***

Severus Snape had never cared for the walk to Hogsmeade. Others might wax poetic about the bucolic mountain scenery, but one could not enjoy those dubious pleasures in the middle of the night, Severus’s preferred time to travel there. And since the Dark Lord’s return the once-quiet road was fraught with threats, perhaps especially for him. Both sides of the newly-reanimated war either trusted him fully or not at all. Sometimes he wasn’t sure which. He was only sure of a need to be cautious.

Therefore, he had certain spots he would use for coming and going, disapparating and apparating. If he had favorite places, he supposed these would have been among them.

The far side of the bridge in the lee of the gatehouse was a good spot. He made a quiet turn-off from the main road, and then with a quick pop was gone. For reappearance, the shade of a tree just off one of the many hidden paths in and out of Hogsmeade served him well. Another quick pop and he joined the physical world a mere instant after leaving it. His sudden apparition only infinitesimally disturbed the crystalline stillness of the late December evening.

Yet the beat of a butterfly’s wings in deepest Amazonia was said to bring Asia’s typhoons, and the effect here was much more immediate. The slight shifting of displaced air triggered a small avalanche from the tree-branch overhead. Wet clumps of snow cascaded about his head and shoulders. Severus wiped his stinging eyes with a silent curse and began to walk.

All about him the scenery returned to its Muggle-painting stillness of moon and ice and trees fairy-draped with new snow, no sound except that of his boots crunching along the crusty, frozen ground. If Severus had had favorite times of year, then this would be one of them. It was that week between Christmas and the New Year, the odd, surreal time hushed like the expectant airlessness between the exhalation of one breath and the gasp of the next. The presence of few students at the Castle and fewer tourists in Hogsmeade begat an exquisite solitude. Those with homes elsewhere were tucked away all nice and cozy with their families, and the dispossessed were left to rule the lonely streets.

His boot steps led him to the Hog’s Head. It was a stinking dive, but one which thankfully had no pretensions to be otherwise. However, this night its windows were dark and the door spell-locked, badly. Severus had expected no less from such an unpromising evening as this one. Still a bit disappointed, he toyed with the notion of breaking it just because he could, but instead turned to peruse the grimy sign hanging beside the door. It read:

CLoSED FoR AWHILE.
GoE AWAY!!!

Succinct if nonsensical, Severus thought. He spared the sign a final sneer, then spun on one heel to face the way he’d come. He wanted a drink. And he wanted someone else to serve it to him. Yet there was only one other option in this town: the Three Broomsticks. Banal, to be sure, but the nexus of some recent odd happenings and perhaps worth a look.

The lit windows of the Three Broomsticks stood out from the gray and darkened buildings beside it. Lazy, welcoming golden light sauntered through frosted glass to pool on the untouched snow outside. It was a cheerful and disgusting prospect. But at least it meant the pub was open.

Severus affixed a scowl and pushed through the door, fully expecting to hate all upon whom he laid eyes. The surprise was a pleasant one: the room was empty, except for the barmaid, Rosemerta, behind the counter. As he entered she slammed down the bottle of Gerald’s Barrel-Bottom Brown she’d been nursing and gave him a boozy wave.

"Oi! Severus!" she yelled, and grinned. She appeared even more slatternly than usual, her long mismatched ringlets falling out of their pins, her stance unsteady, and her grin inebriated, uneven and sloppy. "Wot’re you doing here? Come to keep me company?"

"You can call me Professor Snape," he said. The affixed scowl became a real one. Truly, she was one of the most annoying females he knew. She had to be in the top two-hundred, at least. "And to your second question, no. I’ve come for a drink."

"I’m not one of your students. Howbouts if I just call you Snape?" she said, and leaned across the counter at him, breasts nearly spilling from the low top of her gown, the wet dream of nearly every boy at Hogwarts. But Severus was no boy to have his head turned so.

"If you wish."

"And what d’you want to drink?"

"Wine."

"Wine, ‘eh? And what kind o’ vino would you like, sir? White? Rosé? A nice Chabliss?"

"Red."

"Oho! Now we’re getting somewhere. What kind of red?"

As if she had a fine selection to choose from. "Just make it red."

"Well, then!" Rosemerta tried to give him a haughty shake of her head, but only succeeded in throwing herself off-balance. She swayed in place for a bit, then wrinkled her nose and turned to dig around in the bottles behind the bar. After a few moments of wiggling and wavering, she wrapped her fingers around something and held it aloft in a ridiculous, triumphant pose. "Aha! Pickliwicker’s Finest! Will that be good enough for you?"

"It will do." It wasn’t ‘finest’ by any means, but at least it wasn’t cooking sherry. He had no wish to follow Sibyll Trelawney down that road of self-humiliation.

She poured, hands unsteady but professional, never spilling a drop. The wine was old, unevenly tinted, but the glass was clean. He grasped the bowl and swirled it a little. Clouds of multicolored red formed whorls like a badly-mixed potion, then dissipated at exposure to the air. A cautious sip revealed it to be drinkable.

Rosemerta had been watching him with unfathomable intent, but at a quelling glance from under his fringe of hair she only grinned. "Cheers," she said, then raised her bottle to her lips for a deep swig. Her method of consumption was more careless than her pouring ability, for when she finally pulled the bottle away a few dark brown drops remained to dribble down her chin. These she wiped away with the back of her hand.

Uncouth. He ignored her toast to stare back at his glass. Yet he could sense her leaning over the bar at him, and soon her cleavage resting upon her crossed arms intruded upon his peripheral vision. "You never answered my first question," she said. "Wot’re you doing here? This ain’t your usual haunt."

She was undeniably drunk. Yet unless she was an utter moron-- a notion he was willing to entertain-- she had to know the Hog’s Head had been temporarily deserted. He wouldn’t deign to ask her why. "I thought it was a bad idea for a barmaid to consume house merchandise," he finally drawled.

"I’m no barmaid, you great ass," she spat. "Are you always so unpleasant?"

"Find any cursed jewelry in your lavatory recently?" he countered.

That shut her up. She glared at him, then stomped on tottering feet to the other end of her bar, pretending to clean up after the other nonexistent customers.

Severus sipped at his wine in a blessed quiet broken only by the crackling of the fire in the grate. He examined his surroundings through half-closed eyes. He could sense small magics at work, little disturbances scattered across his consciousness and flitting about like flies, but those were nothing unusual. He wished he knew exactly what sort of deadly game Draco Malfoy had been playing. Lately the boy had seemed singularly unwilling to confide in him as he had in the past. Yet the boy’s own mother…

Narcissa Malfoy. The kind of woman-- lovely, cold, proud and distant-- who, unless she wanted something, would never have spared such as himself even the barest glance. But her need had been desperate indeed. Severus wondered if, and when, the deed was accomplished, her thanks would be as gracious as her pleas had been. He mentally shook off the thought. There had been many factors which had induced him to agree to her entreaties, not the least of which was--

"I don’t, you know." Rosemerta was back, interrupting his thoughts, her voice quiet, sad. "Usually."

Severus sighed, and looked up at her, eyes narrowed to show his displeasure. "What are you talking about?"

"This." She held the bottle of Gerald’s up for his inspection. "I don’t drink the ‘house merchandise,’ as you so nicely call it. But sometimes, you just gotta have a tipple…"

He really didn’t want to hear her confidences, but there didn’t seem to be any escaping them. At least until he finished his drink. "Oh?"

"Yeah. My head feels all fuzzy."

"How fascinating. You’ve discovered a new side-effect of too much drink."

"Bah! I shouldn’t’ve bothered." Rosemerta gulped at the last of her bottle and tossed it with surprising precision into a bin at the far end of the bar. Then she crooked and waggled two fingers of each hand on either side of her head and rolled her eyes. "I just thought. You being Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and all…"

So. She wanted help of some sort. He shouldn’t have been surprised, really. The only time people bothered to talk to him anymore was when they wanted him to do something. Well, his list of people to help was long already and he had no intention of adding her to it.

"What?" he growled. "That I’d offer you some assistance? Sniff out some other bauble lying around, hidden under a floorboard perhaps, like a trained hound?"

"I’ve already been questioned and searched, you wanker. You know that." For a brief moment, her eyes on him were steady and serious, assessing. Then they lost focus, glazing over as Gerald Brown filled them and directed her movements once more. "It’s just. I need. I can’t describe. I can’t say."

"Then don’t."

Her laugh at that sally was sharp and full of bitterness. She didn’t speak, just refilled his glass.

Severus didn’t necessarily want it. But its red drew his eye, a splash of color in the otherwise drab golden brown of the tavern. Red for blood, life, to replace the thin, cold, watery substance that coursed through his veins. Almost without thought he brought it to his lips and took a sizeable gulp. It lacked the coppery vitality he sought, but at least it warmed his throat.

Rosemerta watched, intent once more. "Second glass o’ P’s always goes down easier than the first, eh?"

"Indeed."

Her presence was no longer necessary, yet still she didn’t go away. She grabbed another bottle of Brown for herself and dragged up a stool to settle in. One brown-clothed elbow and one half-bare bosom spilled across the bar, and one long fingernail drew lazy circles on the wood.

"Odd things happenin’."

"You think so?" His voice projected all the sardonicism he felt at such an obvious statement. At the entire situation. She hadn’t made him feel sorry for her, not with her whining, and now she was trying something else. He wondered how far she would go, how desperate she was.

"Yeh. Odd types comin’ in here. You’d think they wouldn’t, not with Hogwarts so close."

"This is a pub. That is its purpose."

"Sure, but we got usuals. Even you, you’re up at the school and all."

"Tell this to the Headmaster instead of bothering me."

"I can’t. I just. But you." She dragged a finger from the bar to point at him. It wavered there before his eyes for a few moments, drawing tiny circles of effrontery in the air, until a glare from him lowered it somewhere nearer chest-level. She hiccupped. "Now you could help. Might know ‘em."

"Why would I want to do that?" Severus decided after all that didn’t want to hear it, or see how far she would go. He didn’t relish being toyed with. Whatever her offered reward was to be, he didn’t care to earn it.

But Rosemerta was desperate. The finger which had been pointed at his chest now slid up to caress the bowl of his wineglass, almost, but not quite, touching his own hand. The one attached to the Dark Mark. It burned, spiking into his wrist like a badly-aimed razor, but it was the kindling burn of rage, not the burn of a summons. "Because. You know. We could help each other out..."

Severus realized his blood was still very much present, because suddenly his head was pounding with the heat of it, the fury. Did she think him so very desperate--?

It was an interesting phenomenon, when infinite rage eclipsed all else. It was like practicing Dark Magic. He embraced his anger, gained control. The pounding in his temples subsided, and every moment etched itself into crystalline clarity at his merest command. He could form words into brilliant, knife-edged shards. "How, exactly?"

"You know." She wouldn’t say it.

"No, I am afraid that I do not."

"I’m hitting you over the head," she said, voice rising to a shrill screech. Her eyes were wild, glazed, a look that proclaimed that the owner no longer cared what dangerous territory she blundered into. "Speaking of, don’t you ever wash your goddamned hair, Snape?"

Severus leaned forward until his nose nearly touched hers. "What is to be your coin? My payment?" he asked, slowly.

Booze or desperation drove Rosemerta still, because she didn’t back away. She put a hand at her décolletage, for a moment looking as if she were about to pull down the bodice of her dress. Her fingers lingered there, nestled at the curved conjunction of her mounded breasts, taunting him, then withdrew. Between her fore and middle finger was sandwiched a golden Galleon. "This is my coin. Bastard. Do you want it?"

"Keep it." Severus stepped back and tossed down the rest of his wine. Without another word he spun on one heel and threw open the door.

"I must," she said to his back as he left.

The cold, still air outside was a welcome slap on his face. Snow was falling again, tiny flakes wafting in slim corkscrew spirals to cover his lone footprints. Severus stomped his way back to his tree. His favorite. He would not use it again. The thought was soothing, in a way, as was the chill wind and solitude. There was a satisfaction, a liberation, in denying the use of one’s labors, in saying ‘No’ and saying it well. And in embracing one’s fate.

A small thought crept into his new-found calm. The coin? Had there been something about it, or the look in her eyes?

Severus shook his head, and walked on. No. Rosemerta was nothing but a fool. And a coin was merely a coin. No dark wizard in their right mind would have entrusted anything to her drunken care or her abilities.

The town’s darkened and boarded-up windows cried out their silent desolation. All its souls had scattered in fear of Mortal Peril, as if their own inevitable mortality were dependent solely upon the return of the Dark Lord.

***