AN: Always with the babies and you people. lol!

Hermione was stuffing files into her case, getting her things in order for the company meeting that would be taking place at Arcane when she realized she'd left the projection figures for the fourth quarter downstairs in the lab.

She bounced down the stairs and found an agitated Severus pacing the floor. He stopped as soon as he saw her.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing's wrong," he said. "Shouldn't you be leaving? I thought the meeting was going to be at one o'clock."

"It is. I just need to grab one more file. Are you sure you're alright?"

He gave her a tight smile and stroked his hand down her cheek. "I'm fine. I was just working through some ratio calculations in my head for a new formula I'm working on."

She leaned up and kissed him. "Alright, but you look like you could use a break. Are you sure you don't want to come to the meeting? You always get a nice nap when you do."

He smirked. "You go. I've things I need to do here." He pulled her into a hug that was slightly more needy than she was comfortable with walking away from. "What time will you be back?"

"Probably around four."

"I'll have tea ready when you get back."

"That would be lovely. Are you sure you're alright, Severus?"

His eyes glittered with anger for a moment but then calmed. "I said I was fine. You should go before you're late."

He turned away from her and headed back to his supply cupboard, leaving her staring after him in confusion

Severus, finished his lunch, helped tidy up the kitchen, kissed her soundly, and then headed back to his lab to finish working on his samples.

Hermione stared after him with sadness, while Crookshanks kneaded her thighs manically.

Severus still seemed fine to the casual eye, but a closer examination showed signs of strain around his eyes that hadn't been there since that last week before she'd left for Greece. What had alarmed her the most was the slight tremor in his hands. He diced and chopped and sliced as swiftly and efficiently as he always did, but when he stirred, she noticed the smallest palsy.

Her troubling realization in the third week, had hardened into a pained concern by the fifth week.

She'd only made the mistake of trying to confront him about what was going on once.

He'd left the house immediately afterwards and had stayed away for hours.

By the sixth week, she was walking on eggshells.

Severus was still attentive and loving, and very solicitous, but it was clear there was something going on that he wouldn't speak of, and she was afraid to bring it up. As she became more obvious in her concern, he grew more hostile. Never with her, but he spared no vitriol for the world, the press, her cat, and he was even back to hexing her clock.

They developed a new routine. They practically hid from each other during the day, and then made up for it with ferocious bouts of sex at night.

It has taken her until two months of living with him before she finally realized what was going on and the scales fell from her eyes. When the truth struck her, she was floored. It was so obvious that she was furious with herself for not noticing before and livid that he had kept it from her.

Severus had been trying to quit drinking… and he was failing.

She didn't know what to do.

She didn't have any experience with drinking problems. Her parents had only indulged in the occasional bottle of wine, and that had always been on an occasion. Ron was a regular drinker, but she could count on one hand the number of times she'd seen him totally pissed since they'd come of age. She really wasn't sure what constituted the difference between being a heavy drinker and being an alcoholic, but she was pretty sure that hiding it was somewhere on the line you crossed along the way.

What had finally tipped her off was the bottle of brandy on top of the refrigerator. Ron had given it to him as an engagement present. She'd grown so used to seeing the ubiquitous bottle in the same spot, that it wasn't until she was sitting at the table alone one afternoon, while Severus stormed about in his basement lab, that she realized the anomaly. It hadn't been touched.

When she'd worried about his drinking before, she'd noticed a pattern pattern. Whenever she'd left on Fridays, there would be a brand new bottle, and when she returned on Monday, there would be a different bottle that was nearly empty. A replacement would appear on Tuesday, and slowly slip away until the next bottle arrived on Friday again.

But the bottle on top of the refrigerator was still untouched weeks later. Hermione knew that Armagnac, though not the most expensive, was considered the best by connoisseurs. For Severus to have left it untouched signified something. On the surface, it would seem to mean he'd given up the drink, but Hermione had smelled alcohol on him enough and tasted Soberup potion on his lips too often these last few weeks to know a lie when she saw one. Severus was hiding his drinking from her.

She was utterly distraught. Not only did he have a problem, but she'd somehow driven it underground, so-to-speak. Now that she knew what the problem was, she had no idea how to bring it up. Severus was the very definition of prickly pride. She'd rather stick her hand in a viper's nest than corner him on something he was obviously ashamed of enough to keep secret.

She sighed and dragged her hand through her hair. There was a new enemy in her life and she needed information. It was time to start this battle. She'd been operating blind and hated that feeling. It would end now. She pushed back from the table and went to grab her handbag and cloak. She jogged down the stairs and saw Severus analyzing potion samples. Her new eyes didn't miss the slight stiffening of his shoulders as she approached.

She lifted a hand and stroked it down his shoulder and across his back, feeling the tension dissipate under her touch. She winced at the realization of how highly strung he was.

"I'm going out for a while," she said. "I have some books to go find and a few more things to get as well. Did you need anything while I'm out?"

He turned to her and pulled her into his arms. "When will you be back?" he asked.

"I'm not sure, it depends on how long it takes me to find answers to some research I'm starting. Not before three, but definitely by tea." She lifted up on her toes and kissed him. He kissed her back hard, and she couldn't miss the desperation behind it. She hugged him tightly, and hoped it filled his need, at least for a little while. When he finally pulled away she smiled and stroked his cheek.

"I love you," she said. "No matter what, I love you. Remember that."

He looked at her strangely but then smiled her favorite smile. "I'll have tea ready by four," he said, kissing the top of her head.

"Lovely! Do you want me to bring back a cake?"

His eyes glittered. "Something with whipped cream would be nice."

She returned a sultry smile. "Done."

She turned and headed up the stairs and when she looked back, he was staring at her intently. She waved and he nodded, before he turned back to his work bench.

Hermione pulled her hood up and stepped away from the Apparition point and headed straight toward The Three Broomsticks. She may not have known anyone who successfully overcame a drinking problem, but she did know an expert on drinking. That was as good a place to start as any.

Hermione kept her hood down as she sat at the bar and waited for Madam Rosmerta to make her way over. The bar was mostly empty, a favorable sign.

"Hullo, what can I get for you?"

"I'd like a butterbeer, please. And if it's not too much trouble, I'd like a bit of advice, if you have any."

Rosmerta raised her eyebrows and then narrowed them. She lowered her head and peered up under her hood. "I thought that sounded like you," Rosmerta said. "How are you, Miss Granger? I've not seen you in ages. Are you still hiding in Snape's house?"

Hermione pushed back her hood and smiled. "Yep."

"Wonderful! You're a lucky girl, you know. I fancied Snape for a long while, not that he ever noticed." She poured a butterbeer, leaving a nice foamy layer on top and plunked it down in front of her. "Here you go. This one's on the house, for having the cheek to stick it to the Prophet. Congratulations, by the way," she said, pointing towards Hermione's ring. "Now, what can Rosmerta give you advice on? Aren't you the Brightest Witch of Her Age?"

Hermione grimaced. "Only in certain areas. Sometimes I can be downright thick. I need to ask for your discretion, the topic is a bit delicate, and if the papers wanted to spread rumors, I could get into a good deal of difficulty."

"You have my word," she said. "I hate that rag. Especially after the stories they printed about me after Katie Bell. If it hadn't been for the teachers at the school coming in on the weekends, I'd have lost my business."

"You have my deepest sympathy and understanding," said Hermione, taking a sip of her drink.

"How can I be of help?"

"Well, this might sound a bit backwards, considering what you do, but I need to know how to stop someone from drinking, and I thought you might be able to point me in the right direction."

Hermione was unprepared for the look of profound sadness and pity that spread across the face of the woman on the other side of the bar.

"Oh, luv," the woman said, placing a hand on her arm. "There's nothing you can do. Nothing at all."

Hermione recoiled away from her but Rosmerta kept her grip on her arm and refused to let her go.

"You're a smart girl, Hermione. Don't turn away from a truth just because you don't like it." She waited until Hermione settled again and snatched up a clean bar rag and handed it to her to wipe the sudden tears. "It's Severus, isn't it? I always feared he'd fall. It's not how much they drink, you know. It's the way they do. Tell me, you might as well get it off your chest, what made you come today?"

Hermione told her everything. From the beginning. She told her of how he had only ever been helping her, and the terrible price they had paid because of Rita Skeeter and her lies. She spoke of her worries, back when she was just working for him, and the patterns she'd noticed. She told her how the only times she'd ever actually seen him drink, were those times when she'd intruded into his home on her off days. She told her of how they had only admitted they loved each other a few weeks ago, and their hasty decision to move in together. And then she told the woman about the bottle on the refrigerator and how she had only put all the pieces together in the last few days. She told her about the tremors, and the irritability that went too long without seeming suspicious because of his nature. She told her of the sallow cast his skin sometimes took on these days and the dried-out, parchment look it had at other times. She told her about how she had just figured out he was hiding it from her and how desperately she needed to fix him.

"He's so close to being happy, Rosmerta. It's the last obstacle. I must be able to do something!"

"No, pet. There's nothing you can do but love him. No wizard or witch ever gave up drinking because they were nagged, lectured or made to feel guilty enough. But it sounds like he's trying. That's a huge step. You'll have to talk to him. It's the secrets that make it so much worse.

"That and the Soberup poisoning. That's what you're seeing. He must be drinking buckets of the stuff. That's what happens to us Wizarding folk. We drink until we're sick, and then we take a potion and go on as if nothing happened. But once the drink gets a hold of you, then you've started into a vicious cycle of getting drunk and snapping out of it, only to get drunk again a little while later. It affects the liver faster than a Muggle with the same problem. He'll go from sallow to jaundice eventually, and then he'll be in serious trouble.

"There are people who can help, And there's a few books on the subject. I suggest you read them before you speak to him. There's little you can do to help, but there's a million things you can do to make it worse for both of you. You need to understand what you're dealing with."

Severus met her at the door when she came home. He hugged her tightly and looked like a lost puppy. She leaned up and kissed his lips, tasting the Soberup potion that he must have just drank. She told him the food smelled delicious, apologized for forgetting the pudding, and begged for a moment to put her things away and wash up. She stowed her satchel full of books in the spare bedroom that had long ago been converted to storage. She tucked them in with her still-full boxes of belongings and touched up the glamour on her face to hide her tear-swollen eyes.

Some of you saw it coming...