Disclaimer: Yes, I'm sure there are similar fics out there, and I've probably read a bunch of them... please bitch at me if I have unconsciously used your influence. And of course, the usual 'me no Rowling' has now been included. R&R please!

Also note that I am an American. I probably won't remember to use a 24-hour clock; the ground floor and the first floor are the same here; and there are probably other details I'm forgetting. If you'd point them out to me that'd be really cool...

Untitled Work In Progress

Chapter One - Instinct and Memory

There are just some things that become instinct. The kind of things you know even just before you wake up from a peaceful night's sleep. Hermione Granger's memory was incredible, and instinct could usually count on her thinking before reacting these days. Hermione remembered most all of her past: those flashes of memories from being very little, expectations of perfection growing up, getting her letter to Hogwarts, becoming a best friend of Harry Potter's, and therefore facing death with regularity.

Actually that wouldn't happen anymore. Harry and Voldemort had finally killed each other off. It was a bittersweet moment when Hermione heard the news, two years after she graduated from Hogwarts. In that time, stress and old age had caught up with Albus Dumbledore. Minerva McGonagall had taken over as headmistress. Severus Snape was still teaching potions, but had taken post as deputy headmaster also. Hermione had become the transfiguration teacher.

Hermione was easily caught up in depression. Life was good for most everyone. The danger of Lord Voldemort had passed, after all. At Harry's funeral, she found that she couldn't cry... so she had allowed herself no show of emotion since. That was the last time she saw Ron. Without Harry as the peacemaker, the friendship quickly dissolved. A month afterward she had owled him, a difficult letter to write, she decided, and two months had passed without a reply.

Besides problems with Ron, her parents were really on her case about finding a nice man to settle down with, now that she had chosen a solid job. She hated the feeling of being pressured, and yet she couldn't deny the loneliness that came with the loss of her two best friends. And being a teacher at Hogwarts didn't help her personal life at all. She would put on a smile and make appearances in the Great Hall, but her life had more or less become solitude.

This was what Hermione knew even before she woke up that life-altering morning. As memories slowly came into focus, the loneliness seemed distant. Her whole body ached, her head worst of all. As her short-term memory returned, ghosts of sensations from her binge on foul-tasting liquor came back to her. "I don't care exactly what you bring me," she had told a house elf the night before, "But I need some serious alcohol."

From the moment of the first sip, however, recollection eluded her. Now, her legs were tangled in the cream sheets, her brown hair was a mess from all angles at her head, and yet despite her aches and pains, she felt refreshed from her sleep. All seemed normal enough there. Hermione's left arm was out at a ninety-degree angle from her body, and there was a very large warm weight on it. Not normal.

She nearly groaned, wondering what she had done. Thank God it was now Saturday so she wouldn't have to worry what time it was and if she was supposed to be teaching a class at the moment. She pried unwilling brown eyes open and twisted her neck left.

Yes, there was a man on her arm.

But wait a minute. This was a man that Hermione knew. He was even thinner than she would have expected, if the thought would have ever come across her mind, but what weight he did have was all muscle. He was up on his left side, facing away from her, so the body type might normally have not given away identity... but no one could mistake that shoulder-length, raven hair. Ha, but her brain still wouldn't believe it. Motionless as possible, for fear of disturbing this particular man's sleep, she lifted herself a bit and peered over his shoulder.

Yes, there was a Severus Snape on her arm.

Worse, his weight trapped her there with conscious knowledge of it. Okay, self, calm the rising panic. Just breathe, we'll think of something to do. They decided, go figure, on asking and answering questions.

Who and what? Snape and sex, apparently. During her student years, she would have cringed at the thought, but now it just seemed to pose more questions, these relating to consequenses of their act. She kept her mind open about what makes a good person, especially when it came to the colleague bound to the side of light with such honor that he would risk his life for the cause... but that was a train of thought she'd rather not examine at the moment.

Where? Well, Snape certainly hadn't been in the room when she took that first sip. Hogwarts held too many possibilities to currently contemplate every location either of them might have been in and who they might have met on the their way to another.

When? Late the last night until... oh it was probably eight o'clockish. She never naturally slept in late. Just to make sure though, she craned her neck in the opposite direction to glance at the clock on the nightstand. 8:15.

The why? of the situation was obvious enough: She had been drunk. No idea if he had been. Interesting twist, that.

And finally we come to how? Once again, we admit that liquor had something to do with it... but Snape, like Hermione, was only seen in class and at mealtimes. He had even slowed down on his favorite hobby of night-patrolling/terrorizing... Well, maybe that wasn't a fair statement. Student!Hermione might have thought it, but adult!Hermione knew better than to make such foolish assumptions; assumptions had caused her two near-death experiences during her sixth year. It was still a fact, however, that Snape wasn't one for getting out. So how was he drawn all the way from his dungeon quarters to her second floor? What could possibly have gotten into him... or forced him... to do so?

Okay, answering questions wasn't such a good idea. Only more came up... but she was calm. That had been the point anyway, right? No time to consider further, for he was moving now. He was shifting into fetal position and muttering. She waited patiently for the jolt of consciousness and oh, God, what did we do? to hit him.

But that didn't come. Upon inspection, she found his eyes moving under their lids. He was dreaming, and, obviously, this dream was becoming perpetually more unpleasant. Muttering turned into indecipherable monosyllabic shouts and his frame began to shake with shudders and shivers. Hermione brought over her right hand, the free one, and gripped his within it. "Hush," she said before snuggling up to his back, intending to calm him. A trembling Snape was probably the most unnerving thing she had ever seen.

Suddenly, he was wide awake. He freed them both from each other's contact and turned himself around to face her. That lasted only a split second before he sat straight up, but the moment of eye contact brought some subconscious understanding to Hermione. However, no time was allowed to think of all the meaning in what she saw in those nearly black eyes - moments of each fear, confusion, frustration, hope, loss, and then anger - for immediately he voiced the question, "What in the hell is going on?"