Previously…

"Hello," said the paragon of beauty nervously. "Would it be alright if I joined you for a drink?" she asked quietly. Feeling like he had fallen into the rabbit hole, Severus Snape simply nodded his head and watched as the young woman gracefully sat down on the opposite side of the table, signaling to Marcus for a refill as she turned towards me with a hesitant smile on her face.


After a longer than normal period of silence, during which Severus could not help but stare at the young lady across from him, the quiet was broken by her sweet voice. "I'm Hermione, by the way. Hermione Granger," she spoke hastily. "Pleasure to meet you Hermione," he replied, "my name is Severus Snape." "Severus? What a powerful name. Did you parents desire for you to have a powerful political life like the Roman Emperor, or did they simply like the alliteration do you know? " Hermione inquired enthusiastically. "Unfortunately my parents both came from families that preferred to hand down embarrassingly unique names to their offspring," mused Severus with a slight smile on his face. He is really quite handsome when he smiles like that thought Hermione dreamily. "So, do you frequent the Black Lion often, Hermione? I have never had the privilege to make your acquaintance here before, and I'm sure I would have noticed an attractive young woman such as yourself," Snape quipped along with a heated stare. "Um, no," the blushing Hermione stammered out, " it was purely by chance that I walked in here tonight actually." After a half-second pause, Hermione decided to continue her own flirtatious thoughts and admitted that "perhaps I will have to drink here more often if the company will always be this good."

"Perhaps you should," Snape whispered quietly. Flushing prettily, Hermione decided to steer the conversation to safer waters. " So, Severus, what do you do for a living?" she asked. "Well, I recently began my own small, private company, dealing with distributing medicines to the government" replied Severus. " What about you Hermione? What do you do for a living?" "Actually, I resigned from my job as a lawyer earlier today," laughed Hermione nervously. " I realized that it was time to stop living the life others had laid out for me and branch out into my own future." Surprised, Snape could not help but ask her quietly "did you not enjoy being a lawyer? Or were you just tired of living up to everyone else's standards?" Hermione pondered the question for a few minutes, absent mindlessly chewing on her bottom lip while she thought on how best to answer his insightful question. Meanwhile Severus, busy staring hungrily at her now plump lips almost did not catch Hermione answering that "Ever since I was a young girl my parents had planned out my entire life. After they passed away a few years ago I simply maintained their chosen career path as a way to remember and honor them. However, being a successful lawyer was a lonely existence." With a sigh Hermione looks up at Severus with a faint glimmer of tears in her eyes and admitted that " being at the top made having friends in the office non-existent and the long hours made having a social life outside of work practically impossible." Moved by the similarity to his own career as a teacher, he inquired as to what she would be doing now that she had her own agenda to put into action.

"Well," replied Hermione " I don't really know." Seeing the puzzled look on Severus' face, Hermione quickly expanded her answer, " I did not have any plans for a new career when I resigned. I only wanted to finally find somewhere that I could belong; somewhere that would give me a chance to find happiness and not be lonely anymore." Smiling coyly, Hermione looked towards Severus and admitted that, "In fact, I walked out the door of the law firm and decided that my social life would be my first priority, so I walked into the first bar I saw and sat down to plan out my new life." Amazed Severus raised his glass and gave a toast. "Here's to finding happiness, new friends, and a place to fit into this crazy world. Cheers Hermione!"


Finishing off her ninth (or was it tenth) whiskey several hours later, Hermione couldn't help but think that already her life had taken a turn for the better. Severus Snape had turned out to be an excellent conversationalist. In the three hours since she had taken the chance to sit down at his table, they had moved from the personal questions about family and jobs, to politics, religion, recent medical break throughs, and even sports (actually, that was more like a heated denouncing of all sports as the bane of an intelligent society). Hermione could not remember ever meeting someone who was as well versed in history and current events as the mysterious man sitting across from her. In addition to his intelligence, he was charming, well mannered, and downright delicious to look at. Perhaps the best part though, bemused Hermione, was the fact that not once in the entire evening had Severus seemed either intimidated or jealous of her own intelligence. Coming from a male dominated career (of which she dominated all the males intellectually), Severus's own intelligence was a breath of fresh air.

The two were enjoying each other's company so much that neither one had bothered to look at the clock during the entirety of the evening. It was a shock, therefore, when Marcus came up to them at 2 am to announce closing time. Sensing Hermione's reluctance to part company (and of course not wanting to leave himself), Severus asked Hermione if she would like to meet again in a day or two for coffee. "I'd love to," Hermione confidently replied. Feeling a desire to enjoy her life for once, Hermione suggested to Severus that they meet at noon on Tuesday in front of the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens. " We could go for a stroll and then enjoy an afternoon coffee together," she suggested. With Severus' murmured acceptance, Hermione placed a lingering kiss on his cheek and whispered in his ear, "I'll see you Tuesday then, goodnight Severus." As he watched her walk out of the pub, Severus realized that Tuesday could not come fast enough.


AN: Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed so far. Please continue to give any constructive criticism and encouragement you can! Hopefully I will have the next chapter written and posted in short order!