Severus Snape walked down the hallways of Hogwarts, sighing and
shaking his head. He kept thinking about what Dumbledore had said to him.
He hadn't said much, only that a previous student of his, Hermione Granger,
was in trouble, and that he had to help her. Snape remembered Hermione
vaguely; she had bushy brown hair, buck teeth, and was always hanging
around two other boys, Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. All three of them
didn't stand out of a crowd, except for their intense love of getting into
trouble. Or so it seemed. But that Granger had always been the bright one.
Yes, she enjoyed her share of mischief, but she was also the brain of their
little "operations". And now she was in trouble. And it was obviously
something rather severe for Dumbledore to have told him to go get her. This
was why he had just apparated and was now standing in the middle of a
sidewalk in a more rundown area of a wizarding town a bit smaller than
Hogsmeade. There were the usual houses on either side of the streets but
they were few and far between. The spaces were mostly occupied by shops,
bars, and ratty little establishments that served as makeshift hotels.
Snape sighed resignedly, and took out a map that showed the various buildings in the town, called Lodye. He was supposed to be able to find her in one of several bars/hotels, so he decided to start by going into the closest one to him, The Chaser's Goal. It was the wizarding equivalent of a muggle sports bar, but for quidditch. The inside wasn't as run down as Severus had expected, but still more on the trashy side. And no sign of Hermione. So he left to go to the next closest place on the list, The Bludgeoned Griffon. Not a pleasant name, Snape thought to himself. Of course, the entire town wasn't too pleasant. He looked around and immediately spotted long, brown, fluffy hair near the bar, and decided to walk up and order a drink to get a closer look. He ordered a not-too-potent glass of pumpkin juice with a shot of vodka mixed in and looked closely at her as he waited for his drink to be served. Indeed it was her, the side of her face that was towards him wasn't covered by her hair, unlike the other, and Severus thanked Merlin for small favors. He noticed her turning around, leaning back against the bar to flaunt her scantily clad form. She was wearing a black scrap of velvet that he supposed she thought qualified for a skirt, and a red, leather halter top. Her hair was long, down to her waist, and swept up on the left side with a black dragonfly clip, the other side just lying limp.
Every time a man passed by she looked up at him with a playful little smile and flaunted her legs a bit. A couple of the men chuckled, and one even grabbed at her ass, at which she squealed. But all of them ordered their drinks and walked away. Finally, a man in his early twenties, with platinum blonde hair walked up to her and whispered something in her ear before walking up the stairs behind the bar, his cloak brushing the steps as he did so. Hermione quickly followed, and Snape watched, taking sips of his drink.
He was supposed to watch her, when he found her, and follow her back home. She was also supposed to make sure she wasn't in any immediate danger. Dumbledore had never told Severus her profession, and he was still a little unsure what it was. She had obviously been trying to pick up a man, but whether it was because she was just a wild party girl or sex crazy he couldn't tell. About an hour later, she walked down the stairs in front of the platinum blonde. The side of her hair that had been in the clip was now down and tucked behind her ear. Other than that, she seemed relatively neat. At the bar, she took a sip of a drink that she ordered and held her hand out to the man. He handed her a small pouch of coins, with she quickly muttered a spell, turning it to a medallion on a chain, then put it around her neck. Looking down at her neck, he saw that there were three others there. Severus looked down at his watch and noticed that it was around 1:30 AM. The man finally turned around to walk out of the bar and Snape got a good look at him; it was Draco Malfoy. So Hermione WAS a prostitute and Malfoy had just paid for her services.
Hermione downed the last of her drink and walked out of the bar, starting down the street. Snape quickly set a few coins on the table and followed her, a half dozen people or so between them so that she wouldn't suspect anything. It worked until he reached a street corner and she turned right onto a street that was almost deserted. He stopped, leaning casually against the light post and watched as she kept walking down the sidewalk and stopped in front of a white house before unlocking the door and walking inside. Snape waited about five minutes before he followed her, then stood in front of her door, trying to look in through her windows. Unfortunately, these were covered with blinds and curtains, so he couldn't make out anything. So, he stood and debated for several minutes whether or not to knock before he heard glass shatter, and Hermione scream, at which point he knocked at the door, trying not to sound too eager for her to open up.
He heard footsteps inside and waited anxiously as he heard the locks scrape as they opened, and the door finally creaking to give way to a rough looking Hermione Granger. Her eyes and nose were red, and her face was tear stained. Her hair was disheveled and hanging down around and in front of her face. She was now in her underwear and an overlarge sweatshirt, scattered with holes. She leaned her head tiredly against the door, the knob still in one hand and a bottle of muggle whiskey in the other. Snape looked at her ragged form quickly, then addressed her.
"Miss Granger?"
She looked at him carefully, sniffled, and then said in a cracked voice, probably from crying or screaming, "Business hours are over."
Snape looked a little startled, then offended, but tried to hide that. "Miss Granger, you may remember me as your previous professor, Severus Snape."
If he thought that would clear the matter up, he was wrong. She just shrugged at him, giving him a look that said "so?"
He cleared his throat and looked at her seriously, not believing that she could have thought that an old teacher of hers would hire her to sleep with him. "May I come in? I only wish to talk to you."
Hermione gave him a considering look before moving away from the door in a slow, tired walk. "Make it short, I don't have a lot of time for social calls," she called over her shoulder.
Snape stood in the doorway for a moment, dumbfounded, before quickly stepping in and closing the door. He saw Hermione in the kitchen, reaching for another glass out of the cupboard, then filling it with ice from the freezer, and filling that cup with whiskey. Her previous glass lay shattered in pieces on the floor, the remnants from what it held splashed across the wall in front of it, next to the kitchen's doorway. The house was one floor, and the living room held a single, puke colored couch, and a large slab of rough wood laid upon a couple of cardboard boxes that served as a table. There were empty cigarette packages and also empty bottles of various forms of alcohol spread across the floor. Her ashtrays and many used cigarettes lay scattered around the couch and on the table.
Hermione walked in to see him examining her living room, with an almost sour expression and smirked, plopping down unceremoniously on her couch. She leaned back, her legs spread, and the glass of whiskey clutched in her hand between them. She half closed her eyes and looked at him through the tiny slits. "So, professor: What brings you to my neck of the neighborhood? Don't fancy you were out taking a stroll and got lost."
Snape looked down at her, unsure of what to do or say. He remembered Hermione during her school years very precisely now, and realized it was a far cry from where she was today. "We're not in school anymore, Miss Granger: you may call me Severus. I was taking a vacation and thought I'd look up some old pupils of mine, see how they were doing, and I realized that you were quite close, so I thought I'd drop by for a visit. I hope I'm not interrupting something."
Hermione stared at Severus over her glass, seeming to analyze him, and he was getting quite uncomfortable. "Well?" He finally asked, getting a bit impatient. "Aren't you going to say anything?"
Hermione continued to stare at him for a moment before pouring herself another glass of whiskey. She spoke, unfazed. "Well, Severus, you come into my home, judge my surrounding, and tell me some bull shit story about me being nearby and you wanting to catch up with some pupils. What would you like me to say?"
Snape gazed at her, now at a loss for words himself. How did she know he was lying? He mentally shook himself and decided that if she was going to be blunt, then he could be too. "You're a prostitute. Why?"
Hermione looked neither surprised nor offended. Whether from the large amounts of alcohol she had been consuming that night or her noticeable lack of emotion, Snape wasn't sure. But it frightened him quite a bit. She downed the rest of her glass's contents before setting it on the table in front of her. "Yes, I am. I do it because it pays. Besides, what's better than having sex and getting paid for it?"
"Yes, but there are a lot of other jobs that pay as well; respectable jobs. And isn't there more to life than sex? And isn't making love better when you're actually doing it with someone you love?"
A flash of an emotion quickly appeared in Hermione's eyes and then left as she poured herself yet another glass. "Yeah, well. I work on my own hours. I make as much money as I want. And yeah, there is more to life than sex: money, which I get from sex. I see it as a win-win situation. And besides, I can't fall in love."
Snape looked at her with open shock now. "Can't fall in love? Why not?"
"You said it yourself: I'm a prostitute. We're not allowed to fall in love."
Snape looked a bit perplexed and more than a bit aggravated, though at what he wasn't sure. "Yes, I realize your occupation as well as my own comments, thank you," he snapped. Then, realizing that his bitterness would get him nowhere, he softened his voice but still had a befuddled look on his face. "But why can't a prostitute fall in love?"
Hermione looked down neutrally into her glass while speaking. "Well, why don't you ask Harry?" She threw her head back and laughed in a disconcerting way as tears formed in her eyes. "That's right. You can't." She stared blankly at the ceiling, letting silent tears slide down her cheeks.
Snape felt for Hermione then, as he had never felt for a person. It was neither love nor disgust, but pity. He had seen some pretty awful things in his life, but for some reason watching this young woman drinking and crying in front of him was almost more than he could bear. "Harry Potter? Why can't I..." But he regretted asking immediately, knowing then what she had meant. But he wasn't expecting her reaction.
"Because," she said, very faintly before sitting up and downing the remaining swallow in her glass. She looked livid, though not at him, and then threw the glass at the wall, screaming and crying, "He's dead! He's fucking dead and there's not a fucking thing that anyone can do."
She slipped to the floor and sat, huddled with her knees to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs, sobbing. Snape was at a loss of what to do. He wanted nothing more than to rush over to her and hold her, wiping away her tears, but he also knew that she would probably push him away. So, he spelled the mess from the glasses and the cigarettes and the bottles away, and put a cleaning charm in the living room and the rest of the house before looking back at her. She was in a dazed state, half awake and half asleep, but she looked like she was dozing off. Snape carefully levitated her and lowered her onto her couch, so that she was now lying down. He grabbed an old afghan off of one of the arms of the couch and spread it over her, touching her hair lightly as he sighed in pain for her. Severus stood there for a few moments, not moving or talking, and hardly breathing, just thinking about how much things had changed over the past few years. Hermione was twenty-one now, maybe younger. How had all of this happened to her in the short amount of time since she had graduated Hogwarts with honors? A single tear, that Snape was unaware had even been forming, leaked out of the corner of his eye, slowly trailing down his face. He didn't bother to brush it away. He just turned around and left.
Snape sighed resignedly, and took out a map that showed the various buildings in the town, called Lodye. He was supposed to be able to find her in one of several bars/hotels, so he decided to start by going into the closest one to him, The Chaser's Goal. It was the wizarding equivalent of a muggle sports bar, but for quidditch. The inside wasn't as run down as Severus had expected, but still more on the trashy side. And no sign of Hermione. So he left to go to the next closest place on the list, The Bludgeoned Griffon. Not a pleasant name, Snape thought to himself. Of course, the entire town wasn't too pleasant. He looked around and immediately spotted long, brown, fluffy hair near the bar, and decided to walk up and order a drink to get a closer look. He ordered a not-too-potent glass of pumpkin juice with a shot of vodka mixed in and looked closely at her as he waited for his drink to be served. Indeed it was her, the side of her face that was towards him wasn't covered by her hair, unlike the other, and Severus thanked Merlin for small favors. He noticed her turning around, leaning back against the bar to flaunt her scantily clad form. She was wearing a black scrap of velvet that he supposed she thought qualified for a skirt, and a red, leather halter top. Her hair was long, down to her waist, and swept up on the left side with a black dragonfly clip, the other side just lying limp.
Every time a man passed by she looked up at him with a playful little smile and flaunted her legs a bit. A couple of the men chuckled, and one even grabbed at her ass, at which she squealed. But all of them ordered their drinks and walked away. Finally, a man in his early twenties, with platinum blonde hair walked up to her and whispered something in her ear before walking up the stairs behind the bar, his cloak brushing the steps as he did so. Hermione quickly followed, and Snape watched, taking sips of his drink.
He was supposed to watch her, when he found her, and follow her back home. She was also supposed to make sure she wasn't in any immediate danger. Dumbledore had never told Severus her profession, and he was still a little unsure what it was. She had obviously been trying to pick up a man, but whether it was because she was just a wild party girl or sex crazy he couldn't tell. About an hour later, she walked down the stairs in front of the platinum blonde. The side of her hair that had been in the clip was now down and tucked behind her ear. Other than that, she seemed relatively neat. At the bar, she took a sip of a drink that she ordered and held her hand out to the man. He handed her a small pouch of coins, with she quickly muttered a spell, turning it to a medallion on a chain, then put it around her neck. Looking down at her neck, he saw that there were three others there. Severus looked down at his watch and noticed that it was around 1:30 AM. The man finally turned around to walk out of the bar and Snape got a good look at him; it was Draco Malfoy. So Hermione WAS a prostitute and Malfoy had just paid for her services.
Hermione downed the last of her drink and walked out of the bar, starting down the street. Snape quickly set a few coins on the table and followed her, a half dozen people or so between them so that she wouldn't suspect anything. It worked until he reached a street corner and she turned right onto a street that was almost deserted. He stopped, leaning casually against the light post and watched as she kept walking down the sidewalk and stopped in front of a white house before unlocking the door and walking inside. Snape waited about five minutes before he followed her, then stood in front of her door, trying to look in through her windows. Unfortunately, these were covered with blinds and curtains, so he couldn't make out anything. So, he stood and debated for several minutes whether or not to knock before he heard glass shatter, and Hermione scream, at which point he knocked at the door, trying not to sound too eager for her to open up.
He heard footsteps inside and waited anxiously as he heard the locks scrape as they opened, and the door finally creaking to give way to a rough looking Hermione Granger. Her eyes and nose were red, and her face was tear stained. Her hair was disheveled and hanging down around and in front of her face. She was now in her underwear and an overlarge sweatshirt, scattered with holes. She leaned her head tiredly against the door, the knob still in one hand and a bottle of muggle whiskey in the other. Snape looked at her ragged form quickly, then addressed her.
"Miss Granger?"
She looked at him carefully, sniffled, and then said in a cracked voice, probably from crying or screaming, "Business hours are over."
Snape looked a little startled, then offended, but tried to hide that. "Miss Granger, you may remember me as your previous professor, Severus Snape."
If he thought that would clear the matter up, he was wrong. She just shrugged at him, giving him a look that said "so?"
He cleared his throat and looked at her seriously, not believing that she could have thought that an old teacher of hers would hire her to sleep with him. "May I come in? I only wish to talk to you."
Hermione gave him a considering look before moving away from the door in a slow, tired walk. "Make it short, I don't have a lot of time for social calls," she called over her shoulder.
Snape stood in the doorway for a moment, dumbfounded, before quickly stepping in and closing the door. He saw Hermione in the kitchen, reaching for another glass out of the cupboard, then filling it with ice from the freezer, and filling that cup with whiskey. Her previous glass lay shattered in pieces on the floor, the remnants from what it held splashed across the wall in front of it, next to the kitchen's doorway. The house was one floor, and the living room held a single, puke colored couch, and a large slab of rough wood laid upon a couple of cardboard boxes that served as a table. There were empty cigarette packages and also empty bottles of various forms of alcohol spread across the floor. Her ashtrays and many used cigarettes lay scattered around the couch and on the table.
Hermione walked in to see him examining her living room, with an almost sour expression and smirked, plopping down unceremoniously on her couch. She leaned back, her legs spread, and the glass of whiskey clutched in her hand between them. She half closed her eyes and looked at him through the tiny slits. "So, professor: What brings you to my neck of the neighborhood? Don't fancy you were out taking a stroll and got lost."
Snape looked down at her, unsure of what to do or say. He remembered Hermione during her school years very precisely now, and realized it was a far cry from where she was today. "We're not in school anymore, Miss Granger: you may call me Severus. I was taking a vacation and thought I'd look up some old pupils of mine, see how they were doing, and I realized that you were quite close, so I thought I'd drop by for a visit. I hope I'm not interrupting something."
Hermione stared at Severus over her glass, seeming to analyze him, and he was getting quite uncomfortable. "Well?" He finally asked, getting a bit impatient. "Aren't you going to say anything?"
Hermione continued to stare at him for a moment before pouring herself another glass of whiskey. She spoke, unfazed. "Well, Severus, you come into my home, judge my surrounding, and tell me some bull shit story about me being nearby and you wanting to catch up with some pupils. What would you like me to say?"
Snape gazed at her, now at a loss for words himself. How did she know he was lying? He mentally shook himself and decided that if she was going to be blunt, then he could be too. "You're a prostitute. Why?"
Hermione looked neither surprised nor offended. Whether from the large amounts of alcohol she had been consuming that night or her noticeable lack of emotion, Snape wasn't sure. But it frightened him quite a bit. She downed the rest of her glass's contents before setting it on the table in front of her. "Yes, I am. I do it because it pays. Besides, what's better than having sex and getting paid for it?"
"Yes, but there are a lot of other jobs that pay as well; respectable jobs. And isn't there more to life than sex? And isn't making love better when you're actually doing it with someone you love?"
A flash of an emotion quickly appeared in Hermione's eyes and then left as she poured herself yet another glass. "Yeah, well. I work on my own hours. I make as much money as I want. And yeah, there is more to life than sex: money, which I get from sex. I see it as a win-win situation. And besides, I can't fall in love."
Snape looked at her with open shock now. "Can't fall in love? Why not?"
"You said it yourself: I'm a prostitute. We're not allowed to fall in love."
Snape looked a bit perplexed and more than a bit aggravated, though at what he wasn't sure. "Yes, I realize your occupation as well as my own comments, thank you," he snapped. Then, realizing that his bitterness would get him nowhere, he softened his voice but still had a befuddled look on his face. "But why can't a prostitute fall in love?"
Hermione looked down neutrally into her glass while speaking. "Well, why don't you ask Harry?" She threw her head back and laughed in a disconcerting way as tears formed in her eyes. "That's right. You can't." She stared blankly at the ceiling, letting silent tears slide down her cheeks.
Snape felt for Hermione then, as he had never felt for a person. It was neither love nor disgust, but pity. He had seen some pretty awful things in his life, but for some reason watching this young woman drinking and crying in front of him was almost more than he could bear. "Harry Potter? Why can't I..." But he regretted asking immediately, knowing then what she had meant. But he wasn't expecting her reaction.
"Because," she said, very faintly before sitting up and downing the remaining swallow in her glass. She looked livid, though not at him, and then threw the glass at the wall, screaming and crying, "He's dead! He's fucking dead and there's not a fucking thing that anyone can do."
She slipped to the floor and sat, huddled with her knees to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs, sobbing. Snape was at a loss of what to do. He wanted nothing more than to rush over to her and hold her, wiping away her tears, but he also knew that she would probably push him away. So, he spelled the mess from the glasses and the cigarettes and the bottles away, and put a cleaning charm in the living room and the rest of the house before looking back at her. She was in a dazed state, half awake and half asleep, but she looked like she was dozing off. Snape carefully levitated her and lowered her onto her couch, so that she was now lying down. He grabbed an old afghan off of one of the arms of the couch and spread it over her, touching her hair lightly as he sighed in pain for her. Severus stood there for a few moments, not moving or talking, and hardly breathing, just thinking about how much things had changed over the past few years. Hermione was twenty-one now, maybe younger. How had all of this happened to her in the short amount of time since she had graduated Hogwarts with honors? A single tear, that Snape was unaware had even been forming, leaked out of the corner of his eye, slowly trailing down his face. He didn't bother to brush it away. He just turned around and left.