Let's turn back the clock to the first-year Christmas.
Snape was quite surprised to receive a gift from a Gryffindor student this year. In past Christmases, only the Malfoy family had sent him anything; as for the rest—mere trifles given by Slytherin students trying to curry favor with him—he never bothered to count those as actual gifts.
As for that Gryffindor's present? If its red and gold wrapping hadn't stood out so glaringly amid a pile of green gift boxes, he wouldn't have noticed it at all.
Chapter 57