Part the Fourth: New York and Points West

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Part the Fourth: New York and Points West

They spend Christmas in New York City.

She didn't think that she could feel any more miserable or homesick than she already does, but the sound of English spoken in a variety of American accents, words like "elevator" and "trash can" used in place of "lift" and "rubbish bin," and the awareness that an entire ocean separates her from her friends and family makes it that much worse.

And then there is the wound of knowing Snape has gone into this with her to pay some life debt he thinks he owes to Harry; she isn't a companion or even a friend that she so naively thought she was becoming. She's a means to an end, a tool, and she feels utterly bruised and misused. And not just by Snape either. Harry has played a part in it, blackmailing her with the seriously needed funds to take Snape with her to the States

Her misery drives her down to the hotel bar on Christmas Eve, where she makes it through about two glasses of the house red before Snape materializes next to her in his trousers and shirtsleeves, looking put out.

"There you are."

Hermione takes a lazy sip of her wine. "Here I am."

"What are you doing?"

"Drinking."

"So I see." Snape sighs and settles on the stool next to her. He beckons over the bartender and orders a scotch neat in his most insulting tone of voice. They sit in silence, listening to the irritating Christmas music, the low chatter of the few patrons of the bar, and the honking and constant roar of the busy street outside.

"Granger, as loath as I am to say this, I wish you would bloody well stop giving me the silent treatment."

"I don't like you, and I don't talk to people I don't like."

"I see alcohol regresses you to the age of seven."

"Sticks and stones, Snape. I'm not fifteen anymore. You can't make me cry by insulting my teeth."

"Insulting your teeth? When did I insult your teeth?"

"In my fourth year, when one of Malfoy's goons struck me with that hex, and my teeth grew out over my lips. You said, 'I see no difference'."

"Did I?" Snape sounds thoughtful and slightly amused. "I don't recall, but I insulted so many Gryffindors in my time at Hogwarts, all of the incidents have blended together."

"I can't believe Dumbledore let you near children."

"Granger, I sincerely wish he hadn't. Those were the most miserable years of my life."

"Good," she says out of spite, but when he only nods miserably in agreement, she suddenly feels sick. Maybe he can be so heartless as to insult a fifteen-year-old's teeth, but this man risked life and limb to save everyone and deserves better from her, even if he does behave like a cruel, overgrown child at times. She's a grown woman, after all. Words really shouldn't be able to hurt her. "Oh, no. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. You were working for us all those years, and everyone at home thinks you're a hero, even Harry. He named one of his kids after you, you know."

"I know. Albus Severus. The Weasley girl is mad for letting him name the children."

"It's a good name."

"It's a rubbish name. Neither Albus nor I deserve the honor."

"Didn't you hear me? You're a hero. Of course you deserve the honor, even if you are a miserable git who's using me to fulfill a stupid life debt."

Snape stares at her for a minute, then, pinching the bridge of his nose like he has a headache, says, "Granger, that's not precisely why I helped you."

"No?"

"No. That's just what I told Potter."

"Then why did you really help me?"

Snape looks down into his glass of whiskey, frowning. "The only thing I wanted after the war was to be left alone, but constant solitude was not what I expected it to be."

"You were lonely."

He puts on his earwax and vomit Every Flavor Beans look again. "I didn't say that."

"Yes, you did. You're lonely, just like me." Hermione sighs. Everything is kind of blurry now, and she feels warm and fuzzy inside, but she also feels miserable and heartsick and lonely. "I just want to go home. Back to my life and my family and my friends. It would be different if I could just do something about it, but I can't. I'm..." She waves her hand vaguely, her wine-dulled mind searching for the right word. "I'm incapacitated." She sighs miserably again. "I just want to go home." Then she grins sloppily at Snape. "And you can come home with me when Harry fixes everything."

"Merlin's beard, reduced to a seven year old and maudlin." Snape takes the wine glass out of her hand and sets it out of her reach. "You've had enough."

"I'm a grown up, now. You can't make me stop drinking. I can hex you, you know."

"Yes, yes. You're a powerful witch with a big scary wand." Snape stands and pulls her to her feet. "And you need to go to bed."

Hermione looks down at his long fingers wrapped around her arm and grins sloppily. "You have nice hands."

Snape raises an eyebrow at her. "How many glasses have you had?"

"Erm, two?"

"Two. Merlin. I know who will not be drinking anymore if I have anything to do with it. Come on, to bed with you."

Hermione nods sloppily, feeling all floaty and relaxed. She lets him lead her through the lobby and into the lift where she slumps against the mirrored wall. Her eyes travel from his long fingers jabbing the button to their floor up his arm and to the shadow of his collarbone just inside the vee of his shirt.

"I know why the old woman in Krakow was laughing at us," Hermione says as the lift jerks upwards.

Snape nods. "Yes, Granger. So do I."

"Nashville looks interesting," Hermione says. They are in a coffee house on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, having tea and pastries on the twelfth day of the new year. Snape is engaging in his favorite activity of glowering at the pedestrians strolling past the shop while Hermione peruses a travel book, pondering their next destination. They've been in Chicago for a week now, and she thinks they will probably stay another two, but she likes to plan ahead. "There is a full-scale reconstruction of the Parthenon, painted in the original Greek colors. There is even a replica of Athena's cult statue. It would be interesting to see what it really looked like."

"Fascinating."

She flips a few pages ahead to an entry about Memphis, sighs forlornly, and closes the book. "I wish you'd let me try to find a wizarding guide book. I know there must be dozens of magical sites we could visit."

"And get caught by Aurors. Smashing idea, Granger. Two illegal immigrants with illegally procured wands, one a criminal in her native country and the other supposedly twelve years dead. I'm sure they'll let us off with a warning."

"There's no need to get shirty. I was only making conversation."

"And you know how I hate it when you do that."

"So says the man who lectured me for an hour in Philadelphia about the real reason the liberty bell has a crack in it."

"I thought a swot like you would find the faulty cooling potions used by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry fascinating."

"It was fascinating. I'm simply pointing out that..."

Suddenly Snape straightens, his eyes focused on something through the window.

"What is it?" Hermione looks over her shoulder in an attempt to follow his line of sight, panic coiling in the pit of her stomach. She's imagining a battalion of Aurors coming to arrest them, but she sees no one in bunny slippers or a clown suit or anything wildly out of place that a wizard playing Muggle might wear.

Snape doesn't answer, just grabs her wrist and pulls her out of her seat, practically yanking her arm out of the socket. He drags her deeper into the coffee shop, pushing through the line at the counter, and hustles her into the mouth of the hallway leading to the restrooms. She's too unsettled to protest the manhandling, and as he peers around the corner at the street outside, she is vaguely aware that he hasn't let go of her hand.

"What is it?" she asks again, but then she sees what he sees: a pair of platinum blonde heads, a long coat edged with fur, and of all things, a snake headed cane. They are passing the coffee shop arm in arm, her fur-edged coat brushing through the snow piled on the pavement, his cane tapping out a random rhythm on the concrete; she does not see their faces, but she isn't sure she needs to.

She gasps. "Is that..."

"I don't know." Snape withdraws back into the hallway and leans against the wall. "Possibly."

"I knew they'd been exiled, it was all over the Daily Prophet for weeks, but I would expect to find them anywhere but in America." The couple has disappeared into the morning crowd; Hermione withdraws into the hallway with Snape. "You'd think it would be too gauche for them."

"You'd think." Snape is staring off into space. He looks not worried, exactly, but disturbed, uneasy.

Hermione knows what will happen next. "We're leaving Chicago, aren't we?"

"Yes."

"I thought as much. I really did want to visit the Field Museum."

"My heart breaks for you, Granger. I'm sure we'll find some other museum somewhere else for you to drag me through mercilessly. Come." Snape pushes himself off the wall, smooths the lapel of his coat unnecessarily, and plunges back through the line at the counter.

Hermione catches up with him just outside the shop. Together they move along Michigan Avenue in the opposite direction of the couple. "So, Nashville, then?"

"No. You've chosen the last several destinations. It's my turn."

"Fair enough. Where to then?"

"Las Vegas."

Hermione can only stare.

Snape wins ungodly amounts of money playing poker in Las Vegas.

He's having a fantastic winning streak, so much so that they get a complimentary suite in Paris Las Vegas, with a view of the faux Eifflel Tower and the gleaming neon of the Strip. She suspects that he's using Legilimency to cheat at cards, which is a very bad idea on many levels, starting with basic dishonesty and ending with large men in silk suits wanting to break his legs with baseball bats.

"Do you know how dishonest, not to mention how dangerous, it is to cheat at cards?" she asks on the third morning. Snape is enjoying the complimentary breakfast, reading the complimentary paper, and wearing the complimentary dressing gown with more pleasure than seems entirely conscionable. She, on the other hand, is glaring balefully at him, wearing her own clothing, thank you very much, and refusing to so much as touch the gluttonous American breakfast spread out before them.

"No, Granger. It never occurred to me." Snape doesn't even look up, just turns the page with maddening calm. "Besides, I'm not cheating."

Hermione crosses her arms and glares at him. "You're just that good at poker?"

"Poker is a game of bluffing and risk taking, two skills sixteen years as a spy have taught me well. It's a simple matter of discovering your opponents' tells and taking carefully controlled risks while playing your hand. It's just like dealing with the Dark Lord, but with cards. And fewer Crucios."

"I don't believe you."

Snape shrugs and turns another page. "As you like."

Hermione bites her lip and glares at him; she can't decide which is the more infuriating – that he's so dismissive of his own safety or just so dismissive of her.

"They're going to get suspicious, and you're going to get your legs broken," she says with the same assurance she used to warn Harry and Ron against the dangers of cheating, sneaking around Hogwarts at night, and playing Quidditch without the proper protective gear.

The paper crinkles as he turns another page. "You've seen too many movies, Granger. They don't break your legs if they catch you cheating."

"No? What do they do, just show you politely to the door and ask you not to visit their establishment again?"

"Of course not, Granger. They kill you."

"What!"

Snape closes the paper with a sigh. "Relax, Granger. I am joking. I'm not cheating, no one will break my legs, and even if they try, I don't think a couple of threatening Muggles would compare to what I had to endure to survive Slytherin house as a half blood. When I have enough money to fund us for another six months, we will leave, but not until then."

"Fund us?" Sometimes the things he says are so incomprehensible that she thinks he must experience the world in a way completely alien to her. "Snape, we're still fine where money is concerned, and when we run out, Harry will give us the money we need."

"No. I'm not taking any more money from Potter."

It dawns on her then. "Wait, is this some sort of stupid male pride thing? Are you risking your life because you hate Harry?"

With a glare that could melt metal, he throws his napkin across his breakfast plate and pushes back his chair. "My stupid male pride," he snarls as he stands, "happens to be all I have."

Then he sweeps out of the room, the complimentary bathrobe billowing out behind him.

Thirteen hours later, as they are being chased along the Strip, ducking into casinos and into throngs of tourists in an attempt to dodge the very large, very vicious, very hungry vampires that apparently take jobs as casino security in Las Vegas, Hermione turns to Snape and hisses, "I hope it was worth it."

"It was," he replies as he takes her hand and pulls into a dark alley where he clutches her around the waist and pulls her in close. She's suddenly very aware of his hand on the small of her back and the jut of his hip against her side as he raises his wand. "You'll think so, too, when I spread out our money on the bed and we roll around in it. But for now, Granger, shut up."

And before she can respond to that, magic compresses them and they Apparate out of existence.

"Are you hungry?" Snape asks her two days later while he is driving them through a tiny desert town. The immediate environment is a flat, dusty wasteland, but in the distance there are snow capped mountains and a crystalline blue sky. If Hermione weren't so angry, she'd find it amazing and beautiful and serene, but as it is, Snape's lucky she hasn't hexed him to death and buried his body in the desert.

"Granger?"

Hermione shifts in her seat to turn her body as far away from him as possible and glares out the window.

"Are you still not speaking to me? That's terribly mature."

Hermione elects not to reply.

After ten minutes and the tiny desert town have passed by, he says, "We needed the money."

Hermione lets her silence speak for herself.

"Our funds will run out eventually. It isn't as easy to get a job here as it was in Europe. And I still refuse to borrow any more money from Potter."

She's finding it fascinating how tense his voice is becoming, how panicked, and it makes her feel triumphant and powerful, so she continues in her silence.

"Good Lord, woman, it isn't as if I robbed some pedestrian at wandpoint!"

More silence.

"Granger."

And yet more.

"Granger, answer me."

"That doesn't make it right that you were cheating at cards," she replies finally, deciding that he's suffered enough – for now.

"So were the other three people at the table. It was Las Vegas, Granger."

"That still doesn't make it right. And please don't get me started on the part where you nearly got us eaten by vampires. And you lied to me. Not that I should have expected anything else from you."

"Granger..."

She holds up a hand, infuriated all over again. "No, don't talk to me."

The desert glides past the car window, time ticks by, and as they are driving through a larger desert town – she isn't sure which, she is too busy fuming to notice – they stop at a red light where Hermione sees a homeless man standing on the corner, holding up a sign begging for money. A woman and a little boy huddle together behind him, his wife and son, she suspects. There are two backpacks beside them, probably holding the entirety of their worldly possessions, and they both look cold and hungry. Hermione's heart clenches at the sight. It's positively heart breaking, and suddenly the incredible amount of money in the back seat seems even more disgusting than it had before.

And then suddenly, Snape snarls, "Damn it, woman," and throws the car into park.

Hermione looks at him in surprise, but he's already getting out of the car, the duffle bag holding his winnings in his hand. She watches in open mouthed awe as he stomps round the front of the car, jaw rigid with fury, and shoves the bag into the homeless man's arms.

The homeless man looks taken aback and just a bit terrified. Snape says a few words to him, plunges his hand into the duffle bag, and pulls out a handful of bills. Then he pivots like he's just caught a couple of Gryffindors raiding his ingredients cabinets and stomps back to the car while the man gazes into the bag of money in awe.

The light turns green and the cars behind them immediately begin honking, but Snape ignores them as he gets back in the car and slams the door shut. He turns to her, tosses the wad of bills into her lap, and says, "Don't you dare lecture me about the morality of keeping this much. It's just enough to cushion our funds until I can think of another way to make money."

The cars behind them are honking more vehemently now, and one of the drivers has started shouting epithets at them.

Hermione is grinning widely at him, a warm, liquid feeling expanding in her chest. "That was amazing, you know."

She reaches out for him, not entirely sure what she's going to do, kiss him, maybe, but he jerks out of her reach. "No," he snaps, throwing the car into drive and slamming his foot on the gas. They speed through the intersection, and Hermione settles back into her seat, still grinning, that warm, liquid feeling still expanding and growing within her, and she's fairly certain she knows what it is.

She thinks she might have just fallen in love with Severus Snape.