InsaneJournal

Hogwarts in winter, a wonderful sight,
With holly and ivy and lights glowing bright.
Yule was upon it, the stockings, the trappings,
The pudding, the singing, the bright Christmas wrappings.
That glad time of year full of sparkling snow,
With each bell a-jingle and each heart aglow.

But there was one holiday that was not quite like that.
The magicians, in fact, were having a spat.
How it had happened, no one could say,
But the good Hogwarts staff were not jolly that day.

It was the Christmas Eve feast, and jinxes were flying
As they sat round the table. A few started crying.
Sixteen was their number: three students, twelve teachers,
One surly Headmaster with unfriendly features.
And none of them peaceful, almost all jeering
Bickering, sniping, deriding, and sneering.
Even the Scotswoman, stalwart and true,
Was considering tossing someone out the Floo.

But just as she stood with a withering stare,
A pop and a "Stop!" rang out through the air.
"Wizards and witches," the elves said in chorus,
"This is one time when you shall not ignore us!"
They were ringed 'round the hall looking stern, holding hands,
And the eldest stepped forward to lay out their demands.

Reedy but strong, her voice didn't quaver.
"Hogwarts will not accept this behavior!
You can punish us for it, certainly sirses,
But we must make you stop casting hexes and curses!"

With an end such as that, her eyes gave a glimmer.
The candles all flickered, the lights getting dimmer.
And the mistletoe sprigs, forgotten and floating
Were shooting out tendrils and leafing and bloating.
The Yule plants were GROWING! They grew and they grew.
Till they covered the walls and the starry roof, too.
They coated the windows, they covered the doors,
They even began to creep 'cross the floors.

"It's drastic, we know, but this is as it must be.
You will kiss and make up if you wish to be free."

With that, the elves scarpered, decamped, split the scene.
Farewell, Christmas feast and unlucky sixteen.

Of course they attempted to blast their way out
And then to discover an alternate route.
One even tried naming (in a voice most annoyed),
The name of each elf at the castle employed.
But none of them answered, none heeded the call
Of the wizards shut tight in the festive Great Hall.

"This isn't your doing?" the man paused to ask
When he'd ceased naming names in this frustrating task.
"Of course not, Headmaster. Want some cocoa?"
The answer, of course, was an emphatic, "No."

For despite all the taunting, accusing, glove-throwing,
Scoffing, comebacking, contemning, elbowing,
The one thing in Hogwarts with least Christmas cheer,
Was a man dressed in black with his lips in a sneer.
It was the Headmaster, a Grinch of a fellow,
Or rather, a Snape, his teeth crooked and yellow.

The Snape had no plans to stop Christmas from coming,
To halt all the singing and humming and drumming,
But he greeted it all with the grimmest of frowns,
The lights and the bells and the bright paper crowns.
He loomed and he fumed, complaining and stewing.
He gloomed and he doomed. He'd rather be brewing.
He didn't like baubles; he didn't like stars.
He'd rather have slimy things pickled in jars.
He'd rather have spent the whole season in bed,
Using a pillow to smother his head.

"You look like a candy cane," he added, quite grumpy,
With a glower that could have fried up Humpty Dumpty.
But the other just grinned and perked up like bright weather.
"Great! It took me two weeks to put this together."

And wonder of wonders, the Snape's lips turned up!
(Though he hid this behind a strategic teacup.)

He rallied himself for a further assail.
"Perhaps you escaped from the peppermint jail."

But Harry just laughed, for that's who was speaking,
The man with the penchant for sneaking and cheeking.>
Harry Potter, the hero, the catcher of Snitches,
Currently dressed in red and white britches.
For Harry loved Christmas; it was a firm fact
Not to be questioned, never an act.

And even more wondrous, the Snape didn't know
If he hated the holiday with as much gusto
When Harry was near; for his incessant cheer
Was annoyingly infectious at this time of year.

(Snape refused to find this alarming.
It wasn't as if he thought Potter was charming.
So what if he'd lost his typical pique
And gone skating with Harry in Hogsmeade last week?)

But that's an aside; now back to the action,
The wizards' and witches' enchantment extraction.

As Snape reminisced, the efforts were flagging.
The attempts to escape were all snagging and dragging.

The silence had gotten so thick you could smoke it.
Till Minerva McGonagall finally broke it.

"I suppose," she said with a frustrated hiss,
"We should find out what happens if we do kiss."

"I'll do it," said Luna, "though I'd hate to miss out,
On learning what all of these rhymes are about."

The others, confused, shared some frowns and a shrug,
As the two daring witches stepped into a hug.

They kissed; and in kissing, got slightly kiss-bitten.
Drawing away looking startled and smitten,
They vanished, gone from the hall with a pop
(And the growth of the mistletoe did not stop).

Before anyone could do more than gasp in alarm,
A Patronus informed them, "We've come to no harm."
With a flick of its tail, it sat on a stool.
"We're in my quarters. Good night, happy Yule."

And so it began, with no more preamble.
Everyone started to smack lips and scramble
Kissing and sliding without any stall
Out of existence within the Great Hall.
Sprout kissed Trelawney; Sinistra kissed Pince.
The students breathed deep and all kissed with a wince.
Even the ghosts were starting to smooch
And Hagrid was given a wet one by Hooch.

They all disappeared away from the table,
The mistletoe trap in this strange Christmas fable.
Only four people were left where they stood,
Until Filius Flitwick kissed Oliver Wood.

"We're the only ones left," said Harry, who'd paled.
"So it would seem," the headmaster exhaled.
Of all at the feast who'd been mistletoe-chained,
Only Harry and Severus Snape had remained.

Snape, by this point, was feeling quite numb,
Exhausted, disheartened, in need of some rum,
And utterly sick of this planty location.
Harry, by contrast, reeked of...desperation?

He oozed it, and Severus had no idea why.
"It's just a kiss, Potter," the man said, fairly dry.

"How can you say that?" Harry demanded,
Looking as if he'd been stranded, backhanded.

Snape wondered if Harry was taking the piss.
More slowly this time, he said, "It's. Just. A. Kiss."
He wouldn't have chosen this, certainly not,
But he'd hate to be left in the Great Hall to rot.

(And a small part of him, he had to admit
Was pleased to save Harry from kissing a twit.)

He thought that the other might protest some more,
But the boy's shoulders slumped, and he looked at the floor.
Then he lifted his chin and said, "Fine. Do it, then,"
Steely as if to a squad of gunmen.

(And why did that make Snape's heart give a clatter?
Who knew what that meant? It didn't matter.)

But as Snape pressed close to deliver the peck
He felt a thick vein start to throb in his neck.

He pulled back and frowned, then started again.
He stared and he stared and he counted to ten.
Those lips were quite stunning, so soft and so pink.
How had he missed that? was all Snape could think.

Something was changing, rewriting his plan
At the prospect of kissing this lovely young man.

His fists began clenching. His tongue tasted salt.
This, the man realized, was all Potter's fault.

He could have kissed Flitwick or Luna Lovegood.
McGonagall, Hagrid, or Oliver Wood.
But he hadn't. He hadn't! He'd kissed none at all.
And now Snape wanted to bawl or to brawl.

But in fact he did neither; rather, he sprang
Backwards and into some plates with a clang.
"What's wrong?" Harry called as Snape started to dash.
(Snape ignored him as well as the echoing crash.)

He could not turn back, he could not unspring
In the middle of realizing this sort of thing.

How had he missed it? How hadn't he known?
His blindness and folly cut him to the bone.

How hadn't he known, realized what it meant,
That he'd spent hours with Harry unbent and content
In the cold and the caroling of Hogsmeade last week?
That he'd tried to skate, though his prospects were bleak?
That he'd reached out to fix Harry's scarf when it loosed
And flushed at the joy Harry's smile produced?

Snape had stopped in front of the tall Christmas tree.
"Severus?" the other man asked quietly.

He'd approached on soft feet; Snape turned to face him.
(Harry was a Seeker. He couldn't outpace him.)

"Please tell me what's wrong." The man took Snape's hands.
Snape, who was drifting between foreign lands,
Setting course toward a future he had no way to chart…

But it was Christmas. Perhaps...

...just perhaps...

...he could open his heart.

"I find myself wishing," Snape said, expulsive,
"That you didn't think kissing me quite so repulsive."

At that, Harry blinked. He gaped at the spy.
"That's not it at all!" he said with a cry.

"I've been a bit of a coward," came Harry's next plea,
"But how could you go for a person like me?
It's not that us kissing would be an ordeal.
I just want it too much, and I want it for real."

Snape goggled, strung out to the end of his rope,
Helpless to stop himself filling with hope.

He looked up at the star on the Christmas tree.
"Of the two of us, Potter, how could you see,
That you're the one not deserving of me?"
(For it was just the opposite, Snape would decree.)

Harry breathed deep, his glasses askew.
"Are you saying," he asked, "that you like me too?"

Snape exhaled in a gust full of laughter and rue.
"Merlin help me," he groaned, "I believe that I do."

"That's good, then," said Harry. "Is it?" asked Snape.
"Brilliant," grinned Harry. "I think we're shipshape."

"Potter," Snape grunted, never a quitter,
"There are numerous things you have yet to consider—"

The kiss was quite sudden, quite soft, and quite warm,
With the zeal and the verve of a mid-summer storm.

Harry had kissed him! Snape kissed and held fast,
Terribly pleased to be kissing at last.

And then, just like that, the plants had vamoosed.
Their goose had been cooked, their cook had been goosed.

The noises around them appeared to have grown
(Snape noticed as Harry's deft tongue made him moan).
"You owe me a Galleon," and "Told you they'd snog."
Catcalls and whooping and toasts with eggnog.
Minerva was back, and so were the rest
(He saw as he pulled Harry tight to his chest).
They'd come back, the lot, too many to name,
And Harry and Severus kissed just the same.

It was only when gently their lips slipped apart
(With a sigh of the breath and a catch of the heart)
That the house-elves at once and at last reappeared.
"Christmas is here!" the little imps cheered.

But Snape? He was lost for quite a long while
In Harry's warm arms, his green eyes and bright smile.

When he found his full voice, which wasn't so easy,
He coughed, and (attempting to sound dark but breezy),
Asked, "Would you...like to come to my room?"
(And he girded himself as if for his doom.)

But Harry's reply, as you all likely know,
Was a laugh and a nod and a giddy, "Let's go."

So they left with the speed of a lightning bolt
And ended the house-elves' great Yuletide revolt.

And thus we have come to the end of our tale
With snow piled high and all hearty and hale.
Christmas bells ring, the elves are quite merry...

...but not nearly so much as the Snape and his Harry.