudy and brightly-lit store front.



Cold? Blustery?
Winter got you down?

LET IT SNOW !

Weasleys Wizard Wheezes has the perfect solution.
Come inside for a completely unique experience!



The shop window was aglow, and the entire place fairly sparkled and shone as though it had been hit with a very powerful Cheering Charm. It was bight and sunny in the face of all the cold and blustery weather, and the force of it hit him hard, so strong and completely out of place amidst all the darkness and emptiness of his heart that Severus felt quite overwhelmed. He circumspectly crossed to the opposite side of the street and made his way to the apothecary and cauldron shops as quickly as he could, near enough to see the conflagration, and yet far enough to not be so completely bombarded by it all.

Severus didn’t think he could stand all that happiness.


*****


A few days later, having had several conversations with himself regarding Potters and the thanking thereof, Severus walked by the shop again. This time, he’d prepared himself for the onslaught. He cautiously stepped closer and after peering through the window, scanning the inside of the shop to ensure he wasn’t seen, he then focused his attention on the objects on display. In the corner closest to him was a group of palm-sized glass globes enclosing tiny scenes. He squinted, leaning closer to the glass. They were moving! Oh, not the whole thing, but there was one - it looked like a tropical reef - that had little, brightly-coloured fish swimming in and out of the coral, and another globe was filled with the brilliant green of jungle trees where jewel-toned birds flew in and out of shafts of sunlight.

Severus felt a tug near his heart. The bright scenes inside the globes seemed to warm him, almost transport him to carefree beaches and gentle waters.

Another shelf held scenes of... his past. Hogwarts before the war, the Whomping Willow, the Great Hall, house crests and banners, the lake (and was that a tentacle breaking the surface of the water?) Severus felt a wave of emotion so strong he almost looked away. Nostalgia, longing, grief, happiness, pain... he blinked hard and was about to turn away when he realized that he was being watched.

From inside the store.

By a very surprised-looking Harry Potter.

Bugger.

Severus knew that The Moment had presented itself, albeit much earlier than he’d expected, but clearly the time was now. The rain had slowed and there was a break in the clouds, so he dried his robes with a flick of his wand and pushed open the door to the shop.

A doorbell jingled merrily as all manner of things assaulted him at once, noisy things, flying things, diving things, things rolling on the floor, things hanging off of shelves. He felt as though he couldn’t get two feet inside the shop, let alone approach Potter, who was still standing by the window. The remaining Weasley twin, George? poked his head through some heavy curtains behind the counter.

Everyone looked at everyone else in surprise. Severus cleared his throat and drew himself up to his full height, going for a menacing tone.

“Mr Weasley, there will be no things whizzing, fizzing, flying nor crawling at my person whilst I am in this shop, are we clear?”

Weasley, to his credit, didn’t miss a beat, but he did cast what seemed to be a magical dampening charm on the various items, for nothing so much as twitched in Severus’ direction as he approached Potter. His mind had been weighed down with the problem of what to say, how to begin, but the closer he got to the younger man, the less heavy it seemed.

Potter stood in a pool of light close to the globes, looking healthier than Severus had ever seen him, and quietly emanating gentle contentment, and now that they were face to face, Severus didn’t know quite how to begin. The moment of silence stretched awkwardly.

“Potter.”

“Professor,” he said eagerly. “Hello.”

“I’m no longer your professor, Potter. However, it is fortunate that I found you in this… establishment.”

The young man looked around hesitantly. “I work here. Well, that is to say, I-. Yes, I work here.”

Still as eloquent as always.

“Potter, I’ve something to discuss with you.”

“Okay,” he said carefully. “I‘ve also been wanting to talk to you, only-. Would you like to go next door with me? We can get some coffee and it’d be a bit more quiet there.”

Severus frowned. Potter wasn’t supposed to be taking the upper hand here; he was the one who needed to apologise, he should be the one to set the direction of the conversation!

“I- well, that is to say, I don’t… I hadn’t thought…” Merlin, Potter’s lack of eloquence must be catching!

“Look, it’s fine if you don’t. I saw you a few days ago on the other side of the street, but you were gone before I could even leave the shop. I was hoping you’d come back so that we could, you know, talk.” Potter waited, his green eyes so bright even behind his glasses.

Severus checked the time, inexplicably nervous now that he still hadn’t said what he’d intended, and Potter kept talking.

“I’m happy that you came around to the shop, Sir. I’ve been meaning to find out how you were getting along, you know, after Azkaban, and I wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

And now Potter’d gone and upstaged his apology as well ! The audacity!

“No, Potter, it is I who must thank you.”

“Sir, you’ve protected me all these years, and I-”

“I did what I had to do and you believed what you were conditioned to believe.”

Potter stopped and drew back, puzzlement clear on his face.

“Conditioned?”

“Yes, Potter. Every hero needs a villain.”

“Professor, you can’t-”

“But I was, Potter, and happy to play the part. Until…”

Potter quirked an eyebrow, quite artfully, Severus thought.

“Until I learned that the boy you were was not so much a reflection of James Potter nor of Lily, but of your own childhood and history and the factors that made you, well, you.”

Potter seemed to digest that information and thankfully didn’t make any ridiculous remarks.

“It seems as though apologies aren’t easily come by for either of us, are they, Sir?”

“I imagine not, Potter.”

Again, silence stretched between them, but this time, perhaps not quite as awkward.

"I saw you looking at the globes." Potter picked up the one with the Whomping Willow, little birds fluttering in and out of the gently waving branches, gave it a shake and then held it up. At first, all the leaves changed colour and swirled down off the tree, then a blizzard of snowflakes almost obscured the scene. As the snow finally settled, the leaves once again grew to cover the tree. "Do you like it?"

Severus was stunned by the complexity of the scene, of how real it looked.

"They're very impressive."

Potter grinned and placed the globe back on the shelf. “So, how’s about that coffee?”

Severus looked around at the various magical items under semi-stasis around him, feeling as though they were mere seconds away from breaking free of their enslavement. Suddenly, the thought of coffee in a shop with Potter was far preferable.

“I shall accompany you, Potter. Do lead the way.”

So there he was allowing Potter to dictate things again, and although that made him bristle ever so slightly, as they both walked through the door and into the cool air, Severus also had a moment of relief as the various things in Weasley’s shop resumed their buzzing and whirling and whizzing.


*****


Sitting in a coffee shop with Severus Snape was about as surreal an experience as Harry’d had, and, given his life, that was saying a lot. He’d been surprised when he saw Snape through the window of Wheezes, staring intently at the globes as though lost, and yet, with a sort of relief, as though he’d somehow been found.

The notion that he could have that in common with his former professor, given their contentious past, was quite sobering.

And now here they were, sitting across the table from each other holding mugs of steaming coffee, Harry’s with a touch of hazelnut, Snape’s black. Snape sat with his back against the wall and cast his eyes about, not saying a word but looking slightly ill at ease.

“Are you all right, Sir? You seemed a bit nervous back at the shop.”

“I’m sure you can appreciate, Potter, that fighting in two wars held more than enough danger and excitement for one lifetime.”

Harry nodded. He certainly could, and that had been one of his major reasons for leaving the Aurors. He had felt as though he was letting Ron down, letting the Aurors down, so he had pushed and trained twice as hard as the other recruits, working twice as hard on his cases and arrests, but in reality, he wasn’t listening to himself, to his own body and mind. As soon as he did start listening, though, the message had been clear. The Aurors were not where he belonged.

Snape shifted, interrupting Harry‘s thoughts. “I apologise, Potter, I didn’t mean to bring that up.“

“No, it’s fine. I think I have some idea.”

An awkward silence hung between them as Harry tried to get his thoughts in order.

“So, how long of a break do you have?” Snape asked.

“I don’t really have any specific time to be there.”

Snape leaned against the chair’s back. “So you just go there to waste your time?”

“No, I… not really. I, um, sort of make things.”

Christ, why did he sound like his 11-year-old self when he just wanted to project a more mature and confident demeanour. This wasn’t exactly the direction he’d wanted things to go, but Snape wasn’t actually being horrible; in fact, Harry was surprised to find that he was enjoying himself.

“Make ‘things’?” Snape really had that eyebrow quirk down to a fine art.

“Yeah, I, erm, I make the globes.”

Snape leaned forward once more.

“You make them? Really, Potter, I’m impressed. What do you use to get the figures inside to move?”

“Not really sure. They’re really a sort of part-Patronus, part-Cheering Charm and part Transfiguration - I haven‘t given it a lot of thought, really.”

Snape’s withering look was still formidable. “You’re not certain, and yet you put them in a joke shop and sell them to people.”

“They’re not dangerous - we’ve done all the testing we can think of - we’ve even let Bill Weasley have a go at them, and he found nothing untoward.”

Snape paused and looked thoughtful. “Weasley’s good, I’ll give you that, but his specialty is mainly curse breaking, is it not?”

Harry nodded, interested to see just where Snape was going with his line of thought.

“But has he considered the effects of all the Dark Magic used against you?

Surprised, Harry took a moment to process Snape’s words.

“I didn’t think that would even be a consideration!”

Snape’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, you see? Perhaps you’ve not, in fact, done all the testing possible.”

Harry shrugged. “I doubt there’s anything Dark about them, Sir. They just seem to make people happy. It‘s sort of what snow globes do, really.”

“Yes, that they do.”

Something in Snape’s tone gave Harry pause; he didn’t expect that Snape would be affected by them too.

“Since you’ve brought up this new aspect of testing, Sir, might you be interested in giving it a go?”

“Me? Oh, please, Potter, I have quite enough to be going on with.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure that Potions take up all of your days and nights. Come on, Professor, let’s see what you’ve got.”

Snape spluttered. “Are you… challenging me?”

Harry had to stop himself from laughing. “Yeah, I do believe I am. Take one of my globes and test it. Throw everything you can at it and see if you can figure out the magical process. Who knows, you might even have a little fun.”

Am I actually baiting him? Christ, what am I doing?

“We shall see, Potter.”

But judging from the look of intrigue on Snape’s face as he finished his coffee, perhaps Harry was moving in the right direction towards some sort of resolution with the man. As they walked back to the shop he noticed that the weather had cleared up quite nicely.


*****


Severus sat in his kitchen, turning the globe around in his hand. Potter had challenged him! How delicious. He might even be able to define the magic behind the globes, to see what it was in Potter that enabled him to make such intricate pieces of magic. Surely, if they were part-Patronus, they’d rely on happy memories. Snape had been through Potter’s mind often enough during the boy’s fifth year, and he hoped that there had been significantly more happy memories since the Dark Lord’s defeat. If anyone deserved a little happiness, it was Potter.

Severus knew very little about what Potter had been up to since his own release. He had joined the Aurors of course, but Severus had been surprised to learn that, scarcely a year into his tenure with them, Potter had quit. Just like that, no explanation given, and for once, the press seemed a bit reluctant to probe more deeply.

Anyhow, enough of Potter, Severus thought as he placed the globe on the table before him. Let’s see what you’re made of.

Several hours later, Severus had to admit that he was stumped. He’d tried everything that he knew on the globe, testing its tensile strength, the force of the charms and enchantments.

Nothing.

There was not even a speck of Dark or questionable magic. The globe was, for lack of a better word, pure goodness and light. Severus sneered at his simplistic descriptors, but, really, the object held no malice or subterfuge.

It simply held layers upon complex layers of Cheering Charms, but not the standard kind, not the tried-and-true version of the Charm, but rather something a little more elemental, almost wild. It was actually quite impressive.

“Impossible,” he muttered. “How could Potter expend that much energy on something so unimportant?”

Only, the globe wasn’t unimportant, not really. Severus only knew that he felt better just holding it and looking at it.

Shaking his head, Severus took a break from his efforts while he prepared and ate a quick supper and then sat at the table, holding the globe and studying its contents carefully. Potter had been extremely precise in his work; every detail was as it should be, colour and scale remarkably correct. He shook the globe and watched as the glittering snowflakes swirled and descended, feeling the complex mix of emotions that always accompanied the scene.

He remembered the way his heart had clenched when Potter handed it to him in the shop, and how he was both hesitant to hold it and loathe to put it down. He didn’t know if Potter realized just what effect that globe would have had on him, and although his heart had beaten in a rapid, unhappy rhythm, he’d managed to look Potter square in the eyes.

Within the globe was Hogwarts castle, the only place he’d ever felt at home, and also where he had killed Albus.


*****


Harry had spent the morning creating new, larger glass orbs for another version of his snow globes. His first attempts had been made based purely on good thoughts and magical will, and that was fine for the basics, but now that Snape had started examining them, Harry thought that he should probably pay more attention to what he did and how the creations came into being.

He used George’s standard spells against tampering with or breaking the globes, as well as a thickly-layered Trademark Spell to prevent unlawful duplication. Below that, and closer to the ‘heart’ of the magic, were Harry’s personal enchantments, specific to the images and the memories and to his own magic.

He planned that the larger globes would have a derivative of Fred and George’s Daydream Spell woven into the base spells and would, he hoped, enable him to create more complex scenes within the space.

He looked up as the doorbell jingled and was surprised to see Snape approaching. He’d been wondering how well his ex-professor would fare with the Hogwarts globe. At one point when he’d looked at the selection of globes and considered which to give to Snape for his experiments, he’d thought that he was being cruel to give him that one, but he’d just followed his gut instinct.

The Hogwarts globe had been made after he and George had somewhat fine-tuned the creation process and the enchantments. It was particularly well shielded under a complex web of spells, for Hogwarts was Harry’s first home, the place where he’d felt safest and happiest.

Snape didn’t look as though he’d had a particularly difficult time of things, though. Harry doubted that the man could have worked through all of the enchantments, since some of them were quite complex.

“Good morning, Professor.”

“Morning, Potter,” came the somewhat hesitant reply.

“Have you found anything interesting?” Harry grinned.

Snape fixed him with a less-than-stellar version of his trademark glare. Aha! Maybe he did find something after all.

“Your globe appears well constructed, solid and unbreakable. I could detect no malice nor questionable enchantments upon it.”

“Is that all you found?”

“There’s a very interesting magical entwining that seems to be part of the globe itself. I could see the basic structure, but it was difficult to discern the exact nature.”

Harry nodded. For Snape to have gotten that far possibly meant that their magic was not so different after all. Interesting.

“Would you perhaps like to try another?”

Snape suddenly looked down and took a step backwards. “I would perhaps like to get away from these maddening whirling things at my feet, Potter!”

Harry looked down and had to laugh as a large bunch of “Whoopsie Daisies” had surrounded Severus.

“Those are George’s latest inventions. They’re whoopee cushions artfully disguised as stuffed flowers.”

Snape’s expression was priceless, truly, and Harry laughed all the harder. Wiping his eyes, he corralled the daisies back into their box and joined Snape at the window.

“Would you like me to select another one for you to try, or would you prefer to do the choosing yourself?”

“What makes you so certain that I’m here for another?”

Harry smiled. “Because you keep glancing at them.”

Snape sighed, a surprisingly resigned sound, and Harry bit back a chuckle. No sense in getting hexed, after all.

“How do you make them, Potter?”

“I told you, I don’t really know the theory behind it.”

“Well, they don’t just burst into existence all by themselves. What do you think about or do or feel to make them happen?”

Harry thought for a moment. What do I do, really? He’d never had to define the process before, but he supposed that’s just what Snape was endeavouring to do.

“I start out with an empty globe, different sized depending on what I want to put in there.”

“Yes, I’ve seen some of the large ones you have over there - you’ll run Trelawney competition with her crystal balls!”

Harry laughed. “Was that - a joke from Severus Snape?”

Snape‘s lips twitched. “Don’t be rude, Potter.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

Harry was surprised by how non-threatening this all was, as though it was perfectly normal for the two of them to exchange banter. Maybe this was part of the new reality and the way forward for both of them.

“The process, Potter.”

“Yes, right. I usually hold the globe in my hand…,” and Harry had to think about what he did, what he felt before making the globes. “And then I just picture a scene in my mind, usually something that makes me happy, so I suppose the base of that could be something like the Patronus charm, only it’s not necessarily a memory, but more of a thought, and I don‘t use the Patronus incantation.” Harry frowned; trying to put it into words wasn’t as easy as all that.

But Snape was nodding, so Harry went on. “So the scene, or the image, fills my mind and I just… try to think of it as a solid thing, as something held within the globe, not constricted or restricted at all, but something content to exist there within the space. And then I just… sort of, make it happen.”

“Not exactly a swot, are you, Potter.” Snape’s sardonic tone and quirked eyebrow betrayed the interest he showed, and Harry had to laugh.

“Never claimed to be!”

“Still, that’s a very interesting process. Not easily duplicated, obviously, but still quite intriguing.”

“George suggested the Trademark Spell to prevent anyone from recreating the globes or the enchantments.”

Snape huffed a laugh. “As if anyone could. I doubt there‘s another wizard alive who could make those things.”

Harry looked at him in surprise; Snape laughing was something he’d never imagined; Snape laughing with him, even less so. Still, it was… nice. Almost comfortable.

“So,” Harry gestured towards the shelf of globes. “Which one will you try next?”

Snape reached out and selected a tropical scene this time, one with scarlet birds in flight among the trees.

Harry nodded. Fawkes.


*****


Severus had surprised himself with his choice of globe, not because of the subjects, which were obviously tropical yet reminded him of Albus‘ familiar, but because of the almost-instant pull he’d felt towards it and the peace it gave him once he’d held it.

As with the previous one, he bombarded the globe with all manner of spells and even a few potions. He proceeded further than Potter’s non-duplicating spells, but again, nothing to be considered a rousing success.

He sighed heavily as he watched the bright red birds fly from tree to tree, sometimes as a flock, sometimes individually. There was nothing untoward with this globe either, and even though he’d been able to understand and characterize most of the magic surrounding the globe with the red birds, he still hadn’t been able to get a definitive handle on the base enchantments. This wasn’t about trying to figure out Potter’s rationale for their creation in the first place anymore.

No, Severus wanted to figure them out for entirely personal reasons.

He’d come to respect Potter as a Charmsmith and a creator, and working in close proximity to George Weasley had certainly taught him a great deal. To be sure, Weasley had probably shown him many different variants of spells and the like, but every ward, every layer was soaked through with Potter’s own distinctive magical signature, making it extremely personal, and Severus felt oddly privileged at being allowed to delve into them.

He also felt as though he was learning Potter through the magic, for Potter seemed to hold nothing back when creating the globes. They were almost alive with his magic. Quite remarkable.

As the flame-coloured birds swooped through the trees, Severus had to wonder if Potter was trying to tell him something with these globes. Why was he drawn to this globe more than the others, and why did just the thought of the Hogwarts globe make him happy and yet slightly melancholic? It almost felt as though each contained a piece of his life that was lost and somehow coming back to him, but even if Potter had done this deliberately, why would he bother?

He shook the globe once more and sat with it in his hand as the snowflakes swirled around the birds and the trees. To Severus, it seemed incredibly personal to simply put one’s ideas into a clear container for all the world to see.

Not that he had thought much about it before, but there was something remarkably… intimate … about sharing your memories with someone, especially the way he’d done with Potter. In light of their situation at the time, his memories had been fraught with a lot more emotion than they would normally have been. Severus’ fear for his own life, as well as the lives that might have been lost were Potter to fail…

His mind had been a mess then, he knew it, and in his desperation he had probably given Potter not only actual memories, but also ones specially constructed in the event that the Dark Lord penetrated his defences. Severus feared that Potter had received too much information without the proper understanding, and yet he had no idea how to broach the subject with him.

He shook the globe again and let his thoughts scatter like the snowflakes.


*****


“Oi, Harry! You’re thinking again! That sort of thing can be dangerous.”

Harry smiled as George’s words interrupted his reverie. He had been thinking, about Snape, and the war, and their shared memories.

Part of the reason why Harry hadn’t continued with the Aurors was because of certain flashbacks he’d had about Snape.

He was the first man that Harry had seen dying. Cedric had died immediately, and the shock of that had been quickly tempered by everything else that had happened in the graveyard that night, but Snape… Snape, slowly bleeding out on the floor of the Shrieking Shack and Harry unable to save him. Not the hated professor, nor the large and looming presence in Harry’s life, but a man, just a man in pain, desperately holding onto his own life while trying to communicate with him.

And the gut wrench that Harry had felt then, having to leave him there, knowing that he couldn’t do anything at that moment to save him… had played over in Harry’s mind for a long time. After the battle, when cleanup was in progress and they’d all thought Snape lost, he’d known in his heart that things couldn’t have gone differently, but still, he’d mourned, for he couldn’t give Snape his life back, nor his memories. Harry would have to keep them, keep the enormity of the loss ever fresh in his mind.

And then he’d discovered that Snape was indeed alive, impossibly, and incarcerated at Azkaban, even though the Wizengamot swore that he was merely being held pending trial, Harry had seen through their evasiveness and forced himself on them until they’d relented and Snape had been freed.

He’d looked at the memories over and over again in his Pensieve, but there was always the question of why some were slightly more crisp than others. More… deliberate, somehow.

Harry had often wondered how Severus had been affected by losing his memories. He knew that putting them into a Pensieve allowed the mind time to exist without the weight of them, and they also enabled the person to then see them from a more objective point of view.

But how does a person deal with loss of memories? Does the mind simply move on without them and build a different life? And, if so, is it better not to have them back? Would that somehow minimize the person’s history, or just make a different future possible?

George was back, his movements brisk, and that shook Harry from his musings.

“Got any new ideas for the globes, Harry? The first set has pretty much sold out.”

“I was thinking of fireworks, George, like the ones you and Fred had done for your farewell extravaganza at Hogwarts.”

George’s eyes lit up. “They can be our signature globes, Harry!

Harry laughed. “I’ll get to work on some of them now.”


*****


On to Part 2