AUTHOR'S NOTE: Just a little reminder that there may be several readers, not to mention this story's author, who have STILL not yet finished "Phoenix", so if you do take the time to review this chapter, please be sure to not post anything that might even be remotely construed as a spoiler for the book.

I was flabbergasted…and quite moved…to see that so many of you are still reading this story. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your reviews! Not only are they inspirational and highly motivating, but they also have given me some lovely ideas to incorporate into the story. Again, I can't thank you enough for your thoughtful feedback.

This chapter was supposed to be longer, but in an effort to post more frequently, I decided to split it into two and post the first part now. Also, in an effort to sync up my chapter numbers with fanfiction.net's chapter numbers, I'm skipping Chapter 21 in my chapter titles and going straight to Chapter 22. Let's just say that the number "21" has always been bad luck for Addy… ;-)

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Chapter 22: Getting to Know You

Inside the champagne flutes, the magical bubbles formed themselves into tableaux of various romantic settings, as Snape refilled their glasses, pulled out a chair for Addy, and sat down next to her. She looked down with delight to see that inside Snape's glass, a handsome young man appeared to be reciting poetry to his lady friend as they reclined in a Gondola making its way through the canals of Venice, while in her own, couples waltzed in elaborate splendour inside a miniature Viennese ballroom.

Snape's decanters and instruments shimmered around her on their shelves in the flickering candlelight, and as the bubbles tickled away at her senses, the room began to pulsate pleasantly. Addy slid her chair closer so she could get a good look at him in the softly radiant light. When Snape held out the plate of truffles for her, she selected one and put it in her mouth whole, closing her eyes as the creamy richness dissolved on her tongue. She leaned her elbow on the table and cradled her cheek in her hand, reflecting on all the things Snape had said about Voldemort, and fear, and trust.

A question came to mind, but her mouth was too full of chocolate. She held up one finger in the "wait" gesture and tried to chew quickly, her eyes flashing buoyantly at him. They both laughed nervously.

Snape' expression was taut with anticipation as he waited for her to speak. A few more candles extinguished themselves and the weight of the night hugged in around them. Finally, she swallowed forcefully and washed the mouthful down with half a glass of champagne. When she put her flute down, the bubbles reimagined themselves into the figures of a rustic young man and woman reclining in a field of wild flowers. Snape sipped from his glass patiently.

"How long have you been interested in potions?" she asked dreamily.

The question caught him off guard. Snape had never been one to fondly reminisce about his past. "Oh…since I was a student here at Hogwarts," he said, treading lightly. "It was always my favorite subject."

"You're a very good Potions Master, you know."

"I know."

"The best there is."

Snape shrugged.

Then, quite out of the blue, she asked in a quiet voice, "Do you remember the first time you ever met Voldemort?" Addy had never had anyone with whom she could speak about Voldemort or her life as a Death Eater, and she thought it might do them both good to talk about it. Beyond that, she wanted to get to know him better…to learn about his hopes and dreams and thoughts and memories.

Snape shifted uncomfortably in his chair and took a larger swig of champagne, as another candle sputtered out ominously behind him. No one had ever asked him such a question, and his immediate reaction was 'Why would she want to know that?" But he reminded himself of the things he'd just said in his classroom, and, with some help from the bubbly, pressed himself to take his own advice and open up a bit.

"On the day of my graduation from Hogwarts, I received a note from my parents," Snape replied quietly and haltingly, adding a bit sharply, "who did not put in an appearance for the occasion. The note said that they had arranged an apprenticeship for me, and I was to take my things and go with Lucius Malfoy. That was the last I ever heard from either of my parents. Lucius took me to The Compound, where I was introduced to Tom Riddle…and your father. It was shortly after that that we started calling Tom 'Lord Voldemort."

"Ah, I remember something about that," Addy murmured. "I was young, but I remember my father arguing with Tom that he didn't think we should have a Hogwarts-trained Potioner. He said Dumbledore would have instilled in you too many 'undesirable qualities."

She glanced sideways at him and continued softly, squinting into the dimness in an effort to recall. "But Voldemort insisted that you were from a long line of pure-blooded Snapes, and that you were the best thing to come out of Slytherin House, or any House for that matter, in a long time." Addy paused. "He was right."

She watched as Snape ran his fingers around the rim of his champagne flute, looking somberly down at the bubbles as they shifted into a new scene. He took another long, thoughtful sip. The few remaining lit candles flickered, but fought valiantly to hold their flame.

"I'm sorry," she said. "That was insensitive of me…"

"No, it's not you," he replied. After a brief, pensive pause, he continued slowly, without looking up at her. "Sometimes, though…I do wonder…what my life would have been like if I hadn't been sent to Voldemort, and at such a tender age. Worthless musings, I know…what's done is done, and can't be changed. But still, I can't help but ponder how things would have been different if I'd had other options back then…the whole world before me like some of these students…if I'd come from different…stock…"

Snape trailed off and Addy placed a delicate hand on his forearm, looking him squarely in the eye with a very serious expression.

"TELL me about it," she said. Snape grinned and nodded, with a small burst of laughter. He looked at her and each one knew that the other understood far more than a million words could express.

He had an intoxicating effect on her, more so than the wine, the cognac, the champagne and the candles put together. She felt her heart lift and flutter at the way his grin seemed to soften his features in the twinkling glow of the room, opening a tiny chink in his armor and a glimpse at what lay beneath.

Her inhibitions took flight on the wings of his brief laughter. With a mischievous glint, she picked out a truffle and gingerly touched it to his lips, quietly saying, "Well…I guess all we can do is take full advantage of the options we have now."

Snape parted his lips slightly and slowly took in her offering, his eyes locked on hers. Her fingers lingered on his mouth and he tasted her, his tongue meeting her sweet flesh in one delicious moment. He felt his body respond to the taste of her, craving more…wanting to taste all of her.

'Is it really possible?' he wondered to himself, his doubts melting along with the rich, dark chocolate. Every time he had sensed Addy's interest in him, he'd written it off, telling himself that he had just been projecting his own feelings onto her.

But it seemed unmistakable now—she was positively luminous, a halo of desire bathing her in a gentle radiance that outshone the last remaining candles, her beautiful lips swollen with it, her eyes sparkling in invitation. Snape chalked it up to some great cosmic glitch in the Universe, and decided that it was well past the time for him to take a chance on some happiness, no matter how fleeting it turned out to be.

He took her hand in his, leaned in closer and said, "You're quite right, Adelaide. We wouldn't want to let any more opportunities pass us by."

With that, he raised the palm of her hand to his mouth and kissed it slowly, closing his eyes and breathing in her jasmine-scented essence. He then drew one of her fingers to his lips and put it in his mouth, softly licking the melted chocolate from her skin. As his tongue played and sucked at her, Addy took a deep breath that inflated the glow around her until she was shining brightly down on them both. Her breathing grew shallow and ragged, along with his.

After a few dizzying seconds, she pulled her finger from his mouth and caressed his face, leaning in closer and murmuring against his lips, "No. That would be tragic."

The figures inside their champagne flutes stared up in blithe interest, as he placed his right hand over hers and tangled his left in her hair, drawing her closer and whispering back, "Yes, positively tragic," as his lips grazed hers. Addy felt her body start to tremble.

At that precise moment, a resonant "BONG" sounded from the old grandfather clock at the far end of the room, and a weatherbeaten, grumpy old voice filled the air, clearing cobwebs from it's throat before addressing them:

"It's about ten o'clock now, and I'd be interested to know just how you two young whippersnappers are planning on stopping You Know Who with champagne and bon-bons and moony-eyed looks at one another?"

The clock let out another doleful bong and went silent.

Snape and Addy froze and looked at one another like two first years who'd been caught dropping dungbombs. She felt his demeanor change as the magic between them was broken, the aura that had shimmered around her subsided, and the moment curdled. They backed away guiltily from one another, and Snape pushed the plate of truffles away.

"I've got one like that in my room too. He he. A clock. Just like that one," she offered with a tense laugh, in a feeble attempt to ease the awkward silence.

Looking everywhere but at her, Snape adjusted his robes, and said, "Right. I uh…I suppose we ought to get down to work."

"Right. Work," said Addy, slumping in her chair with a deep, dazed breath and a perturbed sigh.

Snape stood in a swirl of robes, raised his wand and growled, "Luminosa!" The sconces on the walls flared, flooding the room with firelight. He stomped around blowing out the last remaining candles, which seemed to flare in protest at him.

When he could finally bring himself to turn and look at Addy, she had her back to him, but he could see she was having a difficult time standing up. He started in her direction to offer assistance, but, sensing the weight of his yearning, reconsidered. Instead, he said shortly, "I'll get you some Pepper-Up," and swept out of the room.

Addy's poor head was swimming, and NOT from the champagne. The trembling that had started as desire was now transformed into a crushing shiver of frustration. She did not possess Snape's infernal talent for subsuming his passion, and she was left aching with hunger for him. She tried to steady herself on the table enough to stand, but her legs just didn't seem to want to support her.

Snape, himself, was not having as easy a time as Addy thought. His longing for her throbbed not just in his groin but in his heart as well, and a stream of invectives directed at Voldemort flowed from him as he decanted the restorative potion. He glanced from the bottles of caustic ingredients on his shelves, down to the inside of his left arm, with a fleeting wish that he could burn away his connections to the Dark Lord and simply run away with Addy into the night. But he had tried burning already. It didn't work.

She heard his footsteps glide back into the room, and then a hand swooped down over her shoulder, stopping in front of her face. In it was clutched a vial of brilliant red potion, sparks snapping out of the top of it as the volatile vapors hit the air.

She looked at the potion and not at Snape, wanting to tear it from his hand, smash it on the ground, extinguish the torches and pick up where they'd been so rudely interrupted. But it was clear to her that Voldemort was going to dictate her actions one way or another, so the sooner the world was rid of him, the better. She took a deep breath and reminded herself to take it step by step, and the next step was stopping Marlin Pugh from blowing up the Underground.

Turning her face upwards to meet his, Addy gave him a determined nod and downed the Pepper Up potion in one swift shot. Though it burned and sputtered down her throat, she allowed no outward sign of it. It soon worked its magic, and Addy was not only able to stand, but bounded up with bright enthusiasm in spite of herself.

She sprang out of her chair, her eyes gleaming with resolve, and said, "Right, then. Where were we?"

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"Oh, that's right…I was working on my map just before I came down here to…er…pay you a visit tonight," said Addy, twisting her hands and bouncing up and down on her toes. "I'll go get it from my rooms," she said as she sprinted for the door. A second later she charged back into Snape's office, shaking her head.

"On second thought," she continued, "I'm afraid my map isn't very useful. It's just a floorplan—it won't really tell us all we need to know. I was wondering…do you have a Pensieve, Snape?"

"Of course," he said. He crossed the room to a cupboard in the back, unlocked it with a charm, and retrieved a smallish, shallow, marble bowl.

"Good," said Addy. "We can review the scene of the crime-to-be by going into the Pensieve and studying the location."

"All right, go ahead," said Snape, waiting for her to retrieve a memory and place it into the bowl.

"Oh…I've never been in the London Underground. I was hoping you had."

A recollection flashed behind his eyes—an unpleasant one, from the looks of it—and he asked, "At which platform, exactly, is the bomb to be planted?"

Addy screwed up her face in an effort to remember the name of the subway stop. "Kings…Kings…Kings Crossing/Saint Pancreas!" she finally replied. "Have you been there?"

"If you mean the Kings Cross/Saint Pancras stop, then yes, I've been there. But only once, with my parents when I was just a child." He appeared irritated at the boyhood memory.

"Well, it's better than nothing. Why don't you have a go at it?" Addy replied, gesturing to the Pensieve.

Placing the tip of his wand to his ear, Snape stepped up to the bowl. For a minute or two, he struggled with the effort of reclaiming the memory from the back of his mind. Addy admired the striking contours of his face, poised in concentration. Finally, he pulled a silvery wisp from his head and placed it in the Pensieve. She stepped up and gazed down at the memory, swirling in the bowl.

"After you," Snape said, and she leaned down into the bowl until her nose just touched the surface. The next thing she knew, she was swirling through time and space until she came to a gentle landing on a subway platform. Sort of.

When he appeared next to her shortly, she turned to him and, with an amused yet dubious expression, asked slowly, "Snape…what is this?"

They stood on a platform in an underground tunnel of impossible height, with dingy, gray vaulted ceilings that easily stretched 100 feet into the air. Strange, dark, flying creatures circled in the lofty shadows overhead as giant Muggles, 20 to 30 feet tall, rushed around the platform, nearly squashing them on numerous occasions. The space was filled with booming voices, chattering in an unintelligible language, and the walls were covered with large signs that bore mysterious symbols instead of words.

If they hadn't been inside a Pensieve, Addy might have been afraid, but she knew it was all just a memory and they could not be harmed. Snape looked around in confusion, then turned to her and said defensively, "I told you. I was only a child. This is what the Underground looks like to a six year old boy."

Addy again pressed her lips together to keep from laughing, but she nearly lost it when, with a roaring rattle, something came barreling out of the tunnel at an incredible speed. It was a silver subway car with an evil, grinning face—headlights for eyes and a metal grille for teeth. It came to a stop with an ear-splitting screech, at least 20 feet from the platform, and a ghoulish voice repeated maniacally, "Mind the gap!" as giant Muggles took running leaps and hurdled on and off the train. Several of them did not make it and tumbled down, screaming into the black abyss that separated the edge of the platform from the gaping doors of the subway car.

Snape grabbed Addy's hand and said, "Let's go," as the depraved voice droned on: "Mind the gap! MIND THE GAP! MWA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAA!"

In the next instant they were whirling backwards until they found themselves standing once again in Snape's office, next to the Pensieve. Addy cleared her throat to stifle her laughter and said, "I'm afraid that wasn't very useful."

"Well, I warned you," he replied sourly.

"It looks like there's no other choice. We're just going to have to go and see it for ourselves," she said doggedly, turning to get her wand.

"Are you mad? We can't just go traipsing around the London Underground!"

"Why not? We wouldn't be breaking any laws. I think it's important that we familiarize ourselves with the scene of the bombing," she said, that stubborn pitch creeping into her voice and demeanor.

Actually, Snape agreed that, for an operation like this, an advance walk-through was certainly in order. He put his left hand to his right elbow and his right hand to his chin, in his "thinking posture", and paced a few steps in either direction for several minutes. Tired of watching him go back and forth, Addy sighed impatiently and said in a sarcastically sweet voice, "Sickle for your thoughts?"

Snape looked up startled, as if he'd just been reminded that there was someone else in the room. "Why don't you show me what you've got of the floor plans, and I'll go check out the site?"

"Ha ha, that's a good one Snape," Addy said with a mirthless glare.

"All right," he capitulated, "but I want us in and out of there in under ten minutes, and we can't go like this."

Addy nodded excitedly, and they both picked up their wands. Snape raised his arm and pointed it at his head, saying, "Muggle Habillis!" Addy looked up to see him standing in what could be considered the Muggle equivalent of his usual robes: a black suit of the finest wool, immaculately tailored to hug and flow in a all the right places, with the crispest white shirt she'd ever seen. His hair was pulled back into a sleek, low ponytail, and Addy was momentarily blinded by his presence as he adjusted the already perfect knot of his tie, a fine shimmering silk one in a deep, mossy green. She suppressed a verbal "Wow" and tried to distract herself by performing the charm on her own clothes.

"Muggle Habillis!" she cried, but looked down in chagrin to see herself standing in a magenta and orange sari, her hair as wild as ever.

"Oh perfect! You'll blend in nicely in that," Snape snorted.

"Woops," said Addy. "These are the last Muggle clothes I wore. You do it, Snape."

As he pointed his wand at her, he sighed and rolled his eyes again, but something in the curve of his mouth told Addy that he might actually be enjoying this. In the next instant, her Hogwarts robes had been transformed into a pretty, calf-length black cotton dress. It was nipped and belted at the waist and had darts that fitted and flattered her figure perfectly, with a collar that came to an arresting V-neck between her breasts.

"Weeeee…look at me, I'm a Muggle!" she laughed, as she spun around in delight. The skirt flared out into a wide circle, and Snape couldn't help but appreciate the fact that her legs were taut and perfectly formed. In fact, he thought she looked quite pretty all around.

"Can nothing be done about your hair, Adelaide?" he growled.

"'Fraid not," she said with a giddy smile.

"Well, then, let's get on with this," he said tensely. "We'll take the invisibility cloak and apparate into a side street near King's Cross. From there, we'll become visible and walk to the station. Stay with me…do NOT get separated. With any luck there will be few Muggles at the platform. Remember to be discreet and act like a Muggle. When we're done, we'll retreat from the station and find a suitable spot to apparate back to the Hogwart's gate. Understood?"

Addy had, of course, heard and understood every word he'd said, but she was frowning down at her new outfit. "What's the matter?" Snape grumbled.

"Don't I need a bag? The Muggle women all carry bags."

Snape flashed his wand at her and gave her a sleek, black shoulder purse. "All right? Now—"

Addy cut him off with, "What about some jewelry, and maybe a hat? I can't go out like this!"

Snape's impatience bubbled over and he was about to explode, when he noticed Addy grinning slyly at him. "Very funny," he said in a soft staccato. Then he grabbed his invisibility cloak and stormed out of the room, with Addy smirking and strutting behind him in her strappy high-heeled shoes.

To be continued…