A Letter from Severus

It was a cool winter’s morning. Snuggling in her down comforter, Hermione gently brings her steaming cup of hot chocolate to her lips. Blowing slowly over the steaming liquid, Hermione softly smiles. I wonder how Severus is handing Albus this Christmas now that they don’t have to worry about Voldemort anymore. Taking a tentative sip of her drink, Hermione lets her gaze fall upon an old Daily Prophet.

“Witches and Wizards! Today is a great day, for today, Harry Potter has vanquished Voldemort! Mr. Potter used a charm created by his best friend Hermione Granger, while said best friend was busy helping his other best friend, Ronald Weasley, keep the Death Eaters at bay. The ‘Golden Trio’ will be awarded Order of Merlin, First Class. Those who are also receiving this award are Albus Dumbledore, Professor Minerva McGonagall, Professor Severus Snape and Remus Lupin for their tireless efforts to protect the students of Hogwarts, where Voldemort last attacked.”

Running a finger over the moving picture, Hermione blinks away sudden tears that come to her eyes. It was so close to going the other way. It’s a bloody good thing that Severus somehow managed to convince Lucius to join our side. I’ll never know. Loud pecking at the window startles Hermione out of her daydream. Looking over she spies Severus’s owl at her window.

If that man thinks he’s getting out of dinner! He has another think coming! My mother has been cooking like a house-elf for two days straight. I don’t care if we have been dating for six months! If he doesn’t show up tonight I’m going to hex his balls off! Huffing, she puts down her half empty cup of hot chocolate. Throwing off her comforter, Hermione shivers as she launches herself towards the window.

Upon opening the window, Hermione was assaulted by the cold air. With choppy movements, she hurriedly relieves the owl of his burden. The owl doesn’t even bother to wait around for any treats. Hmm, that was odd. Usually Severus’s owl likes the treats I give him. After closing the window, Hermione leaps back into her bed, tucking her comforter around her now cold body.

As Hermione twirls Severus’s letter over in her hand, she dissolves into a glowing smile. I bet he’s writing to thank Mum for those books she lent him regarding Muggle Christmas traditions. I wonder if he understood them? Good lord, I hope he didn’t take some of them seriously! Ripping the parchment open, Hermione gazes fondly at her boyfriend’s familiar handwriting.

Dear Miss Granger,

I have recently become acquainted with your muggle traditions, as it is Christmas time again and has been my tradition for the past umpteen years to write a little Christmas narrative to help express me the overwhelming dearth of happiness collected, hoarded, over a year of non-Christmas time. As is my custom, I like to reflect upon the holiday and its underpinnings of mutual respect, peace, love and happiness. God bless us, every one.

So, without further ado, I need to speak to you about a serious problem. A grave issue… something that you should not and cannot ignore. Be wary...

I present to you, the evidence. Muggles are first introduced to the spirit of Christmas through a jolly fat criminal that specializes in breaking and entering through unsuspecting domiciles and gorging himself on cookies and milk. The fat muggle's cookie and milk addiction is so horribly consuming, corrupting, that compulsively, slavishly, he goes from house to house, until all the houses of the earth with brats (the ageist bastard) have been raided and his addiction satiated until the next year.

One might think that this is not so bad ... stealing cookies and milk, but a further look into this ‘jolly ole soul’ reveals a deeper and maddening evil: Santa, the CIA spook and his black ops specialists, the ‘elves.’ This underground spy network reportedly keeps tabs on all sorts of Christmas dissidents, placing their names on a watchdog list unofficially termed the ‘naughty kid’ list. These kids are delivered warnings of ‘coal’ when Santa breaks into their house to obtain a moments ‘sprinkled’ bliss.

In times past, Santa had a helped called Knept Rupreckt, who used to bring switches so that the parents (co-conspirators in this strange man's fascist regime) could beat these little dissidents into being placed on the ‘good’ list. In the worst case, when a kid would not ‘listen to reason’, Knept would kidnap said kid to be taken for re-education in the Santa-gulag to be taught how to be proper citizen in Santa's world order. After several sanctions by the UN, the disappearance of kids as a practice by Santa was stopped. Although there are some unconfirmed reports of missing kids every year on the night of the 25^th, Santa denies all involvement.

“The evil that is Santa seems to have no bounds,” says Dr. John Pipperknicker research fellow at the Physics Institute of the Real Reality outside London, England. “Santa breaks many of the laws of physics, laws of aerodynamics, thermodynamics, speed of light; there is no bound to this man's flagrant disregard of natural laws.” It wasn't long before Dr. Pipperknicker became fitful with rage, posing questions like “how is it possible that a giant fat man is able to squeeze his rotund body down a small chimney pipe, hmm? …Or how do a team of 8 reindeer, fly? And how do they carry enough presents for all the children of the world? … How does he deliver his presents all on one night?” It wasn't long before the poor doctor began postulating about different dimensions and thousands of Santa Clauses existing in the same space and different moments in time or distribution centers of Santas.

“Nobody elected this Santa Claus fellow,” says George Triehugah, of Up With People. “I mean, who is this Santa Claus and what are his methods?” Mr. Triehugah mused. Mr. Triehugah is very concerned about Santa's extra-governmental nature, his seeming lack of respect for the cultural sensitivities of other nations and his promotion of rewarding ‘good’ behavior. “What constitutes a ‘good’ kid? Where are the qualifications? Who determines who is good and who is bad? This Santa Claus character has no accountability at all.” Santa has repeatedly objected to the calls by such organizations for an oversight committee and when asked about Mr. Triehugah in general, Santa commented, “Well, let's just say he had plenty of coal to keep him warm during the long winters.”

“Santa is an evil madman,” says Dr. John Cross, Genetics for Better and Fun Foods Inc. “It is well documented, Santa's program of genetic experiments and mutations,” Dr. Cross shivered. “I mean, how many reindeer do you know have noses that glow?” Santa defended his work in a brief statement issued last year through his PR firm, “We at Santa Claus Inc. do not have a genetics engineering program, Rudolf (tm) is just the next step in Reindeer evolution and we predict that all reindeer will have ‘shiny noses’ in coming generations...” Unconfirmed reports speak of sleigh test flights with six legged reindeer.

“Santa is the worst thing since Napster (tm),” said Jeff Cheatum of the Toy Manufacturer's Organization for Profit. “His legion of slave labor elves making knock off toys is not only inhumane, but does not respect international treaties on patents. We are acting in our best interest for the poor toy designers, whom we are trying to protect from this fat freeloader.”

When Santa was posed with this moral question we believe we hear him mumble something under his breath “... Chinese workers, sweat shops...” Mr. Cheatum has been lobbying the WTO to sanction the North Pole for its disregard for international patent treaty.

Now that you know the evidence, be vigilant, this criminal if anything is persistent and a slave to consistency. You can expect him to show up sometime on Christmas eve/night. Reducing the amount of cookies and milk in your household is a good way to help deter him from entering your place and by all means, do not dream of sugarplums.

With any luck, we will all be able to make it through the evening without much incident.

Love you always,
Severus

PS: I am due to arrive at your parent’s house at 7:30. I do hope this is an acceptable time.

Gasping for breath, Hermione struggles not to burst from laughing so hard. Oh my god! He’s in so much trouble when he gets here.