1Hey all! Here's the latest installment! It's not as long as I would have liked, but I'm promising to get the second half up by tomorrow night. Because of the enthusiastic response I got to the Severus/Lucius relationship, I tried to define it, and elaborate on it in this chapter. Enjoy, dears! As always, and responses and comments are highly encouraged.

Chapter Ten: The Ball Before Christmas, Part A

The castle was abuzz with winter excitement. Students had sent out for their dress robes for the big event, and owls burdened with presents and packages of all sizes would soar through the halls and into classrooms to make deliveries. That week, little work if any was done, and everyone, student and teacher alike, were whipped into a tidy holiday frenzy. Icicles, charmed to retain their stalactite shapes, hung precariously from the ceiling of the dungeons, and charmed snow and frosted boughs of holly lined the hallway corridors. Students, even after staying inside all day, would take off their robes at night to find permanent snow stuck to the hems.

Even Harry, despite his tendencies toward brooding, had begun to take in a little of the holiday cheer, much to everyone's surprise. He belted carols as loudly as any Weasley at supper, and had been attacked under the mistletoe more times than he cared to count. Severus watched as the boy entered the Great Hall, his slow stride carrying him steadily toward the Gryffindor table, and directly into the path of a sneakily strung branch of mistletoe. Severus grimaced as he saw a Ravenclaw third year sneak quickly up beside the oblivious boy, until the pair passed under the magically charmed plant and it deployed its magical net that hindered any movements made toward escape until they gave the obligatory kiss. Harry, fumbling in mid-stride, caught by the magical net, and blushing furiously, quickly pecked the giggling girl on the lips before continuing on his way to his breakfast. The girl had run back to her friends now, and they began to whisper and point, as they had for every one of the seven times they had pulled that stunt on Harry this week.

Severus looked on as Ron and Hermione began including Harry into their conversation after several pointed looks at the mistletoe. The boy was still flushed, the crimson stain faintly lining his angular cheek bones. He was gesticulating frequently, his spidery hands weaving elegant patterns through the air. Lucius's words came back to him…intimate, he had called the gesture…Severus remembered briefly the firmness of Harry's cheek, the way his eyes blazed into his own so full of an imagined defiance. Lucius was right: there was something to the gesture, though intimacy seemed a cheap substitute for the term that flirted about on the tip of Severus's tongue.

His train of thought was abruptly broken when Neville Longbottom gave a shriek of terror from beneath that wretched holiday vine. Standing across from him and looking ready to projectile vomit stood Pansy Parkinson. The two eyed each other with equal animosity, though more fear showed through on Longbottom's part. Severus almost chuckled until he realized that Minerva was eying him bemusedly.

…

"Did you get your new dress robes from Madame Malkin's yet, Harry?" Hermione asked, reaching impatiently across the table for a blueberry scone.

Harry nodded over the rim of his pumpkin juice and managed to mumble, "Yesterday."

She smiled briefly in approval. "I can't believe the dance is tonight! This whole week seems to have sped by! And Christmas is tomorrow! My homework has been so light, I've hardly opened a book at all."

Harry smiled wanly and answered her pressing questions about the color and cut of his new robes, half-heartedly.

Ron scowled and picked viciously at his scrambled eggs eying Harry murderously.

Hermione shot him a hostile look and asked innocently "Ron, have you sent for your new robes yet?"

Ron turned away and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like "spen o' dunbums'

Harry looked at him confused. "What did you say, Ron?" he asked, bewildered.

Ron rolled his eyes and shoved a hand into his coppery hair nervously. "I said that I spent the money on Dungbombs."

Hermione groaned loudly and slammed her Astronomy text book on the table with a dull thud.

"So let me get this straight, Ronald," She said with a deadly calm. "You just spent all your dress robe money on pranks?"

Ron shrugged nonchalantly and mentioned offhandedly, "Have you seen the seventh floor corridor lately?"

Harry giggled, betraying, and Hermione groaned louder than ever. "So you'll have to wear those god-awful pajamas that you wore two years ago? Again?" She said, continuing mercilessly.

Ron shrugged again and began collecting his books and quills to make a quick exit.

Harry saluted him with his fork and kept eating, staying out of the little spat that was fast increasing in decibels and magnitude.

Ron shoved his school stuffs into his bag, and practically flew out of the door to the Great Hall, with Hermione hot on his heels, yelling the whole way about responsibility, lace cuffs, and the dance being tonight.

…

Severus gazed blankly at his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he straitened the high collar of his dress robes. He had carefully pulled his hair back and tied it with a black silk ribbon. His eyes, though staring out, seemed to be turned inward, as if this mirror's reflection of them was merely showing the surfaces of two dark wells. He adjusted the sleeves of his robes slowly, carefully. The last time he had worn these robes was the last time he had been with Lucius, over seven years ago. They had met many times after that, but it had never been as lovers, hardly even as friends. The distance between what might have been and what was proved to be too great an obstacle to overcome. Snape pulled the silk of the sleeve up to his nose, inhaling tentatively. Lucius's amber scent came back to him, that spice of rose and orange that seemed to cling to the man like his shadow. If fire could be bottled and made into a scent, it would smell like Lucius.

Lucius…just thinking the name caused the shadows of his memory to shift and writhe. Their relationship was formed in the darker days of his life…the days of death. Theirs was a faceless romance. They had known each other vaguely from the Slytherin hallways, but had grown close over several shared missions. Often matched together because of their shared ages and abilities, they quickly had become Voldemort's most reliable and ambitious operatives. It was not long before they began spending time together outside of their missions and services to the Dark Cause, drawn to each others' coldness. Upon reflection, neither could remember the exact origins of their romance, but once initiated it had blossomed into the only passion the two men had felt in the entire courses of their lives. It seemed that no act, no pressure, could bring them close enough together, that any distance between them was a sin in itself. Despite this, their romance had been doomed from the beginning. Lucius, the heir of the Wizarding Aristocracy, was married at age twenty to a cold wife with an unlimited income, and a pedigree the length of a Quidditch field. They saw each other on and off on missives, but the distance between them had grown irrevocably larger. After Draco's birth, both had silently agreed to end the flame that had burned so brightly that it eclipsed everything else in each other's presence. Lucius had responsibilities, and Severus had remonstrations. Since their parting, neither man had again felt the passion that had burned so exhaustingly in their earlier years. They had both taken lovers on and off through the years, but the small sparks of romance these trysts incited seemed to only emphasize the burning passion they had lost when they lost each other. The ghost of it had flitted about them that day in the snowy alley, like a tattered angel.

Turning back to the mirror, Severus tried to analyze the emotion lingering like a fingerprint at a crime scene on his face. He touches his thumb briefly to his pale lips, remembering Potter's last letter as his fingers trace the cupids bow arch of his upper lip. He'd read the letter as he leaned against a cold wall in an alley across from the pub where Harry and his friends were comparing purchases. When he opened the letter and devoured its content, he looked to the appealingly happy boy who sat near the window of the pub, joking and laughing with his friends. The cordial young man in the pub and the tempestuous angel of the letter, had never before seemed like two such separate people.

I don't think my best friend

Will live for long once the war

Begins. There is a radiance

About him that I recognize;

The radiance of those who will be

Not long in this world.

Severus kisses his fingers gently. My dear Potter, that is probably the only quality Mr. Weasley and I share, he whispers to his reflection in the mirror before turning away to finish dressing.

…

Harry walks down the stairs to the Great Hall, his dress robes trailing lightly along the cool marble of the floor. He had been surprised at the color when he had first taken them out of the tissue paper box. The robes clung to his body like a bucketful of cold water had been dumped on them, and the color made his eyes positively vibrant. Madame Malkin had done well. He had skipped out of the common room early, to avoid the press of the cluttered common room--namely Hermione. She had been casting those catty-eyed perceptive looks at him all day, and he was in no mood for explanations. Lost in thought, Snape's present firmly in hand, Harry wandered slowly past Madam Pomfrey's office, just as she opened the glass door, letting a thin triangle of light out into the hallway. She poked her head badger like out of the crack in the door.

"Oh, Harry! She sputtered with delight, "What lovely robes! The color is brilliant!"

Harry squirmed nervously under her clinical gaze.

"Dear, your hair... Really, Harry, let me do something with it!" she squealed enthusiastically.

Harry eyes open wide in prospective terror, backed away toward the walls of the corridor.

"Uh," he sputtered, "No thank you, Madam Pomfrey, I have to get down to the dance…" He said, gesturing empathetically.

"Oh, no, no, no, Harry" she said, dragging him by the sleeve into her office, his feet making pathetic skidding sounds. "I insist!"

…

Severus was quite content. He had a comfortable spot at the staff table, a place near the fire, and a few stiff drinks in him to keep the ghosts of the past at bay. The Great Hall had been decorated intricately with fake snow, ice sickles, and an elaborate display of snowflakes, that fell from the ceiling, into the hall, and disappeared the moment they touched an upturned face. The dance had not officially begun yet, and students were milling about on the dance floor, socializing. Granger and Weasley were joined at the hand like Siamese twins as they wandered through the crowd, stopping to chat with acquaintances. Severus noticed that Granger kept standing on her toes and looking anxiously about and assumed that Harry had not yet made an appearance. From all corners of the Hall there rang the squeals of unsuspecting students caught in the invisible nets of subtly strung bits of mistletoe. A small quartet with a short plump witch singing was stationed in one corner, belting out moody, undisruptive songs.

Suddenly, from the entrance of the hall, there was a series of gasps and the buzz of dozens of muffled exclamations. The crowd parted and Severus, rising from his seat, caught a glimpse of emerald green dress robes. Harry had arrived. The crowd parted more and more, as if being swept away by a flood, and Severus realized that Harry was walking toward him. But this was not the Harry of the snow alleyway, this was an angel dropped straight from heaven. Harry's robes fit narrowly down his slender torso, and flowed out at his hips in loose luxurious folds of silk. His sleeves were well fitted and tapered into bell-like cuffs at his wrists. But what startled Severus was the boy's hair. Yesterday it had been chin length, and chestnut brown. Now it fell down to the boy's collarbone in soft silky ringlets like a cherub in the paintings of old. All around Harry, people turned to stare. The ringlets had an odd effect on the boy's delicate face, softening his angular features, and adding a majesty of oriental proportions that had not been there before. Oblivious to all eyes, murmurs, or single minded stares, Harry continued toward Severus, carrying a metallic green package tied with a gold ribbon. When the boy's eyes rose from the floor to his own, Severus's stomach did an odd sort of flop. Steadying himself with a single hand on the table, Severus was overwhelmed with an emotion he hadn't experienced in over seven years.

Sorry for the abrupt cut off, but I have a driver's exam tomorrow, and need to study a little.