Title: The Stations of the Nights

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.

Pairing: Harry/Snape

Warnings: Slight angst, lots of fluff

Rating: R

Wordcount: 5000

Summary: Severus teaches Harry a wizard-adapted Twelve Days of Christmas; Harry goes searching for the real story.

Author's Notes: Another of my Advent fics, written in this case for goddess47, who requested Harry/Snape, Severus teaching Harry something he doesn't know about Wizarding traditions; humor. Here you are! The word "Stations" in the title refers to a series of specific religious practices.

The Stations of the Nights

"What are you doing?"

Harry shrugged out from under a coil of green that was dropping on him from the top of the doorway, and looked around the drawing room. It had been transformed, he thought. Curls of ivy made their way up the pokers on either side of the fireplace. More green—Harry thought some of it was holly, and some mistletoe—draped the walls and the doorframes and the legs of the tables. Clusters of white berries clung shining to the mistletoe. Harry wasn't sure whether they were real or not.

Severus looked in from the dining room. He had his wand drawn, and a curl of holly dancing in front of him, almost silvery-green with the light from a reflected fire that probably had some sort of Potion or powder thrown on it, Harry thought. "I do not know what you mean," Severus said, with the stiffness that meant Harry had said the wrong thing. "I am decorating for the First of the Twelve Days of Christmas."

Harry stared at him. Severus turned back to the hidden fire—Harry couldn't even remember the last time the fire in the dining room had been lit—and flicked his wand once. The holly shot away from him. Severus studied its placement, then nodded once, and walked away, perhaps to gather more.

Harry shut the door and stuck the greenery that had fallen on him back in place without caring if it was right. Something was wrong, he thought. Severus had once insisted that he could hear Dumbledore's voice when he was sick. This wasn't as alarming, but it fit in the same category. Severus had never willingly decorated for a holiday in the year they'd been together.

"You're not a Muggle," Harry called, as he walked into the dining room. Yes, ivy and holly and mistletoe everywhere. At the moment, Severus was arranging a collection of green leaves in a vase on the table. Harry had seen him gathering them a few days ago, but he had thought they were for Potions ingredients. "That's a Muggle tradition."

Severus gave him one of those quietly disdainful looks that drove Harry mad, and were really the only bad part of living with him. "No, it is not," he said, and faced the leaves again. A second later, he frowned, and murmured a household charm Harry hadn't thought he knew. The leaves delicately settled into a new position.

"Yes, it is," said Harry, who was certain about that. Dudley had taken too much delight in singing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" through the wall of the cupboard when Harry was locked up there. Harry thought a second, and added, "A Christian tradition. I don't think you're Christian."

This time, he got a glare that was hard enough to make him wince. "No," Severus said slowly. "Do I look like someone who believes in redemption for the world?"

Harry sighed, and persisted, because he was worried about Severus and he had no other way to make that concern clear. "So why are you decorating for it?"

Severus waved his wand at a basket on the hearth, and another long string of green unfolded. This time, Harry saw, they were small pieces of embroidered cloth stitched together. Probably handkerchiefs. Harry stared. He had never pictured Severus carrying handkerchiefs, either, even if they were Slytherin ones.

"I am not," said Severus. "I am decorating for the wizarding version of the Twelve Days."

"I never heard of them," Harry said. And he would have, he knew. Lately, Hermione had been obsessed with digging up every wizarding tradition she could get her hands on. It had started with her looking up different bonding traditions for her wedding to Ron, and had spiraled from there into the kind of obsession that led to small trails between stacks of books.

"They are not often celebrated." Severus looked for a second as if he would wind the string of handkerchiefs around Harry's neck and strangle his talking, and then he sniffed and turned away instead, encircling the window. Another charm made the cloth cling to the wood. "But they are a time of traditional renewal after the darkest night of the year."

"The solstice?" Harry looked at the log in the fireplace, expecting it to be a Yule Log. That was one tradition he had heard of, since Hermione had revived it relentlessly last year.

But it was only ordinary embers, and Severus sighed and answered patiently. "Yes, of course the solstice. What other darkest night of the year is there?"

Harry couldn't help himself. "Any night I don't spend with you?"

Severus paused and looked at him. Harry's cheeks heated. Sometimes he still didn't know when he might have taken the teasing too far.

And then Severus turned away, but not before Harry had seen the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I am using green," he said. "It is the color of the growing year. I was not able to find any green flowers. Ancient books mention some, but it would be too expensive to order them from outside Britain."

"Thank God there's one thing too extravagant for you," Harry muttered, staring at the silver fire again. It was sinking down, and a dim flicker of memory did remind him that some people let their lights die down on the night of the winter solstice, and spent it in the dark. He shivered. That was one tradition that he wasn't a fan of.

"Nothing is too extravagant for this tradition," Severus said in a calm voice from the kitchen. Harry craned his neck to the side and saw he was carefully Transfiguring the handle of every single piece of cutlery they had green. "Perhaps I shall look again at that catalogue I threw away."

Harry shook his head and stood. He wouldn't argue with Severus right now, but he was still sure the Twelve Days were a Muggle thing. He was going to firecall Hermione after dinner and see what she thought.

"Where are you going?"

Harry started. It had been his night to do the washing-up, and he had thought he could creep off to his study after the dishes were clean and firecall Hermione. But Severus, who lounged on the couch in the drawing room in front of the ridiculously green hearth, extended an imperious arm towards him.

"Er, nowhere if you want me here," Harry said, and trudged back to the couch. He sat down next to Severus, watching him cautiously. He still wasn't sure this wasn't some enormous joke, or else Severus's equivalent of a fever dream. Severus just didn't celebrate holidays, or decorate. Severus had Transfigured the little animated bats that Harry had tried to hang up for Halloween into cockroaches, and then stepped on them all. It just made him wonder—well, what the hell was going on.

"I do," said Severus, and pulled Harry to him with a powerful arm that made Harry grunt and lean against him a little more heavily than he'd intended. And then Severus took Harry's hand and put it in his lap.

Yes, definitely staying here, Harry thought, and leaned in to kiss him.

Severus kissed normally, at least, with his tongue licking through Harry's like some lash of fire that just made Harry want more, more, more. He tried to climb into Severus's lap, but Severus had something there, besides the thing that Harry wanted. Harry pulled back and stared at the enormous, silver, two-handled cup, which had come from nowhere.

Severus held up his wand and the cup at the same time. If he cast the spell that filled it, Harry couldn't be certain. It was only certain that something was inside it now, something that sloshed, and when Severus lowered it, Harry could see that it was a kind of sparkling dark wine, with silver foam on top.

"Join me?" Severus murmured, tilting it towards him.

Harry shook his head and grinned. "You're mad," he said, but picked up one handle of the cup while Severus took the other. He drank from one side, and Severus cocked his head and tilted his mouth so that he could get enough from the other.

That made Severus look absurd, but it just made Harry want him more. He couldn't remember the last time Severus had let himself look absurd, had wanted to do something enough that he would even risk it. Harry barely waited until the cup was safely out of the way on the side table before lunging at him.

Severus wrapped his arms around Harry and rolled them on the couch so that Harry was lying half-underneath him, his head pillowed against one arm and a cushion there that Severus moved into place with a negligent flick of his wand. Then Severus slit the cloth of Harry's Auror robes with a move even more negligent and a wicked smile.

"That was my last whole pair," Harry pointed out.

Severus bent his head over and stuck his tongue out, and Harry discovered that he didn't care about his robes any more than he did about calling Hermione.

Severus sucked and licked and lapped and sucked, and Harry writhed, his hands digging into the couch. That was, that happened until Severus clucked under his breath and lifted Harry's hands, repositioning one on his head and one near Harry's own cock, so that Harry could feel that warm breath and occasional ghosts of Severus's tongue on his fingers, as well.

Harry thrashed and panted and did his best to avoid hitting Severus in the head with his knees, and ended up coming with a whoosh that seemed to start in his stomach long before it came out either his cock or his mouth. He slumped back, eyes closed, and didn't open then even when Severus manipulated Harry's hand into his lap and began to stroke himself. But he did recover enough to close his fingers and help a bit.

When Harry's hand was sticky, too, he sighed and turned his head towards the fire. Severus leaned over and kissed his forehead.

"Happy Solstice, Harry," he whispered.

Harry remembered with a start that tonight was the winter solstice, and the dark night that he had been thinking wasn't here yet. He started to turn his head towards Severus, started to open his eyes and ask the questions that he had put off so far.

But when he looked at Severus, Severus's face was so bright and filled with light that Harry couldn't bring himself to ask it. He just reached up and slid his sticky hand into Severus's hair, noting the way he twitched with a grin.

"Happy Solstice," he whispered back, and lost himself in the kiss.

"There isn't a wizarding Twelve Days of Christmas." Hermione frowned and touched her head with a quill, as if that would tap some memories out of her brain. "I know there have been solstice celebrations, and New Year's celebrations, and wizard adoptions of Christmas. But I never heard anything about the Twelve Days. Did you tell him that that was a Christian tradition?"

Harry rolled his eyes. He was in his office now, his door locked so that no one could listen to him discussing this minor mystery with Hermione through his Floo. The Head Auror was supposed to have more important things to do, like approving the pamphlets that the Ministry was putting out about its new Auror training program.

On the other hand, the Head Auror wasn't supposed to be dating a former Death Eater who had never explained his miraculous survival to the Ministry's satisfaction, either. Harry took pleasure in his minor rebellions, in every aspect of life.

"I did," he said. "And then he told me that the days he was celebrating weren't Christian, because he doesn't believe in redemption for the world."

"He's Snape," Hermione said. "I don't think he believes in redemption for himself, even."

Her eyes were compassionate, but Harry just shook his head, not sure what he could say. There were things he told his friends about Severus, but the complex way Severus regarded the war and his own survival wasn't one of those. Harry wasn't sure he understood it well enough to explain it, actually.

"But I haven't been around him before," Harry continued, as much to himself as Hermione. "At Christmas, I mean. Maybe this is something he does every year."

"He never did it at Hogwarts," Hermione pointed out, her eyebrows rising. Harry knew that he had intrigued her, as little as the mystery was. Well, maybe that was understandable. Major mysteries—like how to make people realize that house-elves were intelligent beings that deserved to be treated kindly—dominated Hermione's days. A minor mystery might be refreshing in comparison.

"Well, we never saw inside his private quarters, either," Harry said, now beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. He didn't know if that was because he felt like he was going behind Severus's back or because of the reminder that he was, indeed, dating someone who had once been his professor. "Anyway. I don't want you to research whether he did it in the past. I just want you to try and find out whether there's a wizarding version of the Twelve Days. Can you do that?"

Hermione gave him a salute. "In my abundant free time."

Harry snorted. She would do it, not just because it would oblige a friend but because she was interested. "Thanks, Hermione."

And she winked at him and disappeared from the fire, and then Harry really did have to concentrate on those pamphlets instead of wizarding traditions or the way that Severus looked when he smiled.

"Happy First Day, Harry."

Harry stared stupidly at the figure of braided straw and corn laid across Severus's palms. There were bells hanging from it, and ribbons. On the end of one dark green (of course) ribbon was strung a small silver ring. Just the shine of it in the fire told him it was covered with protective spells. And probably a Portkey. Severus never had forgiven him for damaging the emergency Portkey the Ministry gave him last year by throwing it at an escaping criminal's head, and then not asking for another one because he was too embarrassed.

(But they'd caught the criminal. Albeit with a ring-shaped dent in his temple that he had later attempted to sue the Ministry for).

"Severus," Harry said, a little helplessly, and looked up at him. "What is this? I thought—I thought the first day was Christmas. Or after Christmas. It's only the twenty-second."

"It's the first day of the wizarding Twelve Days of Christmas," said Severus, giving him a look so patient that Harry knew he had used up all his supply for December and now it would be on back order for at least the next month. "How many times do I have to tell you, Harry? They are different, and the First Night is the Solstice."

"I didn't get you anything," Harry mumbled, reaching out to accept the ring. But the way Severus held his hands indicated that he expected Harry to take the whole of the little straw doll, so Harry did. He turned it over and stared at the tiny face, with green crosses for eyes and dark cloth hair that looked as if it had been cut out of another handkerchief. "I don't—what do we do with this? Is it a gift, too?"

"We burn it," Severus said.

Harry jolted back from him, but Severus caught his wrists and shook his head. "I did not mean it that way, Harry," he murmured. "This is only a—a substitute, if you will, for you. Similar figures used to be burned for luck. In this case, this figure is charmed to take on some of the bad luck that you would have. You have so much that I reckoned it would be a useful spell," he added, with a dryness to his voice that made Harry smile. "If it goes into the fire, then that is a time—a situation—where you will not."

Harry hesitated, then nodded and turned towards the fire. Severus moved with him, holding the doll. Harry shifted so that they could each hold it by one arm, and finally snipped the ring and the ribbon off, sliding the ring onto his finger. "Who throws it in?" he asked.

"We both do," Severus said firmly. "That way, the figure takes your bad luck, and I am connected to you, as the one who so often heals the consequences of that bad luck."

"Or maybe the protection would rub off on you, too," Harry said quietly, glancing at him. "I'd like that."

Severus looked back at him, face blank but open, not closed the way it could be, the way Harry knew so well. Then he nodded and faced the fire, and they swung the doll back and forth, the ribbons and bells jangling, before they tossed it into the fire.

Harry wondered for a second what would happen to the decorations the doll wore, but it seemed Severus had cast spells on either them or the fire itself in preparation. The bells flew off with small pops and ringing clatters as they hit the floor, while the ribbons trailed around the doll, making it look like a dancer, as it crashed down within the fire and began to burn.

They stood there for a moment, and then Harry moved to put an arm around Severus. "I still didn't get you anything," he mumbled.

"I believe you can start making that up to me now," Severus said, and turned to face him. "I want you not to take any assignments for the next twelve days."

Harry blinked at him. "I'll be on Christmas holiday starting tomorrow, anyway."

"Promise me," Severus said in a low voice that made Harry remember Easter, when he had been called out "just to look at a scene" that had turned into a kidnapping scare.

He smiled and moved in to kiss Severus, murmuring against his lips, "How about I not only promise that, but make up for the lack of a gift to you in other ways?"

Severus's response was wordless, but enthusiastic.

Harry relaxed in front of the fire the next night, his eyes closed. Severus had made him promise to do that, and to wait. It seemed that Severus wanted to give another gift to Harry, but make it a surprise at the same time.

Hermione still hadn't found anything about whether the wizarding Twelve Days of Christmas were real, but Harry had to admit that he was starting not to care. He had two weeks of holidays coming up, at least, given his promise to Severus. And Severus was more relaxed—well, in ways that Harry could notice, if no one else—around the house right now. If this tradition made him that way, then he could go on doing it all year.

"Harry."

It took more effort to open his eyes than Harry had assumed it would. He must have been near falling asleep, with the fire in front of him and the soft cushions of the couch beneath his arse and head.

Severus smiled at him and held up a shallow bowl of crystal. Or at least that was what it looked like as Harry first focused on it. A second later, he saw that it was actually a flat piece of crystal with a rim that only went halfway around it.

And it was full of the sticky red gleam of sweets.

"What's that?" Harry asked, glancing back and forth between Severus and the sweets. Decorations he could almost accept; Severus hadn't put them in his Potions lab, and that meant there were limits to this madness, wherever it had come from, and it had left the man Harry recognized mostly alone. On the other hand, Severus had never liked sweets, and had reacted to the mere mention of them on Halloween with a spell that left Harry's hands coated with chocolate he couldn't get off. Explaining the handprints on his reports the next day had been fun.

"Something I wish to feed you," said Severus, and urged the dish towards him. He was kneeling in front of the couch, and his eyes didn't move from Harry. There wasn't a smile on his face, but there was the light in his eyes that was so often missing from the mere movement of his lips, anyway.

Harry reached slowly for the sweet on top of the pile, watching Severus all the time. It was soft and jelly-like, and trembled under his fingers. He picked it up and sniffed it. It had a scent like cinnamon, but softer and sweeter. He knew this wouldn't have the sting of cinnamon if he put it in his mouth.

"Harry." Severus reached up and grasped his wrist, guiding his hand towards his mouth.

Harry parted his lips. This was going there anyway, to be quite honest, and he was curious to see what potions Severus might have filled the sweets with. That was the only reason Harry thought he might make a Christmas gift of them.

Severus arched an eyebrow as if reading his thoughts, which was always a possibility with him. Oh, excuse me, Harry thought back sarcastically, while his teeth and tongue settled on the sweet. Twelve Days' gift.

Whether Severus picked up on the thought or not, he didn't know, but he did know that the sweet was exploding in his mouth, filling his throat with tart sweetness that had a fizz on top of it like the foam on the wine the other night—

And he was gasping and hard so fast it hurt, and his erection felt as if it could lift him off the couch by the pressure it put on his pants and trousers and the robes through that.

Severus reached up and squeezed, not at all soothingly. He offered the dish again, but Harry glared at him. "Which of your potions did you put in this, you bloody bastard?" he muttered.

"Now, now, Harry." Severus set the dish aside, reverently. Harry supposed it was expensive. Severus stood up and began to disrobe, his eyes on Harry as if he had never seen him before. "You took the sweet knowing what would happen."

That was true enough that Harry groaned and shifted, reaching down to squeeze. Severus stopped him with one hand. Harry pouted, then nodded. The way he felt, he would probably go off at a touch.

That was one reason, he knew, that Severus maneuvered so skillfully around him as he pulled off Harry's robes and clothes, and then his own, and knelt down next to him on the couch. He let his hand hover over Harry's groin as he cast the spells that would prepare him, but didn't touch.

"You really like having sex on the couch lately," Harry told him.

"That is also a Twelve Days' tradition," Severus said serenely, and put his wand aside and lifted Harry's legs over his shoulders before Harry could contradict him. He slid into Harry with a grunt that made Harry drop his head back. He winced as it thumped into the couch's arm and pain momentarily overrode the familiar sensation of Severus inside him.

Severus reached down and stroked him, with the tip of his fingernail more than the finger, and Harry came hard enough to blast the top of his head off. Or it felt like that, anyway.

"Now that the edge is taken off," Severus murmured back to him, and began to rock.

And it went on like that for hours. Or so it seemed, as the potion sped through Harry's system and helped him recover, and he begged and moaned for Severus, and Severus explained with gentle seriousness that he couldn't go too fast, because it would break the couch, and anyway slow sex was also a Twelve Days' tradition.

Harry only forgave him because the potion meant he got to come twice.

"I don't think there is one, Harry." Hermione was frowning in his fire. "No tradition of a wizarding Twelve Days of Christmas, I mean."

Harry leaned back in his chair and blinked. "Huh," he said, for lack of something better to say. Then he glanced at the study door and charmed it closed. Severus wasn't given to intruding in Harry's study, filled with books on Auror case law and the best ways of defeating curses, for the same reasons that Harry didn't often go into his Potions lab. Still, Harry felt a little traitorous, talking with Hermione about this. "He seemed…I mean, there are so many specific things he's done." And Severus had promised him something special for this, Christmas Eve.

"Well, I don't think it exists." Hermione studied him anxiously. "And you might ask him why he's pretending it does."

Harry shook his head, wordless. Then he found the words. "I would never phrase it to him like that."

"I know." Hermione made patting motions at him. "But you might ask. Because I do think it's odd that he chose these particular traditions and claimed that they existed, when every book I've read and every wizard I've asked says they don't."

Harry hesitated once, then nodded. He was always saying that he trusted Severus, that he could ask him anything, and Severus had said that himself, although Harry suspected it was more that he pictured Harry coming to an interest in Potions late in his life. "Yeah. I'll ask."

"I thought you would never come out of your study."

Harry blinked and licked his lips. Delicious smells were filling the kitchen. "You cooked?" he whispered. Most of the time, he made dinner, because he could and because Severus tended to treat meals as sandwiches or biscuits to be snatched between stirrings of a cauldron.

Severus turned and gave him a half-smile over the table, already loaded with plates of roasted lamb. "I told you that I had something special planned for you on Third Night." He ducked his head a little, and his eyes shone. "Not that this is the only thing I have planned."

Harry swallowed one more time, and said, "Hermione says that no wizarding traditions about the Twelve Days of Christmas exist. Except ones that they've borrowed from Muggles, I mean. She's looked. She can't find any."

Severus straightened up. His robes swirled for a second around him. Harry winced. He thought Severus might stalk out the door, so offended on his dignity was he.

Then Severus sighed and said, "Do you know the reasoning behind many rituals, Harry?"

"Which ones?" Harry asked, because he was so relieved that Severus hadn't walked out the door that he was inclined to babble. "The ones that transform people? The ones that give dead Dark Lords their bodies back? Or—"

"He was not dead," Severus snapped, and then shook his head. Harry had to smile. If Severus was calm enough to quibble with him over semantics, then he was a far cry from leaving.

"No," Severus continued, "a large part of all rituals is to create a sacred space, apart from the world. A place where rules can be bent. A man or woman who is powerless in their ordinary lives can be strong in the space of the ritual. Or a lower-class person can be honored as a king, as in the tradition of the Lord of Misrule. Or an angry mind can be calmed, or a skeptic can find a connection with a god, or the powers of moon and river and earth and sea that are ignored most of the time can be given space and honored." He paused. "Or behavior that is not safe in the outside world can take place in this—place that is outside of everything."

He was scowling because he'd had to repeat a word, Harry knew. And he knew what else the frown might hide.

And he knew, now, why Severus had done this.

"Does that apply even to rituals that you create yourself?" he asked quietly, eyes on Severus. "Ones that may or may not have a historical context."

There was a long, tense moment before Severus nodded. "Perhaps even more to those rituals than to many others," he murmured, "because they are held in existence by the creator's will alone, and that will is what guides his—changed behavior."

Harry smiled and stepped forwards, putting his hand behind Severus's head. He drew it down, until they were looking eye to eye.

"Not by that alone," Harry whispered. "By the will of every participant in the ritual, as long as they know what's going on and what they're doing."

Severus seemed to have stopped breathing.

Harry kissed him, and walked back to the table, moving with happiness sliding along his limbs like firelight. "Now, what else do you have planned for me?" he asked, and sat down. "I can hardly wait until Twelfth Night," he added, when Severus still seemed to stand there, and ponder if this was real.

And of course it was, Harry thought as Severus sat beside him. As real as Severus's hands picking up the plates to serve Harry. As real as the fork that now guided food between Harry's lips, and the rich tastes in his mouth, and the way that Severus looked at him.

As real as they made it, and celebrated it.

The End.