Better Be Slytherin!

Once Severus had calmed Potter down from his fright from his nightmare, he sat with the boy for a while, watching him go back to sleep. He knew the boy wasn't getting enough rest, because of nightmares and the fear of attack hanging constantly over his head. Quietly, he told Potter that their upcoming training might help him fend off nightmares better, as it had once done for Severus himself. He was pleased to see the information calmed Potter a bit more, even eliciting a wan smile from the boy.

In the days that followed, before the start of Christmas break, Harry decided to return to an activity he had once found some relief in doing, while living with the Dursleys: drawing. The cupboard walls, from the time he was perhaps three years old, until he was eleven, had been his canvass in addition to being his prison. Inside his cupboard, he had few diversions from staring at the walls or listening to the Dursleys talking, moving about, and otherwise living their lives on the other side of that locked door, where he was not permitted to be, nor even wanted. So he drew to make the walls around him more interesting. More like a home.

The first thing he had ever drawn was with a bit of green crayon, no larger than his pinky finger, which he'd found behind the radiator while scrubbing the kitchen floor. He'd written 'HARYS ROOM' in block letters to the left of the door inside the cupboard, then colored in every other letter. He'd left the others empty till he could find another color to fill them, wanting, even at age three or so, for the sign to be aesthetically pleasing. Once he had started day school and learned the correct way to spell his name, he had been mortified at his jarring mistake, and he'd drawn a new sign on the underside of a stair, with fancier blocking this time, as well as an apostrophe. But his first effort would always be there, all the same.

At first Harry had used broken crayons, then pencil nubs or ballpoint pens when he could get them, to draw anything he liked on the dark underside of the stairs and the unpainted walls of his 'room.' After all, what his aunt or uncle could not see could not get him in trouble, and they had never bothered to go into his cupboard, into the freak's room. Why would they? When he was very young, he had started with stick figures, but they had odd, misshapen heads. Still, he drew them in scenes he knew intimately, such as weeding the garden, cooking at the stove, or painting the shed.

Only in his drawings was he safe to dream of other places, of being somewhere or someone else. Only on those walls was he allowed to pretend that his life was different than what the Dursleys dictated for him. Flowers in his imagined garden were allowed fantastical colors, and the shed he had drawn when he was almost five was striped fantastically, like a rainbow, even though it was proportionally perfect. As he got older and gained access to them, Harry favored pencils over crayons, for the control they gave him, and also for the ability to add depth to his work through shading and contours and stuff. He had never had the chance to use ink until he had come to Hogwarts, though, and so, when he decided to do some drawing in late December, to give his hands something to do while his mind relaxed, he experimented with the form.

It was not until the day before Christmas that he decided to give one of his new creations to Professor Snape. After he'd done a quick sketch of Snape at a cauldron yesterday, Harry had been experimenting with perspective, using the professor's office and its rows of bottles and jars to practice backgrounds. Looking at the sketch now, he frowned briefly. He was sitting cross-legged on his bed with the curtains closed, the sketchpad -- which he had sent away for, via Hedwig, several weeks ago -- balanced on his knees. A bottle of ink rested against his bare toes. Only a couple other Slytherins were staying for the winter holidays, and they were upper years, so he didn't have to worry about being interrupted in his dorm, but he liked the feel of the curtains around him when he was drawing. They kept him away from prying eyes, just like the safety of his old cupboard.

No, he decided, Professor Snape's eyes were all wrong. Using another sheet of parchment, he sketched several sets of eyes until he had some that were the right shape. For another hour, he worked on highlights and shading of that pair until he could see how he wanted them to look in his drawing. On the inside walls of his cupboard, he tried to group sets of detail work together -- eyes, hands, mouths and such -- so he could work on particular issues he had with drawing until he liked how they came out, and could compare and contrast them with each other.

Now, working carefully, he eased the details of the eyes into his sketch of the professor, smoothing out rough patches or cleaning the parchment with a scraper only when absolutely necessary. He had been drawing for years now, and rarely needed to go over work like that, but ink was still a new medium for him, and he made more mistakes now than he had for quite some time with pencils, even colored ones. It was after eleven at night on Christmas Eve when the sketch was done to his satisfaction.

Once he'd put away his drawing supplies, he wrapped the sketch cautiously with thin paper he had learned to charm into different colors. Millie had suggested the charm after they had been talking about Christmas presents a week ago, bemoaning the fact that neither of them had much spare pocket money to purchase gift wrap. Millie even told him the title of the book he could find the spell in: Lyman Lemarda's Festive Spells for All Occasions. Her mother had given her a copy when she got her acceptance letter to Hogwarts, and she loaned the book to Harry for winter break.

While flipping through the book for the coloring charm, Harry came across a Shrinking Spell, designed to make it easier to carry multiple items, or to tuck large packages into smaller pockets or bags. Harry skimmed the informational notes on the page opposite the spell. Each spell or charm had a story on its origins, a combination of legends, old wives tales and Lemarda's own research, and as Harry read further, he found that Lemarda claimed this version of the Shrinking Spell had actually been created by Saint Nicholas, who had once delivered tons of toys to children every Christmas. Harry wasn't sure about that -- but then, he'd stopped believing in Santa Claus long before he'd learned that magic was real . . . not that he'd ever received any gifts from him either way. Still, he grinned internally at the idea that he was using a spell for his gifts that the 'Jolly Old Elf' had used on his own. Harry practiced the spell a few times on plain sheets of parchment before he cast it at the wrapped drawing. When he finished, the package was no larger than the front cover of the book.

Not until he was writing out the tag for the gift did Harry suffer a pang of nerves about whether he should actually give it to the professor or not. From the Dursleys, he knew students sometimes gave gifts to teachers at the holidays, or he knew Muggles did anyway. Dudley had given gifts to his teachers every year, expensive ones purchased by Aunt Petunia, of course, and wrapped up fancily to make the best impression. Harry had figured they were more bribes than anything, like maybe if the teachers liked Ol' Dudders' presents enough, they wouldn't fail him. Too bad it had never worked.

Harry didn't know, though, what the tradition was here at Hogwarts. None of his Housemates had mentioned anything about giving gifts to any of the professors, never mind to Professor Snape. And Professor Snape seemed to like his privacy, too; would he be annoyed that Harry gave him something? Or maybe he'd be embarrassed, thinking that Harry was trying to turn him into a father figure or something stupid like that. Harry knew that could never happen; he didn't even want a new father. But the professor had helped him out of a few pretty bad jams, and they'd shared all that time looking at pictures of his Mum and stuff. But what if he thought Harry was trying to bribe him for a better grade?

With a sigh, Harry crumpled up the tag and threw it in the bin, then stuffed the shrunk, wrapped gift into his trunk. He was new to present giving, altogether, and he didn't want to mess things up with Snape. He had never had friends to give gifts to before, either, and he hoped he had done that right, at least. Earlier this evening, he had sent presents out with Hedwig, to take to both Millie and Teddy's houses by morning. He'd also given a gift to Draco Malfoy before he left for the holiday, since the boy was always bragging about how many protections his