"Nine and a half cases butterbeer, four untapped ale kegs, three 12 bottle cases mulled mead, twenty six bottles red wine (various)" Rosmerta's quill scratched against the inventory forms. But I'm beginning to run a bit low on the hard stuff. Reappearing behind the bar, she frowned to see the pub almost deserted. The anxious miasma that had settled over Hogsmeade after the Hogwarts Leaving Feast was destroying her business. Misery loves company, she thought, but not when it's afraid to walk out nights.
Fudge was keeping a firm grip on the Daily Prophet and the Wizarding Wireless Network, but ever since Dumbledore's announcement at the end of the Hogwarts school year, not a soul in Hogsmeade and few wizarding folk in Britain had not heard the news of Voldemort's return, whether or not they chose to believe it. Rosmerta glanced to the far corner of the pub, where a dark figure slouched over a table holding a nearly empty bottle of Old Ogden's Firewhiskey and a no longer particularly clean glass. She looked away. Rosmerta might dislike Snape, but he paid his tab and for the past two weeks, he'd been her most . . . well, her only, regular customer.
Most wizards who drank at the Three Broomsticks appreciated Rosmerta's attention, or at least the occasional smile, but Snape stalked out if she talked to him at all. She wasn't complaining; the less she thought about him, the better. Checking her watch and seeing that it was still shy of midnight, Rosmerta set another bottle of Ogden's on the bar - he'd Summon it if he wanted any more - and returned to her inventory.
Snape was careful not to look up when he heard Rosmerta's heels clicking on the stone floor behind the bar. But as her footsteps faded away, he saw the bottle she had left for him. He groaned. It was pathetic, the way she thought he'd become such a lush, but perhaps he had. Why not? thought Snape, morosely. It's not as if I'm going to be around long enough to reap the consequences. It had been many years since Snape had envisioned himself dying quietly in bed, but the events of the last few months made him uncertain as to whether he would surviving the summer. As long as Dumbledore had use for him, he would remain with Albus' reach, but he kept to his dungeon - excepting his forays out to the pub -- and avoided his fellow staff members as best he could.
He had, of course, done as Dumbledore had asked, despite that doing so had required him to break into Azkaban. The night of the third TriWizard task, Snape had triggered a plan to track the imprisioned Death Eaters should they ever elude their guards - or be released by them. He and Dumbledore had established the strategy years ago, but uncharacteristically, Snape had always held out a faint hope that they would never need it. Snape dreaded the Dementors; the year that they had stationed themselves around Hogwarts, he had almost gone insane. The more he saw them, sensed them, the more his Dark past overcame his mind and grasped at his very soul. Only Dumbledore's constant vigilance - Snape snorted into his whiskey at Alastor Moody's favorite phrase - had allowed him to maintain his focus and to continue to teach at all. He shuddered to think what would have happened had he succeeded in subjecting Sirius Black to the Dementor's Kiss. He was not at all certain Dumbledore would ever have forgiven him for that, and Dumbledore had forgiven him for just about everything.
The opening door interrupted Snape's besotted, self-pitying reverie. He steadfastly refused to look up and see who it was, but he could not avoid the insistent footsteps moving in his direction, especially when they stopped just short of his table. He looked up and saw Minerva McGonagall swaying uncertainly before him. As if that woman has ever swayed in her life, he thought, trying to clear his vision and his mind.
"What, Minerva?" he asked, slurring his words badly.
McGonagall didn't bother to hide her disdain at his sodden condition. "You're to come with me, Severus," she said, "Remus has arrived with a message from Black and Dumbledore's called a meeting. Now. This could be our chance-"
"Right, our chance to be obliterated all at one blow." Snape broke in. "Where's the moon tonight?"
Minerva nearly struck him, but exhibiting more than her normal amount of self-restraint, she merely swept his bottle off of the table, sending it crashing to the floor.
"Keep a civil tongue in your head, Snape, and for heaven's sake, man, sober up!" Minerva demanded harshly. "Now pry your sorry arse off of that chair. You're coming with me whether you like it or not."
Snape waved an arm in her general direction, hoping to ward off her direct assistance. He fumbled in the inner pockets of his robes for a minute until his hand emerged holding a small corked flask, which he opened with his teeth. McGonagall wrinkled her nose and retreated a few steps to avoid the acrid fumes that stank of Bundimun extract, and she couldn't help but grimace when Snape dumped the contents of the flask down his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut and coughed loudly, but then he replaced the flask in his pocket, stood up without needing to hold on to either the table or the chair, and looked at McGonagall without flinching.
"You were saying, Minerva?" Snape snarled, sarcastically. "By all means, please lead the way." He gestured toward the door with a slight bow.
Rosmerta watched the two Hogwarts teachers depart, and pointing her wand toward Snape's habitual corner, she cleared away the shattered whiskey bottle with a flick of her wrist.