Dear Professor Dumbledore, Thank you very much for the nice purple furry socks you sent me for Christmas. I'd also like to thank you for porting all my presents out to the cottage. It was a wonderful surprise to wake up Christmas morning and see that so many of my friends had remembered me....
Dear Parvati, I'd forgotten what it was like to wear glasses until I slipped on those charmed ones you sent me. They made the whole world look like a kaleidoscope. Too bad I didn't have a pair to wear during Binn's history lectures. It would have been nice to have something interesting to watch. Thanks so much for thinking of me this Christmas...
Dear Ginny, The best present in the whole world was that well-wish you handed me a few days before the holidays. I know it was from all of Gryffindor, but it means a lot to me that you presented it and that you wished Professor Snape well, too. I hardly expected anything more, but then to find that you'd sent me a Christmas present of a book on well-wishes... that's really special beyond measure. I'd like to say that I've unraveled the entire well-wish by now, but Severus is insisting that I figure out without help what plants are even in it. (Long story, but basically, I cheated on the well-wish Draco gave me.) Anyway, once I figure out the plants, I'll be using the book you gave me to see just what Gryffindor wished for me....
And finally, after he'd written still more cards, Harry got to the one most on his mind. It didn't exactly write itself, but after three drafts Harry gave up on trying to not let his irritation show at all.
Dear Hermione, it read,
Thank you for the psychology book. It'll be nice to have my own copy. Up until now, I've been borrowing the one Professor Snape bought right after Samhain. Same book! But really, if it's the book Severus chose when he realized I needed help, you can be sure it's an excellent text indeed. Actually, I've been reading it for weeks and I can vouch for it. If not for this particular book, I don't know if I'd have ever really been able to accept Severus as my father. You might be interested to know that even Draco has pored all through it, too. He thought it had great potential for helping me understand myself better. So see, I just knew the two of you had something in common....
Harry sealed up all his letters and left them on the middle of the table where Snape couldn't fail to miss them. Also... where he'd be able to see if Draco tried to charm them open or something. He liked Draco these days, but a Slytherin was still a Slytherin.
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"Mr. Weasley will be down here after dinner in the Great Hall ends," Snape announced on the first evening after classes had resumed.
Harry dropped his fork into his mashed potatoes, then hurriedly picked it back up and tried for a nonchalant tone. "May I ask why?"
Snape's dark eyes seemed even more heartless than usual as he replied, "There's a little matter of a consequence for his ill-considered comments."
Harry could think of only one reason why Ron would have to come to Snape's quarters for his consequence. "Please," he entreated, "don't make him apologize to me. That'll just make everything worse, sir."
Snape's nostrils flared. "No doubt that particular young man wouldn't apologize even if I flayed him to the bone." Catching the look on Harry's face, he went on, "Oh, don't look so dire. I assure you, I've an entirely more... civilized chastisement in mind for your erstwhile friend."
"Personally, I think the flaying sounds fine," Draco remarked, tipping his head back as he downed the rest of his wine. That was unusual. The Slytherin boy usually sipped at it with great solemnity, and to Harry's surprise, had never once drunk enough to even get tipsy. Tonight he seemed to be inviting it, though. He poured himself another full glass, then frowned when Snape pointed his wand at it and evanescoed half the contents away. "Spoil-sport," the boy muttered.
"Better that than spoiling for a fight," Snape sternly countered. "I didn't insist Mr. Weasley come down here so that matters could become even worse. Is that understood, Draco?"
"Yes, sir."
Snape was hardly satisfied. "If you can't keep a civil tongue in your head I fully expect you to keep yourself occupied in your bedroom or the Potions laboratory, is that understood?"
Draco's answer to that was to push off from the table, stalk to his bedroom, and slam the door.
"And as for you," Snape continued with scarcely a pause, "I trust you'll remember that Mr. Weasley is down here for punishment, not to socialize."
"He's hardly going to want to socialize with me," Harry pointed out.
"All the same, you're to leave him to his consequence. Comport yourself as though he's not here at all, in fact."
"Fine!" Harry snapped, a little unnerved. "What is his punishment, anyway? I mean, since you obviously feel that ruining his Christmas wasn't vindictive enough."
"Oh, he merely has to write lines," Snape said, waving his wand to clear away the dishes.
Write lines? "Oh, God, don't," Harry begged, pulling up his sleeve where the faint tracings of an old punishment were still etched into his hand.
"I'm frankly insulted you could compare me to that imbecile Umbridge," Snape scathed, reaching out to shove Harry's sleeve back down over the offending scar. "For the record, Potter, I don't physically torture students to make a point, any more than I experiment on them or transfigure them when they offend me!"
Taken completely off guard, Harry stammered, "I... I didn't think you knew about Umbridge, sir..."
"You told me when you were babbling after your operation. As you weren't in your right mind, you claimed it was Lockhart, but I reasoned it out. Pity the Scaradicate Salve didn't heal it after Samhain, but a blood quill causes a curse scar to form."
"I didn't mean to imply you'd make Ron use a blood quill!" Harry objected.
"Then what did you mean, pray tell?" Snape inquired in what was possibly the snidest voice Harry had ever heard him use.
"I... I don't know! I just know you said write lines and I couldn't help but think of the last time I had to, and it was awful sir, just absolutely awful!"
"No doubt Mr. Weasley will believe his punishment equally awful though it involves nothing but a regular quill and parchment," Snape scathed. "Such is self-pity, a trait most adolescents possess in exceeding abundance. Thank Merlin you have less of it than your peers. With your history, were you inclined to self-pity, we'd all drown in the tears."
Harry wasn't actually sure if that had been an offhand compliment or just more Ron-bashing. "If all Ron has to do is write lines," he decided to ask, "why does he have to do it down here?"
He wondered if Snape would be honest and open enough to reply, So I can berate him to his face for hours on end, of course...
"So he can't cheat," Snape snarled. "Or did you think that was the exclusive province of Slytherins? Half-Slytherins, in your case. I won't have him duplicating lines by magic, or even using a self-inking quill. He's going to write his lines out the old-fashioned way and think about the error of his ways."
Personally, Harry thought that writing lines wouldn't make Ron do any such thing. It would just make him resentful, and angrier at Harry, probably. He also thought, though, that Snape wouldn't react too well if Harry pointed out that Ron's behavior was really more a family than a school matter. The man was mad enough already. Harry figured if he crossed one too many lines, Snape would take a huge number of points from Ron, just to make a point. Bit of a miracle, really, that he hadn't done that already.