Roman Holiday

Chapter Three

The Piazza di San Pietro.

Possibly one of the most beautiful places in the world. If you were into that sort of thing.

Surprisingly enough, Severus Snape found that he was.

It wasn’t his normal holiday, mind you. Ordinarily he avoided Muggle cities. He had a great-uncle who had left England entirely, back in the day, for the solitary pleasures of the American Frontier, and died without an heir, leaving his Montana mountain cabin to his only nephew.

You could live there for the whole eight weeks of the summer holiday and never see another living soul. It was the closest thing to perfection Severus could imagine.

But this year was different. Summer or no summer, they were all still on duty.

Voldemort, alive. Somewhere.

A circle of followers. Rich, influential, persuasive, widespread.

Dumbledore had called them all together and assigned them duties, just before the end of the year. Expenses on Hogwarts, naturally. They’d drawn lots.

And Severus had ended up with Rome.

His duty was this: dress as a Muggle, pass through the city, keep your eyes and ears to the ground. Watch. Listen. Report back. The Ministry of Magic was better equipped to do this, of course, but they weren’t to be trusted, not after Fudge’s little run-in with Dumbledore.

Snape found it easier than expected to pass as a Muggle.

Black denim trousers, tighter than he was accustomed to. Black leather boots. Artfully damaged silk shirts in bright crayon colors, left open to showcase gold chain jewelry.

A black leather peacoat for the nights, which could be cool even in the middle of the summer. Sunglasses, even indoors. His lank black hair, instantly chic as a ponytail at the back of his head. A few days’ worth of suntan.

Voilà. Instant Eurotrash.

He wouldn’t have admitted it, but he rather liked the look. It was … liberating. If, in the strict sense of the word, about ten years out of fashion.

The streets were bewildering. Automobiles, mopeds, bicycles, teeming hordes of the most beautiful people on the planet, pushing and shoving and walking fast and laughing and talking on their cellular phones and flirting with each other.

The only way he could handle it was to step back, to be an observer.

He leaned casually against the side of the fountain, there in the middle of the most famous piazza in Rome, and watched the world go by, insulated behind his Ray-Bans. He wasn’t as aimless as he appeared; there was a Mass about to start, over in St. Peter’s, one of the less-well-attended midday ones, and the choir was going to sing Palestrina.

Severus had precious few weaknesses. The music of Palestrina was one of them.

A wizard, of course, and a fascinating one. Obsessed with mathematics, with the sounds you could make when all the atoms of the universe lined up and quivered into a perfect unison. From a purely technical, dispassionate viewpoint, the music was as close to flawless as it could be.

But Palestrina hadn’t been content to be an alchemist of sound - he was a social crusader, too. Rather like Arthur Weasley, Severus thought absently. Wrote as much for Muggles as he did for the wizarding community.

More, probably. Wizards had embraced pop music handily enough - he shuddered at the memory of the Weird Sisters - but when it came to celestial harmony, the Muggles had them beat hands-down.

There was magic in the music. Literally. Powerful white magic, benevolent and luminous as sunlight, threaded down every bar line like an invisible chain of DNA that just might sparkle if you looked closely enough. Be you Muggle or wizard, it put you at peace - with yourself and all humankind.

In about twenty minutes, Severus was going to forget that the world existed for an hour.

He was looking forward to it.

A red moped zoomed past the fountain and skidded to a halt next to one of Rome’s ubiquitous bike racks. A girl got off, tugging her brief skirt down to mid-thigh, and Severus studied her lazily from behind his sunglasses.

Impossible to tell how old she was, but he thought perhaps as young as seventeen, as old as twenty. Slim body in knee-length leather boots and a floral-patterned micromini dress. Lots of girls wore headscarves on the little motorcycles, á là Gina Lollobrigida, but not this waif. Just big tortoise-shell sunglasses and an impudent cap of runaway curls that shone like gilt under the Roman sun. He watched her lock her bike and run lightly up the steps of St. Peter’s.

Odd. She wasn’t really dressed for a Mass.

But that was part of the beauty and mystery of Rome. She could zip around the city all morning on that sleek little red machine, flashing her white cotton panties to anyone who cared to take a close enough look, then straighten herself out, run fingers through that riot of curls, and saunter into church like the Virgin herself.

Lots of beautiful girls in Rome. Severus wasn’t going to pretend that he didn’t enjoy that perk, nor the fact that they all dressed like streetwalkers.

This one stood out in the crowd, though. Severus wouldn’t mind slipping his fingers under those panties himself, stirring up a little excitement. Riding a moped in a miniskirt was the closest thing to public masturbation he could think of. He could almost feel her from here, slippery and hot and pleading and close enough to the edge that a good sharp couple of taps with his open hand would send her plummeting over.

He’d like to sit her on his leg, make her hump against him while he watched. He’d like to -

Down, boy.

Don’t mingle with the Muggles. Especially not one who looks like that. Probably has a father and three brothers with baseball bats, dogging her every step.

Funny, though. She’d seemed to be completely alone.

**

He slipped in and took his seat in the balcony, far enough back so that he could close his eyes and just listen without worrying about a crush of bodies around him. The church was less crowded than usual. Good.

A flash of floral fabric. His little sex goddess, sitting prim and proper as was possible in that skirt, hands clasped over her knees. The pew right in front of him, but a bit to the left. He could see part of her face in profile. Stunning.

And familiar. Odd.

He thought he’d forget about her when the music started, when the choir began to sing. He was wrong.

Her hands left her knees, went to the back of the pew in front of her. She leaned forward, rested her chin on her knuckles.

Her body was stiff. Intent. Completely focused.

She’d forgotten about the world.

He drank in the look of shocked wonder he discerned from the thrust of her jaw, the tremble of that soft mouth.

Watching her listen was better than hearing it himself.

She began to shake her head back and forth, nonononononono. Began to bite her lip. The first tears spilled during the Agnus Dei, and Severus felt a sympathetic ache in his chest. She didn’t try to wipe them away, didn’t sniffle. Barely breathed. Just sat there letting the salt run down her face in silver streams.

When the Mass was over, the benediction said, she didn’t move. She looked stunned. Petrified.

He leaned over the back of the pew and wordlessly offered her his handkerchief. She nodded thanks, wiped her face, and half-turned to give it back to him.

“P-“ Her eyes widened in shock. “Professor Snape?”

They both froze, clutching the handkerchief between them.

“Dear God,” Severus muttered, and yanked it out of her hand.

For the last hour and a half, he’d been lusting after Hermione Granger.