8.
In his free time, Severus began researching dreams, specifically nightmares in young children. He thought there must be some things that he could do to help reduce the frequency and severity of her nightmares, besides continuously dose her with sleeping potions. In the days after a particularly bad nightmare, she would often be afraid to go to sleep, would try to stay awake through the night, drink coffee during the day.
He'd offered, more than once, to stay with her at night, to drag a chair into her room and sleep there, or to let her stay in his room, but, unless she was in the immediate aftermath of a nightmare, she always took this as an insult, insisting that she wasn't a baby, could sleep by herself.
He found an awful lot of sources, in his research, that suggested talking to her about her nightmares, rehashing the scenes in them that had frightened her so much. It was supposed to help her separate the dream from reality, but Severus didn't understand how this would help in her specific case. Wouldn't he be asking her to relive her worst memories, over and over? Surely, that would do more harm than good, he thought, because Calista wasn't dreaming about an imaginary, fanged monster living under her bed. She was dreaming about a real monster, one who had put scars all over her, inside and out.
There were a few other things, too. It was bad for her to have a lot of sweets, especially late at night, but she didn't eat many of them anyway. He did find that caffeine was bad for her, that it could interfere with her getting the right sort of sleep, and that the resulting sleep deprivation could cause a spate of overactive dreaming when she did manage to fall into a deep sleep; that was a good bit of information, one worth experimenting with.
There were other, simple things that he had never thought of, as well. A lot of children slept better if they had a small light on in their room, and a few books suggested soft toys or other comforts to help allay a child's fears. What he came across, again and again, was that it was important to comfort a child after a nightmare, to reassure them that it was only a dream, and that they were, in fact, safe. Well, he had been doing that right, at least. And it did seem to help - she always went back to sleep, eventually, when he stayed with her. Most of the time, she laid back down and went to sleep while he sat on the edge of her bed, a silent sentinel. But a handful of times, she fell asleep in his arms, the two of them cuddled up against whatever terrors the night held.
Those were the times that Severus thought they felt most like a family; a tiny, half-wild, strange sort of family, but one that he wouldn't trade away for much of anything. He hoped that she felt the same way, that she could find the idea comforting, could learn to think of a parent as someone that was there to teach and protect her, rather than someone who wanted only to dominate and control her.
She had said she liked him; that was a start, wasn't it? And she wanted to stay with him, didn't want to go back to anywhere else she'd been or anywhere new, either. And, he knew he couldn't discount the fact that he had gotten her to speak, inside of roughly half a year. He knew from her memories that she had stopped speaking to Bellatrix at least a year before she was taken by the Order of the Phoenix, and she had never spoken to anyone since then until, of all things, she'd asked him "Why?".
That told him more than nearly anything else what sort of person she was, when the traumas and the nightmares and the fragility of childhood melted away; she was bright, inquisitive, stubborn, cautious, curious, even, by turns, thorny. She was, seven years old or not, precisely the sort of person he liked to spend time with. If they had been children at the same time, he thought they would have been friends. Regardless of what she was like, Severus would have begun carign for her when he found her, would have taken her here and tried his best to help her, to raise her properly. However, it was a much more enjoyable task given that he genuinely liked her, not just for sharing his blood and being his responsibility, but simply for being herself. What he wanted, now, was to find a way to allow her to simply be herself, unfettered by the shackles of her fear.
It was with all of this in mind that Severus made a move that he knew would be, in the short term, excruciating for both of them. A few days after her terrible nightmare, when she'd woken screaming and convinced of a knife in her back, he set their breakfast table with goblets of pumpkin juice instead of mugs of coffee. He even put his carafe away in a high cupboard, where she couldn't reach it to make herself coffee as soon as he left the flat, which he knew was precisely what she'd have done otherwise.
She entered their little kitchen, sat down in her customary chair, and reached her left hand out. She was halfway to her goblet before she realised that it was, in fact, a goblet. She furrowed her brow, looked to see that he had the same in front of him.
"New cups?" she questioned, pulling her knees under her and kneeling on the chair so she could see into the top of the goblet.
"Something like that," Severus said, bracing himself for what he knew was surely to come.
Calista slid the goblet closer to her, peered over the rim of it, sniffed at it suspiciously.
"What is this stuff?" She sounded less than impressed.
"It's pumpkin juice," he said, "A lot of the students like it."
"Er," she said, "Thanks, I guess, but I'd rather just have coffee."
"About that," he said, fingering the stem of his own goblet, "Coffee isn't good for you. It's not very healthy for children, and besides, I've read a few things recently-"
"Are you saying I can't have any coffee?" she interrupted, sounding every bit as thrilled by the idea as he'd expected - which was to say, as thrilled as he would be to have a flock of pixies ransack his study.
Well. If she was going to cut to the chase, there was no reason for him not to join her. "That's correct."
She pushed the goblet away from her, set her face in a stony pout, and crossed her arms.
"Why?"
"Oh, do you want my reasons? Because I assumed, when you interrupted me, that you didn't really care to know them."
"This is a stupid rule," she declared, "I don't like it."
"Welcome to rules," he said drily.
She glared at him for several seconds, during which time he calmly sipped from his own goblet. He'd get some tea or coffee in the staff lounge later, but she didn't need to know that.
"So," she prompted, "What's the stupid reason for the stupid rule?"
"There are no stupid reasons, only two sound ones. Would you like to hear them?" he asked casually.
"Fine." She cast a menacing look at the goblet, as if it were the one that had decided to set itself on the breakfast table where her coffee should have been.
"Firstly, as I said, it's not healthy for you. It can make your heart race and stunt your growth. Secondly, I read recently that the caffeine in it may be contributing to your nightmares."
She softened slightly, acquiesced enough to start eating the cereal he'd set in front of her. Well, that was a start.
"Now, I could have tried to trick you by giving you decaffeinated coffee, but I thought you'd rather have the truth, even if you didn't like it. Besides, I wasn't lying, a lot of the students do like pumpkin juice. You should at least give it a try."
Calista only cast the goblet a dark look and continued to eat her breakfast. They ate more or less in silence the rest of the meal, until Severus had to leave to teach his first class.
As soon as she heard the door to the flat close behind him, Calista knelt on her chair again, and reached for the goblet. She sniffed at it curiously, then lifted it to her mouth with both hands, took a tiny sip. Immediately, she made a face, swirled it around in her mouth a little, then swallowed.
Her expression cleared when she realised that in fact it actually didn't taste half bad. She took another, longer sip, then pulled it closer to the edge of the table so she could reach it properly when she sat down again. Fine, it wasn't that bad, but her father still wasn't off the hook for taking her coffee away. She decided to pretend to hate it for a few more days before she finally let him see her cave, just out of principle, even if his reasons did seem more or less as sound as he'd said they were.
(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)
As it always seemed to, the first part of the semester flew by for Severus, and Christmas Break was soon upon them. Most of the students went home, and Severus had a lot more free time. Two things occurred to him simultaneously, a few days before Christmas. One was that he had now had custody of Calista for nearly a full year. The second was that, since he had found Calista in January, after Christmas, it would be his first Christmas in a number of years as part of a family.
The year before he'd started teaching, he'd gone to visit Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy for the holiday, but since then he'd stayed at the castle and had a quiet dinner and a few glasses of wine with the other professors that had stayed behind. It had been a bit awkward the first year, being by far the youngest of them all, and not too recently a student in many of their classes, but last year had been enjoyable. Still, he thought that it might be nice, in a different way, to have a child around for Christmas.
In the days before Christmas, he picked out several gifts for Calista, and decided that it would be nice for them to stroll through the castle and grounds together on Christmas Eve, when parts of the castle would be decorated and lit up prettily. Perhaps he could even get permission from Dumbledore to bring her to the Great Hall for dinner on Christmas, since many of the students wouldn't be there. He wondered what she would make of the enchanted ceiling.
On Christmas Eve, when he told her of his plans for them to tour the castle, she seemed enthusiastic. He did have a few assignments from the last classes he'd taught before the break to grade, and he did those in his office during the afternoon, while Calista drew unidentifiable pictures on sheets of parchment he'd given her to use. Whatever talents she had, art was decidedly not one of them; he had absolutely no idea what she was drawing, but it kept her happily occupied, so he was content to let her scribble away. She gave him one of the pictures as a present. He thought it might have been either a volcano or a cauldron, but he knew better than to ask, so he just hung it up in his office with a Sticking Charm and thanked her for it.
When he was finished grading papers, it was dusk, so he gave Calista the first of the gifts that he'd picked out for her: a warm cloak and gloves, so she wouldn't freeze when they went outside in the dark. It was a good thing, too, because as they climbed the stairs to the first level of the castle, he saw through a window that it was snowing outside, very lightly.
It was a pleasant walk, through the castle. She liked to watch the moving portraits, and the moving staircase fascinated her as well. Three times, he had to wait on the landing for her so she could run up and down it to see if it would go somewhere new. She was impressed, as well, by the Christmas trees that were placed at random intervals in the corridors, most of them lit up and decorated with garlands.
She asked him a lot of questions, about the people in the portraits and which classrooms were which, but whenever they walked past another person, she quieted until she judged they were out of earshot. Severus sighed inwardly, wishing she'd try, just once, to talk to someone besides himself, but he decided that they were having too nice a time for him to ruin it by starting that particular argument.
After they toured most of the main areas in the first few levels, they went outside. Some of the trees on the grounds had been strung up with lights, and the great oak doors had wreaths on them. Candles shone in some of the windows, too, and he had to wait while Calista counted them all.
A scattering of fluffy white snowflakes fell from the sky, though not enough for them to accumulate on the ground. Calista tried to count those too, but when she got to a hundred, she gave up and started catching them on her tongue instead.
"Did you know that no two snowflakes are alike?" he asked her, as she marched in front of him with her head tilted back and her tongue out.
"Eh?" she turned to him, but kept her mouth open. He chuckled.
"They're all just a bit different from all the other snowflakes," he said. "No one's ever found two that were precisely the same."
She pulled her tongue back in her mouth, and held out one of her gloved hands. When several flakes had landed on the black wool, she held her hand up to her face, scrutinizing them closely. Then, she huffed out a sigh, clouding the air in front of her.
"How can anyone tell?" she asked, "They melt too fast to get a good look."
"I suppose they bring them into a very cold laboratory to study them," he said, "Although, come to think of it, I'm not sure why anyone would want to bother."
They stayed out for a few more minutes, then Severus told her it was time to head back inside the castle for dinner. When they stepped back into the entrance hall, Calista noticed a sprig of mistletoe that was hanging up, and pointed to it.
"That's mistletoe, right?" she asked. Severus nodded.
"The thing I don't understand," she said, and Severus really hoped that he wasn't about to have to explain the ridiculous tradition of kissing under the mistletoe to her, because it didn't make much sense to him, either, "Is why mistletoe berries are used in an Antidote to Common Poisons, when they have poison in them. Wouldn't that just make someone sicker?"
Severus stopped in his tracks, looked down at her. He was so surprised by her question that he completely missed Albus Dumbledore waving at them from beside the door to the Great Hall.
"How do you know that?" he wondered, facing her. "That's not in any of the books we've been reading together."
"The list," she said, "Of the two hundred most commonly used ingredients. I found a book on your shelf that has a bunch of them. Magical Droughts and Potions, I think. I've gotten a hundred and three of them so far. That's how I knew it was mistletoe. 'White, waxy berries', right?"
She was still looking up and over his shoulder at the plant, with her head cocked slightly to the right, as if she were not quite certain of its identification, still.
Severus' face spread into a rare grin, but he did successfully repress the laugh that threatened to burst out of him when she'd said the title of the book. Magical droughts, indeed. Still, she was actually doing the assignment he'd given her, months ago now, when she'd nearly blown up his workroom? He was both surprised and very pleased.
"Yes, that's correct," he said, "The reason for using it in an antidote is the acid in the berries; they help to accelerate the breakdown of poisons by bezoars. However, the entire potion only uses two berries because a few of the other compounds in the berries are poisonous; there just aren't enough of those poisons in only two berries to do much harm."
While they spoke, facing each other in the entrance hall, the Headmaster had stepped a few paces closer, but drawn short of directly approaching them, opting instead to watch the parent-child interaction with a benevolent sort of curiosity.
"So you could eat a bunch of mistletoe berries, and then take a potion with mistletoe in it to cure yourself? That's weird."
"You could," Severus said, "But you'd likely have a stomachache. I wouldn't recommend it."
"What if you ate a bunch of mistletoe berries," she asked, "and you didn't have time to make an antidote? Could you just eat a bezoar and two more berries? Or would the berries you already ate help the bezoar work faster?"
"Actually," he told her, "You don't really need the berries at all. You can counteract most poisons with just a bezoar. The reason we generally make an antidote potion instead is to conserve ingredients; bezoars are much harder to find than mistletoe berries, and you can make, say, thirty doses of antidote for one bezoar, instead of just one. The only other rare ingredient in the antidote is unicorn horn, but at a ratio of thirty-to-one, it's still more economical to brew the potion than to start handing out bezoars-"
And here, Albus Dumbledore did approach the pair, laying a hand genially on Severus' shoulder. "Merry Christmas, Severus," he said heartily, a twinkle in his blue eyes. He smiled at the little girl, who went suddenly quiet. "and Calista," Albus added, "Won't both of you come and join me in the Great Hall? There's an excellent feast tonight."
Calista looked suddenly drawn, as if the prospect of eating dinner had become an unwelcome obligation, but Severus smiled at her encouragingly, reaching for her hand; reluctantly, she took it, and the three of them headed into the Great Hall.
There were a few teachers at the High Table, and a small scattering of students at the house tables, but the majority of them had gone home for the holiday.
"I'd suggest we sit at one of the house tables," Dumbledore said, "But I can't risk being said to show favoritism, so I say we should allow young Calista to sit at the staff table, just this once."
He winked at her, as if the shared some kind of secret. She wrinkled her nose, and looked up at her father questioningly.
"She can sit beside you, Severus," Dumbledore continued, "Professor Kettleburn's gone home for Christmas, and I daresay it won't hurt him to have his seat borrowed for the evening."
"Thank you, Albus, that will do nicely," Severus said.
They drew up to the staff table, and Severus helped Calista into the seat beside his; the Headmaster sat in his usual chair, at Severus' other side. There was a difficult moment where Calista's eyes roved the Great Hall, taking in the students seated below them with wide eyes, and Severus was afraid she might bolt, but then she caught sight of the enchanted ceiling, and he caught a small smile on her face again.
She leaned over, tilted her head up to whisper in his ear.
"I can see the stars through there," she said, and he could hear, even in her whispery voice, that she was impressed.
"It's enchanted," he told her, in his regular speaking voice, "It always shows the sky outside."
She considered this a moment, and while she did, platters laden with food began to appear on all the tables. Severus filled his own plate, and added things to hers that he thought she ought to eat, vegetables and turkey and a bit of roast. He smirked when he saw her reach eagerly for the glass of pumpkin juice that had appeared by her plate.
After she had eaten a few bites, she leaned up to whisper to him again.
"What if a dragon went by outside?" she asked, "Would we be able to see it on the ceiling?"
Severus had had an idea, though; he pretended that he hadn't heard her question. After a short silence, she asked it again, and he again pretended not to hear.
She tugged on his sleeve, then, and he looked down at her.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Calista, were you speaking to me? I can't hear you whispering over the din in here." He tried to sound sincere, but wondered if she'd see through his plan.
He thought she must have, because she scowled and turned back to her plate, pushing a few pieces of potato around with her fork. She took another sip of pumpkin juice, and then, evidently, her curiosity got the better of her, because she tried again, a little bit louder.
"What if there were dragons," she said, "outside? Would we see them from in here?"
"Hm?" he chewed a mouthful of roast, tilted his head as if he were still having trouble hearing her.
"Dragons," Calista finally said, loudly, exasperated. "Could we see them in the ceiling?"
"You know," Dumbledore said, turning to look at her around Severus, "I don't believe that it would show us dragons if there were any outside; it's a pity, isn't it? I should like to know if we had any flying overhead."
Calista's face drained of color, and her shoulders tensed momentarily.
"Well, there you have it," Severus said lightly, "If anyone would know the answer to that question, it's the Headmaster of the school."
Slowly, she relaxed. She took another bite of her dinner, another sip of pumpkin juice. Then, she did the most remarkable thing, in Severus' eyes; she leaned forward, to look past Severus at Dumbledore.
"Why doesn't it?" she asked him. It was the first time in literally years that she had spoken to anyone besides Severus, and again, the question was Why? He was beginning to notice a pattern, here.
"That's a very good question," the Headmaster said indulgently, "One to which I can only guess at the answer. Perhaps the witches and wizards who enchanted it never thought of it. I had never thought of it before, but now that you mention it, I do rather wish they had." He winked at her, as if they shared a secret.
Calista was mostly quiet the rest of the meal, except to ask Severus a few more questions about the ingredients she had found mention of in the first-year textbook she'd found in his study. Severus was happy to answer them, feeling especially indulgent since she'd finally spoken in front of another person; now, at least, Dumbledore would know that he'd been telling the truth.
After dinner, they went back to their flat in the dungeons. Severus looked at Calista when they returned. "Why don't you get me the list you've been working on?" he said, "Let me see which ones you've found so far."
She went down the hall to her bedroom, and he heard a drawer open and close. Then she returned, several loose sheets of parchment in hand, and held them out to him. He took them from her, shuffled through them. She had found quite a lot of them, although her handwriting was so atrocious that he was hard-pressed to figure out which ones. She was watching him so eagerly though, undoubtedly hoping for praise, that he didn't quite have the heart to say so.
"This is a good start," he said, instead, "But why don't we go to the library this week? I think there might be some books there that will be easier for you to look through than the one you have been."
"Together?" she asked, and Severus nodded.
"I've never been to a library," she said, "But I know what it is. It's a big room with lots and lots of free books, right?"
"Well, they're free to borrow," he said, "But you have to take very good care of them, and bring them back when you're finished."
"Like I do with your books?"
"Precisely," he said, handing her back her papers. "Now, what would you like to read before bed tonight?"
"Can we read from my cat book?"
Severus winced; why had he given her a choice? He hated that book, hated all the pictures of simpering, fluffy kittens. "Must we?" he asked.
"You asked what I would like," she said, "I just told you the truth. I'm supposed to do that, right?"
He looked at her face, and scowled. While her tone was sincere, she couldn't quite hide a little smirk. She knew he hated that book. Perhaps that was precisely why she had picked it.
"Fine. We'll read the bloody book. Just don't expect me to like it."
"That's half the fun," Calista admitted gleefully, "I especially like the part when you call the tiger cats 'sodding little hairballs'."
(¯ˆ·.¸¸.·ˆ¯)
Christmas Day was rainy and gray. They ate breakfast in their little kitchen, and then Severus gave Calista the rest of her presents. There was another cat book, which he had seriously considered withholding after last night, and a blank sketchbook and a pack of crayons. She seemed very pleased with these; she told him that Jessica at the orphanage had owned some crayons, but had never let Calista use them. She'd taken them out immediately, curled up in one of the chairs in his study with the book and crayons.
He'd given her two other things, also: an enchanted glass globe that held a tiny bit of witchfire that was guaranteed to stay lit for at least a year, that she could keep on her wardrobe so her bedroom wouldn't be quite so dark at night, and a soft toy that looked like a cat, which she had not been nearly as impressed with.
"What's this?" she'd asked, her nose wrinkled in confusion.
"It's a toy," he said, "Children… children like to hold them, at night. I think."
"Does it do anything?" She'd poked its little pink nose dubiously.
"Well, no," he'd had to admit, "But you can keep it in your bed, with you."
She'd raised her eyebrows, shrugged, and put it on top of her wardrobe with the little nightlight. Well, it had been worth a try. At least she liked the crayons.
The next day, he'd taken her to the library. He'd planned on them spending some time in there, but Madam Pince looked as though she'd rather host a dragon than a small child, so after suffering a few minutes of cold glares, he checked out The Essential Potion-Maker's Toolkit and The Cauldron Companion, two very basic potions books that he thought might be easy enough for her to read on her own, and they returned to the dungeons.
Later, while she was busily flipping through the pages and making additional scrawls on her list, Severus went to the Headmaster's office, where he'd been invited for tea. (With Albus Dumbledore, it was always tea).
When he sat down, Albus had smiled at him jovially. "I hope you had a good Christmas, Severus."
"I actually did," Severus reflected, "Thank you. How was yours?"
"Ah, as delightful as always," Dumbledore said, but of course an astute listener would recognize that for a very ambiguous response.
"Thank you for inviting Calista to sit at the staff table," Severus said. "I think she enjoyed herself."
"That's good to hear. I must say, Severus, she's come a long way from the child I first met, more than a year ago."
Severus nodded. "I try. It's a bit of progress, every day."
Albus sipped at his tea. "More than a bit, I would say," he said, matter-of-factly, "For someone who professed to knowing nothing about raising children, Severus, you're doing quite an admirable job."
Severus felt a relief he hadn't even been aware he'd needed; he looked down, under pretense of stirring his tea.
"Can you tell, Severus, that your daughter simply adores you? It was plain to my eyes immediately, as it must be plain to anyone else who sees you two interact."
Severus felt a warmth spreading throughout him that had little to do with the hot tea. "I do think she's beginning to trust me," he said quietly.
"Hm, indeed, that is one way to put it," Dumbledore said, a direct stare aimed at Severus. "Another would be to say that you are, in fact, that child's personal hero."
Severus glanced at Albus; could the older man possibly know how much Severus needed to hear those words? Of course he could; he knew everything, or so it often seemed.
"Thank you," Severus said, and it was all he needed to say.