Chapter Five:
"You miserable bastard -– did you see that? Foul!" Olivia Avril howled, shaking her fist in the direction of the Quidditch pitch. She shook Calista's shoulder to get her attention.
"Yeah, what a git," Calista said absently, still furiously scribbling on a scrap of parchment, a textbook open on her lap.
The first Quidditch match of the season was a Gryffindor-Slytherin match, which meant that the stands were full and tension was high. Every single pair of eyes – save one – was fixed on the action in the pitch.
Instead of watching the action, Calista crossed out a diagram she had just spent twenty minutes drawing, and started from scratch, referring to an index of her textbook intermittently.
Frustrated, Calista pulled the mitten off of her left hand with her teeth, and wrapped the fingers of that hand again around her quill.
Ever since writing the essay on the Silencing Charm for Professor Flitwick, Calista had been intrigued. This was only the latest in a string of days that she had dedicated to researching the implications she had seen in the story of Casseiopia's discoveries.
When magic wands had first been introduced as a mainstream tool for wizardry, countless rituals and incantations had been adapted for use with the new tool. The ritualistic dance once used to perform a Silencing Charm had been adapted, along with a lot of other similar rituals, into a simple incantation and wrist movement.
Calista wondered if there was any way to do the opposite: to take a spell performed with a wand, and find a way it perform it without.
She knew that some very skilled wizards could deliberately perform certain spells without their wands, but they would always be disadvantaged in a duel against an opponent that was armed.
But what if there was a way to use another tool besides a wand – say, a series of movements, as in the original Silencing Charm?
Calista knew that working backwards like this would be useless in most circumstances. There wasn't much point in performing a five-minute dance when you could just as easily wave your wand.
Except, Calista remembered that Bellatrix was extremely skilled at Disarming.
The stands erupted in noise, and Calista blinked and looked up, distracted from her studies. The Slytherin spectators were cheering and jumping up and down, but most of the others looked disheartened.
"Come on," Olivia said, grabbing Calista's elbow and knocking her parchment and textbook down, "Let's go congratulate the team!"
Olivia rolled her eyes while Calista gathered her things, and by the time she had it all together, Olivia was already part of the crowd surrounding the players. Calista started in that direction, but then shrugged and went back into the castle instead.
She really didn't understand the attraction to the sport – and she hated flying. She hadn't even taken Flying lessons with her classmates, although her father had warned her that she'd have to eventually. She was looking at the delay as an opportunity to find a way to avoid it altogether, for the simple reason that she was terrified of it.
She'd rather die than let Olivia or any of the others find that out, though. Marcus Flint was always pestering her to try out for Reserve Seeker, because of her size, but she kept telling him she was too busy with her studies, rather than admitting the truth.
Calista made her way to the common room, and opened her textbook, planning to continue her research, but then an explosion of noise in the corridor erupted, steadily growing in volume and proximity until it occupied the common room.
Well. It appeared as though the Slytherins wanted to celebrate their Quidditch victory. Calista closed her book and slipped it under her arm, intending to carry it to the Potions classroom, where peace and quiet was assured on a Saturday afternoon.
As she made her way towards the door though, a hand caught her elbow, causing her to drop her book, and she spun around, prepared to be furious.
It was Marcus Flint that had caught her elbow, but he had done so at the behest of Olivia, who was pushing through the crowd of green-clad celebrators to reach Calista.
"Come on, Snape," Olivia goaded, "Have a little fun. You don't need to study 'round the clock."
Marcus Flint nodded, although Calista doubted his ability to even understand what he was bobbing his head in agreement to, thick as he was.
"That's easy for you to say," Calista muttered, "You're nearly failing Potions."
"What?" Olivia shook her head, indicating that she couldn't hear over the music that had begun blasting through the common room.
Calista looked around, saw smiles on every face but her own, and shook her head.
"Nothing," she said, and picked up her book only to abandon it on a study table, and join the revelries.
o-o-o-o
As the winter holidays approached, the castle suddenly became host to all sorts of fascinating creatures. Trees bedecked with garlands and ribbons stood sentry in several corners, only to move down the hall or to another level entirely when they got bored.
Flitwick had procured several red and green fairies to flit about his classroom singing Christmas carols, and Professor Sprout had even managed to catch a garden gnome in one of the greenhouses, and stuck a St. Nicholas cap on it.
There wasn't any snow outside, but that hardly seemed to matter, since there was so much merriment inside the castle.
Flitwick and Sprout gave the students a break, and didn't assign any homework to be due at the end of the Christmas Break, but McGonagall and Snape both seemed determined to provide extra homework to make up for the week of missed classes.
Calista didn't really mind the Potions homework, but Transfiguration was proving challenging for her. She had an entire week now to transform a pot into a kettle and write twelve inches of parchment on how she had done it, and she suspected she'd need the all that time.
Somehow, things never went quite right for her in McGonagall's class. She was so used to being at the top of the class in all her other subjects that it frustrated her to no end to be solidly in the middle of this one.
The Head of Gryffindor often accused her of trying too hard and overcomplicating it, but Calista didn't see how trying any less was going to produce better results.
She considered asking McGonagall for extra help after class, but this early in the year, she usually only offered it to students who were really struggling, and Calista was at least passing.
Besides, she was proud, and didn't want to give the Gryffindor Head the satisfaction of asking for help.
She decided instead to seek help from her father. He might be a stern and strict teacher, but at least she was comfortable learning from him, and knew what to expect.
Since Christmas was on a Friday that year, students only had to attend class on Monday and Tuesday of that week. On Wednesday, those who wished to go home for the holidays were excused until the Monday following New Year's Day.
Severus had only made arrangements to lease their flat during the summer months, so Calista was going to be staying at Hogwarts for the holiday.
A few days before term recessed for the holidays, Calista found herself glumly contemplating that she'd have no one but her cat to spend the break with. Once, she would have preferred this arrangement, but now it made her feel lonely.
"It won't be that bad," Emily Yaxley had said, in a rare show of friendship, "We'll be back before you know it."
"There's to be a feast on Christmas Day," Olivia had added, "Of course, it won't be anything like the one Mother's having at our townhouse in Bearsden, but I'm sure you'll enjoy it."
Calista had picked up on the slight, but one glance at miserable Portia MacNair had been sufficient to restrain her from commenting on it.
"Yeah," she had said flatly, "I'm sure it will be great."
o-o-o-o
Calista had never had friends to purchase Christmas presents for before, so she really had no idea what she was supposed to do.
She had always drawn pictures for her father's Christmas gift, and even though he had hung them all up in his office (at least when she was younger – he had complied with her request to spare her the humiliation of having them seen by students that were now her classmates) she felt far too old at eleven to continue the trend.
This year, she wanted to get her father a real gift, not a scribbled drawing of a cat, especially given everything they had been through in the past year.
Calista did receive a small allowance from her father, which she had so far used almost exclusively for purchasing books. Since a month into the term though, she had been saving the money instead, to use for Christmas gifts.
It was still a strange concept to her, since holidays with her father had always been a muted affair. Usually, he took her to a bookstore, or to the Apothecary, and let her pick something.
She had mentioned this to Olivia, who had burst out laughing and congratulated Calista on the good joke, before going on describe her own holiday yields of dresses and toys, and even, one year, a pony. She hadn't mentioned it again.
So she still had no idea what was expected of her, but Olivia had dropped strong hints that she was giving gifts to all of the first-year girls, even Portia.
Calista was pretty certain that Olivia had spread the word in the hopes that the girls would feel obligated to return the favour, but she didn't want to be the only one not to.
First years weren't allowed to visit Hogsmeade, although Calista was fairly certain she could have convinced her father to take her on a weekend anyway.
She felt oddly embarrassed about asking him to take her into the village to buy Christmas gifts though, because it would be alluding to the fact that she'd never had to do it before.
Instead, she'd found an ad in the Daily Prophet for a gift catalogue, and had requested it. She'd found things for her friends, but there wasn't much in the book of fairly clichéd gifts that she thought would interest her father.
The question of what to give her father for Christmas haunted Calista for weeks. When the parcels she had ordered for her friends were delivered, and she wrapped them clumsily in green paper, she still didn't know what to get for him.
She considered buying him a book, but she didn't know of any he wanted and didn't already have. He had all sorts of potions ingredients and paraphernalia at his disposal. In truth, Calista was hard-pressed to think of anything he'd be interested in, and didn't already own, that she could obtain.
She racked her brain, knowing that she was running out of time. What could she give him that he didn't already have?
And then, five days before Christmas, she knew.
She cursed herself for not thinking of it sooner, hoping fervently that she'd have enough time to do what she wanted to. She knew she was cutting it close, but the catalogue did say they had twenty-four hour express delivery.
On Tuesday morning, when a huge parcel arrived for her, she found herself for once thankful that Severus didn't often eat breakfast in the Great Hall.
If he had seen the huge package that was air-dropped into Calista's porridge, he surely would have asked questions. As it was, she wondered if he had noticed the absence his owl when she'd used it to place the order.
Now she only had to pretend, until Christmas morning, that she hadn't gotten him anything. The surprise was half of the gift, after all.
o-o-o-o
Since all of the Slytherin first-years but Calista were going home for the holidays, the students agreed to exchange presents on Wednesday morning, before everyone else left.
Calista had purchased a set of bright, pretty hair ribbons for Olivia, who seemed to like them, although she had fished around in the wrapping as though expecting there should be more.
For Emily, who Calista had noticed took an awful lot of notes in class, she had purchased a set of quills which were pre-filled with several differently-coloured inks, thinking they'd be useful for colour-coding her notes.
She'd gotten Portia a box of Chocolate Frogs, partly because she didn't know the girl well enough to know what else to get her, and partly because she found it ironically amusing; Portia, who had probably already had a few Chocolate Frogs too many this holiday season, and was starting to show it.
Emily had gotten each of them a set of Gobstones in a different colour, which Olivia had stuck up her nose at, but Calista had actually been rather grateful for.
She had liked to play against phantom opponents when she was young, and had been rather good at it, as far as one can be while playing against oneself, but over the years she'd lost most of them, and hadn't bothered asking for more since she only played against herself anyway.
Portia, no doubt in an attempt to please Olivia solely, had given each girl a small silver-plated hand-mirror; Calista made the same face at the mirror that Olivia had made at the Gobstones.
Olivia passed her gifts out last. She gave each girl a tiny silver gift bag tied with green-and-gold ribbons. Calista opened hers to find a pair of very pretty silver filigree earrings, and looked up to see that Emily had gotten a similar pair.
She caught sight of a wounded expression on Portia's face, and looked down at her hands. She had an identical beribboned silver bag, but she had pulled a small bottle from hers instead of jewellery.
"It's a Slimming Solution," Olivia announced very loudly, "It's from a very posh health shop Mother fancies. I'm sure it will help you loads, Portia."
There was an awkward silence, during which Portia sniffled an awful lot and tried to pass it off as her usual runny nose, and Olivia tried to catch Calista's eye to share in cruel laughter.
Only, Calista didn't feel much like laughing, because she understood a bit how Portia felt.
Calista didn't even have pierced ears.
She had thought of Olivia as her best friend, and the other girl hadn't even noticed that Calista couldn't wear earrings.
Emily was busy putting her own earrings on. She tilted her head this way and that, and Olivia smiled and deemed the earrings to suit Emily very nicely.
Calista leapt up and began clearing all the wrappings from the presents, so no one would ask her why she hadn't tried hers on.
In the end, her friends had almost been right: the holidays might still seem long with no one to keep her company, but she was actually glad to see them go that afternoon.
o-o-o-o
The next day, Calista was entirely consumed with her father's Christmas present. There was a lot of planning and preparation involved with it, and in the end she'd had to nick a few things from around the school, too.
She was so absorbed, in fact, in thinking about his gift that she hadn't noticed when Severus had come over to where she was sitting in the Great Hall, eating lunch, until he tapped her shoulder lightly.
Calista looked up, a guilty look spreading over her features automatically; just as quickly as it appeared, she had schooled it away. She hoped he hadn't seen it.
Severus eyed her a moment before he spoke, which led her to believe that he had noticed her expression, and was wondering what had caused it. At any rate, if he did notice, he decided not to ask her about it.
"I'm going to be experimenting with a new potion this afternoon," he said, and then glanced at the nearly-empty Slytherin table. "You can come and watch, if you'd like."
It was a touching throwback to the days when they'd both lived in his Professors' quarters at Hogwarts and she had been a shadow by his side in his workroom, sometimes fetching him ingredients or stirring one thing for him while he worked on another.
Any other day, Calista would have been thrilled to join him, especially since all of the other students that she was actually somewhat friendly with were gone; but she had a lot of preparation to do for his gift, still.
"Uhm," she said, grasping at the first excuse that came to her mind, "I have a lot of homework. Transfiguration."
"Ah," he said, "I suppose the potion can wait, if you still need me to help you."
Calista nearly cursed under her breath. She had forgotten that she'd already asked him for help in Transfiguration. Luckily, she was an extremely good liar when she needed to be, a skill she was just as likely to have inherited from him as from her mother.
"Actually, I finally figured it out. I just need time to finish up the essay part. And I have Charms homework, too."
She added this last part for good measure, and realized a fraction of a second too late that he had probably already heard from Professor Flitwick himself that the Charms teacher had let them go without homework over the break.
Severus didn't say anything about it, though, if he knew.
"I see," he said curtly, "Good luck, then."
He was gone before Calista even realized that she'd sounded as if she was just looking for excuses not to spend time with him.
Which she was. Just for entirely different reasons than he thought. And now she was doubly shafted, because she still did need help with Transfiguration.
Cursing herself, Calista finished her lunch in record time and then raced back to the deserted Slytherin common room. At the very least, she had better make this worth it.
She worked through the afternoon and evening, and midnight found her creeping through the dungeons, engaged in absolutely last-minute preparations.
Twice, she heard shuffling in the corridors and dreaded finding Mrs. Norris, Argus Filch's old scruffy cat, around the next corner, but both times it turned out to be mice.
It was probably the first time in her life that she was relieved to have heard rodents.
o-o-o-o
Christmas Day dawned cold and clear, and when it did, Calista was very nearly asleep in one of the two kitchen chairs in her father's quarters.
She shook herself awake. It had been next to impossible to sneak into Severus' quarters in the dead of night; she had only achieved it because she knew which spells he used on the locks, and even so she had very nearly set off one of his alarm spells.
She would never forgive herself if she ruined the whole surprise by falling asleep before she could give it to him.
Calista waited, allowing her father to sleep what she judged to be perhaps an hour past dawn, but was really only a quarter of an hour at best.
When she couldn't stand waiting anymore, she waved her wand over the kitchen table, revealing what she had earlier hidden there, and tiptoed towards the doorway to his room.
She knew better than to wake him up suddenly (he'd probably think he was under attack and curse first, asking questions later) so she tapped very lightly on the door, and waited a moment.
Hearing nothing from within, she tapped again, and waited. The third time, she heard him stirring, and grinned to herself – a rare expression – with anticipation. She couldn't wait to see how he reacted.
When she was sure that he was awake or close to it, Calista called through the door, softly.
"Father?"
There was a brief silence, and then:
"Calista? Are you all right?"
He sounded rather tired himself, as if he had been up the entire night too, but then again, she had just woken him from a sound sleep.
"Yes, I'm fine. I just want – Can you come look at something for me?"
"Calista it's –," there was a pause during which he must have been checking the clock in his bedroom, "six-thirty in the morning."
"Yes, I know," she said simply, and she heard him muttering, heard rustling of the bedclothes as he rose. She stepped back from the door, retreating into his study to wait for him.
Severus emerged from his room a moment later, remarkably clear-eyed. It was quite dark in the dungeons no matter what time of day it was, so he lit his wand.
"Calista, what—," he stopped short at the sight that greeted him.
The hallway was lined with Christmas garlands and holly boughs. Red and green and gold ribbons were tied into pretty bows and stuck onto the walls with a Sticking Charm.
The door to his study was ajar, and he could see light coming from within it. Taking a few steps forward, he pushed the door open. The study was just as laboriously decorated as the halls, with green garlands strung up across the bookshelves.
The light was coming from a Christmas tree in the corner, dotted with dozens of minute blue and white lights that he ascertained to be tiny, contained tongues of witchfire.
Standing in the middle of all this, and looking very proud of herself was Calista. Her eyes were bright, and had a slight darkness around them that indicated a lack of sleep, and her hair was tangled as usual, but her smile was nearly as bright as the lights on the Christmas tree.
A great number of things passed through Severus' mind in that instant, and he chose one of them at random to say:
"How in Merlin's name did you get a Christmas tree into the castle dungeons?"
Calista at least looked slightly contrite when she confessed, "I, uhm, borrowed it from the second level hallway."
Severus took a breath.
"And you… made all the lights?"
Calista nodded, the pride creeping back into her face. It had been an awful lot of difficult Charms work, and it had taken her most of the night.
"There's more," she said, and slipped past him, across the hall and into the kitchen.
When Severus didn't immediately move, his gaze still caught almost hungrily on the Christmas tree, Calista tugged his hand gently and led him into the kitchen.
This room was decorated just as lavishly as the rest of the flat, but there was something else, too.
The little table was piled high with toast and several different jams, bacon, sausage, sugared porridge, and French-style croissants. There were also two cups of tea and two glasses of eggnog.
In place of pride, there was also a tray of biscuits cut into the shapes of Christmas trees and wreaths, and iced with green icing.
Severus' eyes shone in a peculiar manner for a moment, as he surveyed the lavish, festive Christmas morning that he had never seen firsthand in childhood, that Calista had somehow guessed he'd always missed.
"Most of the stuff I nicked from the kitchens," Calista said, unable to contain herself, "But I made the biscuits myself. That's why they're sort of messy-looking."
She'd added the last part as an afterthought, but Severus had barely heard it. He pulled his daughter into a rare embrace, and said two words that made Calista feel that all of her sneaking around and hard work had been worth it.
"Thank you."
After a moment, the embrace grew awkward for both of them, but it didn't really matter anymore. They sat down at the table and ate until they were both very full. Severus didn't actually care for sweets much, but he ate three of the biscuits Calista had made.
It would have been too much to expect that they would laugh and chatter happily over the breakfast table, their cares forgotten, but in their case, perhaps it wasn't necessary. They spoke of her classes and his desire that she take occlumency lessons from him more regularly again, all the usual things.
He asked her about the gifts she had exchanged with her friends (it turned out he had noticed his owl being used), and she told him what she had given them.
"And I got some stupid mirror from Portia that I'm probably just going to chuck, she obviously only had Olivia in mind when she was shopping, but Emily got us each a new set of Gobstones. And I some stupid earrings from Olivia," she added in a rush, hoping he wouldn't question her about the latter, "She gave Portia a Slimming Solution though, said it was from some posh shop in London."
As she had intended, he didn't question her about the earrings, but he did comment on Olivia's gift to Portia.
"Why doesn't it surprise me that your friend Miss Avril must resort to buying simple potions at posh shops? If they'd install a shopping district at Hogwarts, I daresay she might pass my class."
Calista laughed darkly at this, which was rather the effect Severus had been aiming for.
"Oh, there is one other thing," Calista said, as they were finishing their breakfast, "I lied yesterday, about Transfiguration. I do still need help with the homework."
Severus held back a rare laugh at the half-guilty, half-hopeful expression that crossed her face.
"I suppose I can make time in my schedule," he said dryly.
After breakfast, Severus presented Calista with her Christmas gifts. He had gotten her a new Potions book, as well as a set of crystal phials to replace her glass ones.
All in all, it was the happiest Christmas Calista had ever had.