I apologize most profusely, grovel at your feet and offer up this new chapter as penance for such a long absence. No doubt you've noticed all's been quiet on the update front...until now. Honestly, kids take it all out of you as I'm sure Snape would agree. At any rate, I have a school year winding down--two weeks left to go--and then an endless summer yawning before me. Which means I get to finish these stories. Not to mention, the Muse has been beating me over the head with the inspiration and direction for at least two of them, so I have outlines at last. Take comfort.

Cht. 4 Wetting Down

In the interest of celebrating Brynn's new promotion, the team had conspired even in the unusual environs to respect one of the military's most time-honored traditions...a wetting down, which Severus surmised was very aptly named. Given the sheer amount of liquor they had brought back from the Three Broomsticks, the Muggle contingency seemed hell bent on pickling the poor girl--as well as themselves--before she could so much as enjoy the extra pounds in her pocket from the considerable pay rise she had been given with her newly appointed rank. Adding insult to an injurious hangover surely yawning before them next morning, Hagrid took it upon himself to bring a gargantuan jug of potcheen...sadly, of his own making and sure to strip the teeth from their gums. One belt from the tankard he had been supplied with and the Muggle Hancock had proclaimed soundly that he would be "drunker'n Cooter Brown with two more swigs." He and Hagrid, already fast friends, had laughed raucously at this, clapped each other on the back (or the elbow in Hagrid's case) and proceeded to get unabashedly pissed.

An hour into the event, Brynn herself was already into the tipsy giggles stage as Minerva gifted her with her very own bottle of Ogden's, apparently a very traditional present for those involved in the custom. Most everyone was well into his or her respective cups by eleven and Severus could already imagine them scarcely an hour more hence. He pictured the sight of them, passed out on the tables of the Great Hall, staggering back to their quarters with their stomachs as well as themselves pitching and rolling up the stairs, or likely, getting lost entirely as the moving portraits and staircases seemed to conspire against them making their way back. He barely bit back the smirk that threatened at the thought, and reflected instead on memories of his father stumbling home well after the pubs had closed, the sour smell of whiskey, sweat and vomit roiling off of him, watching his mum put the man to bed as one would a child... With a jerk of his head, as if to flick off the memories, Severus looked once more around the room. The Muggle Thom seemed to be getting on quite well with Dumbledore--well enough that Severus wondered idly if they both played on the same team. More disconcerting was the sight of Dodds and Thorpe hunched together as conspiratorially as ever the Weasley twins had done; thankfully a simple look into their minds, albeit past the alcohol haze, sufficed enough to let him know they were simply spinning stories of their sexual exploits. Judging from what snippets he had seen, both accounts were wildly exaggerated. The newer members of the team, having arrived earlier in the day were spread around in similar groups, all apparently three sheets to the wind.

Oddly enough, however, one of their number did not seem intent on reexamining the contents of her stomach in the wee hours of morning. Captain Lacey, still remarkably clear-eyed despite even the alcoholic haze of the room, had been nursing the same cup of mead. Severus watched as she rose, topped off only her second goblet of the evening and cast a weary glance around as if wishing she were anywhere but there. Before he realized what he had done, Severus himself had risen from the high table, thereby catching her eye and making it impossible to sit back down without her wondering what he was about. She offered a tentative smile, and the one he returned looked more like a grimace.

"Are you heading out?" she asked with a wistful note. "I hate to be the first to leave a party, but if you're off I can make my excuses and feel better for it. Not to mention I'll need somebody to aim me in the right direction to get back to the tower. I don't think I could find it with an orienteering team and a set of compasses at this point."

Using his gift for thinking quickly on his feet, Severus replied, "I actually had thought to bring your friend Brynn a bottle of the elfmade wine from my chambers. They're located in the dungeon, but if you wish I could direct you back to your rooms..." The quicker he got away from the stifling small talk and flammable fumes and back to the dark quiet of the dungeons the better.

Instead of deterring her, his preamble only raised more questions. At the mention of his chambers' locale, Lacey's eyebrows shot up. "This castle even has a dungeon? Seriously? That's fierce! Could you give me the dollar tour? I mean--not now, obviously...but," her face flushed a bit, "geez, it's just so amazing being here. And elves, making wine, I mean my God. That's just so cool. Sorry, I know I sound like the proverbial kid in the candy store, but I just can't get over it. I'm sure you're used to all this, but it's really rocking my world."

Profoundly amazed at the outright awe in her voice, Severus shifted his stance a bit. He was used to any number of reactions about his world, from the mute rage his father had felt at being duped out of his normalcy by a woman who did not announce her 'abnormality' until she had already become his wife, to bitter jealousy from the likes of Petunia Evans. Undone by the childlike wonder in a woman who was surely into her thirties if she was a day, he could not help but want to preen a bit and showcase more of his world before her eyes.

With that thought in mind, he answered, "perfectly understandable. In my case, I was raised with a foot in both worlds as it were. Having seen the stark contrast, I can understand and appreciate what it must be like to come from one so abruptly into another."

"If you like you can accompany me to my quarters and I will retrieve the bottle for Lieutenant Brynn, before I point you on your way."

"Seriously?" she said, looking as if Christmas had come early. "If you're anywhere near as tired as I am you've got to be dying to get to bed. I'll try not to intrude--at least not for too long."

***

She kept true to her word, following behind him down the stairs and barely gasping at the torches which lit themselves ahead as they walked, circling ever lower until the damp told her that surely the shadowy recesses of the dungeons stretched under the lake. Lacey was amused to realize that she was following as a subordinate, two steps back and one to the right. In this world, it seemed fair since she was definitely out of her league. It surprised her that this taciturn man of stiff nods and ramrod bearing had even deigned to invite her into his inner sanctum. She smiled at the thought of some of the silly childhood games she had played as a "Muggle" kid, pretending at magic even as he must have been discovering that he had honest to God powers like none she had ever seen. Thinking on it, Lacey fought back the urge to laugh at this severe Severus playing "light as a feather, stiff as a board." Surely he was the latter, but definitely didn't look the former, what with those broad shoulders and a good six feet of height at least. Chiding herself as she felt the telltale pull in her belly, Lacey admitted that it had been too long and British accents were too tempting, but this was neither the time nor the place. She had a job to do and the last thing she needed was a complication in the form of an enigmatic Man in Black. With admirable timing, he jolted her from her thoughts as he stopped abruptly in front of a heavy oak door banded with iron and a simple looking ringed latch.

He merely tapped it once, causing it to swing open into a walnut paneled room that looked like anything but a dungeon. There were shelves of books lining the walls, a roaring fire in a huge fireplace of green marble over which hung a massive painting of a man who sat with narrowed eyes as he stroked a pointy beard. Lacey, who had brought her goblet of mead down with her, took a much needed pull when the man launched himself out of the chair and left the frame, seemingly in a huff.

Severus barely spared him a glance, "you'll have to forgive Phineas. He does not think very highly of Muggles; it seems your presence offends him."

"Mm. Really congenial guy. Is he--was he like your Voldemort? 'Let them all burn'?"

"No, rather, it was to let them muck along on their side of the fence and we keep to ours. No sullying the bloodlines."

"Sullying..." at that Lacey plopped down unceremoniously on a leather settee and placed her goblet on the table flanking it. Severus made no apologies, simply watched her intently as he folded himself into a wing backed chair opposite her and leaned back comfortably.

"There are many in our world who believe as he did, by no means to the extent of the Dark Lord, but simply that never the twain should meet. As you are aware there are statutes in place specifically to keep our world secret from yours. There are certain prejudices on either side, truly, look at your medieval witch hunts for example. They hardly ever got a 'guilty' party, in a matter of speaking, and if they did, to what end? A simple charm or spell, even better an outright Disapparition and the maniacal inquisitors were left empty-handed and even more afraid than before. That's all it's borne out of in the end, fear."

"And what of witches and wizards then?" Lacey asked, balling her fists in her lap and perching herself on the edge of her seat. "All prejudices are born of fear, so why fear us? We have less power and no knowledge of you people for the most part. Why--"

"Because prejudices, especially because they are born of fear, are irrational. The fear in that case is not of outright annihilation but of extermination by dilution. That our powers would be weakened by proliferation. That, in a word, the more we intermingle and intermarry with Muggles, the weaker the magic becomes until it disappears completely."

"Ridiculous."

"But very real in the minds of witches and wizards alike--especially the older families. Purebloods," he said, rising to a cabinet near the fireplace and retrieving another bottle and a glass. He gestured with the bottle after pouring for himself; Lacey simply raised her goblet for him to fill. "'Pureblood' is actually a relative term," he continued. "Truly no family can claim absolute purity from non-magical ancestry. Most do not go back more than four generations before they find some Muggle relations."

"I don't suppose I can say much," Lacey said sighing as she took a heady sip of blood red wine, savoring it on her tongue. "There's the same BS in our world too. Religious factions who don't like each other, political rivalries, warring ideologies, class systems..."

Severus gestured vaguely with his glass. "All competing to see who can be the biggest bully in the yard."

"Sometimes," she allowed, "though a lot of the time it's coming to the defense of the little guy. And a lot of people would argue over killing in the name of war or defense, saying that we are just a bigger bully, for doing what we do, but that's not a fair comparison. Bullies are just that--people who are mean just for the sake of doing it. We're more like the teacher snatching the ball out of the bully's hand, handing it back to the little kid. If we were bigger bullies, so to speak, we'd snatch the ball from the tough guy and start bouncing it off both their heads. Though I will admit, sometimes that is a serious temptation."

Severus' mouth quirked in response at that, but Lacey plowed on. "Bullies have a sadistic pattern that makes them enjoy doing what they do. But you know as well as I, that for people like us--and we are alike you and I--there is no enjoyment in what we are forced to do. Except that it makes the world a better place, maybe not for us, but for other people. No, you and I have to deal with the aftermath of what we've done. The broken relationships, the nightmares, the reality. Trying to compromise the fact that we live in a world where there is such carnage and hate right alongside little girls playing hopscotch. And going straight from one to the other gives you a twisted form of vertigo."

She glanced up from her now empty glass to see Severus watching her, his black eyes reflecting the firelight. "You know what I'm talking about don't you? Are there specialists here who deal with that type of thing? PTSD?"

"What's this?"

"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The almost unspoken of bane of military vets."

"Post Traumatic Stress...I had no idea there was a name."

"Huh," she barked out a hollow laugh. "If you can suffer from it, it has a name. It's just cold sweats from nightmares where you see your buddies die over and over again and even have episodes in the daytime while alienating your family was too long a name for it."

Another sardonic twitch at the corner of his mouth told her he knew exactly what she meant.

"No, they don't really deal with that here. But then, no one has really been placed in the unique position I'm in," he said, raising his glass as if in a toast. "Dumbledore acts as sounding board on occasion, yet there again he's never truly been in my position. Not as I suspect you have." At that he fixed Lacey with a measuring gaze and she felt the sudden urge to squirm like a new recruit at her first inspection.

"Yeah, Severus we're cut out of the same mold, you and me," Lacey said, settling back onto the settee under his careful scrutiny. It was a while later after the conversation had returned to safer waters, that she finally nodded off curled up in the sitting room comfortably warmed by the smoldering fire and oblivious to Severus' watchful gaze. He wondered briefly what demons she fought in her dreams as he rose to take down the almost forgotten bottle of wine. It would have to wait until tomorrow, he thought, suddenly weary. And with one last glance at the sleeping woman, Severus stepped into his bedroom and pulled one of the blankets off an antique four-poster with emerald hangings. Draping it over Lacey's form, he turned trudging silently from the room.