Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling nor have I asked for her permission to use the characters or anything else you recognise as hers. I make no money out of this, and my job pays so little that there's really no point in suing me. That being said, ALL HAIL QUEEN J.K.!
Summary: Hermione Granger enters a bar on a Wednesday evening, dead set to drink herself happy. She is joined by a dark, mysterious wizard, who she is not going to go home with. Is the barkeep related to Albus Dumbledore? (His eyes sure twinkle the same way.) Is she going to become a crazy cat lady? (Not that there was anything wrong with cat ladies.) Is Ron's fiancée already up the duff? (She's pretty sure she is.) A week and then some from Hermione's point of view, complete with insane abuse of parentheses.
Author's note: I haven't written fanfiction in over a decade. I have never written anything in Potter-verse. English is not my first language (not even my second, to be honest), so the fact that the text is understandable is all thanks to my lovely beta. That being said, I was bitten by a plot bunny, and here I am, trying to get this story out of my head, so I can get back to being a respectful grown-up. (Snort!)
Chapter 1 - Wednesday Comes Before Thursday
She placed her order and sat down by the counter, deliberately ignoring the questioning look the barkeep gave her. Yes, she was aware that it was only Wednesday and that her order would have better fit a Friday. She had arrived straight from the Ministry, simply transforming her robes to a smart suit that gathered a lot less attention in Muggle London. Not that her robes weren't smart, though. They were nice robes, business-like enough for her to blend in among the flocks of fellow Ministry rats - no wait, make that employees, Ministry employees - but cut skillfully enough to show that she, bluntly put, had something to show. The Muggle suit didn't quite billow the same way either. It didn't billow at all, which was a definite con.
She snapped out of her reverie as the barkeep set a tray with seven shots on it in front of her. She flashed him a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes as a sort of a signal of gratitude, suddenly too weary to actually verbalise, yet alone vocalise her thoughts. Unfortunately, the man interpreted that as as an opening for conversation.
"So, rough day at the office?" he asked, leaning against the counter. His eyes were twinkling, reminding her of Dumbledore. Merlin's balls, now that she looked at him, he sort of looked a bit like a young Dumbledore. He was about the same age as she was, she estimated, and very likely VERY non-magical, considering that pretty much every witch and wizard in Britain (and possibly in Europe, as Ginny had oh-so-kindly pointed out at some point) knew her well enough not to risk being hexed to Hades and beyond for asking such an idiotic question, small talk or not. Unless jolly old Dumbledore had sired a squib son during the First War, the young man was not likely to be related to the old lemon sherbert brain.
"Oh no, let me guess. It's your boyfriend?" he ventured, while she was still trying to decipher, if his mum might have dipped into the Dumbledore gene pool. Not bloody likely, though, since the Dumbledores were socially intelligent enough to recognise a person who wanted to be left alone to drink themselves silly in the middle of the week. She took a hold of the first shot and downed it. She'd still mentally refer to him as Wee Albus from now on.
Apparently, her expression, unintentional as it had been, had answered his question despite her silence. That's what you get for being a Gryffindor, she mused silently, as the man carried on his monologue, telling her that her boyfriend must be insane and quite possibly gay if he had treated her poorly. She downed the second shot with a grimace and pushed an auburn curl that had escaped her smart bun out of her face.
Someone was talking about Ron, defending him, referring to him as a veteran who had been through some horrid battles. Shite, was that her voice? It sure sounded like it. She snapped her mouth shut and the voice was gone. Yup, her voice, alright. "He's a great guy, seriously. It just wouldn't work between us. It doesn't work, I mean," she added as an afterthought of a kind, downing the third shot.
The few years after the War had been a true eye-opener in her relationship with the youngest of Weasley brothers. She loved him and he loved her, sure, and everyone around them expected them to stick together. She could still hear Molly Weasley's voice in her ears, hell, she could still feel her hand on her shoulder, telling her that Ron would be lost if it weren't for her to keep him on the surface. He had dealt with his wartime traumas in the same way you'd expect of a Muggle man, she guessed. He had tried to outrun his thoughts by working out until being buff enough to barely fit through the door frames in the Burrow, he had hidden behind his new job as an Auror, and when those methods failed, he tried to drown his sorrows in firewhisky.
Not that she blamed him. She herself had returned to finish her education at Hogwarts, which may have been a mistake, returning to the stage of the final battle so soon, merely a few months later. Hogwarts rules did not allow students to drink alcohol, whether they be of age or not, and she was not one to break the rules. (If you did not count that one time she had sneaked to the Divination class, her only goal being obtaining one of Trelawney's multitude of sherry bottles. She had succeeded. She could barely think of sherry after that evening - and the following morning - without feeling ill.) She had hidden behind piles and piles of books, despite the best efforts of Ginny, Luna, and others. (She preferred being alone, probably because of feeling somewhat guilty of having escaped the horrors her fellow students had faced the year before, even if her year hadn't really been a walk in the park either.) She even started escaping her thoughts by jogging around the premises, soon gaining a surprising but blissfully silent companion of Draco Malfoy, who had been lucky to dodge being thrown into Azkaban mainly because of not having been of age. (He probably wanted to get even further from his thoughts, she had thought at the time. They had never really talked during those hours upon hours upon hours they spent outdoors, and sometimes indoors, if the Scottish weather was particularly nasty, running up and down the many stairs of Hogwarts, much to the amusement of the portraits hanging there. He had thanked her, however, in his own Malfoy-ant way, during their last day of school. She knew it was an apology, as well, but refused to recognise it as such. She was no saint either.)
Earth to Granger, you were going to make a point to yourself about Ron, weren't you?
She downed the fourth shot absently, feeling the liquor burn its way down her throat, giving her the courage to reach the same conclusion she had reached a couple weeks earlier. Despite their best efforts, it was never going to work out between Ron and herself. It was a disappointment to the Wizarding Britain, sure. They had been a dream pair, only second to the Potters who were expecting their first child to be born any day now. It's just that they were too different. Too much like a brother and a sister. They had too different goals and plans for life. They had just grown apart. Well, not really. There had never been quite that kind of feelings. Not enough at least. They were still friends, just no longer with benefits, as Ron had told her with an endearing little wink. She had not disagreed. She loved him dearly, but they had admittedly grown apart.
It still hurt like a Cruciatus curse when his engagement to Lavender Brown was published earlier that day. She was almost as certain about the future Mrs Weasley being up the duff already as she was about their relationship having started months before Ron worked up the courage to end the whatever half-hearted attempt of a relationship they were having. She was happy for Ron, she really was. He and Lavender made a lovely couple and did indeed suit each other in every possible way. She knew Ron wanted to have about half the Quidditch team of children (Harry and Ginny being responsible for producing the other half), and if the rumours were indeed true, they were off to a good start. She grimaced - not entirely of joy, admittedly.
Fifth shot down, two to go. Wee Albus the Barkeep had returned to whatever he was doing, after having reached the conclusion that she was in no mood for small talk. She let her eyes wander towards his direction, absently noting that he had a rather nice butt in those tight black jeans. See, Granger, she told herself, this is why you end up alone with ol' Crooks. You ought to flirt with those twinkly-eyed youngsters, not frighten them away with your thousand mile stare.
She could blame the drinking on work, too. She didn't even really have to rattle her pleasantly foggy brain for excuses, eh, make that reasons. The highly classified project combining the very best experts of multiple branches of wizarding science, including but not limited in potions, arithmancy, and herbology, had been taxing, to say the least. It was the kind of a project she had dreamt of when she had studied herself silly, finishing her M.o.P. (Master of Potions, obviously) a week prior to taking her Healer's Vow (which wasn't quite Unbreakable but not much lighter either). She had enjoyed working with Neville, Master Longbottom that is, immensely, but for the past couple of weeks she had spent her hours alone in the researching chambers. Apparently, she was to be joined by a colleague, but whether they were a healer or a potioneer, she did not know.
She downed the sixth shot, followed by a quiet curse, as the taste hit her fully. She heard someone softly chuckle by her side at that. The voice was familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. Definitely male, pleasantly dark, sure. If the rest of the man was as pleasant, she might even consider trying to drag him home with her, since, well, she had apparently decided to comfort herself by giving one night stands a try. Wee Albus might also be an option, since she had caught his twinkly eyes gazing at her direction on more than one occasion. She would regret it in the morning, that was for granted, and Crooks would not approve of it, but she wasn't going to ask for her half-kneazle's opinion on the matter.
Where was she? Oh yes, there was a definitely male, pleasantly dark voice, somewhere on her side. She opened, wandlessly, the top button of her blouse, and turned her face slightly to meet a crooked smile, and a pair of obsidian eyes. Surprised, she closed the top button of her blouse, the Muggle way this time, not quite sure how she should answer to the chuckle and the smile of her former Potion's Master.
"I thought I'd recognised you, Miss Granger." Severus Snape's voice was different, huskier and darker it had been before his close encounter with Nagini, soon followed by an even closer encounter with Death. Somehow, the man had survived the both and promptly disappeared from the face of earth after leaving St Mungo's, all charges against him having been dropped before he even woke from the venom-induced coma.
"It's Master Granger, actually," she replied coolly and congratulated herself for having not slurred the sibilants by downing her last shot, deliberately ignoring his raised eyebrow and the twitch of the corner of his mouth that could only be interpreted as amused.
He simply nodded at her before catching Wee Albus' attention. "I'll have a Guinness, please, and one of whatever the lady wants. As an apology," he added at her questioning expression. "I assure you I am not trying to get you drunk, Master Granger, I just wish to join in on whatever it is that you are... celebrating."
If his eyebrows lifted any higher, they'd slip on to the back of his head, she thought grimly, before unbuttoning the button again (wandlessly, nonverbally, as you do) while leaning against the counter and asking Wee Albus for a pint of IPA with (what she hoped was) her most seducing smile. Even though she had definitely had a thing for Professor Snape's voice back in Hogwarts, whenever he wasn't scathing her, of course, there was no way she would leave the bar with him tonight.
That is probably why she was so surprised to wake up in the wee small hours in her own apartment, her legs still tangled with those of his, both of them stark naked. The smell in the air left very little doubt about what had happened at some point in between flirting with Wee Albus and waking up in the arms of seemingly very content, softly snoring Severus Snape. The worst part was that she was feeling quite sated herself.