In Somnis Veritas

12

From his usual place at the top table, Severus Snape scowled and kept his eyes trained firmly ahead of him as the handful of students staying in the castle tucked into their breakfast.

Thinking back to that first night of the Christmas break, he could not recall ever giving Harry Potter any indication that the visits to his personal quarters should become a nightly occurrence.

And yet somehow, over the course of the next week, they had.

The routine, it seemed, was a little less clockwork than the previous Friday evening classroom visits - yet it became a routine all the same, whether he liked it or not.

Some evenings, Potter would bring his chess set with him, and Snape had to admit that the boy was improving. On other nights, there wasn't much conversation, but the child seemed content to sit beside him and read.

On more than one occasion – and much to the potions master's annoyance – the little whelp had seen it fit to fall asleep on his sofa.

This was, in fact, exactly what had happened the previous night, and he was rapidly coming to think of it as less of his sofa at all, and more as 'Potter's bed.'

This occurrence was the catalyst for his current source of irritation, for as he'd strode into the Great Hall for breakfast on Christmas Eve morning, with The Boy-Who-Slept-On-His-Sofa-All-The-Time trotting behind him, Severus Snape had not failed to notice the look of pure glee in the headmaster's eyes.

With very few of the other teachers remaining at the school, it was difficult to avoid conversation with the older wizard at the breakfast table, and try as he might, his stoic glare only served him well for the first ten minutes or so before he could take it no more.

"What is it headmaster?" he demanded, catching the man smiling at him in his peripheral vision.

Dumbledore's smile broadened.

"Oh, come now, Severus. I was just thinking how nice it must be for Harry to have found someone like you."

"'Someone like me'?" he repeated, arching a brow.

"Somebody he can trust," Dumbledore explained. "Look up to, perhaps."

"Is that so? For me, it is something more akin to finding a stray dog on the streets and having it follow you home," Snape drawled, still refusing to look at him.

If he had hoped to shock the headmaster he was to be sorely disappointed, as his words did nothing more than elicit a soft chuckle from the other man.

"Severus, you and I both know that isn't true," he said. "It is quite okay to admit that you enjoy Harry's company, my boy."

"I am merely tolerating him, nothing more."

"If you say so," Dumbledore shrugged. "Even so, perhaps, in the spirit of Christmas, perhaps you might humour me and tolerate him a little longer?"

"Meaning?" Snape pressed.

"I would hate to think of Harry spending Christmas eve or Christmas morning alone," the headmaster said wistfully, his eyes falling up on the small boy on the table in front of them.

Snape resisted the urge to scoff.

"Potter has spent the best part of the last week in my quarters as it is. But then again, you already knew that, didn't you?" he said, finally turning to face him.

"That's the first I've heard of it," Dumbledore replied, feigning surprise.

Huffing, Snape turned away again.