Sloe Comfy Screw Up Against A Potions Bench

A Sloe Comfortable Screw Up Against The Potions Bench - Chapter Two

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Hermione figured that she had mortally insulted Snape by her unthinking joke at the expense of his drunken godson. The man had turned away from her, and she could see his hands were clenched in to fists. Again, Hermione was glad the massive bar separated them.

Luna Lovegood climbed onto one of the bar stools with a heavy sigh. “Hi, Hermione.”

“Hello, Luna. What can I get for you?” Hermione took another bracing gulp of whatever she’d made herself last (it looked like a fuzzy navel) and faced the morose young woman.

“Oh, I don’t know. Whatever.” Luna’s shoulders lifted slightly before drooping again. She braced her arms on the bar and leaned to rest her head on her arms, hiding her face.

“Come on, Luna. I’m a bartender. You can tell me. Are you okay?” Hermione was too aware of Snape tensed up and angry a few feet away. She didn’t really want to hear Luna’s personal problems, but she was glad to have someone else here, in case Snape decided to make an issue of Hermione’s hyperactive mouth. It’s not that she was afraid of Snape, exactly…

Luna sighed again and raised her head. “It’s just… this party, you know? It makes you think.”

“Makes you think of what?”

Half sobbing, half sighing, Luna put her head back down on her arms. Gingerly, Hermione reached across the polished expanse of wood and patted Luna gently on the elbow.

“It’s okay, Luna.”

“Why am I always the one who goes home alone at the end of the night?” Luna moaned. “Is there something wrong with me? Ginny’s getting married, and to Harry no less! And not only could I not get a date for this stupid party, I haven’t even managed to pick up on anyone here! And I’m the author of “Failsafe Flirting Fundamentals!” What’s wrong? You’d almost think the women here are all straight and the men are all gay!”

“Except for Harry, of course,” Hermione amended thoughtlessly.

“What?” Luna blinked owlishly.

“All gay except for Harry, who is presumably straight enough to be marrying Ginny?” Hermione knew from personal experience that Harry and at least three other men at this party were straight (or at least straight enough to have slept with her) but she wasn’t about to admit this to Luna. “I know what you need to take your mind off all this.”

“What?” Luna looked very sad and resigned to her fate.

“You need a sloe comfortable screw up against the wall.” Hermione turned to pull the sloe gin and the Southern Comfort from the shelf behind her.

“What?!?” Luna sat bolt upright.

“I presume, Miss Lovegood, that our amateur barkeep here is referring to a mixed drink of the muggle persuasion.”

Snape’s clearly enunciated pronouncement seemed to have the desired effect, soothing Miss Lovegood’s nerves. “Oh.”

“And what, may I ask, goes in to a slow, comfortable screw up against the wall?” Severus Snape was a teacher. He could keep the attention of an entire classroom ractractious students using the power of his voice alone. But this innocuous question was asked with such lugubrious intensity that Luna and Hermione both blushed like summer roses.

Luna hid her face in the cradle of her arms once again. Hermione sought refuge in her know-it-all manner, hoping to bore what she could not ignore.

“It’s a muggle convention to name drinks with a certain degree of whimsy. A sloe comfortable screw up against the wall begins with sloe gin. You know what sloes are, don’t you Mister Snape?” Their customary roles had been reversed. Now she was the teacher.

Snape answered without a pause. “Of course. The fruit of the blackthorn shrub, sloes are small bluish-black plumlike fruits that do not ripen until after the first frost. They are commonly used in defensive and dark magics,” he raised his eyebrows at Hermione, “and also commonly to treat disruptions to the digestive process.”

“Five points to Slytherin,” Hermione said sourly and began pouring. “To the sloe gin add a bit of Southern Comfort, giving us our “sloe comfortable”, fill with orange juice, giving us our “screw” then…”

Professor Snape, seized by some imp of perversity, raised his hand. “Pardon me, Granger, but how does one get a “screw” out of orange juice?”

“Oh, well…” Hermione put the pitcher of orange juice back onto the bar. “There’s a muggle drink called a screwdriver. It’s orange juice and vodka. This is sort of an homage to that drink, the orange juice being the “screw” and the vodka being the “driver” bits of dri drink.”

Snape nodded. “Please continue.”

Hermione sighed. “Okay, let me backtrack a little. There’s a screwdriver, which is orange juice and vodka, and then there’s a drink called a Harvey Wallbanger, which is just like a screwdriver but you float a bit of this Italian cordial called Galliano on top.”

Nodding, Snape leaned forward to examine the bottle in question. “Ah! Yes, Galliano. It’s a muggle corruption of a popular 15th century gallstone potion.” To cause them or cure them, he did not specify.

Hermione blinked, decided not to comment and continued. “Anyway, a float of Galliano, and that’s your “up against the wall” in homage to Mr. Wallbanger.” She suited action to words and floated the Galliano on top of Luna’s drink. “And then, because this is Luna’s first time, we’ll garnish it with a cherry.” Hermione added the cherry with a flourish before sliding the drink across the bar towards Luna.

Luna began sobbing. “I’ll die a virgin!” she wailed, sliding off the bar stool and running for the bathroom.

Snape failed to suppress his smirk and applauded softly. “Bravo, Granger. That’s two. Alienate one more person and Harry will let you gracefully abandon this grinding train wreck of a social engagement without rancor.”

Hermione upended the last of her fuzzy navel and tossed the empty glass over her shoulder. It landed in the anti-break bus tray behind her. “That’s it. Harry said I should socialize. I’m going to do that now.” After several false starts, Hermione found the correct path out. She was feeling like she’d narrowly escaped the full effects of the jellylegs curse, and didn’t even think to argue when Snape took her arm and made her sit on one of the barstools.

“You don’t want to go over there,” Snape insisted, sotto voce, indicating a knot of revelers blocking them from the rest of the party.

His condescension angered her enough to shake off his support. “Why ever not?”

“Malfoy just challenged Dumbledore’s knowledge of the London Underground.”

Hermione blanched. “He didn’t! Didn’t somebody warn him?”

Snape sighed. “I did. I think that’s why he did it.”

“Oh, Merlin preserve us, I don’t need to see this!” But it was too late.

“Aha! But Sloane Square and South Kensington stations are not on the same tube line!” Draco was clearly spoiling for a fight. He was dry tinder begging for a spark.

Dumbledore refuted him as smoothly as oil pours from a warm bottle. “My dear boy, you are thinking of the Piccadilly line. Circle and District lines run through both Sloane Square and South Kensington.”

Harry, trying to be helpful, tossed a lit match on the oil soaked tinder and watched it go up in flames. “I’m sure I have a map of the Underground around here somewhere. We can settle this once and for all…”

Dumbledore waved Harry aside. “No need! For I have a scar above my left knee that reproduces the London Underground map in fullest detail. Or is it my right knee? Ah, well, there’s one sure way to find out.” The old wizard shucked his robes to prove that, indeed, there was nothing worn under his robes: everything was in perfect working order. Still wearing shoes, silk socks and sock garters, the otherwise naked wizard propped the appropriate leg up on a chair, displaying his wedding tackle to fullest advantage. He pointed to a complicated scar covering most of his knee. “See? Here’s the District line…”

Groaning, Snape hid his face in his hands.

“I did not need to see that!” Hermione insisted. “I am scarred for life. I need a drink.” She picked up Luna’s abandoned sloe comfortable screw and, flipping the cherry out of the drink, gulped the contents of the glass in one go. When she had finished, she found Severus Snape staring at her.

“What?” she asked, annoyed by his scrutiny. “I would have offered you my cherry, but you’ve already had that.”

Snape cringed. “I was drunk.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You are now.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “It was five years ago. Give it a rest.”

“You brought it up.”

Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes again. “Whatever.” She leaned. Snape caught her before she slid off the bar stool and supported her against his side.

“Why do you drink so much, Hermione?”

The question was as softly delivered as it was unexpected. Hermione shivered slightly, despite the warm arms around her. “I don’t know. It’s the only thing that keeps me from thinking too hard, I guess.”

She could feel him chuckling, the vibrations hitting her bones pleasurably. Hermione shivered again.

“You’ve done quite well for yourself by thinking. Why stop now?”

It was true. Hermione had graduated with honors befitting a Ravenclaw. She’d taken an apprenticeship with one of the leading experts in Arithmancy and had made quite a splash in the Wizarding World with her early papers. She was much sought after for her consulting work and Hogwarts had even asked if she’d be willing to give a series of guest lectures for the 6th and 7th years.

“Some things I’d really rather not think about.” Hermione was feeling rather muddled. She usually enjoyed this part of a social evening. Her brain had finally turned off. She didn’t have to think about her lonely flat, empty now that Crookshanks had flown to that great catnip patch in the sky. She didn’t have to think about how cold her bed was when she got into it alone. And, most importantly, she didn’t have to think about Severus Snape, his hands, that ticklish spot just at the back of his neck, the warm spicy smell of his sweat after he’d made thorough, enthusiastic love to her virginal body, the low sexy growl of his voice during same or the fact that she’d never had a sensual experience to equal it in the five years since. “Why do you keep bothering me?”

“My apologies.” Snape’s voice grew chill, and Hermione felt him start to withdraw.

The next thing she felt was an ice cold drink soaking through her painstakingly charmed curls. It dripped behind her ears and down her forehead to sting her eyes.

“Whoa! Whoops!” Hermione wiped her eyes and opened them on the unmistakable sight of Hagrid’s shirt buttons. “Sorry, ‘Mione. The darned glass has got a mind of it’s own. Do you think you could fix me another one of these whatchamacallums?”

Snape stepped between Hermione and Hagrid. “Rubeus Hagrid. Mixed drinks are a muggle ploy refined during times of prohibition to disguise the execrable taste of bootleg gin. If you are to drink alcohol, drink the good stuff, and drink it straight.”

Hagrid blinked his big, harmless eyes a couple times. He looked like he was having trouble focusing. “All right then, Professor Snape, sir. Do you think ‘Mione could get me some of the good stuff?”

Snape turned and muttered the cleaning charm he’d used earlier on Draco Malfoy. Hermione was dry again, but still cold and feeling slightly sticky behind the ears. Snape moved away and Hermione felt even colder. “Miss Granger is not feeling well. However, I will be happy to assist you.”

“My hero,” Hermione muttered as Severus Snape took her position behind the bar.

Snape found a bottle of Old Ogden’s Firewhiskey and poured a generous slug into a glass for the half-giant. “One firewhiskey.”

Hagrid gripped the tiny glass carefully between thumb and forefinger and raised it to Hermione. “To the loveliest girl on this side of the room!” He squeezed a little too hard. “Whoops!” The glass shot from between his fingers like a wet watermelon seed, ricocheting off the ceiling and returning to baptize Hagrid. “Shouldn’t ha’ done that,” he muttered.

Hermione leaned over the bar, partly for support, but partly to reach Snape. She tugged on the tail of his frock coat. “Just give him the bottle already.”

Silently, Snpasspassed the bottle over to Hagrid, who tugged his forelock gratefully. “Thank’ee Professor Snape.” Hagrid accepted the bottle and worked his way back through the crowd.

Snape shook his head sadly. “Is everyone at this party bent on self destruction?”

“We’re all just trying to cope with life the best we can. Sometimes you’ve got to blow off a little steam.” Her comfortable haze of drunkenness had been dispersed. She saw Ginny sitting Harry’s lap, giggling and kissing his face as he was now trying and failing to explain some theory about love and bathtubs to Blaise Zabini. Hermione didn’t want to watch that. Hermione turned her head, only to see naked Dumbledore dancing on a table for an audience of one. Neville, the sole audience member, was absorbed in contemplation of his fingernails. The real crowd of people surrounded Tonks, all smiling and laughing whenever she hit a punch line. Draco was trying to pick a fight with Fred and George, but the twins just snickered and flicked boogers at the DADA professor while he wasn’t looking. “We’re all pretty fucked up, aren’t we?”

“Hermione…” He stopped, not sure what to say.

Lavender hopped onto one of the unoccupied stools. “Oh! Professor Snape! Are you tending bar now?” She twisted her hair around her little finger. “Uhm… okay, I think I’d like sex on the beach.”

Hermione snorted. Having sex on the beach always seemed a highly impractical proposition. Just thinking about sand in sensitive places was enough to dampen her arousal.

Professor Snape attempted a variation on the speech he’d given Hagrid only moments before. “Miss Brown, mixed drinks are a muggle invention…”

“Oh, don’t you get all pureblood power on me, Mr. I-Used-To-Be-A-Deatheater.” Lavender sniffed. “Mixed drinks are delicious, muggle invention or not, and I, as a signature drafter of the Wizarding Order Respecting Muggles proclamation, or WORM, encourage you to withdraw your statement and… and…”

“Sex On The Beach?” Only Severus Snape could make those four words into such an effective threat.

Lavender quailed. “Uhm… yeah?”

“Could I interest you in a sloe comfortable screw up against the wall, instead?” Snape’s raised eyebrow promised untold delights.

Lavender blushed. “Uhm… sure?”

Sloe gin, Southern Comfort, orange juice and a float of Galliano went into a glass with the smooth precision one might expect from a seasoned bartender. Snape caught Hermione’s gaze. “Cherry?”

Unable to contain her laughter, Hermione shrugged. “How the hell should I know?”

Snape dropped a bright red maraschino cherry into the drink and slid it across the bar. Lavender accepted the drink with a dreamy gleam in her eyes. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

Looking down his considerable nose at the young woman Snape said solemnly, “I proved unable to teach you Potions sufficient to pass your N.E.W.T.”

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A/N: No, not all of my stories involve drinks and drinking. But it’s been unseasonably warm where I live and I’ve been thirsty. Besides, mixed drinks are the closest a muggle like me can get to potions, outside of a chemistry degree.

Lemons next chapter, I promise. Unfortunately, Dumbledore’s naked time killed Hermione’s libido for this one.