Chapter 3

They decided to hide beneath one of the tables, as Harry had in his third year, making sure to choose one that allowed them a clear view of the entire pub. Fortunately, the Three Broomsticks was just about empty during the middle of the week. Only one corner table was occupied – an elderly, hump-backed wizard dressed in a shabby, old-fashioned robe sat clutching a glass of firewhisky as if it were his most cherished possession in the world. He seemed to be slightly inebriated already and kept up a constant, mumbling stream of conversion with the glass in front of him.

Madam Rosmerta, the proprietor of the Three Broomsticks, stood behind the bar counter polishing up a few glasses, casting occasional sideways glances that were half suspicion and half pity at her only customer.

Ron had first suspected that this was Snape in disguise, but Hermione and Harry had rejected that idea after quiet discussion. They were, after all, twenty minutes too early. And even if Snape had donned that sort of disguise, it was quite unimaginable that he would get stone-drunk like that – the old man was chugging down one firewhisky after another as if it were nothing but syrup.

Yet Ron stubbornly held on to his suspicion, telling them that he found that sort of behavior much less surprising than that Snape was queer. Additionally, a habitual hang-over as a result of regularly imbibing alcoholic beverages would go a long ways towards explaining Snape's usual sunny disposition. Which prompted Hermione to point out in a sharp whisper that as a Potions master, he was certainly more than capable of brewing a remedy for a hang-over.

It wasn't until she started reciting a list of possible potions, complete with recipes, that he stopped arguing with her.

Twenty minutes – and another bottle on the old man's table, served by Rosmerta with a stern reminder that this would be the last one – later, the old wizard was still the only customer in the pub.

"Snape is never late," whispered Harry.

"Maybe he decided not to come," Hermione answered uncertainly.

"Or maybe he's already sitting at the table, stone-drunk…"

Ron's whispered words were interrupted by the ringing of the door bell. Immediately, all their heads shot up as they looked expectantly towards the entrance.

A wizard in his early thirties, with thinning, mouse-brown hair, a pointy nose, and angular glasses entered the room and looked around nervously. His hands were clenching and unclenching convulsively in front of him in what seemed like a misguided attempt to strangulate the handkerchief he was holding.

"Hallo, young man," Madam Rosmerta greeted him in a friendly but determined voice.

The wizard seemed to get the hint, and with jerky movements took a seat at a table near the door. "A…a pumpkin juice, please," he said nervously while trying to sneak a peek at the old wizard with such determination to be furtive and stealthy that what he was doing was as obvious as the nose on his face.

In the next few minutes, the old wizard got steadily more drunk, while the young wizard got more nervous and edgy the longer he kept trying to peer at him.

At about a quarter past nine, just before Harry seriously considered asking the other two to abandon post and retreat, the front door opened again, and a tall figure hidden under a black, hooded cape entered the room.

The new arrival lifted his arms, pulled back the hood, and revealed his face,

It was Snape.

He had actually come, and now they had proof: Severus Snape, all-around evil git of Hogwarts, was a flaming queer. Harry grinned broadly yet again. At his table, the handkerchief strangler breathed a sigh of relief as he discovered Snape, and looked him up and down with obvious interest.

Well yes, Harry thought, if given the choice between the old drunkard and Snape, the latter obviously appeared to be the better alternative – even if only slightly better.

Snape didn't acknowledge the man's open interest in him with anything other than a grim curl of the lip, and instead strode towards a table in a corner of the room, fairly close to where they were, and sat down. His furtive scan of the pub was a great deal more subtle than the young wizard's had been.

Madam Rosmerta approached him with a friendly smile.

"What a pleasant surprise to see you here, Professor Snape. May I bring you the usual?"

Snape gave a short nod and leaned back in his chair. His eyes seemed be glued to the opposite wall, but suddenly Harry was overcome with the feeling that he was being watched. He bit his lower lip. Snape couldn't somehow detect their presence here with Legilimency, could he?

"He is actually meeting here in public with Malfoy or anyone else interested," Ron whispered.

"So what? I doubt that they'll start wildly making out in here," answered Hermione, who was distracted trying to remove a strand of her hair that had caught on a splinter of the table leg without the Invisibility Cloak sliding off.

"Ugh, Hermione. Please. I think I'm going to barf."

Harry ignored the two, and watched as Rosmerta set down a firewhisky in front of Snape.

"Well, so much for the theory that Snape doesn't drink," he heard Ron mumble.

The younger wizard seemed to be getting more and more nervous, and finally gathered up his courage. With a shove that just about knocked over his glass of pumpkin juice, he got up and approached Snape's table.

"Excuse me."

Snape looked up at him disdainfully, one eyebrow lifted.

"Em, I don't mean to intrude, but could it be that you are the 'S' from the want-ad? I'm sure you have read my reply."

Harry held his breath in anticipation, and Hermione and Ron suddenly stiffened as well.

Snape seemed to rise as if in slow motion, until he, using his taller height to full advantage, loomed over the younger wizard. His face was motionless, but his eyes narrowed and glittered dangerously. "I suggest that you, sir, immediately walk out the door and never return," he hissed softly. He leaned forward slightly, and his voice grew even sharper. "And should you ever have to audacity to dare to talk to me or even just approach me like this again, you may not be so lucky as to be given the opportunity to leave unharmed."

It was quite impossible to not take Snape's threat seriously. In any case, the young wizard took an immediate step back, and his eyes widened in terror before he whirled around, threw a few coins on the table, and hurried out of the door as fast as he could.

Harry looked back at Snape, but against his expectations, the man did not sit down again. He just picked up his drink, and downed it in a single gulp. Then, he took a few steps towards the entrance, but stopped in front of the door and turned to face the room.

Rosmerta looked at him with a furrowed brow. "Professor, what…"

"Shh." Snape held a finger to his lips.

Rosmerta stopped talking immediately and watched Snape, who with flaring nostrils and narrowed eyes was concentrating on the room.

It took Harry exactly one second longer than Hermione to arrive at the same conclusion regarding Snape's behavior. Before he could say anything, he heard her softly whisper under her breath, "He is searching for us."

"Shush," Ron hissed fearfully.

Snape's body tensed like a tiger about to pounce on its prey, and he seemed to listen into the sudden silence in the room. No one had to tell Harry and his friends that they needed to be quiet – fear had them firmly in its grip, and they barely dared to breathe. Snape knew that they were here, and like a hunter, he was coming after them.

Snape tilted his head ever so slightly to one side, and again Harry asked himself if he would be able to locate them using his Legilimency skills. And then Snape took a step away from the door. Exactly in their direction. Harry was still hoping that this was just a coincidence when Snape took a second step, and another, and with each step he seemed to get more confident, almost as if he could see them.

Finally, he stood in front of their table, and walked around it once. "You students did not think me stupid enough to fall for that counterfeit advertisement, did you? I know that someone is here, and if you have even the slightest interest in remaining at Hogwarts, you better show yourself immediately."

Harry and Ron both grabbed Hermione's arm at the same time as she made a sudden movement, but in the process Harry managed to bump the table leg with his elbow, and the whole table moved with a horrific creak.

A satisfied, exultant smile slowly crept over Snape's face, and he bent over to reach below the table.

Just at that moment a loud clash arose at the other side of the room, followed by a clatter, as if something heavy had fallen to the ground, and Snape whipped around, his wand at the ready.

The old humpback, gasping for breath, his hand pressed against his chest, lay between the tipped-over chair and the broken bottle of alcohol, the content of which was slowly seeping out in an ever-widening puddle.

Harry grabbed the unexpected chance, held on tighter to Hermione's arm, and pushed over their own table, directly against Snape.

With a curse on his lips, Snape caught the table at the last possible second before it would have landed on his toes. Ron and Hermione finally caught on to what Harry was doing, and together they ran for the back door as quickly as possible.

Hurried steps followed them immediately, accompanied by a stream of invectives from Snape until he was interrupted by Rosmerta's voice.

"Professor Snape, you have to help. He is having a heart attack."

The footsteps died down, and Snape seemed to stop indecisively for a moment.

"Please, Professor. You know what to do. He is going to die…"

Snape cursed out loud one more time, but then the steps faded away, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione finally reached the door, and with it, safety.

.-.-.-.-

"Blimey, that was too close," said Ron when they finally were back in the secret passage, his face still red from all the excitement.

"It was a trap. His answer and everything. He knew right from the start that the want-ad was a fake," Hermione added.

"Do you think that he talked to Malfoy?" asked Ron.

Hermione shook her head. "I don't know. How else would he know? But I really can't imagine that he would talk to Malfoy about something like that. Maybe he just knows Malfoy well enough that he just could be sure that it wasn't him."

"That, or he secretly reads the Quibbler, and that's how he knew that that particular ad only existed in that one sample."

"I just can't imagine," said Harry. "And who wrote Malfoy's answer?" Something about the whole affair was fishy, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

"OH MY GOD!" Hermione screeched all of a sudden and started frantically pulling at her hair with both hands.

"Now she's completely gone bonkers," said Ron, but Hermione just cast a panic-stricken look at the ground and back into the passage, as if she were searching for something.

"It's gone. Oh God, it's gone."

"What's gone?" asked Ron.

"My hairpin. It's gone!"

Ron and Harry exchanged an uncomprehending look. "So what?"

"We have to go back and get it," Hermione said fearfully.

Harry tried to calm her down. "It's just a hairpin, Hermione. I'll buy you a new one."

"You don't get it, do you? I still had it when we were hiding under the table. I bet I lost it when my hair got caught on the table leg."

Harry and Ron's still clueless expressions seemed to just add to her aggravation.

"Snape is going to find it!"

"But that doesn't matter, unless you wrote your name down on it somewhere," said Ron, and suddenly all color drained from his face. "You didn't, did you?"

"Of course not, Ron, but if even Muggles can determine the identity of a person from a single strand of hair, what do you think a Potions master can do?"

Finally, Harry understood her panicky reaction. "Oh crap."

"Muggles can really do that?" Ron asked in astonishment.

"Ron, stay on topic," Hermione barked at him.

"Sorry," Ron said in a small voice. "So what should we do? I'm sure he will have found it before we can make it back to the pub. He'll go back and check out that table for certain. Snape is nothing if not thorough if he's after something."

"For now, we'll go back to castle and wait for him there. If we have to, we'll steal back the hairpin before he can do anything with it," Harry said, with much more self-confidence than he felt at the moment.

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Translated by Cecelle

Betaed by Lucidity

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