thankthefae | "Thank the Fae" by gingerbred Chapter 01

Summary:

The Fae have done Severus a favor, and he is greatly in their debt. Every three months, on the solstices and equinoxes, he stops by to pay his respects.

Apparently it's so unusual a thing these days, both their initial interaction and his sincere and continued thanks, that the Fae decide to give him another gift, whether he think he wants it or not. (Merlin, he's still paying for the last boon...)

So you can imagine his surprise when he discovers that he's not the only one with something to thank them for... And isn't it pity that they are so willfully obstinate in their gifting? Surely they could have just asked? (He needs a new iron cauldron now that he thinks about it...)

(But he supposes that would have been too much to ask from the Fae after all...)

Originally Published: 2016-12-28 on AO3
Chapter: 1 / 13 of ?
Words: roughly 49 K total so far

Pairing: Hermione Granger / Severus Snape
Characters: Severus Snape, Hermione Granger, Queen Mab (Shakespeare), Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, Weasley twins (mentioned), the voices in Severus’ head, Professor Hermione Granger, the Fae
Tags: HP: EWE, Hogwarts, Severus Snape Lives, POV Severus Snape, POV Hermione Granger, Post-War, Post Battle of Hogwarts, Colleagues, Harry Potter, Potterverse, Debt to the Fae, Professor Hermione Granger, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Eve, Fluff, fanfic, ss/hg

Yule be here for Christmas... Part 1

Left to his own devices, Severus would probably speak to virtually no one but himself. So isn't it fortunate that he finds himself such engaging company? When he's not self-loathing, that is.

Disclaimer: I own bugger all and shan't profit in the least. All hail JKR, the source of all things Potter.

Yule be here for Christmas... Part 1

Severus crosses the Hogwarts' quad with a determined stride, his black winter cloak swirling behind him dramatically. His long gait carries him quickly across it for what must be the, what, thousandth or maybe ten thousandth time, he muses, since he first came to Hogwarts over twenty-eight years ago. (He does the math and determines ten thousand would be only slightly more than once a day. 'Merlin, it's been so many more trips across the quad than that. The return trips alone would have doubled the number,' he adds unnecessarily, but most pedantically, and worries briefly if a young Arithmancy professor might be rubbing off on him. He wonders fleetingly, darkly, if traversing the quad after the Dark Lor... ('Voldemort's') torture should count double, or even triple, before deciding it doesn't matter anymore ('if it ever did') and pushing on.) Though he's walked this way thousands of times ('apparently'), somehow everything looks so different in the snow.

He's been here at Hogwarts for all but two of those twenty-eight years when he earned his Potions mastery, oh, and the brief stint in Azkaban twenty odd years ago, oh, and for part of his coma after the ('second') war. ('I was sadly conscious after the first,' he thinks wryly.) But he was back in time for his recovery process. ('Unfortunately.') If pressed, he isn't sure he could say which experience was worse, Azkaban or recovery here, Dementors being marginally less disturbing than, and therefore preferable to, the forced cheer of a sea of guilt-plagued Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. Fortunately, no one presses him. Ever, really. ('My curmudgeonly ways have their benefits,' he smirks, altogether too pleased with himself.)

Someone had calculated the odds ('damn Arithmancers,' and although he probably can't blame the latest one for that, after all - she'd have only just begun her apprenticeship at the time, he's quite happy to tar her with the same brush) of the Aurors whisking him off to Azkaban ('yet again') before his ('relative') innocence could be proven, and he was spirited out of St. Mungo's ('whilst still comatose, to boot,' he's quick to add, still indignant) to continue recovering here at Hogwarts. ('For my sins.') His comatose state at least meant he was unable to offer counterarguments, which doubtlessly simplified the potentially insurmountably painful process. Say what you will, and he was certainly inclined to grouse by nature, he didn't spend a single minute in Azkaban this time around, so their tactic, simple though it was ('Gryffindors,' he scoffs, so often in fact, it could practically be mistaken for his mantra), seemed to have borne fruit. Inside these walls, Minerva currently reigned supreme, and her will... well... was.

Dumbledore certainly didn't enjoy the same degree of success sparing him from his incarceration after the first war, but these days he can't help thinking that might have been deliberate. And back in the day there had been Dementors there, too. ('Pity I didn't have my druthers, but isn't that just the way of things?' his inner voice snarks.)

He continues onwards, a wizard on a mission, as he has been once every quarter for the past two and a half years now since the end of the war ('barring that first midsummer, of course, when I was comatose, to be fair...'). It's Yule now, and it's time to return to the Forbidden Forest to say 'thanks.' To pay his respects. Severus isn't one to leave a debt owed or a tab open. This will be paid no matter how long it takes.

In keeping with the season and befitting of the geographical location, snow lies all about, unsurprisingly deep ('yet crisp and even,' he smirks, the season leaving him not entirely unaffected). If he can stop being an ass for a few minutes, and the beauty of the scene makes him almost the most inclined he's ever been to stop being an ass ('although that isn't saying much'), he would have to admit that it is bleeding gorgeous out here. Positively magical, always assuming Hogwarts could be any more magical than it already is.

Truth be told, he's mellowed a bit since the end of the war. Scarcely a wonder what no longer serving two relentless masters will do for you. That he had been instrumental in, or even outright responsible for, their deaths was just the added bonus. But don't let him fool you, as it in no way began to compensate him for every last bloody member of his known world taking him for the murderer of the ('apparently') most beloved wizard of all time. (There can never be enough scoffing to get him through that thought in one go. 'How that manipulative son of a witch could pull the wool so thoroughly over the public's collective eyes, I'll never know.')

But having mellowed, he can concede: it's completely magical here now. The pristine dusting of snow on every last thing. The high drifts changing the apparent shape of all the structures into something different, something improbable, something new. It's like everything has been kissed, by what he's not sure, but it's simply beautiful. It's also largely deserted, which invariably adds to any place's beauty to his way of thinking.

And it's not just how everything looks, it's the sounds, too. Things are somehow louder and softer at the same time. Scattered and few hushed voices that carry far in the frosty air of a night clear as crystal, perhaps hesitant to break the spell of the evening, although he still has trouble thinking the students could ever be so sensitive. And there, and there, and yes... over there again, the crunch of snow underfoot. The normal silencing charms affect the slap of leather with each footfall on hard surfaces, but do nothing to deaden the crunch caused by displacement of snow and the passer's sheer weight.

His footsteps don't crunch, of course, because he's applied a lightening spell, which, if applied with sufficient precision, means he doesn't even leave any footprints behind. Years as a spy mean his precision is not only sufficient, but astonishing. Anything less would have gotten him killed. ('Darwinism in action,' he thinks, and scoffs for the nth time today, this time as he wonders how few in these halls would even understand the meaning of that phrase. And then at least one comes to mind, and he quickly changes tack to think on other things. Like how it is no longer strictly necessary for him to obscure his passing since the war came to an end, but then 'strict' is a word that doubtless all associate with him. 'Unless they're being less generous, which they probably are,' he amends. He sighs and tells himself that doesn't bother him, but deep down there's an echo of a voice claiming 'that's a lie.' (True to form, he calls that voice "the sap."))

In his thoughts of Darwinism, he never for a moment considers that that might mean his genes should be passed on, the notion so utterly foreign and removed from his sphere of experience, which speaks completely to his particular set of mental blinders. The meaning for him is clearly distilled to: those with imperfect skills do not survive. And this in turn explains his dogmatic worship of perfection and his bitter acceptance of nothing less from his pupils. And perhaps it couches that strictness in a better, softer light. This is the only way he knew to make survival possible for his students, and yet in his worldview still not even very likely.

But he's correct - people are rarely generous when it comes to him. 'Your colleagues...' begins the sap, but he cuts him off brusquely - 'are still assuaging their guilt,' although it's been two and a half years now, and if he were fair, their relations have returned more to the collegial, respectful and even tentatively friendly with the passing of time. Different now, to be sure, to before that dreadful year as headmaster, of which conscientiously none speak, and Merlin knows Minerva is fiercely protective and determined to never doubt him again. He does rather enjoy that, he thinks, before wondering darkly if he can test the resilience of that statement with a certain Gryffindor princess. His thoughts recoil from that only half thought notion, before that traitorous voice, the sap, returns even stronger, to point out that that very same princess is now both a colleague and proof positive that the generosity of spirit extended to him most certainly does not all well from guilt. For what had she ever done to feel guilty about? The irritating, if eminently appealing, swot had never treated him with anything less than respect. How positively irksome.

First ever fanfic, please go easy on me, folks. I haven't had much occasion to use English in the past few decades, but think I haven't mangled things too badly. Concrit appreciated, feedback, too. And who doesn't like a little love?

In part two, Severus encounters the Fae and Hermione makes an appearance.