Evening Schnapps

J.K. Rowling is the owner of all except specific characters, situations, and plot bunnies that are unique to this story. I make no money, but lots of satisfaction from taking out her characters and playing with them for a while before putting them back.

Many thanks to my ubber-beta SignoraAligheri, and my sweetie Evan! They just prove that you really can’t do anything in this world without people looking out for you.

A/N: Well, the holidays are over and I suppose it’s Story Lady time again! Missed you all, and I hope you enjoy the rest of Evening Schnapps. You might notice that chapters previous to this one will be edited in the coming weeks. This is really just clean up of little errors that my betas and I missed. I’m cross-posting this to SycophantHex (finally) and found a few things. Real content isn’t being altered, just minor grammar and spelling issues. Also, as it has been a while since I have updated, the end of this chapter sees notes to readers that are a bit longer than usual. I suppose I just missed everyone so much, that I became a bit verbose. So, if you are one of those that doesn’t care to read through those, just skip them! Thanks all and here we go…


Chapter 16- Lightning

Hermione walked slowly down the third floor corridor. It was Friday night and her turn for weekend rounds. In an attempt to give the professors some well deserved time off, Minerva had instituted a rotating weekend watch. Friday, Saturday and Sunday watches were no longer permanently assigned shifts, but were now spread evenly amongst the staff. All told, each professor only had to pull weekend duty once a month. This month, she had drawn a Friday night.

Moving along the corridor, the elaborate central torches flared as they sensed her presence, illuminating her way. Normally, she avoided this route, but it had proved an uneventful evening. No students out of their common rooms making mischief, or snogging in dark corners. Outside it was too cold and wet for students to duck into the bushes on the rain soaked grounds for an adolescent tryst. All told, she found herself exploring this space simply because she had already covered the rest of the castle twice.

As she listened to her footfalls reverberate in quiet echoes, she found her mind drawn back to her first year at Hogwarts. She remembered how frightened she had been when she, Ron and Harry had found their way into this forbidden corridor by accident. She had been terrified that they would be punished for being found where they shouldn’t be.

At the time her letter arrived, she had assumed that magic was nothing more than a literary mechanism for fantastical events in fantasy books. She had never found the use of fantasy, and preferred to read science fiction, particularly older writers who based their stories on ideas sparked from the burgeoning space industry of the sixties and seventies. Her mum never understood why she loved reading the novels, but her father understood. They both loved the idea of new and novel ideas, products of human evolution, becoming commonplace. Stories of people finding their destinies in a time when space travel was the order of the day, held a particular fascination for Hermione.

By the time she was 11, she had been wholly unable to determine what she wanted to be when she grew up. She was interested in everything; chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology, and even geology held interests for her. A childhood spent reading, helping her parents at their dental practice, striving to be the best in school, winter holidays skiing, and summer holidays backpacking, gave her ample opportunities to pursue. Even so, she just couldn’t decide on her path. Her mother kept telling her that she was still just a child, and didn’t need to choose while she was still so young. However, her father, who knew that he wanted to be a dentist from the second grade, would only give her concerned glances and suggest that she simply needed to apply herself to the task of choosing.

It was hurtful, her father’s pressure. She knew it was only his way of showing that he worried, and that he cared. However, she just knew that there was something different in her destiny, something that would set her apart from her classmates. She thought about space travel, maybe schooling in America. If she worked very hard, she might be able to gain a position in NASA’s astronaut program. The notion of First Contact held her attention. She woke one morning, after a night of dreaming the most vivid dreams. She couldn’t remember the details, but she remembered the theme. In the dream, she had found her destiny and it centered on a First Contact scenario. She couldn’t recall who they were, but she knew that whatever the race, they were very different from her and that they took her away from the life she knew, to do something important. She remembered the overwhelming pull she felt to leave her parents and embark on adventures unknown.

When she had finished dressing, she went to join her parents for breakfast and stopped cold when she saw the looks on their faces. There was a tenseness she was completely unfamiliar with. The only time she had seen her mother look so stiff, was the day they had come home after a brief shopping trip a year previous, and had realized that their house was burglarized while they were out. Her mother had been torn from running further into the house to phone for help, and grabbing Hermione and running out, in case the burglars were still in their home. Fear had gripped her heart and her mother had frozen, and appeared just as she was now.

Hermione then looked to her father, he was sitting up at the table holding a stern look on his face. Not angry exactly, but with an air of distinct disapproval. In his hands was a letter, one written on a thick parchment, like the formal documents she had seen at the museum on class trips. She then realized that although they had turned these expressions towards her when she entered the dining room, the attitudes were not directed at her. Rather, whatever the cause of the tension, it was directed towards the stern gray-haired woman sitting at the far end of the table.

Her father bade her sit down, and introduced Professor Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of a boarding school called Hogwarts. The teacher explained that she had been selected to attend the rather exclusive school. Hermione had listened carefully and absorbed the information. It seemed like a good thing. Her grades had always been good enough to warrant a private school, but her parents felt it was more important to save their money for university, and rely on the public school system and her intelligence and top A-level results to get her there. She wondered if that’s why her parents were acting oddly; perhaps they didn’t want her to go.

When she turned her attention back to her dad, she saw that he had fixed Minerva with a hard stare.

“Explain it to her,” he said quietly.

Minerva’s response was to stand up and take her by the hand. She was lead over to her mother’s china hutch.

“Open the drawer, Miss Granger,” she commanded.

“It’s locked,” Hermione said, feeling confused, “Mom always keeps it locked after the burglary last year.”

“Be that as it may, I would like to see you open the drawer.”

Hermione had sighed, but complied with the strange request. She had reached out and pulled on the drawer handle. As she had stated, it was locked. But when she turned back around to Minerva, the old woman was holding a delicate, finely carved length of wood.

“Take this, Miss Granger.” Handing the wand over to her, Minerva turned her back around by the shoulders to face the hutch. She reached down and wrapped her own hand over Hermione’s small one on the wand. Leaning down and speaking quietly into her ear, Minerva had instructed her to focus very clearly on the desire to open the drawer. After she nodded that she was concentrating on that, Minerva had moved her hand around to point the wand at the drawer lock and told her quietly to say a funny sounding word.

“Alohamora,” Hermione repeated softly, wondering what this woman was playing at as she concentrated.

Hermione had barely registered the soft click of the lock turning and the drawer sliding open a little, as she had been stunned at the sensation that surged through her body and focused in her hand. For the first time, she had felt the magic in her move and obey her intent. Still stunned at what had just happened, she turned to face her parents. Her mom was smiling, but had tears running down both cheeks, and her dad’s eyebrows were sitting up near his receding hairline. Minerva had taken her by the shoulders and guided her back to a seat at the table, and proceeded to explain the Wizarding world to her.

At the end of the explanation, Hermione had known that this was her destiny. After a fashion, it was her First Contact that she had been waiting for, and after a difficult morning spent convincing her parents that she felt in her heart that she had to see it through, she had won their permission to go. In that first year, in this very third floor corridor, Hermione had felt certain that they would be caught, and that she would be expelled from Hogwarts and sent back home to her mundane life. That thought had terrified her; she felt that she had finally found her destiny, her very place in the world and did not want to lose it. As they ran from Mrs. Norris and Filch, she was afraid that she was going to be found wanting by this world and summarily discarded.

Hermione sighed as she approached the door that lead to the room that they had hidden from Filch in; the room where they first met Fluffy, Hagrid’s three-headed dog. Her life had been quite the adventure since those first frightening days with Harry and Ron. When she left for America to attend the Muggle university, she had departed the Wizarding world in order to escape the press. But there was another reason she kept locked deep in her heart. From the very first few months of her new life as a young witch, she had been needed. Harry needed her and Ron to help him with Voldemort. Through each year at Hogwarts, she was needed. Even helping Neville surreptitiously at Potions made her feel needed. Then at the end, when Harry managed to kill Voldemort, the need just vanished. Neville went on to a successful apprenticeship and eventually became a Herbology Master, with a minor in Potions, and was working overseas. Harry and Ron both went on to become Aurors. They didn’t have much in the way of free time for her, as they played Quidditch on a Ministry league with other Aurors from their department on most evenings and weekends. They were still wonderful friends, but they no longer needed her. For the first time in years, she was on her own again, wondering what she would do as an adult.

She would never admit it to another, but moving to America had been her way of running from the grief she felt. When Severus had arrived, so unexpectedly in her yurt that storming night, she had been suspicious as to his motives. But when he told her that she was needed again, her heart leapt. Once again, she felt secure that Hogwarts was on the path of her destiny.

Severus himself presented a host of other issues in her life. The morning they spent together had left her wondering what would happen between them in the future. He had proved to be a wonderful partner. Strong and passionate, their tryst had left a lasting impression on her. Even now, just the memory of his hands moving across her hips in the morning light caused her breath to catch in her chest, and her belly rolled with warmth.

Taking a steadying breath, she smiled at herself and opened the door.

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Severus stood in the dark, looking out the window at the storm. Lightening struck the far hill, across the lake, and the water was briefly illuminated in an eerie purplish light, before thunder crackled and echoed around the valley. He found himself unable to sleep that night. He had spent an hour lying awake, staring at the ceiling of his room, with thoughts of Hermione plaguing his mind. Finally, he decided to walk the castle, as was his habit when he was a younger man and Voldemort had not yet returned.

Now, having found his way to this unused and dark room, his thoughts turned to the first year that Hermione was in his life. She had only been a little eleven year old Muggle-born, yet she had bested his contributions to guarding the Sorcerer’s Stone. He would have given anything to see her young mind at work on that night. He had already become familiar with her apparently impressive memory. Unlike her other professors, her ability to read a text and recite it back at will had already made a rather sour impression on him. Up until that night, he had resented her apparent lack of true intelligence. After that night, he was wary of her abilities. There was no book that could have told her how to choose correctly. Over the years, her continuing association with Mr. Potter and her knack for finding the most dangerous situations to get into, provided him with ample reason to ignore her mind and remain disdainful of her.

When he agreed to find her for Minerva, and found that she was living in such a dangerous place, all that distain and animosity came back to the front. It was not until after the avalanche and after he healed her unconscious body, that he gained different insight to the young woman’s mind. She was not an inherent thrill-seeker; Hermione simply had a different set of values than most. She accepted danger as a part of life, as easily as he did.

That thought sobered him. Severus had spent so much of his life in life-threatening situations that he didn’t really think about it anymore, he just kept moving. To see that kind of disregard in one so young was confusing. Her fast thinking on the mountain had undoubtedly saved their lives, and she had made absolutely no fuss about it after the fact. She had simply picked up and continued about the task at hand. She showed remarkably thick skin around his less-than-stellar personality, she seemed un-phased at his appearance, and they were certainly compatible physically.

Severus sucked in a sudden breath at that memory. When they fell together the previous morning, it was like nothing he had experienced before. He had felt something caress his heart as they joined, not at all like his previous experience with women. Those witches had felt like nothing more than warm bodies there to take relief from, there was absolutely no connection found. Hermione, on the other hand, could be dangerous to him. The connection he felt with her was stronger than anything he had ever felt before. If he was not very careful he might start to…

Severus whirled around and ducked away from the window, pulling himself up against the wall, as the door behind him opened softly in the dark. He couldn’t see anything, but the body he sensed coming towards him felt larger than a child’s should and moved with a grace that was disconcerting. Drawing his wand, he moved silently, being careful to avoid traveling into space where light could be cast through the window by the lightening storm. He tensed as he heard the intruder stop and hold their breath. The fine hairs on his neck prickled as he heard the unmistakable sound of a wand being slowly drawn. He reacted with the speed of a snake.

“Expelliarmus!”

He continued moving around the room as the spell hit. At the sound of the intruder’s wand clattering to the floor well away from them, Severus allowed himself an evil sneer; once again he had once again bested a foe. Therefore, he was totally unprepared for the next event.

He heard a witch speak, and the next thing he felt was his body hitting the ground as he was caught up in a full body-binding spell.

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Hermione took a quick breath. Being attacked was the last thing she had expected in her wanderings that night. Adrenaline rose to the occasion and she tried to convince her body that the danger was over before it had really started. As she willed her heart to keep a steady beat, she raised her wand to set some light on the situation.

“Lumos,” she said, illuminating the space in front of her with the tip of her wand. She walked over to the fallen attacker, and started abruptly. It was Severus. He lay stiff on his back, and was looking up at her with barely controlled fury.

-------

“Oh, Severus!” the young witch exclaimed as she dropped on her knees next to him.

Severus was furious at himself for allowing someone to get the drop on him. If it had been anyone else, he would have been in the most vulnerable position. Instead he found himself at the mercy of this astonishing young witch. He wasn’t entirely sure how she had managed to retrieve her wand so fast. However, as she moved her dark wand over him, releasing him from the bind, he gazed at the dark swirled wood and remembered the second wand.

“I should have remembered the twin,” he said as he sat up, looking at the witch who was moving away from him swiftly. “What are you doing here?”

Hermione was eyeing him cautiously.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I was doing rounds and you surprised me. Why did you attack me to begin with?”

Severus smirked at her. “Habit.”

They stood in awkward silence for a moment. Severus wasn’t sure what to say. They hadn’t had a chance to talk since they both hurried off to their morning classes the day before. As he looked across the room at her, he was struck by the wary, guarded expression on her face, and it angered him. It reminded him of thousands of days spent under the watchful eye of all manners of scrutinizing people. Parents of the children in his care, adults who remained suspicious of his role with Voldemort, people who never forgave him for killing Dumbledore, all looked at him the way Hermione was looking at him now, as if he were a snake about to strike.

Suddenly, fury flooded him again, but this time it was aimed at the girl.

-------

Hermione froze as she looked in the dark wizards eyes. The fury she had seen after she petrified him had flared in them again. Suddenly, she felt very much in danger, adrenaline once again burned through her veins. She didn’t move, wand still in her hand, as she tried to assess what could have caused Severus’ abrupt change. She understood when he looked so angry after she bound him, and while she expected him to retaliate when she released him, even braced herself for it; he had seemed to calm down. Now, this sudden fury spooked her. Something wasn’t right.

She took a step back, and gasped when a sudden lightening strike to the top of the North Tower blinded her, and the simultaneous crash of thunder deafened her. When her eyes readjusted to the dark, Severus was gone.

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AN:

Juls- Thanks! Glad to know that that aspect translated, I was trying to find the right balance.

Marti- Yay! (or to quote a silly friend ‘Yay! Sex!’ I don’t know how he keeps his girlfriend from smacking him when he yells that) Glad you love the story, keep reading, I’ll make more! ;)

FLBanshee- I think that strong women need strong men. (and vice versa) Now that the holidays are over, I’m trying to get back to weekly chapter updates.

Sheedy- You realize that if you are the same sheedy I just began to beta for, I am going to laugh my hind end off! Mmmmm… hot chocolate, I may just have to work that into an upcoming chapter!

SKB- a new fan! Yippee!!!

Amsev- Thank you, I feel like I’m going to just burst out of my own skin! I love happy reviews!

Olwen- *blush* Wow. I am overwhelmed, thank you for the lovely compliment. Many folks have wondered about the eagle.

DoomGreen- Thanks! I was really excited when I realized that the natural timing of writing just happened to land THAT chapter right before Christmas. I felt like I received a present, too!

Annie- Glad you came back to it! I understand that real life gets in the way, happens to me, too.

A- ‘a’ to you to! ;) Hope you enjoyed the story.

Domine- I was wondering where you went! So sorry you’ve lost your internet connection. I will eventually leave my job and the very fast internet connection that comes with it will be the top thing I miss. I’ll be reduced to coffee shop WiFi’s during the last year of my degree. Ugg. Congratulations on your dry year! It’s far better to catch it early, while you are still in control. This story was named after my grandmother, she had gotten into some trouble with the booze when she was younger and her solution was to limit herself to one drink a day, taken in the hour before dinner. Which of course, she called her ‘evening schnapps’. She never drank more than that in the 40 years after that decision. Instead, she taught my mom and I this marvelous trick for ‘social drinking’ occasions, the Tonic and Lime. No one can tell that you don’t have Gin in the glass, so there are no awkward moments where you become the center of attention with the question ‘so why don’t you drink?’ I use that trick bunches. I love hanging out with my younger compatriots at college, but don’t like to drink heavily as they do. Tonic and Lime is my weapon of choice. Congrats on both your birthday (yes, I celebrated) and your upcoming nuptials! My tall, dark and yummy is recently out of the Navy and back home.

Bill- Glad to see a note from you and I hope all is well with Pickles and the little ones. I agree, the holidays are a time to enjoy the company of family and friends. I took full advantage of it! Oh, and yeah, Severus does tend to over-process things (as I’m sure this chapter illustrates!) a bit much.

WickedWitch- HAHA!! I bet the story has progressed a bit since you had last read! I’m glad Vampire_Exotica was able to guide you back to it. This has been the most fun to write. She did a really good challenge; it reads simply, but sticking to every condition is much harder than it looks. For example, that little clause about Harry and Ron not objecting is rearing its ugly little head in the chapters I’m working on this weekend. But, I’ve found a way around it and working to stick to the challenge is ultimately making a more in-depth and richer story (I think).