Once the boys were in place, Snape flicked his wand at a gift and made it fly to Harry.
"From Professor Dumbledore?" Harry wondered aloud, glancing at the charmed tag which featured a little animation of two teacups madly dancing with each other. "Did he... er, stop by?"
"He ported it to me," Snape explained. "Along with some other things." A pause, and then, "Are you going to open it?"
Harry tore off the wrapping to reveal a pair of socks that were actually furry, they were so soft. Of course purple fur was a bit strange, but Harry liked them all the same. He slipped them on over his other socks and wiggled his toes. Mmm, nice and warm. "He told me once that a man can never have enough socks," Harry remembered, laughing.
Snape flicked his wand again, sending another gift spinning through the air to Draco.
The Slytherin boy looked at the package doubtfully. "This is from the headmaster, too. It's probably also for Harry."
Leaning over, Harry pointed to the clear writing on the tag. "D. R. A. C. O., see? That's not how I spell my name."
"Let me guess, it's more socks," Draco drawled, prodding the wrapping a bit. "And if you got purple, these are probably.... pink."
He wasn't too far off; they were a warm peachy color. Draco didn't put them on, but Harry thought he looked pleased, all the same.
Snape's present from the headmaster wasn't socks. Harry thought that a pity. Instead, Snape received a tall, thin bottle of something called Galliano.
"Licorice flavored liqueur," Draco explained. "Muggle-made, but Severus has adored it for years. My turn now, I think." With that, the Slytherin boy rose onto his knees to sort through the presents until he'd found what he wanted. He shoved one into Harry's hand and tossed the other one through the air at Snape.
Harry found himself holding a thin rectangular box, and saw that Snape had a cube-shaped package. Both were wrapped in shiny silver paper and tied with a green ribbon.
"From you?" Harry asked Draco, a little unsure what my turn actually meant.
"No, it's from Crabbe and Goyle," Draco joked, his grin about as bright as Harry had ever seen it. No doubt about it, Draco just adored Christmas. "Go on, open it."
"After you, sir," Harry said, gesturing towards Snape.
He thought Snape gave him a bit of an odd glance, but then the man was opening his gift, his stained fingernails neatly slicing through the wrappings, ribbon and all, to reveal a plain white box. Opening it, he withdrew a small round jar fashioned of clear glass. Inside the jar was a thick, viscous substance that shimmered with gold and blue highlights as Snape tilted it in the weak sunlight streaming through the window.
The jar was unlabeled, but Snape seemed to know what he'd been given. "Thank you, Draco," he said in a voice gone suddenly serious. "This is... very much appreciated."
"What is it?" Harry had to ask.
"Oh..." Draco looked to Snape before answering, his voice purposely offhand, "Um, just some skin cream."
"There's more to it than that," Harry retorted. "I can tell when you're holding something back, remember?"
Draco flushed. "Well, if you must know, it's one of Severus' own formulations, but I did a bit of experimenting in his lab over the last few weeks, and I think I just might have improved it! A little, at least."
"All right, all right," Harry said, verbally backing away before the exchange could spin itself into an actual fight. Snape didn't seem the skin cream type to Harry --pampered was actually an adjective that fit Draco far better-- but there was no doubt that Snape had really liked the present.
"Open yours now," Draco urged, apparently forgetting they'd just had words. "I want to see if it works."
Harry tore the wrappings as he answered, "Why would you give me something you aren't sure works?"
"Works with your magic," Draco clarified. "It should. It's triple-charmed so the slightest whisper of active magic will do the trick--"
He stopped talking as Harry pulled a shirt out of the box. A deep, beautiful maroon with gold buttons embossed with the figure of a lion, it was one of the nicer shirts Harry had ever seen. The fabric was completely opaque, yet so thin it fell through his hands like water. "It's beautiful," he thanked Draco. "I really like it. But... um, what's magical about it?"
"I think you have to put it on to see," Draco explained. "Go on..."
Harry wasn't too sure it was the done thing, but with Draco looking so expectant and excited, he found himself quickly shrugging off his pajama shirt and doing up the buttons on the dress shirt.
"Looks good on you," Draco smiled. "But I bet it looks even better when you touch the top button three times in a row. Try it."
Harry did, and jumped back startled when the shirt instantly changed itself to a dark green with silver buttons bearing a snake figure.
"I knew it!" Draco crowed. "It works!"
The shirt was no less beautiful than before, but now, Harry felt a little bit strange. Wizards didn't go around wearing magical clothes very often. At least, not that he knew of.
"I got the idea when you said you were going to have that house-elf sew ties together so you could wear the colors of both your Houses at once," Draco explained, smiling triumphantly. "That would have just looked stupid. But with this, you can go from common room to common room and feel right at home in either."
Harry nodded, but said, "I can't really see being welcomed in the Slytherin common room, even so." Another thought crossed his mind. "Hey, you said my Christmas present was that thing you tried to give me while I was blind in hospital. You didn't know I'd be in both houses, not then!"
Draco looked mildly offended. Or scandalized. Harry couldn't really tell. "Did you think I was only giving you one present, Harry?"
Harry set his teeth. "I only got you one. So sorry if that's not the way wizarding Christmases are done, but I didn't know!"
"No, I meant... it'd be pretty rude to make a present do double duty, Harry. That other one was really your get-well present! I decided a long time ago to try to give it to you at Christmas, but that was just because I thought you might accept it, then. It was never really your Christmas present. Anyway... think I'll give it to you a bit later, if that's all right."
"Oh, okay," Harry said, though it seemed to him that Draco was putting a lot too much importance on being proper, and not enough on just being a friend. "Well, it's a lovely shirt," he said again, tapping the top button three more times to turn it back into a Gryffindor shirt.
Draco actually stuck out his tongue at that.
"My turn now, I do believe," Snape murmured, distributing presents with his wand.
Perhaps realizing that he'd been behaving like a nine-year-old all morning, Draco waved for Harry to open his first.
"A... box," Harry said, looking down at the gift he'd unwrapped. That's all it was, an empty box. Made of slightly tinted glass --oddly rough glass, come to think of it-- it was about the same size as one of his fattest textbooks. The strange thing was that there was no way to open the box. No hinge, no lid... though it did have a hole the size of a Galleon on each side. "It's really beautiful, sir," he said, anxious not to offend. "Really. I've... er, never had one..." Giving up finally on being polite, Harry turned to Draco. "Um, is this some wizarding thing I'm supposed to have heard of by now?"
Draco burst out laughing. "I was going to ask you later if it was some Muggle thing I'd never heard of!"
Both boys turned to look at Snape.
"It's a box for Sals," the Potions Master explained. "It's charmed to warm up to the temperature of the Floo whenever she crawls into it."
Harry's mouth dropped open in astonishment. "Oh, thank you, sir," he said with much more enthusiasm. "It's just perfect! And something I really need... I've been worrying myself silly that I someone will come through the Floo when Sals is in there... she just won't listen to me..."