Chapter 3:
Peanut Butter Tears
Someone had taken her seat in the bar. Hermione could notdecide if she would rather pull up the sleeve of her robe and whop him one, or slink into a corner. The man sitting on her stool seemed almost as drunk as she was, and he was, slightly oddly, she thought, working his way through a shot glass filled with water. Or vodka, but water seemed more likely.
Shaking her head, Hermione decided the man was far too big to beat up and the corner far too dirty to slink in, so she turned around and headed aimlessly into the rain. Not far from the dingy pub was a bright and friendly diner. It was the sort that half-broke teenage boys took their dates, single mothers dragged their kids, and business men met their prostitutes. Hermione ordered herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, no crusts. And a large cranberry juice, of course.
"Excuse me, have you seen this man?" asked a very smallperon with a fairly high voice. He was waving a wizarding photo of a large-nosed brooding man over her plate.
"Not recently, no," she answered, her voice dead. The small man immediately became alert.
"What do you mean by 'not recently'?" he probed.
"I haven't seen him for…" she counted.
"What exactly is your relationship with this man? How did you meet? Do you keep in touch? Are you aware…." Hermione snapped.
"HOW DO YOU BLOODY EXPECT ME TO ANSWER YOUR BLOODY QUESTIONS IF YOU DON'T GIVE ME THE BLOODY CHANCE?"
The small man was taken aback.
Hermione took a steadying breath, "Now, I apparently made a mistake," something was wrong here, and she wasn't going to go risking her past now that the future was ruined, "I have never seen that person in my entire life." Her voice had a very purposeful calm, "The person I was thinking of is blonde. At first I thought that," she gestured to the thick black hair, "was a hood." The little man gave her a suspicious stare and toddled off to bother other patrons. Hermione took a big gulp from her glass.
Some time later, she heard another voice asking the waitress if she had seen the man in a brandished photo. The waitress shook her head, and the man holding the photo turned to speak to someone else when Hermione caught sight of orangey-red captured in the ink. She turned in her booth to get a better look at the holder when something made her choke on her juice.
"Sna…, Se…," she spluttered, "Sir!" The man turned around, she jerked her head towards her table and spun around, hoping none of the other customers had noticed her odd behavior.
The man slid across the faux leather seat till he was directly across from her. "Miss Granger," he said, "I didn't think I'd see you here." Hermione felt all the anger, all the hurt of the past days well up inside her.
"It's not Miss. Granger anymore," she said through clenched teeth, "It's Mrs. Lupin." Severus Snape shifted his weight a little.
"Well…" he began.
"Can I get you something, sir?" asked a cheery woman with an up-do and notepad.
"Oh, uh…a peanut butter sandwich."
The waitress looked at him like a grown man should never ask for a peanut butter sandwich, "And jelly?" she asked hopefully, "peanut butter and jelly?"
"No." Snape scowled at her, "I said peanut butter and that's what I want," his voice was meancing and his words unnecessarily clipped. When the abashed waitress had turned away, Hermione berated him.
"You didn't have to do that!"
"Do what?" he snapped back.
"Be mean to her like that!"
"She wasn't listening!"
"She was doing her job!"
"The customer is always right!"
"Not always! What kind of grown man eats a peanut butter sandwich?"
"Are you waiting for a client, Miss Granger?"
Hermione sucked in her breath and asked shakily, "What did you say to me?"
"You know, I was going to congratulate you, but now I wonder why such a kind thoughteven crosed my mind."
"Congratulate me on what?" she hissed vehemently.
The waitress slipped a generously made sandwich and large portion of chips in front of Snape.
He watched under hooded eyes as she swayed her hips away. "On your marriage, of course. Yet now I've decided I actually feel sorry for that flea-bitten dog."
Hermione burst into tears.
A/N: Whoa! I haven't updated…forever. Originally I had planned to have this chapter out by November 10, but I got wrapped up in Draceo and Hermionette (if you've the time, go read that, too!) Anyway, updates should be more frequent now, and if anyone cares, I would love to get hate mail if I don't update within two weeks of each chapter