Part Second: The Hart Rampant: Chapter 22

Chapter 22:

The revel was not set to begin until nine p.m. or thereabouts, so Emily went into the Leaky Cauldron to kill the time with a glass of dandelion wine and a copy of the Daily Prophet. She leafed through the special pull-out section covering the Triwizard Tournament before turning her attention to the rest of the paper. The headline story in the business and government section stated that an executive reports and accounts audit was in the works for Bartemious Crouch's Department of International Magical Cooperation due to reports of mismanagement – Emily couldn't say she sympathised too much with the man. She briefly skimmed over the article and turned the page.

Just then, a dark shadow suddenly loomed over her, blotting out the light of her candle on the newspaper.

She glanced up to find Professor Snape standing beside her stool. From his tense, arms-crossed posture, she could tell something had already been annoying him that day, and that he was expecting to be annoyed still further. Despite this, his greeting of "Good evening, Professor," was relatively civil.

"Hello, sir. I wasn't expecting to see you this evening. Dropped by the pub for a drink?"

"Yes. It appears as though I'm going to finish out the school year without finding a new source of gillyweed, so I figure I deserve a Scotch for my trouble," he replied curtly.

"Tom? Your best Scotch for Professor Snape, please," Emily said. Snape was reaching into his pocket, but she was too quick, flipping Tom a Galleon across the bar. He caught it neatly.

"You don't have to do that, you know," he growled, but didn't refuse.

"Best get used to it till you've got my invoice drawn up," she said, in a tone of mild reproach.

"I'll get to it before the end of the year – I'm extremely busy at the moment," he said offhandedly. "Speaking of which, have you any news regarding our patient? Did Liria have any adverse reactions to the potion?" Tom set a glass in front of him, and Snape thanked him briefly before turning back to Emily.

"I don't know yet – I'll tell you when I've had a chance to ask Catherine tonight. I'm going to meet up with her in about a quarter hour."

"You're going to meet her right now?"

"As soon as I'm done looking at today's Prophet and finish this drink, yes."

"Mightn't I simply talk to her myself, then?" Snape asked.

She looked up at him, pondered a second, then shook her head. "Oh, no. That would be a very bad idea."

Snape's brow creased. "Why?"

Emily laughed to herself. "Trust me, you will hate the place where I'm going to meet her with a passion as yet unequalled in this or any other plane of existence."

Snape looked disdainful. "Where are you planning to meet her, then? An abattoir?"

"Sort of," she said vaguely. "It's a nightclub off of Endustree Alley."

"There's a nightclub off of Endustree Alley?" he asked. "I've never heard of one."

"Exactly. It's underground."

"When you say 'underground', do you mean it's not publicised, or am I to understand that it is located below the surface of the Earth somehow?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"What is so secret about the place that it has to be kept underground in Endustree Alley, which is already a hidden place itself?"

Emily turned her attention to her glass of dandelion wine. "Really, sir... don't worry about it."

He glowered in helpless annoyance. "You're certain that Catherine will be there?"

"She'll be there. No one misses it," she said with absolute certainty.

He was wearing that face that said if she were one of his students, she would have had detention until the end of time. "Then what is the problem?"

Emily set down her glass. "Professor, this place caters to a rather specialised clientele. Tell me, have you ever been to a regular Wizarding nightclub?"

"I've been to the Leaky Cauldron, obviously," he said, indicating their surroundings.

"How about when we're at school? Do you ever just nip down to the Three Broomsticks for a pint with the other professors?"

"Yes, actually I have done that on occasion."

"Have you done that this year? And does Dumbledore have to force you to go when you do?"

Something in his expression said that she was right on both counts, but he wasn't about to admit that to her. "I don't recall – I haven't the time to go gadding about every weekend like some professors evidently do," he said, raising the sinister eyebrow at her. "There is work to be done occasionally, when one is a teacher and Head of House, and term finals are starting tomorrow."

"Of course there is, sir." She studied his contentious face for a moment. "Well, I suppose you might as well come along and meet her with me, then, but don't be surprised if you find the venue a bit... odd, is all I'll say about it."

"Thank you, you're too kind. I must say, Professor, words fail me in describing how enjoyable it is to talk to someone so frank, open, and winsomely candid as yourself."

"Anytime, sir," Emily said, downing the last of her wine and standing up. "Shall we?"

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The man in the grey tweed overcoat had gone into the Leaky Cauldron perhaps five or six minutes after his target had, gotten a pint, and then settled himself at a table across the room from her. As usual, it had been a few minutes before the pub keeper noticed him waiting there for a drink, even though there was no one else at his end of the bar.

His contract bought a newspaper and ordered some poncy sort of wine in a fancy bottle, then spent a long boring time reading. (He could never understand how some people could spend all that time bent over books or papers or whatever. He would've been bored off his gourd, himself.) But then some pasty bloke in black, looked like a bleedin' undertaker or something, went over and started talking to her. Looked like she knew the fellow, though they didn't much like each other. He seemed to be pissing and moaning at her, but she bought him a drink anyway.

Then – inconveniently enough – they seemed to be leaving together. Walking off into the who knows where in the direction of Endustree Alley. Ah well, with the rate the fellow seemed to be making himself charming, the contract would soon tell him to piss off and go on without him, and then he could finish business.

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Of course, Emily knew that had she just suggested from the first that he come along with her to the revel to meet with Catherine, he would have refused such an offer with withering scorn. But her instant rejection of his request to speak to Catherine himself, her immediate refusal to so much as consider taking him along with her had apparently engaged his contentious side, gotten his back up; now he would be satisfied with nothing other than speaking to her himself, no matter how unlikely the setting. She should have known better than to tell this man that something was inaccessible, because now he would stop at nothing to attain it. Ah well, Midsummer revels being what they were, more than likely he would be appalled by the goings-on after fifteen minutes and beat a hasty retreat anyway.

The silence was deafening as they reached the end of Diagon Alley and turned toward Endustree Alley, of course. "Oh, I wanted to ask you – have you heard any of the Malfoys refer to my ever-so-illustrious engagement lately?" she asked, making satire of the word. She had wanted to ask him that question for awhile, and might as well get it out of the way now.

"No, I've not heard any more reports about your upcoming nuptials." Snape's tone was just as rude and sarcastic as hers. "So I'll assume that you've unequivocally let Lucius know where you stand on the matter?"

"Yes, I did – and quite tactfully, I thought. But now, it seems he's not speaking to me," Emily said, shrugging. "So it does seem you were right about how he would be, er, displeased once I made it absolutely clear that I wasn't going to be marrying into the family." All of which was entirely true, and no doubt Snape had absolutely no desire to hear any of the bloody particulars of her falling-out with Lucius.

Snape looked at her, but said nothing. Given that he was in fact Severus Snape, and no doubt could have said I told you so in a manner that would have smarted forever, his discretion was really admirable.

"Can't say I miss Lucius too much, to be honest," Emily continued, believing the words more as she said them. "He can be a very nice man when he wants to be, but he really is a bit limited as far as company goes. It's now suddenly dawning on me that you only really get two topics of conversation around Lucius – the first of course being how marvellously great he is."

"You mean he's acquired a topic of conversation beyond that one? Really?" Snape gave her a quizzical look. "When did that happen?"

As always, his sarcastic delivery was perfect – Emily laughed so hard that she had to take a moment to compose herself. It really did feel wonderfully cathartic to have a good laugh at Lucius's expense. "Well, the second one I was thinking of was how much everyone else suffers by comparison to his marvellous greatness, but I suppose the two really are closely related."

They had come up to the edge of a darkened industrial complex: a metalworks on their left, a carpenter's shop to their right, and the Nimbus Broomstick manufacturing plant just beyond. "Oh here we are, it's not far now."

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Emily led Snape through the maze of industrial alleyways with surety, confident of the way. Before long, they were walking along a high wall entirely covered with lush green strands of ivy. A pinpoint of light appeared in the near distance – as they grew closer, it resolved into an arc of candlelight shining out of a doorway cut into the expanse of ivy.

Someone had been sitting on a stool in the shadows just beyond that ivy-covered doorway – he was tall sitting on the stool, taller still when he came forward to meet them. Really damn tall when his head cleared the top of the ivy archway and he could stand straight up. He was an Arcadian troll of the minotaur tribe, with freckled, light brown skin and bull's horns curling down from his temples, with biceps as big around as Emily's waist; he probably would have wrestled in Rubeus Hagrid's weight class. He wore a gigantic pair of black Doc Martens, black jeans, and a black Muggle t-shirt stretched over his massive chest. Giant white letters on his shirt read: SECURITY.

The troll took one look at Emily's armband tattoo and made her a courteous bow. "Hail and well met, my Lady Master-At-Arms," the doorman said, in basso profundo tones of effortless authority.

"Hail to thee, Master Security," she said, returning his bow.

The door troll glanced desultorily at Professor Snape, then turned back to her. "You vouch for the human?" he asked.

"Yes. 'Pon my troth, he's to be trusted," she answered.

"I'd see your hands, if you wish the privilege of departing and returning." Emily held up her hand, and received a little ink stamp on the back of it, then motioned for Snape to do the same. He accepted it rather reluctantly, his wary eyes never leaving the doorman for a second. "It'll be a one-Galleon cover tonight," the door troll told her.

Emily nodded, then withdrew a short distance and opened her bag. "Well, that's disappointing, the doorman isn't Fianna. I can sometimes get out of paying the cover if he is," she said, aside to Professor Snape. "Just one second then."

She was sorting out some coins when the bouncer took a closer look at Snape's face – and gasped. Then the gigantic fellow went down on one knee and made him a courtly bow.

"My good Lord Trent," he said, "We are truly honoured you have seen fit to visit us again. I see that as before, with characteristic humility, you scorn the pressing of your rank. Please accept our gratitude for your most kind patronage. Enter and be welcome – and your lady as well. This house is proud to offer you cheer and rest this Midsummer's Eve." The muscled titan straightened up and motioned Snape and Emily through the ivy curtain with another bow. There was no mention of a cover charge.

Snape was as close to floored as Emily had ever seen him. He stared blankly at the bouncer for a long moment.

"Just go with it – my Lord," she whispered in his ear. "Unless you want to pay the cover on general principles."

A second later, he threw back his dark head with elaborate ceremony and offered her his arm. "A thousand thanks, good sir," he said to the bouncer, in that arrogant, silky voice she knew so well, and swept through with enough pomp and circumstance to make Lucius Malfoy jealous. The bouncer looked as tearfully grateful as though a king had stooped to him.

Just beyond the ivy archway was a wide, arched wooden door with a copper handle, which Snape pulled open, then motioned her inside. Once the door closed behind them, she fell against his shoulder, almost crying with laughter. "Brilliant, Professor, just brilliant. Pure dead genius. Really, you ought to consider a career on the stage."

"I doubt if I can count upon audiences being so easily amused as you are, Professor," Snape said – but was his own mouth twisting with just a hint of amusement? "Who is this Lord Trent, and why was that fellow outside so ecstatic to see him?"

"Lord Trent was a Muggle Tithesman invited to the Court of the Sixth Kingdom some years back, and made such a hit of himself there as a bard that King Armus knighted him and conferred some lands on him. Now he's a famous Muggle world musician, though he does spend part of the year in Arcadia. Come on, this way." She led him down a candlelit corridor, down a narrow flight of stairs.

"What do the Muggles think of the fact that he disappears for part of the year?"

"They just think he's reclusive."

"I see." He turned to her curiously. "Do I really resemble him so very much?"

"Yes, quite a bit, now that I think of it. And he is considered by many to be quite good-looking, in a dark and brooding kind of way."

"Is he." She thought she saw some satisfaction lurking in the corners of his mouth.

"If you really wanted to play along with it, you could probably convince everyone that you are indeed Milord Trent, paying an incognito visit. You could probably get people to buy you drinks all night." Another corridor, another flight of stairs.

"Endlessly hilarious as that idea is, what would I then do if someone asked me to sing one of my songs, may I ask?"

"Just get very angry and say, 'I don't play Pretty Hate Machine anymore,' and then refuse to say another word. That would be very in character for him, from what I hear."

She thought this was a capital idea, and was earnestly trying to talk him into it until he gave her the Professor Snape Look and said, "I don't think so," in such tones of dulcet warning that she thought it better to let the idea drop.

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The grey man watched in disappointment as his contract ducked behind some doorway in the ivy wall, then was gone. He thought about trying to get into this pub or whatever it was and following her there, as he had sometimes had great success with fulfilling contracts in dark, crowded music halls before.

But then he decided against it. Security looked pretty tight here, probably some kind of private place – and he hadn't much liked the looks of that big fellow with the horns.

He settled down to watch for his contract at a discreet distance away and lit another cigarette.

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In the corridor, Professor Snape paused in the well of light just below a wall brazier, and glanced down at the circular ink stamp on the back of his hand:

The Mushroom Circle

It was quite possibly the oddest name for a cocktail lounge he had ever heard of. The phrase sounded familiar somehow – perhaps he had read something about mushroom circles or Faery rings in a long-ago story book, but he couldn't remember any particulars at the moment.

His colleague had led him down at least three flights of steps now – they had to be in a sub-basement of the building above, yet the air was fresh and scented with greenery. From somewhere below and ahead of them came the echo of music.

At the end of another corridor was a large room with many clothing racks and hooks on the walls, and the coats and cloaks of what looked like very many other people were already hanging there. Professor Swain turned to him and offered to take his cloak – as it was also very comfortably warm, he found himself unfastening his cloak and handing it to her to be hung up. He then unfastened the myriad buttons of his jacket and let it hang loose in front, momentarily glad that he had put on a rather nice shirt of fine starched white cambric beneath. Then, his companion shrugged off her black velvet robe and hung it on one of the racks, somewhat to Snape's surprise – he had thought she was already rather lightly dressed.

After the Hallowe'en Ball, the Yule Ball, and New Year's Eve Ball, Snape had gotten somewhat used to the alarmingly diaphanous dress robes that his colleague wore for formal occasions. But nothing had prepared him for the frock that was revealed when she took off her black velvet outer robe. Make that – nothing had prepared him for the lack of the frock that was revealed. He was sure that his grandmother's old bathing costume was more modest.

It was made of some sort of black silk with a silvery sheen to it, woven with a spider web pattern, rather like her dress for the Malfoys' costume ball. The bodice was little more than a curved frame for throat, collarbones and bosom, and the back was so low that she indeed gave the world assurance of vertebrae. The varied hemline was composed of irregular petals of silk, and was so short that it sometimes revealed the tops of her stockings when the petals rustled. There was a little satin buckled corset around her waist that made it look about two handspans around. Snape was soon intimately familiar with the shape of her shoulders and arms and was sure that everyone else in the room would be as well. The intricate armband tattoo around her right upper arm was readily apparent.

In his opinion, it looked as though she had put on her stockings, chemise, and corset, and then neglected to put her party frock over it, and absentmindedly gone out that way. She was, of course, as cool as anything about her state of half-nudity – in the time he had known her, Snape doubted that anything could make that Swain woman blush.

After leaving their wraps in the cloakroom, she motioned to him and pulled open a curtain, behind which he could hear lively music. Pipes, tin whistles, drums, guitars, violins.

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As Severus Snape passed from the foyer into the club, he had to conclude, probably for the first time, that his tiresome Fae colleague was absolutely right about something.

He really was going to hate this place with a passion unequalled in this or any other plane of existence, and perhaps coming here had been a very bad idea.

Not that it was such an unpleasant space – a group of musicians were playing on a raised stage adjacent to a giant dance floor of dark, polished wood, off of which several comfortable, dimly lit areas were furnished with deep sofas and easy chairs upholstered in dark velvet. The massive, carved wood bar next to the dance floor was an architectural marvel, probably a century old. The decor was largely made up of slender trees with lush foliage of a nearly impossibly saturated green wherever there was room for such. Tiny white lights like bright snowflakes outlined the trees' branches, the carved beams of the ceiling and doorways. Scattered throughout were tall white tapers dripping waxen white beards to rival Albus Dumbledore's, in spiralling silver candelabra.

No, he was certain he would hate it because now he knew what she had meant by "specialised clientele" – and it appeared that he was the only wizard in the place. Nothing but Faeries as far as the eye could see; there had to be well over two hundred of them, of all ages and descriptions. A couple of young men brushed past him, laughing, totally unselfconscious – capering along on goatlike hooves, with tiny horns on their foreheads. He immediately felt as out of place as a Muggle labour union organiser at a Malfoy tea party. Conversations hushed and curious, uncanny eyes peered at him, at the outsider, as he passed.

He then noticed that the women seemed to all be wearing dresses as weightless as Professor Swain's. While the older women favoured sensible longer skirts and sleeves, there were any number of dewy young things flitting about in alarmingly short, bare-armed and low-backed gowns as well – and the cut of many of those dresses rather obviously precluded the wearing of any sort of brassiere underneath. Most of the men were wearing knee trousers and tall boots, with long-sleeved, open-necked shirts of the same soft silk material, of a style that was popular perhaps in the Renaissance. Really, there was an appalling amount of feminine skin on display in this in place. At least it seemed to belong to women with rather... less than appalling bodies. They were of variable heights, but most were of similar build – both male and female seemed very slender, with long thin legs and arms. Apparently there was a definite prevailing physical type amongst them, with the exception of a few hulking trolls like the fellow watching the door, and now and then some people with the stature of human dwarves.

Everyone, he soon noticed, had ears with that pointed extra frill of skin and cartilage – other than of course himself. And some of them had Professor Swain's same sort of eyes, that dilated to an alarming state of all-over darkness in the dim light. Additionally, they all seemed somehow immune to spots, jowls, and facial hair. Even the least attractive of them had the advantage of looking, to his eyes, very fit and healthy.

Perhaps there really was a reason his people called them the Fair Folk – their shared racial characteristics closely fit the ideals of human beauty.

As interesting as this was from an anthropological standpoint, though, his presence amongst this group of slender, attractive, smooth-skinned people in the ethereal traditional clothing of their summery homeland was making him feel older, fleshier, jowlier, and more heavily earthbound with every moment he spent there – Caliban amongst a tribe of Ariels.

He noticed suddenly that perhaps he wasn't the only human in the place – there were a few others dotted here and there, usually paired up with Faeries and wearing Arcadian clothing. Most conspicuous among them was one very young wizard he didn't recognise, rather too old to be a Hogwarts student. He was wearing a Faery silk shirt with a leather Muggle motorcyclist's jacket and the kind of round spectacles made fashionable by the everlasting Boy Who Lived, and was using the Orchideous charm to make flowers burst out of his wand, which he was then presenting to some young Fae women. He seemed right at home. Show-offy bastard.

Snape was wondering if he would have any more strange encounters with Fae mistaking him for "Lord Trent," the Muggle world musician, but instead, when they approached the bar, the bartender also took one look at the armband tattoo around Professor Swain's right arm and immediately came forward to greet her.

"Good morrow, my Lady Fianna. You honour us." She pressed his colleague's hand in both of hers and made her a small respectful bow.

"You honour me with your hospitality," Emily replied, warmly returning the greeting and clapping the woman cordially on the shoulder.

"Bide you here on your liege's command?"

"Aye. I serve the King's ally, the great wizard Albus Dumbledore, this day and twelvemonth." Then Emily turned back in Snape's direction. "My Lady Barkeep, might I trouble you for a trifling request? My companion here is to be my guest tonight – anything he wishes, upon my honour – and my credit. Can you take good care of him for me?"

The bartender – who was as tiresomely attractive as all these other Fae, with long straight red hair, wide green eyes, and the usual pointed ears and dewy porcelain complexion, wearing a bare-armed, low-cut black lace gown – winked and nodded. "Like I was his own mother."

"My thanks, good mistress."

Emily had barely begun to turn away from the bar when someone on the dance floor, a young man in rich green silk and velvet and high black boots, cried out her name, then ran up and seized her in an embrace so exuberant that he swept her up off the floor. Evidently she recognised the fellow, because she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him back. They giggled together like a couple of first-years. The woman really needed to remember how old she was sometimes.

"Alain! I can't believe it! How have you been?"

"How fare thee, my Lady of the Blade? What brings our fairest Snickersnee into this Second World house of swill and revelry?" he inquired, in what was unmistakably a Parisian accent.

"Hey," called the bartender, wiping glasses behind the bar. "Best swill and revelry in England, you swot."

Alain grabbed up someone's drink from the bar and held it aloft. Snape noticed he never withdrew his other arm from around Professor Swain's shoulders. "To swill and revelry!"

Then of course all these ridiculously excitable Faeries shouted, "To swill and revelry!" and drank to that erstwhile sentiment. From what snatches of their conversation he could make out, Professor Swain seemed to have gone to Beauxbatons with this French bloke Alain, who was tall and lanky with waist-length blond hair. Snape knew any number of teenage girls who weren't as pretty as this fellow.

"Oh, what's this, then?" Alain approached Snape, brazen as you please. "What have we here, sulking at our Emily? A wizard?"

"So it would seem," Snape replied, his hackles rising.

"Aren't you a tough audience," Alain said, laughing. He circled Snape, scrutinising him. "Let's see, then – 'No claws, no tail to whisk about, To fright us at our revel; Yet like the gods of Greece, no doubt, He too's a genuine devil.'"

Snape could think of no reply to that – he didn't know many people who taunted one in verse – so he settled for glaring at the man in decided unamusement. Alain frowned back. "Oh, you're no fun. Come on, my Lady Swain, lots to do, people to see."

Alain then had to drag Emily off to meet some other people at a table nearby: a very young, lively woman with long, straight dark hair in a pale blue spidersilk dress, who was hanging on the arm of a young man who so closely resembled her that he could only be her brother. Alain seemed to be introducing them to Emily, and then all four of them began talking in rapid-fire French. Snape occasionally picked up the words "Fleur" and "Beauxbatons" and "Madame Maxime" and "Tournament" here and there – because of course, it was asking too much of Fate to get away from talk about the everlasting Triwizard Tournament anywhere, even in this exotic haunt of the Fae. Then someone else came up, another pretty young woman with long toffee-coloured ringlets and little wire-rimmed spectacles, also wearing one of those indecently gossamer Arcadian dresses, made of white silk with silvery beading. She fell on Emily's neck with exclamations of mad happiness.

This sort of thing went on for some time. Before long, Severus Snape thought that if he had to see one more person throw his or her arms around "Lady Emily", exclaiming over her like a lover come back from the wars, he was going to be ill. There was of course no sign of someone sensible like Catherine Orson.

He turned to the redheaded bartender.

"Yes, sir, what can I get you?" she said, with a smile.

"Black coffee, please."

"Ah, there's no coffee to be found here, beggin' your pardon," came the reply. "We've got tea, if you fancy something hot."

"All right. Earl Grey, then."

"Ah, no Earl Grey, neither. Again, beggin' your pardon."

"Darjeeling, then." Snape was starting to get impatient.

"Any sort of black tea, I'm afraid isn't to be found on the premises, me luv. If you want something with caffeine or Second World sugar in it you've come to the wrong place," the barkeep told him with an apologetic little shrug, then leaned over the bar for an aside to just him. "Jest so ye know, guv, you won't find that sort of thing in any haunt of the Fae. That stuff affects us like a shot of crystal meth – we've got no more tolerance for it than Native Americans used to have for the white man's firewater. This satyr I know once drank a can of Coke on a dare, and he was just a twitching mess."

Oh yes, he'd heard about the effects of stimulants on the Fae, and caffeine, of course, was a stimulant. He blushed slightly at his own gaffe. "All right," he said shortly. "How about Scotch whiskey, then?"

"I've got a First Kingdom usquebaugh, will that do?"

Snape briefly recalled something Professor Swain had said at the New Year's Eve Ball about an excellent Seventh Kingdom usquebaugh, and shrugged. "Why not."

She set a glass down on the bar in front of him, then moved over to the mirrored back bar for a bottle. "Sorry about that. I'm not tryin' to be inhospitable – it's just not often we can run a place like we're used to, all the way out here in the Second World, so we... you know... " Her attention was then absorbed by pouring a generous shot of amber liquor.

"So you cater exclusively to the tastes of your own culture." Of course they did. This was probably the only place in the Wizarding world – or perhaps all of Britain – where they could indulge their tastes and play their music. No wonder none of them ever missed one of these gatherings. Snape realised with a twinge of embarrassment that his behaviour so far had been perhaps less than cosmopolitan – conduct unbecoming an educated Hogwarts professor.

"I... do apologise, miss. I'm afraid I've been a bit boorish," he said very quietly.

"It's all right, mate – actually I'm pleased I get to be the one to properly introduce you to the wonders of Arcadian libations," the bartender said, with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "As the saying goes, once you've had Faerie, you spend the rest of your life dreaming of more. How's the drink?"

He gamely took a sip, and was pleasantly shocked. The finest whiskies he had ever drunk would have been green with envy of the glass in his hand. At first impression, it tasted of honey, then caramel, then ended with peat and ash, orange peel and woodsmoke. It was both smooth and bracing; more subtle and complex than anything he had ever tasted.

"It's quite good. Thank you."

The barkeep dimpled at him. "I knew we'd find something you liked. Jest give a holler if you'd like more."

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Snape turned back in the direction of his colleague – in time to see a fair-haired figure in black disappear into the seething mob of people on the dance floor, followed by her Beauxbatons friends. Ah yes, the typical Professor Swain sort of attentiveness. Her red-gold head was soon lost to his sight in the crush of dancers.

The dance floor was consistently full here; people joined in, and came out, to mop at their brows and order more drinks at the bar at a rate that kept a constant crush of bodies on the floor. But the way they danced was like nothing he had ever seen before, used as he was to the rigidly traditional cotillions of the Malfoy set. He knew that the dances and the rituals by which one was invited to join them had been unchanged for centuries: men did the asking, women gave the aye or nay. There were waltzes, foxtrots, perhaps a quadrille here or there, all of them deadly dull to him, and of course no one he would have wanted to dance with would take the floor with him, so he generally ignored the entire irritating custom completely.

But the Fae seemed to have dispensed with those rules altogether. The way these people danced was nothing like the sort of overly formalised dancing he knew – they all moved together, segued together, their movements spontaneously riffing and improvising off each other. Some dancers were exclusively paired off, it seemed, like that Alain bloke and the curly-haired girl in the white dress. He was spinning the woman in white before him; she suddenly dipped downward, and Alain had slipped his arm around her supple back just at the right second, supporting her as her spine curved toward the floor – they looked as though they had partnered each other forever. Others, like the Beauxbatons girl with the long brown hair, were every other dancer's partner – she first linked elbows with another woman and swung her about, and then was twirled madly by a goat-footed boy, and then was off in a polka with a man who might have been her grandfather. Or, they seemed to withdraw into their own sort of reverie and move lyrically alone, like that young wizard in the leather jacket. Now and then a form would break out, like the ring of teenage girls who joined hands in the middle of the floor, doing some sort of circle dance to which they apparently all knew the steps.

And unlike the guests at the cotillions thrown by the Malfoy set, these people looked as though they were enjoying themselves tremendously.

There was a core group of musicians – guitars, fiddles, a harpsichord, several drummers – but other musicians just seemed to take the stage and leave it after a few songs as well, playing any number of other instruments, whistles, flutes, piccolos, accordion, a cello. There was a black-haired, black-eyed woman among the guitarists that Snape suddenly recognised as one of the sluagh buskers he had seen in Diagon Alley. Was every Faerie from the U.K. and Ireland, or even all of Europe, here?

There were quite a lot of drummers onstage now, kettledrums and many bodhrans, perhaps three or even four percussion loops going at once, all swelling to a thunderous, tribal, mosaic of sound. The fiddlers were frantically sawing away at a Mephistophelian pace. It made a tune so catchy it was almost frightening.

Legend has it that Faery music had power of its own beyond its artistic merit; that it magically compelled all mortals who heard it to dance until they destroyed themselves, unto exhaustion and death. None of this was true – in reality it was nothing more than especially well-performed and passionate music – but as his pulse pounded at the sound of those drums and fiddles, Snape had some inkling as to how such rumours got started.

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A moment later, Professor Swain had breezed up off the dance floor, looking a bit dishevelled and out of breath. She nodded to the bartender. "Glass of water and another of wine, please, goodmistress. I'd love a fuil óg from the Third Kingdom, if you've got it."

The bartender laughed. "Silly Fianna. Have we got wine from the Third Kingdom – you need to ask?"

Emily slid onto the chair beside Snape, who didn't look at her. "Evening, Professor. I hope you're not too dreadfully bored. Roddy and Catherine are late, it seems."

"I've noticed," he said, scowling.

"Catherine probably got held up at the hospital. She works in Emergency, you know, so sometimes she can't get away right when her shift ends. Her boyfriend Roderick's bringing her."

Snape nodded. "How long do you think they'll be?"

"At this point, I really can't say." The bartender set two glasses in front of her, and she emptied the water glass thirstily before reaching for the wine. "I'm going to stay for awhile, as I'm run into some old school friends I haven't seen in some years, but I understand if you want to rush right back to Hogwarts."

"And why would you assume that?" Snape asked.

"Well, I figured you'd find this place totally excruciating right from the off, and... you do look a touch miserable. No offence."

"Actually, I was just thinking this was the best whiskey I've ever drunk. And while the music is a bit loud for my taste, I'll not deny the musicians are quite spirited."

"I'm sorry you don't like it – "

"I never said I didn't like it, just the volume isn't to my taste." He was suddenly very conscious of her bare arm, where it was resting on the bar, her hand loosely clasped around the stem of her wineglass. He had merely thought of her as thin and insubstantial before, but suddenly he noticed the strength in her arms and hands, the wiry cords of muscle under her skin, the outsized veins that had expanded to feed those muscles. How many years had she spent with a sword, or a bow, in her hand? He had a brief recollection of feeling her arms clasp around his shoulders, her fingers threading through his hair – but then chased it away with a deep swallow of whiskey.

"What kind of music is to your taste, then, sir?"

He shrugged. "Something quieter."

"All... right then." She smiled rather sourly and seemed about to say something else, but then the young fawnlike woman with the long brown hair ran up, followed by the woman in the white dress, and said something in fast, giggly French. Emily smiled and drained her wineglass. "Demoiselles JoAnna and Mackenzie are prevailing upon me to dance with them, so I'll be off. If you spot them, let me know."

Then she disappeared into the crowd, leaving Snape with a sense of having been somehow rebuffed. Before he had time to become too indignant, however, the young, bespectacled wizard who had earlier been conjuring flowers appeared at Snape's elbow with an armful of white sweet pea blossoms. He laid them on the bar and addressed the redheaded hostess. "Megan Redqueen, my lady with the face of a cherub and the body of a siren, fairest nymph in the Second World, in whose scarlet locks a thousand knights have been ensnared, if thou wilt still not marry me, wilt thou at least pour me a drink?"

"Live and die a maid, if you're the jade askin' for me hand!" she replied merrily. But she gathered up the flowers and held them rapturously to her face.

"Well now, lady, now that thou hast broken my heart for the thousandth time, canst thou give me the tiniest consolation of pouring me a blue nectar of the Goddess, which is nearly as sweet as my dream of thy lips?"

"The blue Goddess-nectar, I can give you." The bartender set down her bouquet, then reached for a squat, wide-mouthed glass and filled it half-full of cold water, then set a tiny mesh sieve on the lip of that glass, suspending it over the water with hooked wire legs. As Snape watched, she reached for a pot on the counter, from which she poured a golden rivulet of honey into the sieve's bowl.

Then, she brought the most exquisite bottle out from somewhere: a thing of milky blue glass, with what looked like a hand-illuminated, hand-lettered parchment label. In the Muggle world, such an item would have brought a decent price as an ornamental decanter or vase. Even if Severus Snape did not appreciate what he saw as the Fae's only passing acquaintance with forthright English honesty, even he had to admire their sense of the aesthetic.

The bartender opened that bottle, and began, very slowly, to drip a deep-blue liqueur over the honey, so that the water was suffused with milk-blue fluid curlicues... and releasing the most heavenly scent imaginable as she did so. It was as if all the most delectable flowers, fruits, and herbs had lent their perfumes to one concoction.

"Mmmm, when didst thou get a new supply in, thou breaker of my heart?" the fellow asked.

"We managed to get a crate – one whole crate – in from the Seventh Kingdom this morning. I tell you, I love this stuff better than mother's milk myself, but it is one cast-iron bitch to find."

"Hast thou ever ensorcelled the management into selling thee some for thy... personal consumption?"

"Hey, employee's privilege, mate. And I'm not telling you where I keep it."

"I'm available for a nightcap after closing, my adored one... "

"Are you." The bartender smiled coyly. "With such a honeyed tongue as that, there's not some other lass who would fain entertain you, my sweet William?"

"No need, when the maid my tongue would win stands before me."

The Faery bartender leaned across the bar and caressed the young wizard's cheek – he seemed to purr under her touch. "'That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man, If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.'" She leaned over the bar and kissed his cheek – he seemed about ready to faint under that chaste little kiss – and then sent him on his way, after promising to talk to him later, after closing.

After the flirt in leather had paid for his drink and moved off, Snape nodded to the bartender. "Ahem, Miss Redqueen?"

That lady laughed merrily. "'Miss Redqueen' – you slay me. It's Megan Brun, really, but a lot of folks call me Megan Redqueen because of my hair. What do ye lack, guv'nor?"

"What was the blue drink he just ordered?"

"That, my friend, is called a Blue Faerie. Speciality of the house, when we can get it."

"Do they taste like they smell?"

"Better. Much better."

Snape raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Why do you love them better than mother's milk?"

"Only one way to find out, my friend. They're not cheap though – the transportation fees, you know."

"How much?"

"Two Galleons Wizarding, ten pounds Muggle."

"Good Lord, madam, I'm a Potions professor. I could probably brew my own for less than that."

The barkeep laughed even more merrily. "I doubt that very highly, mate. Try one or don't, but either way, we'll still sell out of it faster than you can say Robin Goodfellow. But you're drinking on my Lady Fianna's tab tonight, aren't you? Don't worry then – I'm sure she'll be good for it."

"Seeing as how she hasn't given any indication that she's even remembered I'm here in the last half hour, I think that would serve her right," Snape replied tartly, and perhaps with a touch of liquor-fuelled maudlin. "I'm willing to bet that if she had come with Malfoy, she would have talked to him for more than five minutes."

"If who was here? My word, does she have a paramour, then? Who is he? Is he dreadfully good-looking?" The bartender propped both elbows on the bar and her chin on her hands, looking bright-eyed and fascinated, like a child who has just heard that Story Time is beginning.

Snape shook his head. Bloody Faeries.

"Oh, never mind. I'll try one."

As a rule, Snape was not a prey to impulse, but perhaps something about the ritual with the honey and the water, the delicious scent, and the glamour of an arcane elixir appealed to him. Perhaps the idea of recklessly indulging himself on his tiresomely feckless and conspicuously absent colleague's tab had something to do with it as well.

"Trust me. You won't regret it." She went through the same water, honey, and bottle ritual and slid the glass across the bar to him. At the first sip, it started subtly on his tongue, then suddenly came into delectable focus, like the scent of a violet. He set down the glass, astonished.

"Good stuff, ain't it." The hostess leaned on the bar, folding her arms in front of her and silhouetting an ample expanse of lush white cleavage in her black lace bodice in the process. She had also tucked a nosegay of the white sweet pea blossoms into her bosom as well. Snape resolutely forced himself to keep his eyes on her face.

"Yes, that's... " He took another drink. "That's rather nice." Another. "That's exquisite, actually. What on Earth is in it?"

"Some things found on Earth, and some not. Lot of flowers and herbs and such – the proper recipe is a big secret."

Snape set down his empty glass. "I'll have another, if you don't mind. Just so I can properly analyse the components."

The bartender just looked at him.

"I teach Potion-making, you see."

"Of course you do," she nodded understandingly. "He goes from rank greenhorn to imbibing the secret tastes of the natives in two rounds – I like you, sir. May your sleep be pillowed on the thighs of your one true love."

"Thank you," Snape replied, with a tight-lipped smile. "That's... sweet."

The barkeep set another glass full of milky blueness in front of him. "There you are. All in the interest of science, you know."

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By the time he finished his second glass of 'the Blue Faerie,' Snape was desperately wishing he had brought a quill and parchment with him so that he might make some notes about its compositional analysis. If he could replicate whatever it was that made the taste and scent so appealing, he could potentially come up with a way to disguise the repugnant taste of certain medicinal potions, such as the Wolfsbane and certain antidotes. While possessing an extremely beneficial effect, the acrid taste of those potions were often enough to keep people who might benefit from their effects from actually ingesting them. If the Fae never put refined sugar into their concoctions, and if this wine? liqueur? cordial? had nothing in it to counteract the Wolfsbane, then this drink might help him come up with a way to remedy that problem.

Better order a third to make certain.

But he did ask the bartender to fill a sample vial he extricated from one of his pockets with the uncut stuff from the bottle. She said something about how she heartily approved of folks making their own homebrew, and that if he managed to replicate it, he was to come back and bring her some anytime, and she would comp him his cover charge. He gamely promised her he would, pocketing the vial.

After his third glass was gone, he noticed Professor Swain had appeared at his elbow sometime recently.

"Ah, Professor. I was hoping you could confirm something for me," he said.

"Certainly, Professor, what is it?" She was looking at him with a very curious expression indeed.

"I was looking at some of the other patrons here, and I wanted to know – you see that man at the left end of the bar, talking to that fellow in the leather jacket who keeps trying to get our hostess to marry him?"

"Oh, he's trying to marry her? Are they desperately in love, then?" Professor Swain was getting that 'child at Story Time' look on her face now, too. Snape shook his head – Ye gods, these Faeries.

"Getting back to my question, Professor," he said impatiently. "At first when I saw that fellow, I was thought he was wearing a snakeskin shirt. But now, I think... that man has snakes' skin – it's not a shirt. It's his skin. He hasn't got a shirt on at all, does he?"

"No, he doesn't," she replied. "He's one of the Naga. A snake changeling."

"A changeling... like you, but different. I saw your other form in November. You're a deer."

"I'm a faun, actually – we're something like deer." She was smiling very indulgently at him, peering at his face. It was bloody irritating how she kept trying to look at him like that when he was trying to talk to her.

"And that girl over there, talking to that man with the antlers at the edge of the dance floor... at first I thought she had a wreath of leaves in her hair. Now I see... the leaves are part of her hair, and her skin is greenish, and her fingers are sort of like twigs. She's not a girl – she's a tree, isn't she?"

Professor Swain was still regarding him with that irritatingly indulgent smile. "She's a dryad. She's a girl, and a tree. I was going to ask her what brings her all the way out here – it's not often that you see them away from their forests even at home."

He hazarded a guess – "Perhaps there's a man and a tree she fancies?"

"Can't be – dryads are always female."

"Then how do they make more people and trees?" That didn't make sense at all.

"They plant them."

He stared at her in astonishment. "Plant them?"

"It's complicated. I'll tell you later."

To Snape's everlasting horror, he felt himself swaying on his feet a bit and had to grip the bar for balance. Naturally, that tiresome Swain woman immediately noticed.

"Professor? I think you've actually accepted my invitation and had a drink or two, haven't you? Good for you, then."

"I think it was a bit more than two, actually," he confessed. His head was starting to feel very interesting.

"Don't worry about it. I think after what you did, the very least I can do is buy you a few drinks." But then she looked closely at him, even leaning forward and peering at the pupils of his eyes. He was suddenly transfixed by her eyes, which had again dilated very wide in the dim light. What did that do to her sight? What was her night vision like? He was going to ask her that next.

"Professor? What is it that you've been drinking?" she asked in a very gentle tone. "Alain, what's he been drinking?"

Alain had apparently come up to the bar sometime recently as well. "You're the one with the nose on you, Deer Changeling Girl. Whiff him yourself."

"The Red Queen behind the bar called them the Blue Faerie," Snape interjected, with the air of breaking up a squabble between first-years. "If you want my educated opinion, my bloody highly educated Potions master sort of opinion, it's honey wine infused with a variety of herbs, roots and flowers. I'm trying to catalogue them. There's a strong top note of violet, vanilla, and lemon verbena, but there's also gillyflower, lavender, liquorice root, neroli, woodsorrel, wormwood... and a few things I cannot identify at all, though I strongly suspect them to be organic in origin. I can make an educated guess from analysis of their properties, however. Their properties would seem to include... "

He could have gone on like this for awhile, but suddenly his attention was caught by the other wizard, who was on the dance floor, spinning his wand about as he danced – he had apparently enchanted it so that it glowed bright purple. Snape's attention shifted over to the light show, suddenly as distractible as a child at Christmas. "Oh my, look at that."

That tiresome Swain woman was still talking to him. "Professor? Has anyone told you about the effects of the Blue Faerie?" She turned to the hostess behind the bar. "Goodmistress – I thought you were going to look after him like you were his own mother, not pour a lot of absinthe down him... ?"

"Hey, I would think that pouring Seventh Kingdom absinthe down someone was the height of familial affection, meself," Megan Redqueen protested. "I was pouring absinthe down my own mother earlier tonight. You can go ask her – she's dancing."

The glowing, spinning purple wand was giving off the oddest trailing spirals of light, which seemed to flow from it in circles. It was quite striking. Snape wondered what magical effect the fellow was using to make it do that.

"Oh, he's been in the arms of the Blue Faerie, has he?" Alain stepped up and waggled his fingers in front of Snape's face. "How many fingers am I holding up, Herr Professor?"

Snape clapped both hands over his eyes. "By all that's holy, man – don't DO that!"

"All right... have you ever been had by the Blue Faerie before, Professor?" Alain asked very gently.

"If what you mean by that decidedly clumsy double entendre is, have I ever tried that blue liqueur before, then no, sir, I have never been had by the Blue Faerie before, thank you," Snape snapped. "I'll have you know that this lascivious Blue Faerie would find me a difficult conquest indeed."

"I believe you," Alain said agreeably. "There is no doubt in my mind that a lascivious Faerie of any hue would find your Puritan-black wizard's drawers nigh on invulnerable against molestation, sir. I have utmost faith in the virtue of a fellow as formidable as yourself continuing inviolate for a very very long time."

Now that was just uncalled for. Snape was about to get off a retort to make this poncy upstart of a lanky blond Faery git cry like Neville Longbottom in his first year class, but that tiresomely attractive Swain woman had insinuated herself between the two of them and was trying to talk to him again.

"Professor? Professor. Here I am. Right here, see?"

Oh yes. There she was. He hadn't noticed that the fabric of her dress glimmered like that until now. He touched it, right over her collarbone – and suddenly the texture of that indecent wisp of a frock was the most impossibly silky thing he had ever experienced – every tactile nerve ending in his hand was shivering at contact with it.

"Why don't you wear green anymore?" Snape asked her, musing on some memory. "Didn't you wear green to Lucius's wedding?"

"I... don't know," she replied, as if given pause by the question. "It's been almost sixteen years, I don't remember."

That Alain wanker was still sticking irritatingly close to his colleague's side. "Oh, that's clever, Emily. I think your bosoms would distract me from even the most heated argument as well."

"Don't tease him, I don't want anything to upset him in this state. You know how suggestible he's going to be for awhile."

"I know. That's when people are the most fun to play with."

"Alain!" She gave the poncy blond git a light slap on the arm that looked far too affectionate if you were asking Severus Snape. The poncy git stuck his tongue out at her in a way that was far too lascivious, also in the opinion of Severus Snape.

"Well, if you won't let me play with him, I think we'll have to seek other amusement. Come dance with us again, my Lady of the Blade – you know you want to. Just deposit Herr Professor somewhere on a sofa and let him dream happy dreams." Alain turned to Snape. "Hello, my friend. We're going to find you a comfy place to sit down. Emily is going to go dance now. And her bosoms are going to need to come with, all right?"

"I remember you dancing at the Yule Ball," Snape said. "You taught Professor Flitwick how to waltz. Didn't think he had it in him. Looked far too full of himself, the old fool."

"Oh come on, you're too hard on him. I think he enjoyed himself."

"Of course he enjoyed himself, being taught how to dance by a witch of about one quarter of his age."

"Why don't you let me teach you how to waltz then?"

"You're going try to teach this snarking crow how to dance? I'll bet that'll be more fun than one's first Beltane," Alain muttered.

She raised a mocking eyebrow at him. "I'll risk it. You go ahead, we'll catch up. Kiss Mac for me."

Alain gave her a saucy sort of nod. "I shall – often, well, and thoroughly." He bowed and then disappeared into the dancing crowd.

Snape glanced from the ineffable softness of her dress and focused on the people dancing out on the floor – the leather-clad wizard was still dancing with the glowing wand, which was trailing light at an alarming rate. A woman in a long silvery frock was dancing sinuously at the edge of the floor, her body flowing through fabulous S-curves that no person with a normal spine should be able to do. Some of her exposed skin seemed covered with green snake's scales – another of those Naga changelings, then. A man with a goat's legs, cloven hooves, and short horns, his open shirt flying around his thin, muscled chest, was cutting acrobatic capers on a raised pedestal in the middle of the floor, leaping and spinning like some primeval ballet dancer.

Snape blinked, staring. "If you think I'm going out there, with those people, you've got to be bloody mad."

He suddenly felt very far away from what he knew, abducted and carried away to some strange place only half-glimpsed in dreams. People who entered the mushroom circle were stolen away by the Faeries, everyone knew that. Then they had their way with you in a red callbox, in such a manner that made you feel like a teenager again – that was better than anything you had as a teenager – and then they vanished. Once you've had Faerie, you spend the rest of your life dreaming of more, because all else has become sawdust and ashes in your mouth.

Bloody unreliable, all of them. Fifty points from all their Houses.

Elusive lights flickered all around him, and he seemed to hear wild music from very far away. His throat tightened, and there was urgent pressure building behind his eyes. Words read long ago recurred to him... weave a circle round him thrice And close your eyes with holy dread... Have you tasted For my sake, the fruit forbidden? Must your light like mine be hidden?... Come away, O human child... You warned me not to stray Out where the soulless Faerie Folk Could steal my heart away...

For a long, vertiginous moment, he had no idea where he was.

"Professor? Come on. Let's go somewhere quieter. You aren't feeling well." Someone had put her arms around him and was cradling his head on her shoulder.

After a few moments, though, the dizziness cleared somewhat. In the past, men had been terrified, overwhelmed, driven half-mad by listening to the Faeries' music, partaking of their intoxicants; but Snape wasn't that susceptible. There was someone in the crook of his arm. Oh yes, it was that conspicuous Swain woman. It was really tiresome the way she kept making assumptions about how he was feeling. If she'd actually listen for a moment, he'd tell this proud, self-Obscuring, hair-trigger-tempered, cloven-hoofed tart how he was feeling and what he felt like doing, thanks.

"Actually," he said, stopping short, "I thought you said you'd teach me how to waltz."

"Oh, you'd like to try that now?"

"Why not? Does one have to be half your age like George Weasley or Draco Malfoy, or four or five times your age like Flitwick and Dumbledore, or a drunken idiot like that Malfoy brother-in-law to get to dance with you, then?"

A slow, infuriating smile spread across her face. "No, one doesn't."

Then, to his utter, utter surprise, she bowed to him and offered him her hand. "Professor Snape, may I have this dance?"

"It took you long enough to ask," he growled, but took the proffered hand.

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It was easy. He had been anxious about this?

Fencing with this woman was thousands of times more challenging than this. The steps were simple, step out, step together, then the same thing backwards. In fact, it was so easy that somehow he suspected that all dancing like this was meant for was to give a fellow an excuse to put his arms around women.

"Excuse me, aren't I supposed to be the one leading?" he asked.

"We'll work on that later."

Surprisingly, he found himself really enjoying the music – harpsichords and violins overlaid on a subtle bodhran percussion line. They weren't playing it too loud now.

All around them the others parted and kept their respectful distance, a mad crush of graceful, whirling bodies, above which he floated in archaic grandeur with his lady. He felt a thousand miles removed from the madding crowd, with this creature in his arms.

Yes, perhaps he had been rather hard on Professor Flitwick. Who wouldn't enjoy something like this.

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Later, Snape was reclining on one of the velvet sofas in a quieter part of the club, that odd place where people had snakeskin skin, and people danced with hooves on, and the men had antlers, but the women didn't, and in the semblance of a roasted crab, they bobbed about one's dewlap, only he wasn't sure where a person's dewlap was.

There was this woman sitting next to him, with her arm around him again, gently holding his head on her shoulder. He was making a speech about outrageous fortune and slings and arrows, and all the heart-ache and thousand natural shocks a Snape is heir to, and she was telling him he was absolutely right, and telling him how clever he was for saying so.

It was all very agreeable.

He thought later that he might have fallen asleep for a few minutes at that point. All he knew now was that he was lying on his side with her thigh under his cheek, and she was stroking his hair. Slower music was playing now, something with guitars and a cello. It was very soothing.

"Oh, you're awake, Professor. Feeling better now?"

"You've no idea how I feel right now," he said. "It's a... very odd way to feel."

"Let me guess – you've got rainbow butterflies tickling their way out of your stomach. There are ravens chanting in your head. The walls are all builded of jade and ivory, and you sleep on a bed of soft-heaped moss in the arms of a young queen, my melancholy prince of Snapes."

"Oh," Snape said, now confident that she understood completely how he felt right now. "You've met the Blue Faerie yourself."

"Indeed, I have. Do you remember how many you drank?"

"You think I'm drunk, don't you." The tone of his voice was lumping anyone who would suspect him of drunkenness in with those who would kick fluffy puppy dogs for amusement.

"Professor? No, I don't think you're drunk. I think you've had a lot of Seventh Kingdom absinthe, and that would be enough to make anyone feel rather off. Especially a human."

"I don't feel off. I feel... "

The twinkling white lights above him were spinning majestically, like the spectral shifts of galaxies. He could hear flutes and violins; the music of the spheres. He sighed. "I feel... kind of glorious, actually."

"Of course you feel glorious, dear," she said, smoothing a lock of black hair away from his eyes.

He looked quizzically up at her. "You're still agreeing with everything I say."

"I'm sorry," she said, with an understanding smile.

"Actually I'd prefer if you didn't stop that. You can keep doing that for as long as you like."

"I will, then. Quite right."

He was never exactly sure what happened after that. The next moment seemed a hallucinatory shift of his reality, like something dreamed during a fever. It all of a sudden seemed the easiest and most natural thing on Earth or any other plane of existence to reach up from where he had been drowsing in her lap, take the nape of her neck in his hand, and kiss her mocking, half-smiling mouth.

He wanted this. And he knew that she wanted this too.

It was all very simple.

Sometime later his hallucination had changed, and he was half-lying luxuriously back on the chaise with that luscious Swain woman – Emily – draped over him like some impossibly rich and sinuous piece of silk, with her arms around his neck, one hand threaded in his hair. He was massaging the nape of her neck with one hand, and had the other around her waist, and he felt as though he had been kissing her like this for several slow and languorous hours. Her skin and hair and tongue and lips were the softest things he had ever touched, and he was so hard it felt like a dull, almost painful throbbing. At that moment, the most perverse thing he could imagine doing would be to ever move from exactly where he was.

He had never felt so laid bare, so ravished.

If this was what the Faeries did with you when they stole you away, then he wanted to be stolen away with all his heart.

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It was sometime later.

The music had stopped, and the lights had come up a bit, and people were all around him talking. That poncy blond git Alain shook his hand and said something like, "Well, Herr Professor, I am truly impressed. Good-bye, nice meeting you. See you two next time, I hope. Now make sure you take extra-good care of her, or I'll give you a nice ass's head."

The other ones, Beauxbatons students or whomever they were, shook his hand and made their goodbyes to him as well. Emily excused herself to say more goodbyes, promising to be back in a moment.

He had been sitting alone for a minute or two, waiting for her to come back, when someone appeared next to him in the crowd, a very small someone in a richly tooled leather doublet and a heavy gold medallion around his neck, with bright, crinkly eyes, thick grey hair, and long, tufted ears. "So you did make it into the Circle, Monsieur Lenuit. And a fair companion you've found yourself, too – Elaine's girl looks happier than I've seen her in years."

"You left without saying good-bye," Snape said testily.

"Give us your name and be known to us first, before you ask your questions. We'll tell when we're ready," the old man said with a mild shrug.

"Professor Severus Snape, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Snape said, gathering what shreds of dignity he had left to him and holding out his hand.

"Malabar Puck, servitor of Gwydion the Fifth, of the Third Kingdom," the Puck said, warmly accepting the handshake.

"Puck?" Snape repeated, with some amazement. "As in, the Puck? Oberon's Puck?"

"One of Lord Robin Puck's great-nephews, of the Third Kingdom Pucks, since you're asking. There's more than one of us, you see, it was his surname," the Puck replied. "How was I to know you were the most favoured of Our Lady of the Blade? Had I known you and she were such close companions, it would have come as high recommendation indeed."

Snape frowned. "I can't say I'm Professor Swain's most favoured close companion, truthfully."

The Puck fixed him with a disbelieving eye. "Ah, I'd beg to differ with you, laddie, judging from this night. If such embraces are not the mark of a woman's favour, then my lady wife loves me not at all."

Snape's brow creased faintly. "You think she looks happier than she has in years? With me?"

"To be certain. By my troth, Professor Night, the woman dotes upon you. If that's escaped you, you've drunk too much absinthe, or not enough." The Puck's expression turned stern. "If you don't return her affections, my lad, you should let her know soon, and gently, and not keep coming back to say good-bye. She's had her fill of sorrow these last few years, that one, and deserves at least that."

"Yes, I heard," Snape said quietly. "No, it's not that I don't... reciprocate, it's... "

The Puck waited, listening – and like Emily Swain, he had that bright-eyed, fascinated way of listening that tempted one to stay and bask in the warmth of his sympathy. "It's what, laddie? Jill's fond of Jack, and Jack's fond of Jill – it seems a simple enough equation, to me."

'A simple enough equation' – was the old fellow mad? There was nothing simple about that woman, she was a tricksy, false, hiding creature, with more moods and faces than a chameleon – the idea that anything about her might be simple was absurd. But then he remembered, he had a burning question for the old man. "I still don't know what you're sentry of. Why is there a sentry of Diagon Alley?"

The Puck laughed. "What need is there for sentries, he asks me? Ask the former sentry of Christchurch College, my friend, she's been in your arms all night."

"Professor Swain was a sentry? What exactly, sir, do sentries do, then?"

The Puck seemed about to reply, but then Emily came back up, and they both fell silent. Snape thought his colleague looked a bit reproachfully at the old man, who twinkled at her as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. "Ah, my fairest Lady Snickersnee! How farest thy noble mother and father?"

"I was going to ask you, as you've talked to them more recently than I have," she said, folding her arms in front of her. "I see you've met my colleague."

"And a capital good lad he is, too." Lord Puck clapped Snape cordially on the shoulder. "Now, Professor Night, if you'll excuse us... " And he and Emily withdrew into a nearby alcove for what looked like a rather serious conversation, leaving Snape feeling at loose ends again. He turned his attention back into the crowd.

There was a redhaired woman standing a few paces away from his left elbow, her back to him, sipping from a glass of nearly black wine. The giant SECURITY troll was trying to engage her in conversation, in which she didn't seem especially interested; she was answering him in noncommittal monosyllables. The redhead had the most beautiful cloak thrown over her shoulders, a heavy thing of iridescent black velvet, with lacy silver and white striations like wisps of cloud in the fabric. The cloak seemed to be gently blowing in the breeze – every so often the redhead would move her shoulders slightly, and a tremor would go through the sensuous fabric, like a bird ruffling its feathers. But then a moment later, his vision resolved more clearly – there was no wind, and the cloak was moving independently. Then he noticed she was not wearing a cloak at all, what was covering her back were –

Wings. The woman standing three feet to his left had wings, long velvety trailing things that reached her heels. He took a step forward and just stared, in a reverie of pure astonishment and wonder. How beautiful, he whispered – and they were, like living, breathing velvet and tissue-thin suede leather at the same time. The Seventh Kingdom absinthe prompted him to very lightly stroke one of them; they were as soft as Professor Swain's silk dress.

"It doesn't hurt to look at you either, pet," the owner of those wings said – and her voice was just as velvety as her wings. "Scratch right where your hand is, would you?"

He gingerly scratched the spot she mentioned. "You can feel that?" he asked.

"Of course I can... mmm, that's nice. I can never reach that spot. Oh yes... do it harder, darling, please." The winged girl leaned back into his hand with sinuous twist of her shoulder, and an arch of her muscled back. She then slanted a coquettish look back at him, over her shoulder. "A fine evening to you, my Lord Trent. What a joy and a pleasure to see you here again."

In addition to brilliant red hair and velvety black wings, this young lady had a cream-white complexion, trailing white hands, and eyes of a peculiar bluish grey flecked with green. Wearing a backless wisp of a halter-necked black frock that left her arms and shoulders bare. The Professor gulped.

This lady also seemed about as shy, modest, and retiring as every other Faery female he had heretofore met – one of those slender hands was now stroking the lapel of his frock coat. "Now that's just lovely – what beautiful tailoring. Really, my Lord, would that all Second-World bards knew how to dress so well as you. It does so well to see a really handsome man on a stage, one whose style harkens to the Byronic mode, rather than these garage-band slovens with their flannel shirts and dirty hair."

As far as flannel-shirted garage band slovens went, she may as well have been speaking Greek for all he understood what she was getting at – but that part about being a really handsome man whose style harkened to the Byronic mode... well, were he to later write a journal entry about this evening, he might have accused himself of rather stupidly eating that up. "Why... thank you," he said.

Then he noticed that Emily Swain had appeared beside him sometime recently; she seemed to have been waiting for him to notice her again. "There you are," he said, suddenly feeling as though she had been missing for a long time, and he was glad to have found her again. "Where have you been?" He put his arm around her waist and drew her against his side.

"Oh... you might have told me you brought a date, my Lord," the redheaded nixie said aside to Snape, her eyes taking in Emily's tattooed armband. "Happy Midsummer to you, my Lady Knight of the Morrigan."

"And to you, my Lady Acherontia," Emily replied, shaking her hand. "My regards to your family, and your liege."

"Likewise," the winged girl said graciously, then nodded to Snape as if to say, Alas, love, what a time it would have been. "And a fine evening to you, my Lord." He was still too surprised and amazed to manage much of anything beyond, "Er... good night."

A moment later, that aerial beauty had melted away into the crowd.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The party had spilled into the alley just in front of the ivy wall by half past two a.m., as lingering revellers stood about talking, nursing drinks, singing, and smoking fragrant tobacco in long clay pipes. As per Fae custom, the after parties would go on all night, and a few people would still be carousing at breakfasts the next morning. Emily had received an invitation to an after party with the Beauxbatons set ("Of course you're welcome to bring your lover, if you like") but she regretfully declined, saying that getting him home to his own bed was probably a better idea. She collected Snape, who was still looking at everyone like some wide-eyed holy innocent, took his arm and coaxed him into going along with her back to Diagon Alley.

"Now that did my heart good to see," the white-gowned Mackenzie said as she watched Emily lead Snape down the alley. "She's finally coming out of mourning and noticing that there are lusty men about again." She wrapped her slim arms around Alain's waist and laid her cheek against his, as if to indicate that she definitely considered him a member of the fraternity of lusty men about.

"My word, then what's she doing with him?" Alain asked, caressing her curly hair. "I've met corpses who were better company and more cheerful."

"Looked like she was getting massively snogged on, from where I was sitting," the pert brunette Joanna said, in perfect English. "It made me smile."

"He wasn't so bad," Megan Redqueen said. "You just have to be very sweet to him is all, and then pour three glasses of absinthe down him. That and sweetness of manner could make any man enjoy himself."

"Three glasses of absinthe?" William looked at their fair hostess with wide eyes. "I'll bet that poor bastard saw a lot of pretty lights tonight. You might have told him what would happen, you know."

"Oh, why?" She grinned saucily at him. "Then he wouldn't have had any fun atall. Didn't you see him? He waltzed like a princeling, he was kissed for weeks. He arrived out of sorts with his lady, and he left in her arms. Mark my words, I did him a favour," she averred.

William grinned back. "You're terrible," he warbled, in a voice that said she was terrible in the most adorable way imaginable.

"Perhaps one day I'll show you terrible, sweet William," she whispered caressingly. Severus Snape might have described the look on her face as one of hormonal anarchy, had he been there to see it.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Across the alley from the club's entrance, a cigarette coal glowed red as a nondescript man in a tatty grey tweed overcoat took a last drag, and then dropped the butt on the sidewalk and ground it out. He was far from extraordinary or memorable, and thus, no one noticed him.

He followed his fair-haired Faery contract at a discreet distance as she led that dark, distracted-looking undertaker sort of bloke down the street.

---

Author's Note: This chapter contains quotes from Goethe's The Tragedy of Faust, Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Two Gentlemen of Verona by Shakespeare, The Stolen Child by Yeats, Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti, and an untitled original poem by Snape Ophelia. See Chapter 13 of her "Inscribed in Air and Fire" for the complete text. ~GS