Fate\'s Pawns

Hermione fell to her knees, attempting to keep her puke on the grass. It wasn’t working. Her robes were soaked.

There was absolutely no way that she could approach Snape in her current state. She had to. She had promised she would be there. But she couldn’t do it drunk. But she could… no.

It was risky, but she could try it. If she wasn’t drunk she could be assured of it working.

But Snape would know right away that she was drunk. Him and that damned nose of his. Yes, she had to try it.

‘Sobrius’ she thought to herself. The sobriety charm. She attempted to say it, wand lazily pointed at head. Something went wrong, horribly wrong. What had she said? It certainly hadn’t come out as Sobrius.

She put her hands on her stomach and began puking anew. It felt as if her drunken state had intensified threefold.

She shook on the ground wretching for a good five minutes and then she suddenly felt perfectly normal.

Maybe it had worked.

She sat there for several moments contemplating what to do next. She felt perfectly fine, but she knew that wasn’t how the sobriety charm worked and she was worried.

She stared at the moon, thinking that all in all it had been a good night. She wasn’t sure she would do it again, but at least it was over and she was alive.

And then she heard voices from over the hilltop. She realized that she hadn’t taken the secret passageway back to Hogwarts in her drunken state and she silently cursed herself for it. If Filch found her like this… but it wasn’t Filch’s voice she heard.

She inched forward and peeked over the top of the hill. Three figures in black tapped three times on a wall attached to Slytherin tower. A passageway opened and they crept in. She recognized the uniforms – deatheaters.

‘Three bets who those three were’ she thought to herself. Everyone knew that Crabbe, Goyle, and Malfoy had taken the dark mark when Voldemort returned. Crabbe, Goyle, and Malfoy’s parents had all gone missing when Voldemort disappeared earlier this year. The entire wizarding world was on edge, believing that perhaps some plan was in the works. The Order knew differently however: Snape hadn’t been called to a meeting since the disappearance.

Gathering her senses, she realized that she had to warn someone. She was on her way to see Snape anyway: she would tell him. She decided the easiest way back into the castle would be through the secret passageway that the deatheaters had used. She decided to wait a few minutes before heading through – that way they wouldn’t catch her.

But then the world began to spin again. She went through the motions again, this time knowing what her muddled sobriety spell had done: she d und undoubtedly be going back and forth between a drunken stupor and complete sobriety for the remainder of the night.

When it passed, she shook her robes clean – as clean as they could be. She slowly crept her way to the wall. When the passageway opened she was surprised to see that it led down into the dungeons rather than up towards Slytherin tower. ‘Maybe it will bring me near to Snape’s office’ she thought to herself.

Hermione didn’t recognize the passageway she was in. She usually avoided the dungeons unless she had to work on a potions project. Glancing into one of the classrooms, notinoticed that it was almost completely covered in dust and grime. She wondered why these classrooms were never used.

As the time approached for her next bout of sickness, she stole away into one of the spare classrooms and braced herself against a trashcan. She was ready for it this time and she knew that meant it wouldn’t be as bad. But just as she thought this she heard cackling laughter.

‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Not Peeves. Please not Peeves. Anyone but Peeves.’

A head popped through the wall, resting soundly in two hands. It remained there staring at her. It wasn’t Peeves. Whoever it was, they sounded like Peeves, but it thankfully wasn’t him.

The wave of nausea hit her again and the world spun on edge. She was puking into a trashcan this time, but she felt something wet and sticky dripping down her back.

When it finally passed once again she turned her head to find one very naked ghost with an erection. The head it carried in its arms were making very lewd faces at her. With a quickness she stood up and exited the room, running down the hallway. As she did so she noticed that her robes were dripping off her. There was some kind of ectoplasmic goo dripping down her body, bits of her robes dissolved into it. No wonder these classrooms were never used. She wondered why this was never mentioned in Hogwarts: A History.

‘What a night. I get drunk, I futz up a sobriety spell and it backfires, I get lost in the dungeons, and now I have no clothing. Maybe I should just give up.’

Somehow she managed to sucessfully cast a clensing charm on herself, removing the goo from her body.

She was tired. She was naked. She was making uncharacteristically bad decisions. She wanted nothing else than to curl up into a ball and fall asleep. And so she did.

~~

Severus watched intently as one emotion after another passed over Hermione’s face. The girl was not one for hiding what she was feeling.

She was staring at him with those eyes again. The same look on her face as yesterday morning when… oh fuck, she was remembering yesterday morning. He had simply forgotten.
He calmed himself when he realized that she wouldn’t know he knew about it.

He watched as she fell to her knees on the floor. She was probably reliving what had happened to her last night. He wondered if she would tell him about it when she was done.