Chapter Two – Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast

Go on Holiday

"What you need is a holiday."

Snape glared over the rim of his Firewhisky glass.

"Did I ask you?"

Rosemerta flipped her wand at a puddle of water on the bar and sniffed.

"You have the opportunity, and frankly, Snape, you're looking seedy."

"Thank you for that assessment. Has it escaped your notice that the school year is in progress?"

"Don't be ridiculous. What school year? You've been lurking upstairs for the last three weeks like some sort of ghoul. You don't even have a job."

Snape shrugged.

"Don't you have somewhere else to be?"

Snape shrugged again. Nobody seemed to notice him, and he didn't much care.

"Even if you didn't," Rosemerta tried again, "surely you need a break."

A break from what? His days revolved around lurking upstairs in the Three Broomsticks, duty visits to Kingsley and Potter, and trips to St Mungo's for what Granger called "physio-magio therapy".

Fair enough. He could use a break from Granger. The girl had decided to train as a Healer. Of course. And since she was also an official War Heroine, she got everything she bloody wanted.

Everything she bloody wanted apparently included the right to romp through the training program at St Mungo's without regard to order, scope, or sequence. Every time he saw her cheerfully prancing about the corridors with a clipboard, Dicto-quil hovering behind her, he wanted to howl. It was so bloody unfair.

Unfair because Kingsley looked at him like something on the bottom of his shoe. Unfair because here were rumors going around that he was going to be prosecuted for the murder of Dumbledore. Unfair because he was forced to lurk in the Three Broomsticks, drinking his days away, hoping to Merlin, Circe, Hecate, or anybody who would listen that the next person who lurched their way through Rosmerta's door wasn't an Auror out for his blood.

He needed to get away.

"You're right," he said to Rosmerta, draining his glass and slamming it down on the bar.

"Of course I'm right."

A thought occurred to him, and he dug in his back pocket for the list.

"Humph." He squinted at his scrawl. "Oh, fuck."

"What?" Rosmerta asked.

"Nothing." Snape groped for his reading glasses and glared around the pub to make sure nobody was watching him, and he perched them on his nose:

1. Finally Get Laid . . . , he read Yes, well, we'll not strike that one yet.

2. Go somewhere nice on holiday. Go alone.

Outside, rain lashed against the windows and a cold draft blew beneath door, tickling Snape's calves. He looked down at the list again.

Go somewhere warm.

"Rosmerta!"

"What, Snape?"

"Where's someplace warm and far away?"

Rosmerta shrugged her shoulders.

"Ibiza?"

Snape pulled a face.

"Well, what about Key West? If you're not going to drink anymore, there are customers who need that barstool, Snape."

Snape tried to freeze her with a glare, but he knew that of all people, Rosmerta was un-freezable.

The Portkey spun him into existence at approximately ten-thirty am behind Sloppy Joe's.

A drunk, trying to urinate discreetly in the alley, saw him, tripped over the curbstone he was watering and fell heavily to his knees, splashing urine over Snape's feet.

In an effort to enjoy himself and look inconspicuous, Snape had invested in a pair of Bermuda shorts, several black, short-sleeved button-down shirts and sandals.

He had chosen to make the trip in his holiday clothing.

Filled with rage, he drew his wand and cut off the flow of urine.

The drunk pitched forward into the curb and began to mutter happily to himself.

Contemplating the benefits of the Cruciatus, Snape cast the most powerful Cleansing Charm he could on his feet and then turned to the drunk.

Cruciatus was too kind.

"Soberius," he cried, pointing his wand at the unfortunate man. "Ebrionius Morbiorum Perpetuum!".

The drunk, now stone cold sober, sat up, blinked at his surroundings and clutched his head.

"I think I'm going to vomit," he declared.

"Good," sneered Snape. "Do it over there."

"Fuck. I've never been so sick in my life." The drunk crawled against the building wall and sagged to the sidewalk.

"Even better. Perhaps you'll find a profession other than worthless drunk," Snape observed.

"Blargh! I'm an accountant from Cleveland!"

Snape had no idea where Cleveland was, nor did he care.

By this time the no-longer-drunk accountant from Cleveland was vomiting helplessly.

"Have a nice day," Snape wished the man, feeling cheerful for the first time in ages.

Carefully stepping over the suffering man, he emerged onto Duval Street. Perhaps this holiday wasn't going to be so bad, after all.

As he headed south towards South Street and Papa's Wizarding Inn, thunder rumbled in the overcast skies and big droplets of rain began to spatter the sidewalk.

By the time he reached Papa's, it was pouring, and all the other tourists had long since scattered for cover.

Snape gave vent to his emotions with a gusty sigh and a drawn out,

"Oh, fuck."

It rained for the remainder of his stay.

Still, Snape had made the effort: He spent a deafening evening in Margaritaville, trying desperately to get drunk. All he got was a headache.

The next day, he visited the Hemingway house where he had a nasty, potion-resistant allergic reaction to all the cats.

Papa's Wizarding Inn had, at the very least, some nice views. When he could see them through the driving rain and when he could see them after his eyes had stopped watering from his visit to the Hemingway house. The food, however, was terrible.

In disgust, he Portkeyed back to England, spent the remainder of his "holiday cash" on a nice hotel, and set about taking a tour of the museums and libraries that he had wanted to visit in his youth.

It was outside Tate Modern that he bumped into Hermione Granger.

"Oh, fuck, Granger, what are you doing here?"

Granger gaped at him and he repented of his previous bad temper.

"I apologize," he said stiffly, "you startled me.

"It's quite all right, Professor," Granger said with dignity as she swept past him. "Some of us enjoy the culture of Muggle London."

"Apparently," he said to her back as she strode down the slope to the ticket booth, "you are not the only one. I'm sorry if I offended you."

She turned.

"Is that so, Professor?" she asked with some asperity.

"It is." He spread his hands. "I apologize," he said for the third time. "I was taken aback. You didn't strike me as the type who would be interested in ... art." I thought you'd be swotting at St Mungo's.

Granger sniffed, apparently only slightly mollified.

"Well, it's my day off," she said as if she'd heard his last thought. "And Ronald has to work, so I thought I would enjoy some time alone. The Surrealism exhibition seemed a good place to do that."

Above their heads, the giant banner that adorned the massive edifice flapped in the breeze. The silence stretched between them. Granger's hair whipped into her mouth, and she batted at it with a moue of annoyance.

Snape bowed slightly and gestured to the door.

"After you," he said. "I shall try not to intrude upon your solitude."

The look she gave him was startled.

"Thank you, sir."

Snape smirked at the banner. Surrealism, Desire Unbound was an intriguing exhibition for Miss Follow-the-Rules Granger to be attending.

But then, he reflected, she had attended the Yule Ball with Krum all those years ago, and she had spent all of her school years with Weasley and Potter. Shuddering away from the frightening image of Potter and Weasley fornicating, and choosing to focus more on the idea of Miss Granger, unmanageable hair unbound, indulging a taste for the erotic, Snape allowed himself a moment of quiet reflection.

Where the fuck did that come from?

He had intended to visit the Chagall exhibit. Perhaps a change of plans was in order.

He found her, head tilted to one side, staring intently at Paul Delvaux's Dawn over the City. He paused as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, noticing that she was wearing attractively tight Muggle jeans. He was strongly tempted to run his hand over her pert little arse. His conscience poked him. His libido taunted him:

Come off it, you pedophile, she's your student!

If you like being the laughingstock of the wizarding world his conscience observed.

Snape told his conscience where it could get off, and taking advantage of years of practice, glided noiselessly up to her.

"Mesmerizing, isn't it?" he murmured in her ear.

She jumped slightly and blushed. Served her right for wearing trousers like that.

"As a matter of fact, sir," she said, "it's quite interesting how the Surrealists have managed, over the twentieth century, to engage the emotions of the time."

"Or," he said squinting at the card beside the painting, "it could be that Delvaux understood the base erotic desires that lie deep within the human soul, pulling us together and tearing us apart."

He was rewarded with a blush and a cleared throat.

"When was this painted?" He followed up his advantage. "Ah, yes, 1940, ten years after the idea that desire was a compelling force, that people had no true concept of control, that even found objects incorporated unarticulated expressions of hidden desires."

"Yes, well," Granger replied somewhat breathlessly. She did not, he noted, shift away from him. Her eye fell on the card. "You git!" she cried, pulling away from him and shoving him back. "You were reading!"

"Indeed, Granger, I am literate," he acknowledged.

"Literate, my arse," she grumbled, looking at him suspiciously. "Just what's this in aid of, Snape?"

Snape. It was, at least, an improvement on "sir" or "Professor".

This had been a bad idea. Granger would probably blab to Kingsley some nonsense about sexual harassment, and he'd wind up trussed up by the balls in Azkaban.

Serves you right.

He took refuge in a smirk. "Merely expressing an appreciation for art."

"Art," Granger snorted. "Right."

Snape shrugged and affected to study the painting. Granger watched him for a long moment. She opened and closed her mouth several times as if she wanted to say something. Snape steadfastly ignored her.

Finally, she turned on her heel and walked away. Snape watched her walk. More specifically, he watched her arse.

AN: Still not mine. And many thanks still go to those mentioned in the Prologue!