Evening Schnapps

A/N: 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.

Helpful vocabulary for this chapter:

Cirque; n. 1) A steep bowl-shaped hollow occurring at the upper end of a mountain valley, especially one forming the head of a glacier or stream. 2) A ring, or circle.

Cornice; n. 1) A horizontal molded projection that crowns or completes a building or wall. 2) A large over-hanging structure of compacted snow that is sculpted from winds at the top of mountain peaks or cliffs, most often shaped like a wave.

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.

So, keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times, and here we go!

Chapter 5

Standing outside the yurt, Severus watched as Miss Granger worked the toe of her boot into a vice-like clamp on the ski. After she locked it down, she tightened a spring around the heel of her boot, and slid the ski backwards, lifting her heel, and then slid it back under her. Then she repeated the same routine with the other ski. She reached over to the tree next to the doorway and pulled down the heavy backpack and heaved it up onto her shoulders, clicking together a heavy clasp around her hips.

She cocked her head to one side, “Ready?”

He nodded, squinting off into the sunny forest.

She frowned at him for a moment. “Where are your glasses?”

“I presume you are referring to the dark spectacles I have seen on the Muggles in the town?” He sneered, not enjoying the implied criticism he read into her question. “I do not have any.”

“Well, that may have worked yesterday in the storm, but you’ll burn your retinas on a sunny day like today.” She unclasped her pack and shrugged it off, resting it on her skis in front of her toes.

As she began rummaging through the pack, curiosity crept over Severus. He leaned in and watched her as she shuffled through her belongings. He spotted a few bits of clothes, a book or two, a roll of silvery-gray tape, her wand, some assorted items that may have been a med kit, and a gun.

He froze. “Miss Granger,” he barked, “have your lost your mind? I thought that you were actually intelligent! Why on this green earth would you have one of those?” He reached out with one hand and grabbed her upper arm, feeling his fingertips digging in through her jacket and into her flesh, and pointed into her bag with the other.

She looked up at him, startled, and then an angry scowl spread across her face. “What?! You are the one stupid enough to move a full day’s travel into the wilderness without eye protection! What are you so mad at me for? You want to go snow blind? You don’t want to wear these? Fine! But you will remove your hand from me this instant.” The very last utterance had come out of her throat as a low growl.

Severus glanced down at the pack and saw that her hand was hand emerged grasping a spare pair of the dark spectacles. He grimaced and threw down her arm. “Not those, Miss Granger,” he snarled, “the gun. Why would you be in possession of that Muggle contraption? You could get yourself killed!”

He watched as her eyebrows shot up. She looked at him for several seconds before slowly reaching down and pulling out the gun. She stood up and rotated it, pulling it out of its cover. She pointed to a lever along its side, an orange streak was located next to it.

“Professor Snape, the ignorance of the Wizarding World never ceases to amaze me. Such ignorance is not an acceptable reason for fear. Guns do not just go off. This is the safety, it must be moved into the off position before the gun will fire,” she said patiently enough, as she slid the lever to cover the orange mark and then moved it back, although he could hear the strain in her voice. “I carry this in the summer and fall. Traveling in a group is one thing, but living up here all alone, with no magic, has hazards you haven’t even thought of. Not the least of which is a seriously pissed off mountain lion that weighs three times as much you do. This,” she said waggling the gun a little, “is a failsafe. Now, I can’t just leave it up here for just anyone to find, can I?”

Severus stood thinking. He had been so upset by the idea of a Witch possessing such an evil Muggle artifact that he hadn’t considered it might also be used as a tool if there was no magic to protect oneself. He nodded, “I see your point.”

Miss Granger moved the gun back into its cover and unzipped her jacket. She placed the item inside a deep breast pocket and zipped the jacket back up. Severus accepted the spectacles she handed him quietly. As she once again hefted the pack to her back, he placed them on his face. Looking around he felt the muscles in his face relax and found that the world came into sharper focus. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted her reaching up and rubbing her arm. He winced, Minerva wouldn’t be happy if she found that he had heaped physical abuse on the young witch.

‘Well, there is only one thing for it,’ he thought, and took a deep breath.

“Miss Granger? I am sorry if I hurt you.” he said as nicely as he could.

She looked up and eyed him for a moment.

“Professor Snape, I appreciate your apology, but I remind you that you are not the master here. Because of your insistence on traveling today, we will be moving across dangerous ground, on a day when any smart person would be inside cozying up to a warm fire, or playing out on the flat lands.” She cocked her head sideways again, “This is avalanche country and we’ve had four storms move through in the last five days. The snow load is massive right now.”

Severus smirked at the notion of Miss Granger giving him orders.

“Don’t give me that smirk. If I tell you to move, then you need to, right then, no arguing, no resentment at being told what to do by an Insufferable-know-it-all!” she spat. “I will tell you this, if there is an avalanche and we get separated, I want you keep going. I know that you knew you had to come up here without magic, but do you know exactly where it failed?”

Severus nodded silently.

She continued, “You said Mike and Raf told you how to get here. Did you follow their instructions exactly, you didn’t get lost or turned around in the least little bit?”

He had to bite down an angry retort. “Miss Granger,” he ground out, “I can retrace every step, and they each match the instructions exactly.”

She stared at him for a moment, “All right, if an avalanche happens, and you are not in it’s path but I am, I want you to look right at me. If I get caught and you can keep track of me, come to me only after it’s over. If you lose track of me, don’t waste time. I want you to keep going. Avoid any area where it’s not thick with trees that are taller than my chimney. Stop when you get to the place on your route at tree line where magic failed. Yes?”

He arched an eyebrow at the notion of leaving her behind. Minerva would be so angry. Then again, she wasn’t here, so he nodded to Miss Granger.

“OK. I want you to wait there until an hour after dark. There is a full moon tonight and it will rise then. I don’t have an extra headlamp to give you, but the moon will give you ample light to see by. Go down to town and find Mike or Raf. Chances are they’ll be at the brewpub.” She looked like she was relaxing and her voice became less strident.

“Tell them what happened and bring them back up in the morning. They’ll know what to do. Now, if you get caught, try to run to the trees, if you don’t make it, use your cloak to cover your mouth. Try to swim to the surface, you won’t be able to, but you might stay near enough the surface to survive.” She said seriously, “After the world stops, try to stay calm. You won’t have an easy time trying to breathe. The mass of the snow that will be pressing on you can crush the air out of your lungs. Once you master your breathing, I want you to spit.”

Severus snorted at the ridiculous request. “And why, exactly, would I do that, Miss Granger?”

She smiled, “Because you will have been flipped around so many times that you won’t know which way is up. I don’t want you to die trying to dig your way to England, as I would be denied you sparkling personality at the Head Table.”

Severus paused for a second and then smirked. “I wouldn’t dream of denying you that pleasure.” He found himself pleased as her face lit up and she laughed, the sound shimmering through the air.

“Well then, I suggest that once you ascertain which way is up, you try to stick your hand, arm or pole up to the surface and wait. I’ll try and get to you, but you may have to wait a long time, it takes a while to dig someone out.” she said, “let’s get going.”

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Hermione chatted amicably with the tall man walking behind her. She would take a few turns through the trees and pause, waiting for him to catch up. She kept a mostly one-sided conversation going, pointing out interesting points and tracks of animals in the snow. She kept him in the deep trees, and was thankful that she had outgrown her fear of skiing in their confines. Finally, they came to a clearing along the bottom of a hill. She looked up and examined the top of the pitch. The snow looked smooth down the gentle slope. She felt a slow grin spread over her face.

‘Well,’ she thought, ‘why not? It will be some time before I will get a chance to ski like this again.’ Turning to Professor Snape, she watched as he stepped in next to her.

“Professor, I need to go check on something. I want you to stay here and take a rest. All right?”

She watched as he nodded, thankful that he didn’t press his case of hurrying, and took off her pack. She set it on the snow, up against a tree, and stomped a flat area with her skis, compacting the snow. After she had unlatched her bindings, she stepped off onto the compacted snow and opened the top of the pack. Fishing around she pulled out her climbing skins and unrolled them. She took one ski and hooked bottom of the skin to the back end of it. Keeping tension on it so that it wouldn’t slip off, she stepped through between the ski and the skin and pulled down on the top of the ski, bending it over her shoulder, hooking the loop at the end of the skin over the tip of the ski. She stuck the ski in the snow and fastened two straps over the surface, one in front of the bindings and one behind. Hermione turned and picked up the other ski to repeat the process, as she turned back she noticed Professor Snape moving his fingertips lightly up and down over the napped black surface. Feeling how it was smooth when dragging his fingers down, but rough and prickly when he moved them up. She watched as comprehension dawned on his face, and in that instant, his face looked like it had this morning when he was sleeping, it was lighter somehow.

Smiling to herself, she ducked her head down and closed up the pack. She stood and moved back to the skis, seeing that Professor Snape had stepped back and was once again looking bored and stern. She clicked into her skies, gave him a smile as she stood up, and turned around to head up the hill.

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Severus watched as Miss Granger kicked one ski up in the air vertically, placed the back end in the snow and let the tip fall smoothly back in the opposite direction. She looked odd for a moment, standing with one ski pointing north and one pointing south, but then she leaned forward and lifted the other leg a little. Severus watched as the back ski drifted around, completing the turn in place.

He was still thinking about how graceful that move was as he watched her hike straight up the side of the hill, along the edge of the trees.

Grace was something that he had seen little of in his lifetime. His childhood had been difficult at best. The years at Hogwarts had been seven years of hell. He had developed some allies in Slytherin, but life outside the protection of the common room was miserable. The Marauders were devoted to his abuse at school, and he was neglected at home. The only peace he had was in Potions class. He worked hard and learned much in his other classes, but it was in potions that he felt graceful. Whether it was preparing ingredients, blending potions, or adjusting temperatures, his hands just seemed to flow. Even as he began to work on more complex potions, he instinctively knew how it could be improved, streamlined, pushed to the very limits of it’s potential. It was in Potions that he felt grace.

Looking up, he watched as Miss Granger crested the hill and disappeared from sight. He certainly didn’t feel graceful out here. As he had been hiking down the ravine, Miss Granger had seemed to float through the woods around him. She had twisted and turned through the trees by dipping down on one knee, allowing the front ski to arc out in front of her, and then easily hopping a little to drop down on the other knee, reversing directions. He caught a movement in at the top of the hill and looked up. There was a cloud of snow at the crest of the hill, and movement below it.

Severus inhaled sharply as he saw the head and shoulders of Miss Granger erupt from the snow, a rooster tail of snow flying over her head and she moved through the snow like it was water. She disappeared from view for a moment again, leaving a cloud of snow in the air where she had been. He watched as she erupted again. Severus saw the long snaking S moving down the hill showing the trail where she had been. He watched as she finally glided up to him laughing. The joy radiating off of her was palpable. There was snow covering her, she reached up and wiped melting snow from her rosy cheeks, and took her spectacles off. Squinting she looked around for something, her eyelashes sparkling white from the snow on them, and he watched as her eyes settled on him.

“Excuse me,” she said as she reached for the shoulder cape of his robes. He felt his eyebrow shoot up and she began to dry her spectacles on his clothes. He was so shocked that he couldn’t react before she was done and had replaced them on her face.

“That should hold me for a while!” She breathed as she picked up her pack. “Well, I guess we should head along.”

Finally, Severus gathered his wits, “What was that? You tell me to keep to the deep woods because of the avalanche danger, you lecture me about the overwhelming danger and then you throw yourself off the first cliff you see? With me standing at the bottom?” Severus was working himself up into a temper. He couldn’t believe her gall.

As he stood there glaring at her, having drawn himself up into his fullest height, he was a little surprised to see a look of sheepishness cross her face.

“You are right, Professor Snape,” she admitted as she took the coiled skins out of her jacket and put them back into the pack, “not about the danger on this hill. But, I should have let you know what I was doing. The hill is a favorite of mine. It’s called Raspberry Bowl. In the summer, wild raspberries grow all across here, and I’ll bring a book down and read in the sun, and munch on the berries. In the winter, I usually cross the canyon further up, on my way to town in order to align my path down with this pitch. It is short and not very steep. Because of the way storms move through this area, it doesn’t receive the snow load that the surrounding hills do, so it’s not prone to slides. But there was no way for you to know that, I didn’t mean to cause you worry. I just wanted one last moment before returning.” She hung her head in contrition as she closed up her pack.

Severus found his anger dissolving. ‘Of course,’ he thought, ‘this must represent such freedom to her.’

“Let’s just keep moving.” he said simply, no longer feeling anger burning in his chest.

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As they moved down the long and steep valley, Severus found himself wondering if her desire for freedom had completely over-ridden her common sense.

“What about the lack of magic, Miss Granger,” he asked her, “aren’t you worried about defending yourself if a rogue Death Eater were to find you?”

She floated around him, “Not really, that was why I moved up here. You forget, I’m Muggleborn, I spent my childhood without magic, and I spent my holidays skiing with my parents even after I came to Hogwarts, this is a natural extension of that. With no magic, I am at a distinct advantage. First, how many Death Eaters do you know who would stoop to asking a Muggle for help navigating around up here? Secondly, stripped of their ability to use magic, they’re not very scary. But finally, I can hop on my skies and be off this mountain before they could blink. They’d be pretty easy to spot up here, I think.”

Severus thought about this in silence for a while as they moved on. The speed in which Miss Granger had moved down the hill was much faster than he was capable of on snowshoes, even with his long legs. Perhaps she had a point.

‘Still,’ the thought tickled his brain. ‘It would still be possible that the motivation for revenge would drive some to extremes.’

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A few more miles down, they came to a confluence of several massive exposed mountain faces. Severus looked up and down, but he could see no easy way around, the faces formed a great curving cirque.

“Up there is the entrance to the backcountry from another resort. When it hasn’t been storming, that’s the route I come in from the University. But all the fresh snow makes that route too dangerous.” He kept peering up to the top of the ragged peaks as Miss Granger spoke to him. “We’re going to head to town instead, it’s safer this way.”

Severus thought about the map that Minerva had shown him in her office. There was a large city in the valley on the other side of those peaks, and he knew her school was located down there. But he hadn’t thought about the easier access it might bring. He had seen the resort near the little town as he walked up yesterday morning; there was even a lift contraption that came right into town. Carrying people up to the top of the resort. If there was another resort on the other side of those peaks, he could have simply ridden one of those lifts up and walked down. It would have saved him a great deal of time.

Sighing, Severus waited for her to tell him which way they were going to go, he hoped they would head down along the trees to skirt this expanse, rather than have to climb up and around. Therefore, he was a little puzzled when she took a few steps out onto the open snow.

As she stood in the sunlight, a light breeze came up and lifted snow off of the trees. The air filled with tiny ice crystals, dancing around sparkling in the sunlight. Severus felt his breath catch as Miss Granger turned to look at him. Her hair was pulled back into a braid, but soft puffs of brown curls had come loose and framed her face. Her smooth lips were curved up in a gentle smile. He looked at her eyes, only to be confronted by his own reflection in the lenses of her spectacles. The curved lenses distorted his image, accentuating everything he disliked about his face, his nose was even larger, his chin and forehead were smaller, and his lips were stretched into a grotesque grimace. Dragging his eyes away from his distorted reflection, he was startled as he looked at her tan healthy face in the sparkling ice filled sunlight. ‘She’s beautiful!’ he thought to himself.

“This is going to be the most dangerous part of our journey, Professor,” she said to him. “If there is going to be a slide, this is the most likely place for it. Do you see the cornice up there?”

He followed her pointing finger to the top of the peak; there was a massive curving wave of snow hanging out into the cold thin air. He nodded.

“Vibrations of any kind can set that loose. Stomping around, even sound can disrupt it, and if that happens, this whole face will come crashing down on us. Understand?”

“Yes, Miss Granger,” he said solemnly. He was certain that in this case, she knew better than him the dangers in this environment.

“Ok, so I am going to go about a third of the way out, if it rips free, you’ll just see me skiing like hell to get to the tree line on this side before the wall gets here. If it seems stable enough, I’ll turn around and wave you across. Just walk past me, taking soft steps, keep going until you reach the trees. Don’t stop, and don’t talk. Nothing may happen, the slope may be stable, but it’s better to be safe. I’ll wait until you are almost there and then I’ll follow.” She turned and began to move across the steep slope.

When she had gone a little ways, she turned and silently waved him on. Severus carefully stepped out onto the wide expanse of snow and made his way gingerly across the slope. He took care to place his snowshoes down softly; he cringed as each step made a squeaky, crunchy sound. After a few minutes, he passed Miss Granger and continued on, keeping his eyes only on the trees on the far side. When he was almost there, he heard a sharp inhalation behind him. He turned and saw Miss Granger looking up the slope, alarmed.

“Professor…” she started. He looked up the slope and saw six, no seven, figures running down through the snow at them. It only took a fraction of a second to recognize a few of them as Death Eaters. ‘If some are, than all are,’ he thought.

“Run.” she finished.

Severus turned around to come back to her, as she was reaching into her coat. She pulled out the gun and pointed it up towards the massive cornice. She fired one shot, and the ‘CRACK’ echoed and reverberated through the valley below. But the rumbling didn’t fade; instead Severus felt it getting louder. He looked up at the cornice and saw it falling; it was so large that it almost appeared to be falling in slow motion. The rumbling grew louder, until Severus could feel it in his chest.

“RUN!!!” She screamed.

He could barely hear her over the thunderous noise, as the mountain seemed to come down around them. He watched in horror as she turned to race down the hill on her skis, he was shocked at how fast she was moving. He glanced back up in time to see the Death Eaters fall as the snow underneath them turned to into an angry white liquid, swallowing their bodies. He whipped around, robes billowing behind him and ran for safety, making it into the trees as he heard the massive wall of snow and ice rip past behind him.

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A/N: Yes, I know. It’s one hell of a cliffy. But what can I say? *evil grin* You will just have to forgive me and wait for the next chapter. Oh, and I love, love, love the reviews. Keep them coming, they are great motivation!

Sheedy- Thanks, I will!

Moyra- Yeah, I couldn’t resist getting them all naked, even though they certainly wouldn’t ‘have fun’ the first time they saw each other after all those years.