DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Snape, etc. J.K.R. does.

Thanks very much to my two glorious betas! white-hound and Aindel S. Druida, both of whom have proved invaluable. I appreciate your help!

Vie des Poulets

Chapter 4

They appeared in a simple apartment that appeared to have experienced a sad case of fairy-godmotherism; a shabby beaten floor was covered by a definitely 'ostentatious' carpet, dingy walls were predominantly hidden by vast tapestries depicting wizard lore, and various extravagant pieces of furniture that did not quite match peered curiously at Hermione like portraits of deceased relatives. The only things absent from the room, surprisingly, were actual portraits, which Hermione found gratifying.

"Lucius did some redecorating in here earlier today," Snape explained uninterestedly. "I believe it is rather more to his taste than to mine as he left it. Change anything you like about it—you'll be here long enough, I suppose."

Then, with a motion, he flicked out his wand and withdrew the Imperius curse. Hermione felt life return to her blood, as thick and pulsing as after a severely-strong dose of coffee. As volition seeped back into action, she realized she had been operating completely against her will. No part of her wanted even vaguely to be in the situation, every ounce of blood in her body revolted against the idea of being married to such a man as—as my old potions teacher!

"Bloody hell!" she shrieked, wondering if the Imperius had also been a type of amnestic, "What have you done with me?"

Severus Snape had no response. Instead, he leaned disconsolately on the arm of the nearest divan. Only after a moment's pause, during which Hermione backed away from him until she met the wall and an ancient china vase containing umbrellas, did he announce:

"So, I just saved you from death to endure a living hell, in other words."

Never had a man looked more defeated.

Hermione's hand felt the tops of the umbrellas in the jar, touching every head and judging it—one classic wooden J-shaped, one covered in leather with a hilt, one like a demoralized potato, one like the end of a cudgel, one cold metal one with a loop, one with a leather handle like a hexagonal cross-section, and one of steel with an adder's head. My mind dwells on trivialities in my franticness she mourned.

Snape did not say anything else, but was eyeing her in a surly manner, attempting haughtiness in such a way that she knew he knew that he ought to be groveling at her feet. Nevertheless, he tried to hold his stance, with pathetically slumped shoulders and hands perched on either side to support himself. It instantly made him more noxious and malignant and revolting.

At that moment, Hermione could not have done but what she did—pounce upon him with the ferocity of an affronted female with intention to tear him to bits. Only, in her hand, she held her chosen weapon from the umbrella vase—the umbrella with the end like a cudgel. It was, as she saw it, not really an umbrella at all, but some contraption made of bamboo and hardwood, but she dared not retreat to draw another, more potentially fatal choice.

She was almost surprised to land the whack upon his head, she so expected him to spin around, draw his wand, and open in combat. However, he did nothing, and her stealthy and well-aimed attack succeeded in landing her quarry. He slipped down to the ground, and she sternly surveyed the damage.

Hermione, until this day, had never hated Snape. Their dislike of each other had been mutual until the day he killed Dumbledore and confirmed himself as being on the side of evil, and then her disliking had turned to a horrified terror combined with loathing. Yet, now, after the injurious actions of the day, she could not say any more but that she absolutely hated Severus Snape, more than she ever had before that day.

After realizing the full extent of the damage she had inflicted upon another human being, she was so spent that she merely collapsed into a heap, dropping the strange bamboo utensil and sobbing her eyes out of their sockets. Snape looked about as good as dead, lying on the floor, and, to all Hermione's hopes, he was. If he were dead, then eventually she could either escape, or be killed for the great offense of murdering one of the Dark Lord's favorites.

Rationality returning to her, she sopped up the last few tears she had shed and stood for the purpose of finding Snape's wand. If she had any chance of escaping, it was with that instrument. Searching his pockets revealed it, tucked away in the usual left-hand pocket, not even partially drawn to aid himself against her. Noting this fact carefully and feeling more than a mite guilty at this concept, she surveyed the rooms around her.

There were doors, and she explored them, but there were no windows in any of the rooms of the suite. As a total, there were three bedrooms—one with a very large bed, which was evidentially Snape's room, and two with moderate-sized beds, one of which was done up as if for her. There were even clothes in the closet in her size. At least, she mused with a pang of pity, he had not been expecting to sleep with her that night.

The flat was spacious, but she noted there was no real functioning kitchen or even kitchenette, the closest to it being a small liquor bar. This did have a sink and glasses, along with every imaginable wizarding alcoholic concoction from Goblin-made wine to plain firewhiskey to 'Cognac du Digirideu', which absolutely mystified her. There was also a small room with an expert potions laboratory and walk-in pantry for ingredients, but there was no proper place to create or consume food.

There was a dining table, sure, with places set for four. Curious, Hermione drew back every drapery in the room, wondering if there was perhaps a concealed chamber for food preparation, but discovered instead a queer sort of apparatus that Hermione recognized from books as being a dumbwaiter. The dumbwaiter discovery tickled her imagination, especially because this was a new possible way of escape. She attempted to squeeze into it, but to no avail unless she wanted to break a few ribs. She was very skinny, but the dumbwaiter had only just enough room to conceal perhaps a row of five chickens on platters. It was very long, but not very spacious. After much wholehearted effort on her part, she decided it would not do, and she had to return to where Snape lay prostrate on the floor.

Thus, the only real entrance to the apartment was apparently through the floo, but using the floo would probably alert Voldemort to her activities if the monitors got suspicious. She was aware that the usual modus operandum for monitoring the Floo Network, from The Ministry, A History, was by body weight and size, but who was to know if the Death Eaters would use that system still?

In any case, it would probably be best to carry Snape along with her, so that even if traveling by herself would cause suspicion in the floo, she would have a registered member (or so she assumed) who was high in the good graces of the Dark Lord, whom they would dare not question. She probably would be able to manage just fine, though she realized very quickly there was another problem.

Where would she go? She could only think of one relatively secluded and safe place: Aberforth's Hog's Head in Hogsmeade. Even if Aberforth was dead—very likely, since he was Dumbledore's brother—she doubted she would be noticed if she entered with a dark cloak and hidden face. After dropping Snape there, she could disapparate somewhere remote and begin collecting an underground to bring back normality . . .

Her musings were broken when Snape stirred—not a good deal, he merely opened his eyes, gasped as if suffocating, and and then lapsed back into unconsciousness. She had not killed him after all. Somewhat chagrined at not having completed the job properly, somewhat less tense at the prospect that she had never yet killed a man or woman in her life, Hermione stood to gather any items she thought might prove practical for her escape.

A daggerlike letter-opener from his desk for a weapon, a needle and thread from his bedroom closet, one of the multitude of black capes from the closet next to the umbrella-vase . . .

She then drew out the other umbrellas from the vase to look at them, and was rather surprised to see the only one that actually was an umbrella was the one with the end like a nasty potato. The J-handled one was a cane with, she noted, a sword concealed inside, like in the movies. (The only reason she discovered its secret was because it had not been properly fastened after its last usage.) The viper-headed one was also a cane. The bizarre-handled one like a cylindrical cross-section was, in fact, a samurai sword, the metal one was a foil for fencing, and the leather handle with a hilt was in fact . . . the Sword of Gryffindor from Dumbledore's office!

"Oh dear God," she exclaimed, "Why would Snape have this?"

She honestly half expected Snape to wake up in that instant and say something derogatory, but he refused to comply.

"I'm sure it's not my problem. However, I'll take it with me. He's no Gryffindor, and I am. He doesn't deserve it." Hermione tended to talk to herself when she was alone, and this time was no exception. "Well, if there's no food anywhere, then I suppose I'm ready," Hermione said nervously. She still did not like the idea of traveling in the unknown, hiding and running for who knows how long, without anything to keep her strength.

Why the hell is there no food in this place?

There was really no solution she could discern. Thinking about food made her hungry, despite her filling breakfast that morning, and so spurred by that she decided to make one last trip around, methodically checking in every room for any semblance of nourishment.

Nothing in his bedroom, though she ransacked it. Nothing in the pink room, which was turned and ready for her, nor the rather drab extra room. Not a closet went unexamined, and she even went through his potions laboratory, though it was so neat that she could see immediately her searching in there was thoroughly unnecessary.

The last place was the bar. When everywhere else proved barren, Hermione decided to pilfer some bottles of liquor. Alcoholic beverages have a lot of calories, and if I'm starving I'll have wished I grabbed at least one of them.

Simply grabbing haphazardly was not a wise choice, however, so she carefully sorted through the entire three shelves of beverage. To her gratification, she found many types with comparatively low alcohol contents, though she was irked when she discovered that none of them displayed a nutrients label, so she could not see the number of calories per serving in each. Of the low alcohol liqueurs, she went about choosing ones that smelled as sweet as possible, though she had to admit that she tasted a little from the rim on some. Unfortunately, all of those which she selected seemed to have been opened already, save a few uncouth types of beer that she would not have touched even if she could read the foreign labels.

Choosing the most full ones that met her stringent standards, and commenting to her self in a disgusted manner on the great number of empty bottles and jars under the counter—Imagine, I've just about been stuck with a drunkard!--she wrapped these carefully and placed them in her satchel. Then, with curiosity, she looked at what the jars all read, and to her joy they all read, more or less, olives.

Snape, a martini person? She would have named him as one who would not have deigned to explore such feminine drinks, more likely to assert his masculinity with simple steak-and-kidney pie accompanied by no-nonsense firewhiskey. Maybe, she wagered, he might try an occasional Muggle whiskey, or even scotch or rum on occasion, but a martini? She could only imagine a man with a martini in 007 movies. Shaken, and not stirred.

Remembering, though, that she had not seen anything that seemed pertinent to cocktails or martinis—though, granted, she was not the type to frequent bars, and thus she knew little about drinks—she supposed that maybe he just had an insane predilection for them. She did search thoroughly under the counters for potential foodstuffs, and to her great joy she found no less than forty jars of olives yet untouched. Sitting pathetically next to them were one dusty, unopened bottle of gin and vermouth each.

She had to laugh at the sight. He just really likes olives, I guess. But I'm sure he can get more where those came from.

She had no hesitation about taking half his stock along with her, and would have emptied the shelf entirely if not for the fact that her bag would have burst.

Then, she decided, she was ready to drag Snape into the floo and make her escape.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .