Frosty Christmas

Christmas snowflakes fluttered and danced outside the windows.

Snape, holding two hoods in his hand, led Pandora slowly out of the Great Hall, heading for the fourth floor.

"Aha!" A sharp, eerie shriek came from above, startling them both.

They hadn't noticed at all—they'd just walked right under Peeves.

There Peeves was, hanging upside down from a ornate chandelier, grinning at them with a malicious smirk.

"Are you sure you want to speak?" Snape drew his wand, eyeing the suspended Peeves with ill intent.

"Baby boy and weird girl sneaking away from the crowd—" Peeves bellowed at the top of his voice.

But before he could finish, Snape was quick as lightning, pointing his wand at Peeves.

Peeves' hands immediately flew to his throat, clawing at it, choking, his face twisted in terror.

He shot out the window, making crude gestures at Snape and Pandora, but not a single word escaped his lips—his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth.

Having shaken off Peeves, Snape and Pandora continued on, soon reaching a statue of a hunchbacked, one-eyed witch on the fourth floor.

"Hogsmeade," Snape whispered close to Pandora's ear, "there's a secret passage hidden here, straight to the cellar of Honeydukes. The entrance is in this old hag's hump."

"Since everyone's busy with their own affairs today, do you want to go to Hogsmeade for Christmas?"

Pandora was clearly no stickler for rules either; at Snape's words, her eyes lit up immediately.

She instinctively touched her robes, then nodded cheerfully.

Seeing Pandora's agreement, Snape quickly glanced around, then drew his wand, tapped the statue lightly, and murmured, "Part the Ways!"

Instantly, the statue's hump swung open, revealing an opening just big enough for a slim person to crawl through.

"You go first."

Snape swiftly checked both ends of the corridor, then followed Pandora, headfirst into the hole.

They seemed to slide down a long stone chute, wind whistling past their ears, until they landed on cold, damp, muddy ground.

Snape scrambled to his feet, brushing off the dirt, raised his wand, and intoned, "Lumos!"

Now they could see—they were in a narrow, low earthen tunnel.

"Follow me." Snape led Pandora onward.

The passage twisted and turned, more like a giant rabbit hole.

Snape held his wand out front, its faint light flickering in the darkness. The ground was uneven, and he stumbled now and then over the bumpy terrain.

Time crawled by in the dark; it felt like an hour had passed before the tunnel began to rise.

After another ten minutes or so, they reached the bottom of a worn stone staircase that stretched upward into the unseen.

"Go," Snape said softly to Pandora.

They started climbing the stone steps, careful not to make a sound.

One step, two steps... They counted at first—a hundred steps, two hundred—but soon lost track.

Suddenly, Snape's head smacked into something hard with a thump.

A trapdoor. Snape stood there rubbing his head, straining his ears to listen for any sound above.

After a long moment of silence, he slowly pushed the trapdoor open, peeking cautiously through the gap.

"No one's there. Let's go up—they must all be off celebrating." Snape whispered.

This was a cellar, packed with crates and wooden boxes.

Snape climbed up first on all fours, steadied himself, then reached down to pull Pandora up.

Then he gently closed the trapdoor. It blended almost perfectly with the gray floor; you'd have to look closely to notice the entrance.

"Put this on." Snape handed one of the hoods to Pandora. "Better be careful outside."

After donning the hoods, they slowly made their way toward the wooden stairs leading up.

They reached the door at the top of the stairs, slipped through quietly, and found themselves standing behind the counter of Honeydukes.

The shop was empty, the lights off.

Snape and Pandora moved as silently as possible past the counter—"Alohomora."

After magically unlocking the shop door, they slipped out.

The street was equally quiet, save for the glow of lights from the pub near the station, where bursts of cheerful noise broke the night's stillness.

"Come on, this weather calls for a Butterbeer." Snape turned to Pandora.

They wrapped their robes tighter and headed toward the Three Broomsticks.

The wind was biting cold, their hands nearly frozen. Finally, they crossed the road and, minutes later, burst through the pub door in a swirl of snow.

In the center of the pub stood a beautiful Christmas tree, decked with all kinds of colorful lights and ornaments.

The place was packed tonight; the usual tables had been cleared away. Everyone was holding drinks, milling about, toasting one another.

Snape had to push hard to reach the bar, deliberately pitching his voice higher as he said to Madam Rosmerta, "Two Butterbeers, please."

Madam Rosmerta turned her head to look at him for a long moment, a puzzled expression on her face, then smiled sweetly and handed him two large mugs of steaming, frothy Butterbeer.

As Snape took the mugs, he felt Madam Rosmerta lightly brush her little finger against the back of his hand.

His heart skipped with guilt, and he stole a glance at her from under his hood.

But she had already turned away, busy preparing drinks for other customers, leaving him only the sight of her long ponytail tied behind her head. It was the first time Snape had seen Madam Rosmerta wear her hair that way.

"Like it?" Snape said to Pandora, who was gulping down her Butterbeer. He had to raise his voice, as the pub was blaring a raucous Christmas broadcast.

Celestina Warbeck's voice flowed sweetly from the wooden radio.

"Brilliant!" Pandora raised her mug and said cheerfully, "Merry Christmas!"

Snape took a deep swig. It was one of the most wonderful things he had ever tasted—a rich, sweet flavor that burst across his mouth, warming every inch of his body.

Under the cover of a particularly jazzy tune, "A Cauldron Full of Hot Love," Snape and Pandora talked loudly and clinked their mugs with gusto.

"Oh, come and stir my cauldron, And if you do it right, I'll brew you up some hot, hot love

To keep you warm tonight."

They finished their first Butterbeer quickly.

Then came the second, third, fourth... Snape lost count of how many times he had gone to the bar.

He had even started grinning foolishly at Madam Rosmerta.

By the time he handed Pandora another mug, she too looked a bit tipsy.

"Severus, I have something for you," Pandora said, her voice a little floaty from the alcohol.

"What good thing?" Snape swayed slightly to the music.

"This," Pandora pulled a men's wallet from her robes and squinted, "It can hold a lot of things."

Just then, Celestina began singing "You Hooked My Heart With Magic."

"Oh, my poor heart, where has it gone?

It left me, hooked by magic drawn, ...

And now you've torn it all apart, Please give me back my heart!"

Celestina ended her song with a long, high note, and the radio burst into loud applause. Pandora clapped excitedly as well.