Hermione kept an upright piano on the shelf by the books in her sitting room. Most of the time, it was shrunk down to fit on the shelf and looked like any other trinket, but occasionally she would rearrange and resize the furniture, removing the sizing charm on the piano. It was a quiet evening on the warfront, and there was a thunderstorm raging outside, so she had opened up a Riesling and brought out the piano, thinking fondly of her mother.
It had been a childhood battle, her mother teaching her piano. They had structured lesson time every day after school, and she was encouraged to practice on her own at least twice a week. There had been more than one instance of uncontrolled magic in her frustration, metronomes realigning their beat to her tempo, the clock on the wall setting itself so that it read the time for the end of the lesson.
She'd been quite good by the time she was eight, though. The lessons had slowed to three a week, and she hadn't resented them quite so much. After she'd started at Hogwarts, the lessons had stopped, but she'd still played when she felt like it.
The piano had been one of the first things she bought for herself when she moved into the flat in Edinburgh. Dumbledore provided the necessities—the bed and wardrobe, chairs for the sitting room, the large kitchen table—and she filled in the rest.
She knew most of the classic sonatas from memory, and more than a few "pop classics" of the Eighties. She played what she was in the mood for, and she was playing a chord-heavy fugue by one of the Bachs. She was trying to remember how it ended when she heard the key in the door.
Severus was grinning like a loon. That was the first clue. The second clue was when he crossed the room in a hurry and presented her with his wand, grip first.
"Severus?"
"Every month, I bring Gretchen Goyle an anti-depressant."
"That's nice of you."
He scowled at her. "She's less homicidal when she's happy-ish."
"Okay."
"The Dark Lord thought it would be funny if I were to be dosed with a month's worth of it."
"What?"
"The last time this happened, I was 22 and I charmed everything in Abraxus Malfoy's parlor to mother of pearl. They couldn't reverse it; they ended up selling most of it. Bastards made mint on my bloody spellwork."
"I see," she said, though she really didn't. She was, however, amused to note that he'd lapsed into the proper Northern accent of his childhood, something she'd only heard from him when he was slandering his father or out of his mind with pain.
"That's why Lucius made me leave. He didn't want to have to replace his furniture."
"Well, thank you for giving me your wand. I don't want to replace my furniture, either."
"Hermione," he said, suddenly very serious. He bent over slightly so that he was looking straight into her eyes. His eyes, so dark brown they might have been black, were so dilated she couldn't see any of the brown anymore. "I'm quite high right now."
She laughed. "I'd noticed."
Severus nodded sagely, then took himself off into her kitchen to fix himself something to eat. Amused, she retured the piano to its usual place on the shelf and watched him jab awkwardly at the microwave before giving up and reheating the curry she'd had for lunch the previous afternoon with wandless magic.
He wolfed the curry down like a starving man, and left the dish in the sink before wandering out to the sitting room. He found her wireless and poked at it until he found a staticy station playing something by the Dubliners.
"My mum loved folk music, and my dad loved drinking songs. This was where they came together," he said, nodding happily along. She'd never heard him refer to his parents like they were people before—it was always the tropes he'd relegated them to, his hateful Muggle father and the beaten-down wife.
Hermione was going to say something, but then he was singing along at the top of his lungs. He had good pitch, but his voice wasn't suited to the songs—he was a bass, perfect for slow, full songs; he was currently singing along to dancing and drinking songs.
He was in the middle of a bawdy song about a mermaid when he remembered she was there, and dragged her out into the open space where the piano had been to dance. He dragged her through the steps of a reel or a jig (she had no idea), scowling like that familiar menace of the classroom whenever she did something wrong (which happened often). The next song, Red is the Rose, was too slow for the dance, and he left her to her own devices so that he could stand on the coffee table and sing along.
"Red is the rose that in yonder garden grows. Fair is the lily of the valley. Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne. But my love is fairer than any."
It was quite possibly the best show she'd seen in ages. He had a beautiful, low, thrumming voice. She'd known that already; she'd sat through innumerable lectures listening to him. She'd never heard him use his voice like this, though.
"Come over the hills, my bonnie Irish lass. Come over the hills to your darling. You choose the rose, love, and I'll make the vow. And I'll be your true love forever."
And then it was over, but the show continued. He said something rude about Irishmen, and then continued to stand on the table, stomping his foot and clapping the beat as he sang the Rocky Road to Dublin, tempo pushing faster and faster. After that it was Seven Drunken Nights, of which the radio only played five of them; disgusted, Severus turned it off and sang her the last two verses. She was on the floor by the end of it, rolling from the sheer hilarity of Severus Snape, of all people, singing that particular song to her.
"I sang that song to Lily once," he told her, hopping down off the table after taking a theatrical bow. "She blushed and didn't speak to me for two days."
"You scandalized her?"
"We were thirteen."
Hermione chuckled, holding out her hand and drawing him down to sit next to her against the wall where she'd been sitting since her furniture was all too small and stacked in the corner from when she'd had the piano out. She wondered who Lily was, but it wasn't the right time to ask him.
"Did you even know what the song was talking about?"
"Oh, yes. Dear ol' Dad showed me."
"Showed you?"
"Indeed." He sighed, and it was a tired, resigned sort of sound. "Mum fought him at first, saying how it was inappropriate, telling me to look away, go away. But he wouldn't have it—he was drunk as a skunk, of course. She submitted eventually. Wouldn't look at me for the longest time after. He didn't even remember he'd done it."
"Your dad sounds like a real winner, Sev," she said as lightly as she could, wondering if he was sitting close enough that he could feel her shaking. She wanted to find his father's bones, dig them up, and burn them. Or spit on his grave. Something.
"Charming man," Severus said, smirking darkly. "Gods, I'm starving. Do you have any more curry?"
And he was off again, raiding her fridge. She was out of curry, but he found sandwich things and set about assembling.
"What's the intended dosage on that potion you made for Mrs. Goyle?" she asked, because Severus Snape was prone to brooding and sulking, especially when an uncomfortable topic came up.
"A drop diluted in morning tea," he answered promptly, then filled his mouth with sandwich.
"No wonder you're—"
"Flying high?"
"Yes."
He chuckled merrily and polished off his sandwich in three bites. His plate joined the bowl from the curry in the sink.
"Do you want me to give you something?"
"Course not. I want to enjoy it. That's why I came here."
"Really?" That was almost flattering.
"You're the only Occlumens I know outside Dumbledore. I can be happy for thirty hours and nobody will be the wiser." He smiled sleepily at her, then frowned. "Unless you tell."
"Nobody would believe me."
"An excellent point," he said, jabbing a finger in her direction and then pausing to look at his finger as if it was doing something odd.