Fic: Bah Humbug!
Merry Christmas everybody! A little Christmas present: a Snape Christmas fic with accompanying pic.
Bah, Humbug!
Or, A Snupin Christmas Carol
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter and all related characters. I’m just taking them out for a spin in Charles Dickens’s little world.
Pairing: mildly Snupin (though if you’re one of the people on my flist who would hate this; fear not, it goes no further than my usual level of innuendo).
Word count: 1200ish
Notes: I’ve been sitting playing for a production of A Christmas Carol for two weeks. It gets into your brain. It doesn’t help that the young man who played Scrooge would make for the most wonderful Snape.
Severus Snape, it was generally agreed, was an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man, not given to either public or private acts of kindness. Christmas was, in his opinion, a tawdry excuse for waste, idiocy and frippery. Not only should every idiot who went about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart but he should be hexed thoroughly first. Whatever idiot came up with the idea of Christmas, Severus was often heard to remark at the festive time of year, should share that fate. On being told that that would be the baby Jesus he would respond that crucifixion had been too good for him. And then he would sneer.
It came as no surprise when his door knocker started talking to him. He did, after all, live in a magical school. He scowled and spat something scathing and undoubtedly Oscar Wilde-worthy before sweeping through into his rooms. Settling himself in the chair by the fire in the dim light (darkness was cheap, and he liked it) it was not long before he dozed off.
He was awakened by a wailing of voice, a gnashing of teeth and a rattling of chains. An awesome and terrifying figure stood in the room a-waving of its arms and a-shaking of its head. A gruesome and gory head it was too, dead eyes staring and tongue all lolling and flapping. The apparition fixed its gaze on Snape and moaned a freshly terrible moan, brandishing its chains anew.
‘My word,’ said Snape dryly. In a school haunted by many spectres, one more was never going to startle. ‘Regulus Black, as I live and breathe. Oh, sorry, was that a little tasteless?’
The spectre of Regulus Black (for indeed it was he) moaned again, a little uncertainly.
‘Oh, do drop the banshee routine,’ Snape continued, ‘and Merlin knows what all those chains are about. You never were into S&M, as I recall. Do you have anything of sense to say?’
Regulus paused. This was not how the script was supposed to go. ‘Severus Snape,’ he managed to intone, though his voice was a little unsure, ‘I come to you as a warning.’
Snape’s lips thinned into a line. ‘Mmm.’
Regulus blinked. ‘A warning,’ he repeated.
‘Of course.’ Snape made a show of checking the calendar on his wall. ‘It’s Christmas Eve, I see.’
Once again the ghost of Regulus Black was flummoxed completely and left at a loss as to what to say.
‘Well, I’m not standing for it,’ Snape went on, curling his lip in a way that made even the bravest of fifth years want to curl up and cry. It was having a similar effect on Regulus.
‘Not standing for it?’ he managed to say. One of his chains fell to the floor with a clatter.
‘I have no wish to embark on a life-changing voyage of self-discovery even if it is all in one night. So, come on. Where’re the rest of you blasted spirits? Bring them out, get on with it.’
Three more ghostly figures shuffled sheepishly out from the wall. Snape eyed them all with equal disdain.
‘Moaning Myrtle,’ he addressed the first, ‘the Ghost of Christmas Past, I presume. What delights of my history did you have in store for me?’
Myrtle giggled as dolefully as she could. She had arranged the ghosts of wilted flowers around her head and now resembled a rather distressed floral arrangement. ‘Your schooldays, of course,’ she chirped, ‘your awful, miserable schooldays when everyone hated you. And then I’d have shown you how happy that nice Lily was with James and you’d have had the opportunity to think on all your past regrets.’
Snape’s glare was up to unfinished homework level. ‘I hardly think that I need reminding. Now you, Ghost of Christmas Present. A little tasteless perhaps, being as you are no longer in the present?’
Dumbledore’s ghost looked hurt for a moment before remembering to guffaw merrily. The holly wreath he wore - its red berries clashing horribly with his very pink robes - wiggled in a jocular fashion.
‘I suppose,’ Snape continued, ‘you’d have shown me imbeciles enjoying the Christmas season by attacking each other with snow while you spout off some ridiculous claptrap about the importance of health, happiness, Christmas cheer and warm socks to boot. And then you’d drag me off to see some destitute yet disgustingly happy family - the Weasleys, perhaps? - having a perfectly marvellous time despite all the adversities of being poor and ginger.’
‘My dear boy,’ Dumbledore began but Snape cut him off.
‘And what’s next? Oh yes. I don’t have a nephew, of course, so I expect it would be the Malfoys. They do invite me every year though they’d be horrified if I actually showed up. Maybe I should sometime, just to see the horror on their faces.’
The ghost of Dumbledore shrugged. ‘You should see what you’re missing out on. Ho ho ho.’
Snape ignored him and turned to the sinister figure of Christmas Yet to Come. In tattered black robes and without a face-obscuring hood it resembled nothing less than a Dementor. Snape gave it his coldest sneer.
‘And as to you,’ he drawled, ‘I can see your feet poking out from under your robes. Your socks have holes in.’
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come swore loudly and ripped the hood from its head.
‘Damn it, Snape,’ spat Sirius Black, ‘you were meant to go along with it! I wanted to show you your horrible death in the Shack in a pool of your own blood and all the people having a sodding party because you were dead!’
Snape raised an eyebrow. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘I certainly celebrated when you died, Black. A worthy decrease to the surplus population.’ He surveyed the four ghosts. ‘I’m afraid you’ve rather wasted your time. I’m as satisfied as it is possible to be, given the current situation. I’ve already had an eventful night that led to an epiphany though not the kind of events you were planning, I hope. In fact, the man responsible for it is waiting in my bedroom right now for a repeat. So if you wouldn’t mind, forgive the phrase, buggering off?’
They went. Ebenezer Scrooge would have been an easy task compared to Severus Snape. He favoured their departing spectral backs with his smuggest sneer then got up, stretched, and made his way through to his bedroom.
‘Who were you talking to?’ asked Remus Lupin, already sleepily ensconced underneath the quilt.
Snape joined him there. ‘Undigested bits of beef. Blots of mustard. Crumbs of cheese. Fragments of underdone potato.’ He paused. ‘Ghosts with more of gravy than of grave about them.’
‘How nice,’ murmured Lupin. ‘Wait - what?’
Snape rolled his eyes. ‘Someone tried to go all Dickens on my arse.’
Lupin smiled a lecherous smile. ‘I could make some sort of filthy comment about my dick and your arse, if you like.’
‘Very well. You don’t have any plans for tomorrow, do you?’
‘Severus, it’s Christmas tomorrow. We should at least go out to see people.’
‘Bah.’ Snape smirked. ‘Humbug.’
The jingle-belling hark-the-heralding letting-it-snow End!
Bah, Humbug!
Or, A Snupin Christmas Carol
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter and all related characters. I’m just taking them out for a spin in Charles Dickens’s little world.
Pairing: mildly Snupin (though if you’re one of the people on my flist who would hate this; fear not, it goes no further than my usual level of innuendo).
Word count: 1200ish
Notes: I’ve been sitting playing for a production of A Christmas Carol for two weeks. It gets into your brain. It doesn’t help that the young man who played Scrooge would make for the most wonderful Snape.
Severus Snape, it was generally agreed, was an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man, not given to either public or private acts of kindness. Christmas was, in his opinion, a tawdry excuse for waste, idiocy and frippery. Not only should every idiot who went about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart but he should be hexed thoroughly first. Whatever idiot came up with the idea of Christmas, Severus was often heard to remark at the festive time of year, should share that fate. On being told that that would be the baby Jesus he would respond that crucifixion had been too good for him. And then he would sneer.
It came as no surprise when his door knocker started talking to him. He did, after all, live in a magical school. He scowled and spat something scathing and undoubtedly Oscar Wilde-worthy before sweeping through into his rooms. Settling himself in the chair by the fire in the dim light (darkness was cheap, and he liked it) it was not long before he dozed off.
He was awakened by a wailing of voice, a gnashing of teeth and a rattling of chains. An awesome and terrifying figure stood in the room a-waving of its arms and a-shaking of its head. A gruesome and gory head it was too, dead eyes staring and tongue all lolling and flapping. The apparition fixed its gaze on Snape and moaned a freshly terrible moan, brandishing its chains anew.
‘My word,’ said Snape dryly. In a school haunted by many spectres, one more was never going to startle. ‘Regulus Black, as I live and breathe. Oh, sorry, was that a little tasteless?’
The spectre of Regulus Black (for indeed it was he) moaned again, a little uncertainly.
‘Oh, do drop the banshee routine,’ Snape continued, ‘and Merlin knows what all those chains are about. You never were into S&M, as I recall. Do you have anything of sense to say?’
Regulus paused. This was not how the script was supposed to go. ‘Severus Snape,’ he managed to intone, though his voice was a little unsure, ‘I come to you as a warning.’
Snape’s lips thinned into a line. ‘Mmm.’
Regulus blinked. ‘A warning,’ he repeated.
‘Of course.’ Snape made a show of checking the calendar on his wall. ‘It’s Christmas Eve, I see.’
Once again the ghost of Regulus Black was flummoxed completely and left at a loss as to what to say.
‘Well, I’m not standing for it,’ Snape went on, curling his lip in a way that made even the bravest of fifth years want to curl up and cry. It was having a similar effect on Regulus.
‘Not standing for it?’ he managed to say. One of his chains fell to the floor with a clatter.
‘I have no wish to embark on a life-changing voyage of self-discovery even if it is all in one night. So, come on. Where’re the rest of you blasted spirits? Bring them out, get on with it.’
Three more ghostly figures shuffled sheepishly out from the wall. Snape eyed them all with equal disdain.
‘Moaning Myrtle,’ he addressed the first, ‘the Ghost of Christmas Past, I presume. What delights of my history did you have in store for me?’
Myrtle giggled as dolefully as she could. She had arranged the ghosts of wilted flowers around her head and now resembled a rather distressed floral arrangement. ‘Your schooldays, of course,’ she chirped, ‘your awful, miserable schooldays when everyone hated you. And then I’d have shown you how happy that nice Lily was with James and you’d have had the opportunity to think on all your past regrets.’
Snape’s glare was up to unfinished homework level. ‘I hardly think that I need reminding. Now you, Ghost of Christmas Present. A little tasteless perhaps, being as you are no longer in the present?’
Dumbledore’s ghost looked hurt for a moment before remembering to guffaw merrily. The holly wreath he wore - its red berries clashing horribly with his very pink robes - wiggled in a jocular fashion.
‘I suppose,’ Snape continued, ‘you’d have shown me imbeciles enjoying the Christmas season by attacking each other with snow while you spout off some ridiculous claptrap about the importance of health, happiness, Christmas cheer and warm socks to boot. And then you’d drag me off to see some destitute yet disgustingly happy family - the Weasleys, perhaps? - having a perfectly marvellous time despite all the adversities of being poor and ginger.’
‘My dear boy,’ Dumbledore began but Snape cut him off.
‘And what’s next? Oh yes. I don’t have a nephew, of course, so I expect it would be the Malfoys. They do invite me every year though they’d be horrified if I actually showed up. Maybe I should sometime, just to see the horror on their faces.’
The ghost of Dumbledore shrugged. ‘You should see what you’re missing out on. Ho ho ho.’
Snape ignored him and turned to the sinister figure of Christmas Yet to Come. In tattered black robes and without a face-obscuring hood it resembled nothing less than a Dementor. Snape gave it his coldest sneer.
‘And as to you,’ he drawled, ‘I can see your feet poking out from under your robes. Your socks have holes in.’
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come swore loudly and ripped the hood from its head.
‘Damn it, Snape,’ spat Sirius Black, ‘you were meant to go along with it! I wanted to show you your horrible death in the Shack in a pool of your own blood and all the people having a sodding party because you were dead!’
Snape raised an eyebrow. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘I certainly celebrated when you died, Black. A worthy decrease to the surplus population.’ He surveyed the four ghosts. ‘I’m afraid you’ve rather wasted your time. I’m as satisfied as it is possible to be, given the current situation. I’ve already had an eventful night that led to an epiphany though not the kind of events you were planning, I hope. In fact, the man responsible for it is waiting in my bedroom right now for a repeat. So if you wouldn’t mind, forgive the phrase, buggering off?’
They went. Ebenezer Scrooge would have been an easy task compared to Severus Snape. He favoured their departing spectral backs with his smuggest sneer then got up, stretched, and made his way through to his bedroom.
‘Who were you talking to?’ asked Remus Lupin, already sleepily ensconced underneath the quilt.
Snape joined him there. ‘Undigested bits of beef. Blots of mustard. Crumbs of cheese. Fragments of underdone potato.’ He paused. ‘Ghosts with more of gravy than of grave about them.’
‘How nice,’ murmured Lupin. ‘Wait - what?’
Snape rolled his eyes. ‘Someone tried to go all Dickens on my arse.’
Lupin smiled a lecherous smile. ‘I could make some sort of filthy comment about my dick and your arse, if you like.’
‘Very well. You don’t have any plans for tomorrow, do you?’
‘Severus, it’s Christmas tomorrow. We should at least go out to see people.’
‘Bah.’ Snape smirked. ‘Humbug.’
The jingle-belling hark-the-heralding letting-it-snow End!