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In Whisky Veritas	By : luthien Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 1238 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-In Whisky Veritas
- 1
In Whisky Veritas
By Luthien
It had been an unexpectedly successful gathering, Hermione Granger thought with some surprise as she gazed about her through somewhat bleary eyes and made note of what some of the other occupants of the room were up to. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were seated on the rather worn leather-upholstered settee across the room from her, engaged in quiet and earnest conversation. At least, they had been not all that long ago. Taking a good look at them now, she noticed that they were smiling slightly. As she continuedwatcwatch, Sirius threw back his head and laughed out loud while Remus covered his face with one hand as if trying to stop himself from joining in. Hermione considered this rather surprising development for a moment. She rather thought that she'd seen them moving back and forth between their seat and the punchbowl in the corner throughout the evening, so that probably accounted for their change in mood. She was glad that at least they could find something to laugh about.

A sudden shout from somewhere off to her right caught her attention. She looked around to find that Harry and Ron, her best friends, were waving goodbye to her from the open doorway. They each had an arm wrapped around the other's shoulders, but Hermione suspected that was mostly in the cause of their staying more or less upright rather than an indication of the deep and loyal friendship which existed between the two young men. It looked as though Sirius and Remus weren't the only ones who'd been making inroads into the punch this evening.

"Boys," Hermione muttered under her breath as she waved back at them in farewell.

Her eyes wandered down the length of the room. She was surprised to find that the crowd had thinned out considerably since earlier. Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall - hat slightly askew on her head but otherwise the usual picture of dignified self-possession - were still chatting together by the fireplace, but they seemed to be the only ones remaining apart from herself and the two men on the settee, who had now subsided into a fit of very unbecoming giggles. When had everyone else left? More to the point, where was their host? He definitely shouldn't have left the gathering while there were still guests present. Of course, Hermione didn't think that the conventions of hospitality really mattered all that much to Severus Snape. On the other hand, Snape was the last person Hermione would expect to leave any visitors to their own devices when in his private rooms, particularly when many of those visitors had been imbibing steadily throughout the evening, and most especially when their number included Harry Potter - not to mention Sirius Black.

Hermione wondered idly just how Snape had been talked into hosting this... Well, it was more than just a gathering, really. This party, then. How had Snape ended up hosting it? Perhaps Dumbledore had leaned on him a little? It was certainly well past Snape's turn to host one of their periodic gatherings, but she'd never known him to do so before. He rarely attended social gatherings except, Hermione suspected, when Dumbledore coerc- leaned on him a little.

She looked around the room again. Sirius and Remus had recovered from their giggle fit, though the corner of Remus' mouth kept twitching alarmingly at frequent intervals. Both men had got to their feet and appeared to be making ready to depart. They were doing slightly better than Harry and Ron in that they didn't require support to remain upright and swayed only a very little.

Hermione couldn't help feeling just a tiny bit disapproving. What was it about men that they always seemed to have to drink far too much in the name of having a good time? She wished that Harry and Ron - and indeed most of the men belonging to the Order - would realise that it was possible to let your hair down without getting perfectly plastered in the process. It wasn't that she was opposed to drinking at all; it was just drinking to excess that she could live without. She herself had been drunk before, in fact. Not often, it was true, but she'd certainly had more to drink than might be considered strictly prudent on more than one occasion in the past.

Now, as she leaned back against one leg of the chair that she seemed to be propped up against and considered her own legs as they stretched out before her on the not-as-soft-as-it-appeared charcoal grey rug, she reflected that this might even be one of those times when she'd had more to drink than might be considered strictly prudent. At least you didn't see her swaying and stumbling around, or grabbing hold of someone else for support like some people, though. As always, Hermione's dignity remained intact.

She reached for the bottle that was sitting on the floor beside her, that should have been sitting on the floor beside her but... Oh yes, there it was. She picked it up, then glanced around trying to locate the glass she'd been drinking from. It proved easier to find, luckily, since it turned out that she was still holding it in her other hand. She held the glass at eye level, very close to her face, then put it down on the rug when she realised she needed both hands to uncork the bottle. That task accomplished, she held both glass and bottle in front of her eyes, so it was quite impossible for her to see anything else, then gingerly tipped the bottle sideways, making sure that the mouth of the bottle was positioned well past the lip of the glass as she did so. Despite the extra care she took, rather more of Ogden's Special Blend Firewhisky - aged 21 years in a dragon-hide-lined barrel guarded by nine-tentacled sea monsters at the bottom of a lake, according to the rather garish label - ended up in her glass than she'd intended. In fact, again despite her extra care, so much whisky ended up in the glass that some of it sloshed over the side and splashed onto her robes. Hermione sighed sadly. The level of whisky left in the bottle was getting alarmingly low and she wasn't sure whether there was any more where it had come from - or, indeed, exactly where it had come from in the first place.

It was really very depressing. She gazed at the fiery liquid in her glass. In a blinding flash of insight of the sort which had made her invaluable to all sorts of people - starting with Harry and Ron during their school days and continuing on right up to her present, in some ways even more dangerous and hair-raising, occupation which was- which was- She furrowed her brow in annoyance. One thing about drinking a little more than might be considered strictly prudent, it certainly played havoc with your train of thought. What had she been thinking about? Oh yes: the whisky would last longer - and so might she - if she managed to get her hands on some sort of mixer to go with it.

Standing up proved rather more difficult than Hermione had anticipated. She made it to her feet without mishap, though mishap had been a near thing once or twice on the way up when she'd unaccountably almost lost her balance. She found that she was clutching tightly to the high back of the chair she'd been leaning against. One by one, she released her fingers from their grip on the dark, shiny wood, closed her eyes against the too-bright room and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again she found that the room was still far too bright and somehow also a bit fuzzy. She wondered how that could be. She also wondered when the lights had been turned up. She didn't remember the lights in this room ever being so bright before.

"My dear?"

Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin. Professor Dumbledore was standing at her elbow, Professor McGonagall by his side.

"My dear Hermione, I didn't mean to startle you," Dumbledore said. "We merely wished to bid you good night."

Hermione forced a smile. "So early?" she asked. Dumbledore's expression became a little more serious at that. Hermione wondered why.

"It's past midnight," said McGonagall. "Would you care to walk back with us? Your rooms are on our way."

Hermione bristled slightly at that. After... everything, and they still treated her as though she was a child who needed watching. Or perhaps it was because she had already failed - and failed so spectacularly and irrevocably - that they had ceased to trust her to take care even of herself. That must have been what made her reply, just a trifle coldly, "There's no need, thank you all the same. I think I might finish my drink and then help with the cleaning up before I leave."

"As you wish. Good night, my dear." That was Dumbledore again. McGonagall looked as if she would have liked to say more, but instead she took her cue from the headmaster and murmured a good night before they turned and left the room. t wat was only after they'd gone that Hermione realised she should have asked them if they knew where Snape was. He was still nowhere to be seen, and it was unlikely that Dumbledore or McGonagall would depart without bidding farewell to their host.

Hermione looked around the room, wincing as the sudden movement of her head caused the room to spin out of control for a moment. Looking down - away from the light - she noticed her glass waiting on the side-table where she'd deposited it before getting up off the rug. She might as well go in search of that mixer and finish her drink while she waited for Snape to reappear.

There was no such thing as Coke, or anything remotely similar, to be found in a Wizarding kitchen. It appeared that wizards hadn't quite got the hang of ginger ale yet, either - or, at least, Snape hadn't. His tiny kitchen was quite bare of anything remotely resembling a mixer. In the end, Hermione settled for a few cubes of ice she found in a No-Melt ice bucket half-obscured behind the varied array of mostly-empty bottles which littered the counter. After considering the bucket for a moment, Hermione picked it up and returned to the living room, where the bottle of Ogden's Special Blend awaited her.

The bottle was still there, on the floor, exactly where she'd left it. However, retrieving it proved to be more difficult than she'd anticipated. She quickly discovered that bending over wot aot a good idea, and crouching down to bottle level was quite simply out of the question. Perhaps if she sat down in the chair she could reach the bottle? She tried that. It was a long way down into the chair. The cushion hissed softly as she subsided into it. She looked over the side of the chair. It still seemed to be a fair distance down to the floor where the bottle waited, maybe further than she could reach. She leaned forward and slightly to one side. The chair leather was old and slippery and the soft fabric of her robes slid easily against it as she stretched out her fingers towards the bottle. Further, further...

Hermione landed in an undignified heap on the floor. She leaned her head into the side of the chair and laughed helplessly until her laughter turned to choking. She swallowed hard, took a deep breath and then looked around for the bottle. Luckily, she hadn't knocked it over in her descent to the floor. Its contents were still intact. She sat up, then reached up to the tabletop above her and felt around carefully until her fingertips brushed across the side of her glass and the colder surface of the ice bucket. She managed to bring them both down to her level without mishap - or further mishap, anyway - then leaned back against her favoured chair leg and sipped slowly at the drink.

The room was silent. Dumbledore and McGonagall had been the last to depart and there was still no sign of Snape. There was no one else present. The truth of the fact finally penetrated her brain. "Oh, what the hell," she said, and downed the contents of her glass in one gulp - or tried to. Even with the ice, the whisky was still rather strong, and the ice cubes themselves got in the way. She choked, then spluttered, and whisky went everywhere. Hermione looked down at her robes, now streaked liberally with whisky. Sighing, she pulled her wand out of the wand pocket sewn into her sleeve, and cast the familiar clean-up charm. Only it wouldn't work. She rather suspected that she wasn't saying the words quite properly, but the more she tried the worse she seemed to get. She wanted to cry with frustration. But she didn't. She was Hermione Granger and she didn't cry over spilt... whisky. Instead, she topped up her glass with another generous dollop of Ogden's, added an extra ice cube for good measure, took a rather large but cautious sip, and let her head sink back against the seat of the chair.

***

Hermione awakened just enough to realise that she'd been asleep. Her mouth felt dry and fuzzy, as though fur had started growing on her teeth and tongue, and for an instant she worried that she'd been hexed. But no, that wasn't right. Last night she'd been to one of those wind-down gatherings Professor Dumbledore insisted they hold from time to time, and nothing untoward had happened there. She stretched slightly, then snuggled her face against the warm, slightly prickly pillowslip. No, that wasn't right, either. Pillowslips weren't made from wool, even wool of such fine quality. The fabric shifted slightly against her cheek and she realised that there was bone and muscle beneath it. Not really surprising given that trousers generally didn't move like that unless they were encasing someone's leg, and what she felt beneath her cheek was nothing if not a trouser leg.

The leg moved a little more, allowing her slightly more room, and Hermione realised she could feel the side of the chair seat against her upper back; she was still on the floor in much the same position as she'd been when she'd fallen asleep, except that now she was sitting between a pair of long, wool-clad legs and a pair of hands had slipped under her shirt and started firmly kneading her shoulders.

Hermione supposed she should have a few questions about just how she'd ended up in her current position. She was the one who asked the questions, after all. That was her major function in life. That, and finding answers to the questions. It was probably best if she stuck with doing that; she'd recently proved quite conclusively that she wasn't good for much else. But she wasn't going to think about that. Not tonight. That was the whole point of gatherings like tonight, wasn't it? To drink a little more than might be considered strictly prudent, to unwind, and to forget, at least for one night.

No thinking about past or future, then. She would limit herself to questions concerning the here and now. One of the first questions should probably be: who was sitting behind her, and how many of her buttons had he - those legs definitely belonged to a he - undone in order to loosen her shirt enough to get his hands under there in the first place? The fingers continued to move gently against her skin, warm and comforting. She didn't really want to disrupt that rhythmic motion. Why question it? Just for once, she would rather simply accept than try to analyse and question.

And it wasn't as if the questions that had occurred to her really needed asking, since she knew quite well who had to be the owner of those hands.

She leaned back into the firm, unceasing motion of the hands on her shoulders. The tension was leaving her body. She could barely remember what reason she had to be tense now. The lights were finally, blessedly dim - or was it that the lights had been turned out and only the glow of the fire remained? - and she was more than ready to relax. She let her head tip back a little further and pushed back against the attentive hands. They ceased their movement, but remained lying lightly, palm down, against her skin. Hermione held her breath for the space of a heartbeat, wondering if she had been wrong to move and so indicate that she had awoken.

It wasn't a surprise - more like relief - when a finger slid under her bra-strap, then away again.

A question.

Hermione shrugged slightly so that the strap slid over her shoulder and down her arm.

An answer.

One of the hands slid lower, down into her bra, and cupped her breast; then the other hand was caressing her too. Hermione leant forward into the caress; she was done with questions and answers for the moment, done with all other considerations. Her breasts felt so heavy and warm, but his hands were warmer. Her breasts had been waiting for those hands, waiting for them to-

She gasped as the heels of his hands settled along the outside curve of her breasts, close to her ribs, and pushed them close together. Not so gentle now, and even better than before. One hand moved up so that the wrist lay against her right nipple, fingertips resting gently on the left. The fingers began to move in a feather-light touch back and forth. The breath caught sharply in Hermione's throat and she pushed forward against the teasing hand. More, she thought. More.

She didn't think she'd said it out loud, but the deft fingers obliged, anyway, their pressure firming as they circled their target. Hermione sighed deeply. Better.

A sudden twist between thumb and forefinger had her crying out as an answering sensation tugged suddenly between her legs. Abruptly, the attention to her breasts was not enough. She wanted more than that. More. But the fingers went back to their previous butterfly touch. She whimpered in frustration. She wanted more but the movement was all tease. She hated the feeling of powerlessness.

"Patience," a dark voice murmured against her ear.

That made it all the worse. She didn't want to be patient, didn't want to abide by anyone else's rules. She wanted to be in control. Of anything. Of herself. She regretted the alcohol she'd consumed. Intensely. Her mind was her best weapon and it was letting her down. She could feel herself trying to concentrate, and failing. She turned her head, frustration almost overwhelming her, and her cheek came up against more prickly wool. It wasn't a leg that she could feel beneath it this time, though.

A wicked thought crossed Hermione's mind. Snape wasn't expecting a counterattack, so to speak. She felt around on the floor beside her for her wand. She almost knocked over the abandoned Ogden's bottle in the process - she heard a faint chuckle sound from above at that. So he thought her actions were amusing, did he? - but eventually her fingers closed around the familiar length of wood.

Hermione closed her eyes, trying to remember the appropriate spell. 'D'. It definitely began with 'D'. She was sure of that, so why couldn't she remember the rest of it? Well, it was obvious why she couldn't remember the rest of it. That didn't in any way reconcile her to the fact that she couldn't remember a really quite simple charm. 'D'. 'De'? A charm came to mind. It wasn't exactly what she wanted but was close enough to achieve her main objective. It was also quite an easy spell to say, and it was unlikely that her tongue would trip over it. Then again, the fact that she was in less than full possession of her senses was probably a good reason not to do anything at all. But if she didn't do anything then he would win. Her breath caught as the flat of his hand skimmed over one nipple, and that decided her.

"Denudio," she said rashly, before she had a chance to change her mind again.

Snape's hands stilled against her skin. After a long moment, he remarked, "I believe Divestus would have better suited your purpose, assuming that your intention was to remove our clothes rather than to obliterate them." He paused, but she said nothing in response. What could she say? She was painfully aware that words were not her friend tonight. "You do realise that if your wand had touched my skin I'd be completely bald now?" Snape continued, fury barely concealed beneath an overly conversational tone. At that, Hermione shrugged his hands from her shoulders and, with some difficulty, turned herself around to face him.

He was looking down at her, fingers steepled in front of his bare chest, eyeing her abundant curls speculatively. Hermione clutched at her hair protectively; if nothing else, it gave her something to do while she considered how best to make her next move.

She looked up at him. Bare skin greeted her gaze at every turn, except in one or two places where he was, mercifully, still hirsute. His eyes were bright with rage, and Hermione thought it would be wise not to delay her next move for too long. Her eyes dropped lower. His cock was still hard, though perhaps not quite as hard as it had felt when she'd rested her cheek against his trousers a minute or two ago.

She delayed no longer. Getting up on her knees, she leaned forward and took him in her mouth. She felt him start with surprise, but he didn't push her away, perhaps because he was all too aware that her wand was still gripped tightly in her hand. Hermione imagined that most wizards would get a tad nervous when they found themselves suddenly naked and in close proximity to a witch who had just demonstrated that she couldn't be relied upon for total accuracy when using her wand.

Her lips moved right down the hard length of him before pulling back slowly. She swirled honguongue lightly across the head, and he rewarded her with a jerk of the hips. Good. He wasn't the only one who could draw a response from someone less than willing to submit herself - or himself - to the control of another. He made a sound of pleasure as she ran her tongue along the underside of his cock, then enveloped him again. She sucked at his erection as he pushed up hard into her mouth, savouring the taste of him as much as she savoured the power that was hers.

Before long, he was matching her movements, point and counterpoint, and they moved together in perfect harmony. Her hands were clasped around his hips, pulling him forward in the chair, and his hands were on her shoulders, fingers gripping so hard that she was sure he would leave marks on her skin.

She was going to make him come. She was going to make him lie there, spent and panting, reduced down to his bare humanity. It would all be because of her power, con control. She felt him speed up the pace, and she stilled her mouth, pushing her hands hard against his hips to slow him. His fingernails dug into her shoulders and she bit back a cry of pain. Then there was sudden pressure against her chest, his knees were pressing in beneath her arms, she realised, and abruptly his erection was gone from her mouth. She was on her back and spread out before him on the rug before she realised what had happened.

He pulled her legs apart, quite gently, then knelt between her ankles, surveying the sight that met his eyes. Hermione squirmed, self-conscious beneath his scrutiny, and tried to sit up. Besides, she had to regain control of the situation. But he was ready for her. He moved forward, one leg outside hers now, and put his arms around her, then let gravity topple them both down onto rug,rug, their legs entangled.

They were lying face to face. She could look straight into the blackness of hyes,yes, feel the slight scratch of stubble against her cheek and the slippery strands of a lock of his hair, still as greasy as ever, lying against her neck.

"My turn," he said, disentangling himself from her and moving swiftly down her body until a moment later she felt his warm breath between her thighs. Then she felt his lips on her, gentle and probing, before his mouth opened, surprisingly cool and wet against her. No one had ever... A slight nudge nearby confused her for a moment, but then she realised it must be his nose. She felt a semi-hysterical desire to giggle and a wish to share the joke with Harry and Ron. Somehow, she suspected that they wouldn't get it.

He ran his tongue up the middle of her, teasing at her clitoris, at the very core of her, then down again to where she lay open, wet and - unaccountably, considering his most recent devious actions - aching for him and- Oh God. His nose. His tongue was down there, and his nose was there and... wizards weren't supposed to know how to do things like that! They certainly shouldn't be allowed to do things like that. Snape shouldn't be allowed to do things like that.

She didn't attempt to struggle. After a while, a long, low moan escaped her lips.

Abruptly, his tongue was gone from her. So was his nose. He shouldn't be allowed to do that, either! She tilted her head up slightly and found that he was kneeling between her legs, looking down at her, a not comple ple pleasant smile playing on his lips.

"Two can play at that game, Hermione. Next time you want to play it, choose someone with a little less experience of life." He got to his feet. Hermione lay there, feeling more bereft than she probably had any right to. She wondered if he was just going to leave her there, naked and alone. He was certainly quite capable of doing such a thing, without as much as a whit of compunction.

"Come to bed," he said, walking away from her towards the bedroom door. It wasn't strictly an order, but it was much more uncompromising than an invitation. As invitations went, it was graceless, to say the least.

He stopped in the doorway and turned to look back at her with a hard-eyed gaze. "Take what you want from me. I fully intend to take what I want from you."

"How could a girl possibly resist such an offer?" she replied, not attempting to keep the irony out of her voice.

But she got to her feet - somehow - and followed him into the bedroom.

They were on each other before she even felt the cool linen of the sheet against her bare skin. They weren't in particular haste - at least at first - but they weren't exactly gentle, either. Hands, lips, tongues, legs, teeth, they came together, trying with all their might to wrench response from the other.

It didn't take all that long to push her back to the brink; she almost sobbed with relief as she felt him drive up into her from beneath, flat on his back below her, dark eyes glistening with purpose. She was sure she heard him gasp. She moved above him, keeping close watch on his face as she rocked back and forth, arching back, making him respond. A sound escaped him, and then his hands were on her hips, holding her in place, forcing her to stillness.

"Slowly," he said softly, loosening his grip but not taking his hands away.

"Slowly," she agreed with a tiny smile. Two could play at this game, too. She moved, nearly as slow as a glacier and just as unstoppable, gripping him tight within her and pushing herself up until she ached with need - she hoped that he was aching, too - then down again. Up and down again, a little faster now. She counted the movements of her hips as she would the beat to a slow, slow song: one and, two and, three and... Just as she reached 'four' for the third time, he thrust up into her, finally unable resise tee temptation.

She smiled another tiny smile.

And then she gasped. His hands were on her breasts again, strong and firm, fingertips moving harder over her nipples but taking care to tease without hurting, making love to them, almost. She let out a faint moan. He was cheating, distracting her, making her feel, forcing her towards the end. But she didn't push his hands away, instead pushing herself forward even further as she continued to rock back and forth, incorporating his attentions to her breasts into the rhythm.

After everything, after their competition for control, after all the build-up, it crept up on her in the end. Slow, so slow, and yet so incredibly... The unceasing movement, just where she needed it, was pushing her closer and closer. The feeling coiled inside her. Every hard, deliberate stroke was an agony of almost. She wanted more, she needed more. It was simultaneously hard and good and not enough, going on on on until she wanted to scream and she was going to, she was going to-

The tension broke. It uncoiled deep in her belly and took her over completely, swallowing her up so that all the universe was sensation. She could hear herself crying out, so far away that there was no way she could stop it. On and on it went and still she kept moving, riding out the ripples of feeling even as she continued to ride him.

Gradually it ebbed away and she came back to herself enough to realise that she was clutching the brass bedhead with one hand to support herself, sweat was sliding down her neck and her head was thrown back so far that her curls were tickling the middle of her back. She grabbed her hair in her free hand, looked around for the hairclip which must have fallen out at some point since they'd got into bed, and saw that he was watching her. Black eyes glittered as he looked up at her. The look wasn't a comfortable one and reminded her rather disconcertingly of the looks he had favoured her with a thousand years ago when she had been a schoolgirl and he her teacher. He hadn't liked her, then. He hadn't liked any of the Gryffindors: Ron, Harry - especially Harry - Dean and Seamus, Lavender and Parvati, Neville... The breath caught in her throat.

"Stop it," he said. "Stop wallowing in guilt." His voice cracked like a whip, cutting through the silence. His eyes glittered with anger.

"I beg your pardon?" Hermione choked out.

"Stop indulging yourself. You're no use to the cause at all if you fall down in a heap of self-recrimination because of something beyond your control."

Hermione stared at him, shocked into speechlessness.

"They're all worried about you," he continued relentlessly. He reached up quickly and grabbed her by the shoulders when she tried to turn away, pulling her down so close that she could feel his breath against her cheeks, forcing her to look him right in the eye. "Potter and Weasley spend half their time checking that you're all right rather than applying themselves to the job at hand. The headmaster has far greater worries, and yet you allow your weakness to add to his burden. Even Black and Lupin... " His lip curled back in disdain, whether directed at her or at the thought of the two men whose presence he barely tolerated, it was hard to say. "They shouldn't pander to you. I certainly won't. None of us has the luxury of time to waste on anything so inconsequential." He paused. "Unless, of course, it really was your fault?" He raised one eyebrow questioningly.

By this time, Hermione was shaking with indignation. She found her voice. "Of course it wasn't my fault!"

"Really? Then why have you been moping around ever since and generally acting as though you've done something Unforgivable?"

"I haven't! I-" Hermione broke off, aware that her protests sounded disturbingly like the denials of a child caught red-handed committing some misdemeanour. She tried again. "You don't know, you don't know what it was like. You weren't there." She was dismayed to hear the pleading note in her voice. Where had that come from?

"No, I wasn't there, but I can say with certainty that no power on earth could have saved Longbottom, Hermione. We all know that. He knew it. He did what he had to. Now you have to get on with what you have to do."

"That's really all you care about, isn't it?" asked Hermione, horrified despite how many years she'd known Snape and known what he was capable of saying and doing. She wrenched herself out of his grasp. He let her go. "It doesn't matter to you that Neville's..." She still couldn't say it.

"Yes?" he enquired. Bastard. He was just lying there, smiling a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Neville's dead," she said in a whisper so harsh the words hurt the back of her throat. "You always hated him. I really shouldn't be surprised that you don't care that he's dead. You're probably glad, aren't you?"

"You're drunk." His voice was hard.

"I might be drunk, but I'm still right! Aren't I?"

"He is dead and nothing will change that." Snape's voice sounded calm and even, but his eyes were still angry. "Tell me, why do you consider that to be your fault?"

She tried to get away from him then. At her sudden movement sli slid out of her, no longer hard, and she felt the warm gush of fluid between her legs. She paused to look at him in surprise. She hadn't felt him come, but of course he must have. He'd very successfully distracted her from noticing, she realised.

"I told you I intended to take what I wanted." The look he returned her was self-satisfied, to say the least. She wanted to wipe that look off his face. Perhaps it was that renewed anger which made her flop down on the bed beside him rather than jump up and escape back to the safety of her own quarters. She refused to give him the satisfaction of such an easy victory.

She heard him reach for his wand and mutter a quick clean-up charm - the one she hadn't been able to get right when she'd attempted to clean up the spilt Firewhisky earlier - and then they lay there side by side in silence. Hermione looked up at the ceiling; anywhere but at him.

"You haven't answered my question, Miss Granger." The tone was reminiscent of his classroom voice, though Hermione couldn't ever remember him saying those particular words to her before. Hadn't she been the irritating know-it-all who always had an answer, even when the teacher didn't want one? A tiny part of her wanted to laugh at that.

"Why was it my fault?" she asked the ceiling. Yes, this was definitely easier than looking at him, but not by much. "In what way wasn't it my fault? I was there, and he died."

Snape made a noise of disgust. "You need to grow up, Hermione. You need to realise that not everything that happens in the world is about you." He paused. "Stop being a selfish little girl."

The words stung. "How can you sayt?"t?" She propped herself up on one elbow and glared down at him even as somewhere beneath her anger she knew full well that he had intended the words to get to her and that she was giving him the response he wanted.

"Did you really think you could protect Longbottom from danger all the rest of your lives? That was foolishly optimistic of you, especially considering you couldn't even keep him safe from the 'evil Potions master' when you were at school - and especially considering the world we live in and the tasks that are ours to carry out."

Hermione was shaking. "You're always so horrible," she said. "Why are you so horrible? Why are you trying to make it hurt more?"

His lip curled back into a well-practised sneer. "Perhaps if you answered even one of my questions you would find my behaviour to be less 'horrible'." Then, quick as a flash: "Why do you blame yourself? Tell me!"

He could move very quickly when he so chose and suddenly Hermione found herself lying flat on her back, the long body on top of her pushing her down into the mattress and a pair of hands clutching at either side of her face and forcing her to look straight into black eyes blazing with fury.

"I couldn't do anything," she said in a small voice. "I'd been Petrified. All I could do was lie there and watch and Neville... He turned over the cauldron. He stopped them from finishing the potion, and he drew their attention away from me. He saved me. And he... he..."

She couldn't go on. She bit her lip, hard, welcoming the small pain as her teeth cut into her bottom lip. She refused to cry in front of him.

"I'm still waiting to hear why it was your fault," he said, still an inch away from her face.

She shut her eyes so she wouldn't have to continue seeing the fierce look in his which demanded an answer from her even more than did the implacable voice.

"I've just told you," she said dully. "I couldn't do anything, and he... he died."

"All of which was the fault of the Death Eaters," Snape surprised her by saying. "You are blameless," he said, in the gentlest voice she could ever remember hearing from him.

She trembled.

"All of us involved in this task hold a great weight of responsibility for the things that we actually do; borrowing responsibility for the actions of others is too heavy a burden for anyone, including Miss Hermione Granger. You are no use to anyone if you incapacitate yourself through needless guilt. Save your guilt for deeds that really are your fault."

Snape released his hold on her face and moved away from her. Hermione felt the mattress sink as he stretched out beside her again. He was silent; it seemed that he was finished, at least for the moment. She rubbed one hand across her eyes wearily. He'd given her a lot to think about. Not her fault. It was a hard truth. It would be easier to let herself continue to feel guilty.

Of course, it wasn't like her to settle for the easy path. To be true to herself she had to try to let go of her guilt over what had happened to Neville. Besides, there were other things to be guilty about if she really wanted to consider them, like letting her unhappiness distract the others and making them less effective in carrying out their own tasks because they were worrying about her. If Harry or Ron failed to return one day because their minds hadn't been one hundred percent focused on what they were doing...

She swallowed hard. Damn Snape. He knew. Damn him for being right.

"Is it such a damning condemnation to admit that you are not all-powerful and that you are capable of failure?" He let out a deep, unhappy breath, and it occurred to her that some of what he'd said might have been directed at himself as much as at her.

"You're not horrible. Not all the time," she said. "I didn't really mean that."

His lips quirked and she realised what a very backhanded compliment she'd just delivered. Barely an apology at all.

She sat up in bed, then leaned across him, hands sinking into the soft pillow on either side of his head. He was regarding her a trifle warily, she thought.

"Thank you," she said, and kissed him. He lay there beneath her, not pushing her away, allowing the kiss, but not responding to it, either. After a moment, she drew back. Snape's dark eyes were still glittering, but she didn't think it was with anger this time.

"I've received worse thanks in my time," he said, then twined his arms around her neck and pulled her down to him again. This kiss lasted much longer. His mouth was hard and urgent against hers, warm and wet and with a lingering aftertaste that was all sex. Hermione shivered, and pulled away.

That taste was one she could get used to all too easily.

"I should probably be going," she said, covering the sudden rush of awkwardness that consumed her by looking around for her wand. Hermione had no clothing, thanks to her own thoughtless spell, and needed her wand in order to remedy that situation. She could scarcely walk the corridors of Hogwarts stark naked, nor would she want to try to make it back to her rooms clad in anything Snape might deign to lend her. It was very late, but knowing her luck she was bound to meet someone on the way, and then there would be awkward questions she really didn't want to have to answer.

She couldn't see the wand anywhere in the bedroom and decided she must have left it in the sitting room. Hermione couldn't believe that she'd not noticed its absence all this while. She truly had managed to get more castaway this evening than at any other time in her life. She moved to get out of bed and go in search of the missing wand.

"Stay if you wish," Snape said carelessly over his shoulder as he reached for his own wand which was still sitting where he'd left it on the bedside table. "It won't be the first time, after all - nor, in all likelihood, the last."

Hermione went still. He'd never alluded to their nights together before. They'd never been planned, had always been the next best thing to well, not precisely accidental, but certainly incidental to other, more important activities. Acknowledging their connection now, even in such an ostensibly offhand manner... It wasn't a casual comment. With Severus Snape, every word always meant something. He was the last person to indulge in idle chit-chat.

She realised that he was still looking away from her, though surely he had found his wand by now. He was holding himself stiffly; she could see the tension outlined clearly in the set of his shoulders and the long line of his spine. She wondered at the cause - and then she knew.

So she wasn't the only one.

Hermione dropped her head down into her pillow and let her breath out in a long sigh. Snape didn't move.

"I imagine," she began carefully, "that it won't be the last time. At least, I hope it won't be."

He turned around at that, and lay back against his own pillows. The wand, it seemed, was forgotten.

"It seems that we are in accord, in that hope at least." He paused. "I wonder... do you think our wishes might prove to be similarly aligned on other matters in the future?"

"It's always possible," Hermione said. "Quite possible, I should think."

He didn't reply, but instead reached out for his wand and put out the lights with a swiftly muttered "Nox." Hermione heard him replace the wand on the bedside table and then he settled himself in the bed beside her, pulling the covers up over both of them. She was only half surprised when a hand reached across her hip and pulled her to him so that her back fitted snugly against his chest. Her hand found his where it still lay on her hip. His fingers squeezed her hand gently. Neither hand moved away.

Hermione snuggled into her pillow, suddenly tired. She knew she was smiling, and was grateful for the darkness as she seemed quite unable to stop. She tried to make herself feel guilty that she was here, alive, and able to smile while Neville was not and never would be again. But she didn't feel guilty about Neville any more, not really, certainly not all that much more than she did about being alive while others she had known were gone. Somehow, Snape's challenging words had lain bare her guilt, forced her to confront it, and admit to herself that it was baseless. She experienced a little pang when she thought of Neville; she always would. Perhaps that pang would feel stronger in the morning than it did at present, but she felt sure that it would remain a pang and not turn into the almost overwhelming guilt that any thought of Neville's fate had elicited from her until now. He had been her friend and he had died in terrible circumstances, but it wasn't her fault. It was suddenly possible to believe those words. Not her fault. And Neville wouldn't want her to be miserable; he would want her to take happiness where she could find it, she was sure. She choked back a laugh - she was fairly sure that he would be somewhat - all right, totally - horrified at the thought that Snape could be the source of any feeling remotely like happiness. But then, Neville had just barely reached adulthood when he'd died. He'd never had the chance to live as an adult, to experience adult relationships. Hermione would have to do that for both of them.

"I may regret inviting you to stay if you don't settle down and go to sleep some time soon," said a voice close to her ear. It was vintage Snape: irritated, acerbic, and totally in earnest if pushed.

"I'll be asleep before you know it," she retorted. And then, more softly: "You won't regret it."

His hand squeezed hers even tighter.

They slept.

finis
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