I – Severus Snape, Potions Master of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – was drunk.

Correction. I was halfway there, and working damned hard to ensure the other half of my journey was a swift one.

I was far from Hogwarts now, far from the echoing stone corridors, the roaring warmth of the fireplaces, the incessant chatter of students. Far from the comfort and familiarity of my dungeon quarters, with its silken sheets, tapering candles… and the lingering scent of a woman.

Far from her.

Hermione Granger, Charms Mistress. The woman who’d ‘charmed’ her way into my heart so skilfully I hadn’t noticed until it was too late. It was a war I hadn’t even been aware I was fighting, until I’d lost. One battle I’d been bloody glad to lose.

But now… Hermione was hurt, hurt so badly I didn’t know if she could ever recover.

I slumped further down on my stool, one thin hand propping my chin against the bar. I’d come to this non-descript pub in Manchester to forget myself, to surrender myself like a sacrificial lamb. To dash myself to pieces on the folly of my actions. Gone were my billowing teaching robes, my high-necked frock coat, replaced by worn jeans and an open-throated black shirt. I’d given up my Wizarding attire. I’d give up my bloody magic if I thought it would put things right.

“Same again,” I grunted. My voice was still level, but as I lifted my other hand to indicate the empty glass I noticed it trembled. I didn’t care.

It was a quiet night. The barman was chatting to someone further down the bar, but at my surly command he strolled over. The flashing lights of a Muggle fruit machine reflected from his face and bald head.

“Sure you want another?” he asked in a conversational tone.

My only answer was to tilt the glass. I regarded the barman with bloodshot eyes.

“Not driving tonight, are you?”

I snorted. “No.” I’d never driven a car. Not when I could Apparate.

I wasn’t going to Apparate, either.

“I’m walking,” I clarified into the silence. This was true. The pub wasn’t far from my mouldering house at Spinner’s End.

The barman regarded me for a long, thoughtful moment before speaking again. “Won’t you switch to singles?”

I leaned forwards, the hand supporting my head falling away to crouch like a pale, skeletal spider on the wooden surface. “Do I look like a singles man?” I rasped.

The barman raised an eyebrow, but lowered it in the face of my expression. I was a master at sarcastic eyebrows. “At this moment, sir, I would have to say… no.”

“Good. Whisky. Double.”

I bit my lip and slapped a crumpled ten-pound note onto the bar, annoyed with myself. I’d nearly said ‘firewhiskey’. I was trying to forget that part of my life; tonight, I was trying my very best to forget myself.

Forget her.

My glass was refilled and I gulped at the drink, relishing the liquid’s burn as it slid smoothly down my throat. I gulped again, then allowed myself just a sip as my eyes watered.

A cold gust of wind swept around my ankles as the door opened. A man and a woman entered – lots of black, lots of leather, lots of touching. Very much a couple. I tried to ignore them. Tried hard to ignore the painful throb in my chest.

They came to the bar and ordered; a pint for him, white wine Spritzer for her. Still I ignored them, deliberately letting a curtain of hair veil my face. The man paid for their drinks and they moved to a table some distance from me.

Good. I didn’t want to be exposed to them. Didn’t want to feel the burn of their obvious love for one another. Conversely, I didn’t want them to feel the bleak, sallow nausea of my self-loathing.

I heard the rattle of metal hitting plastic. Mildly curious, I turned to see the cause of the noise; the woman, a bottle blonde with too many facial piercings, was dropping coins into a machine. She pressed several buttons and, as she went back to her seat, the small pub was filled with a heavy drum roll and the crash of guitars. Shit. She’d just put money in a jukebox.

I groaned and slumped so low on my stool I thought my spine might snap. I wished hard, just for a moment, that it would – that it would end my life, and put me out of this misery. But Fate had always been a bitch – my spine remained unbroken.

A man was singing. A deep voice, roughened with gravel. American. I didn’t recognise the band or the music. Why would I? I’d never made a point of following Muggle music.

“I want to take his eyes out just for looking at you, yes I do.”

I couldn’t ignore the loud music, couldn’t tune it out without leaving the pub. But I was too determined to drink myself to oblivion to give up my sanctuary for a mere nuisance noise.

That line of thinking, of course, made me think about why I was here.

She’s hurt. So hurt. Can her heart ever recover from such a blow, such a tortured tangle of words?

Yes, I thought, maudlin and grave, maybe I should listen to this song. I’d gladly take the eyes of the man who hurt you, Hermione. If he’d never clapped eyes on you, your heart would be whole and healthy.

I listened to the song.

“I want to take his hands off just for touching you, yes I do.”

Great Merlin, yes. Was the singer hooked in to my fucking soul? If the man who’d hurt Hermione had never touched her… never felt the smooth warmth of her skin, the gentle swell of her breasts under his hand…

“And I want to rip his heart out just for hurting you… and I want to break his mind down, yes I do…”

God. I’d rip out the guy’s heart, if he had one. I’d break his mind, leave him a gibbering, inchoate mess… if he wasn’t already perilously close to that point already.

“And I want to make him regret life since the day he met you, yes I do…”

Oh, I was damned sure the wizard regretted every second of his miserable, worthless existence. I was sure he loathed himself, loathed what he’d had to do, what he’d become, what he’d said in a fit of jealous rage. He regretted every second of his life since he’d met Hermione, because she’d opened his withered heart to a world of love and compassion he didn’t deserve.

“And I want to make him take back all that he took from you…”

Hermione had lost something precious to the man who’d hurt her. Given it up without a backwards glance, a gift more valuable than any mortal treasure. He’d taken her love, her heart, the only treasure a man as damned as he could truly appreciate. I wanted to make him give back that love, but I was terribly, mortally afraid I didn’t know how.

“Penny for them?”

“What?” The voice startled me from my self-destructive thoughts.

“Your thoughts, mate. Penny for ‘em.”

I offered him a twisted smile, gaze fixed on the amber liquid in my glass. “You don’t want to know my problems.”

The barman shrugged. “You never know. Might be able to help some.”

I very much doubted that. Nothing could help me. I was damned.

But, still, if I was damned… what could it hurt to explain my problems? Especially to a stranger I had no intention of ever seeing again?

“What the hell,” I said with a shrug. “But first…” My glass was empty again.

The barman topped me up. My tenner was good for another few shots, and I hoped I’d pass into oblivion by then.

“Once upon a time there was a woman,” I began, staring once more into the depths of my whiskey. “Beautiful. Intelligent. Caring, so caring. She… she loved a man, a man who didn’t deserve her. The man was stupid and insanely jealous. One day, he saw this woman talking to an old boyfriend, and he flipped. Accused her of Merlin-knows what indiscretions behind his back.”

Whoops, I’d slipped then. I could tell the barman had noticed by the frown on his face, but he was too polite to say anything. I rushed to fill the silence.

“She hadn’t cheated on the man – of course she hadn’t, she was loyal to him, and he knew that. But he was too bloody insecure, too paranoid. The last time he saw her, she was curled in a heap on the floor, sobbing her eyes out and telling him to go to hell.”

I looked up from my glass, expecting to see a pitying expression on the man’s face. Pitying or condescending. Instead, I saw neither; I saw something I’d never expected to see. Understanding.

“This man,” he remarked, leaning on the bar. “He hasn’t seen his woman since the argument?”

I shook my head, not trusting my voice to speak without betraying my emotions.

“So he’s not tried apologising to her when he’s calmed down a bit? Not tried asking for forgiveness?” He gave me a shrewd look that brought embarrassed colour to my pallid face. “Or begging for forgiveness, if that’s what it took?”

“Uh… no.”

“Does he love her?”

“Oh, God, yes!” I exclaimed, the words torn from my throat. “So much it hurts to think about what he’s lost.”

The door opened again, bringing with it another stinging gust of cold wind. My Muggle jeans certainly weren’t keeping it out, but that was fine by me – just one more form of self-punishment.

“Maybe,” the barman said quietly, glancing over my shoulder, “just maybe, the woman understands her man’s insecurities. Maybe she’s had time to wipe the tears from her face, slap on a bit of lippy, tidy herself up. Time to think. Maybe she understands her man better than he understands himself.”

My head flew up, eyes wide as I tried to understand what he was saying.

And then I smelled her.

Her scent was delicate and spicy, intriguing yet not overpowering. It was uniquely her. I would recognise it anywhere and, Merlin help me, it was here. She was here.

“Hermione,” I moaned, pushing my glass away so I could bury my face in my hands.

“Severus…”

God, her voice. So familiar. So gentle. I looked up in time to see the barman disappear to the other end of the bar, tactfully giving us a little privacy.

I slid around in my seat, loathe to face her yet helpless to do anything but. I was a flower to her sun. I felt ungainly, ugly, the rhinoceros in the room.

She looked so damned good. I noticed a faint puffiness around her eyes – evidence of crying, of the tears I had caused – but she still managed to radiate the air of purpose and kindness that had so attracted me in the beginning.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I rasped, unable to look away from her. “Unless, that is, you’re here to tell me we’re over. I would understand.”

Hermione remained silent, her eyes moving slowly over my face.

“How… how did you find me?” I stammered.

She smiled. The gesture barely tilted her lips, but it was there. What had I done to deserve such an offering?

“I know you, Severus. I know the way you think.”

I swallowed hard, then swallowed again. There was a wealth of meaning behind those few simple words. She knew I would understand what she was saying. I understood… but I didn’t want to believe!

“Are we over, Hermione?” I had to hear her speak the words, even though I knew the answer. Why would she remain with me after everything I’d said to her?

I was baffled when her gentle smile widened. “Come here, Severus.”

“I… what… Hermione?” Merlin, that was intelligent. I’d never fully understood how I could lose my eloquence when she was around.

“I said come here, Severus. Come to me.” She crooked her finger and my feet were moving before I realised what was happening.

And then I was there, in the circle of her arms, my face buried in the warm hollow between her neck and shoulder. I took a deep breath. I wanted to drown in her scent. Hot tears burned my tightly closed eyelids; my throat clenched violently, but I wouldn’t cry. Not here, not in public. Not where she could see.

I crushed her against me, revelling in the feeling of her arms curled around my neck.

“I’m sorry,” I choked, knowing only she could hear me. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

She soothed my hair with one slender hand. Her touch was divine.

“Don’t apologise, Severus.” Her voice was a soft murmur in my ear, a whisper of daylight. “I forgive you.”

And just like that, the man who’d wounded his angel was free from purgatory.

Free from purgatory, and at the gates of Heaven itself.