Author's Notes: Thank you so much for the reviews so far! I love reading them! In answer to one of the questions, no, Severus Snape will not be showing up in this story. (If you want your Snape fix, go read my other story, Dreams Can Come True.) I do, however, have in mind a sort of spoof/crossover short for him soon… Keep an eye out for it. Enjoy!

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Hermione was torn for a moment. She knew nothing about this "Captain Jack Sparrow" man, yet she felt strangely drawn to him. His dark eyes pulled her in, and his strong yet graceful hands beckoned to her even when they were still. If things got too weird, she could always apparate away again.

"All right," she said quietly, though she gathered her boots and coat and brought them further from the shore so they wouldn't get wet when the tide came in. She plopped down next to him, though not too near. He smelled strongly of alcohol, as well as sweat and seawater.

"Stay right here," he said, rolling onto his stomach and crawling a short distance to a scraggly bush. He swigged the remainder of his bottle down fast, reached under the bush and pulled out two more bottles, left the empty one there, and crawled back. "One for you," he said, handing a long-necked bottle to Hermione, "an' one for me." He pulled the cork from the top with his teeth, spat it into the sand at his side, and drank deep. "Go on, go on," he urged with a smile.

She hesitated. The only alcohol she had ever had was the traditional half-glass of wine at Christmas dinner, and a small amount of champagne every New Year's Eve. The wine was all right, but she hated champagne. Rum? Was that what this was? She asked him and he just laughed.

"Yes, lass, that there is rum. Nectar of the gods," he sighed, taking another swig.

Why not? she thought, I'm on vacation, and tugged the cork out. She placed it carefully in her jeans pocket so she could replace it later, then took a small sip. It was very strong, somewhat bitter, and it tingled in her mouth. Heat spread down her throat to her chest and into her stomach when she swallowed and she tried not to grimace. She glanced over at Jack. He was drinking it like it was water. She took another sip, bigger this time. Not so bad.

"You like it?" he asked eagerly.

"It's… all right," she said politely, and took another small sip, then unbuttoned her sweater, exposing a white camisole. She hadn't expected it to be quite this hot.

"Got a name, missy?" he asked after a moment, tearing his eyes away from the pale, tantalizing flesh of her throat and chest. He never thought he'd see a woman again, yet here she was, as if the fates had intended it.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," she blustered, putting her bottle down in the sand and sticking out her hand. "I'm Hermione Granger."

"Lovely to meet you, Miss Granger," he grinned, taking her hand and kissing it rather wetly.

"Er, you can call me Hermione," she said, discreetly wiping the back of her hand on her jeans.

"You can call me anything you want, love," he whispered throatily, leaning closer.

"I think I'll call you Mr. Sparrow," she said, leaning away.

He shrugged. "Fine with me." He saw her shrug out of her sweater from the corner of his eye, but kept his gaze fixed out on the ocean.

"It's lovely here," she said softly. "So quiet."

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "Bit too quiet if you ask me."

"Why would you say that?"

"You'd say it too, if you'd been stuck 'ere for two days, no way to get off the island, nothing to do but sit and drink rum." He studied the bottle in his hand for a moment. "Not that that in itself is such a bad thing."

"You mean you're trapped here?" Hermione had never thought such a thing; she supposed the rest of his crew was somewhere on the island, searching for treasure or some such nonsense, their ship parked just around the corner.

"Yup." Another swallow of rum. "Watched Barbosa sail away with me ship. 'Ave ye heard of the Black Pearl?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, no." Brushing a bit of sand from the leg of her jeans, she asked, "How… do you think you'll get off the island?" She could apparate him anywhere he wanted to go, of course, but didn't want to spring that upon him right now. He was definitely a Muggle, and they didn't react well to the matter of apparition.

"Dunno. Thought I'd probably just drink meself to death." He flashed her a golden grin. "Not much else I can do, is there?"

"I suppose not," she said quietly.

"But now you're here t' keep me company!" The grin was still plastered on his sun-worn features, and Hermione realized the rum probably had a lot to do with that.

"For a while, at least." She sighed and sipped from her bottle.

"You think you'll be able to get offa here? How you figure? Just blink and there ye are, like the way ye got here?" He laughed at his own joke.

"Yes, actually." At his quizzical look, she decided she better steer him away from that topic. "Where did all the rum come from?"

"Ah!" His eyes lit up like a child about to spill a secret. "Follow me." He rose as she did and grabbed her arm to steady himself. She smelled lovely, and her skin was so pale and smooth…

"This way," he shouted, pointing inland with his bottle. She helped him stumble along for a few minutes until he spotted whatever it was he was looking for. He knocked on a palm tree and listened to the sound, then started with his back against it and began taking ridiculously big steps, counting under his breath. He then checked the position of the sun, turned slightly northeast, and counted a few more steps. When he jumped in the air, the sand sprang back beneath him like a trampoline. "Here!" he yelled, and settled his bottle in the sand. "Gimme a hand, will ye?"

Hermione set her bottle down too and went to stand near him. "With what?" She couldn't see anything, though he was on his knees digging in the sand. She was surprised to find herself admiring the view his shirt afforded where it gaped open at the front. His chest was tanned and dark, light curls of black hair covering the skin there.

"With… this!" He found a heavy iron ring and began to pull. A sort of trapdoor rose and Hermione positioned herself so she could lift it upward with her shoulder and hands. When it fell back, she looked into the cool darkness of a kind of cellar, lined with shelves full of bottles of rum.

"What is this?"

"Rum runners. They keep a cache here," he said shortly, then descended the simple wooden ladder and handed up a few more bottles. " 'S illegal," he said with a wink. "So we ought to stock up now. We 'ave a long night ahead of us."

Her arms full of bottles, Hermione followed a grinning Captain Jack Sparrow back to their place on the beach.

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Author's Notes: Yes, again, sorry. I think this will be done sometime this month. I have finals next week, but after that I should have a lot of time to write before I start my summer job. So now I have a goal: to finish by May 31. Hold me to it! Bother me for more chapters if I start slacking off! Thanks for reading!