Snape was, against all the odds, relaxed. Winter had drawn close again this evening, chill and cold in the icy air. He had toyed with the idea of heading for Hogsmeade and the dubious pleasures of the Three Broomsticks; it was an evening for whisky, straight or in coffee, and he was - once again - avoiding Hermione.

For once, they seemed in fact to be avoiding each other. Work had progressed swiftly in silence as they both worked in the lab this morning. She had been late and, he suspected, rather hungover. She had left yesterday with some comment about meeting with McGonagall that evening; given Minerva's taste for - and volume of - whisky, he was reasonably certain that Hermione had been feeling somewhat delicate and, had they not been developing quite such innocuous substances, would not have been inclined to go anywhere near the laboratory today.

But she had left early tonight, with no comment. Snape had tried to convince himself that she was simply tired and suffering the after effects of the whisky the night before. He hadn't convinced himself and had spent a fruitless hour furious with the universe in general, certain that she was meeting Queroz tonight. She had, after all, agreed to see the man's etchings. That she hadn't told him when she was going to see said works of art was irrelevant - it could be this evening as well as any other.

At the end of an hour he had exhausted the fit of temper, a sign that the term had been long and difficult - at the end of a holiday he could sustain that temper for days, if not weeks. A lack of subjects to exercise that temper on also made it pass faster; without the satisfaction of deducting points, there was less fuel. He still hadn't quite worked out a method of deducting points from Gryffindor for this date of Hermione's but he was working on it. Childish, admittedly, but weren't Muggles always encouraging people to embrace their 'inner child'?

In the end, winter itself had put paid to the idea of going to Hogsmeade. Snow had fallen steadily for most of the day, turning the Highlands from the faded purple and golds of autumn to a resolute white once more; Snape took a small measure of satisfaction in the knowledge that if he couldn't go to Hogsmeade then neither could Hermione and Queroz. That satisfaction was short-lived once his imagination supplied alternatives to a trip to a public eating place.

In the end, tired of feeling angry, tired of feeling somehow less than a person simply because Hermione was viewing Queroz's etchings, and tired of the endless self-examination that she seemed to bring out in him, Snape took refuge in the medicinal effects of whisky.

A bottle of Old Ogden's that was so old it was probably Ancient Ogden's was unearthed from the back of a cupboard. Snape sniffed it cautiously on opening, as the alcohol was notorious for producing the odd unstable bottle. The mildly amusing explosions of the occasional quart of recent vintage were one thing; this had the potential to produce something rather more spectacular and considerably more dangerous.

Two glasses later, Snape was settled in front of the fire in an armchair, watching snowflakes drifting lazily past the window of his room, picked out by the soft light from the stove and a hundred or so candles scattered throughout the study. It wasn't an evening for bright, direct, light. The whisky had done what it was supposed to and Snape was as near to meditation as he had ever been, watching the patterns in the flakes, his mind finally, gloriously, empty.

He wasn't quite sure how long he had been like that - long enough, he supposed - when a knock came at the door. Albus Dumbledore. The man appeared to be magnetically attracted to Snape's whisky - or perhaps it was simply that damned all-knowling twinkle that prompted him to visit whenever Snape felt the urge to self-medicate in this way.

Snape wasn't quite sure whether he had said something to open the door - probably he had but maybe he hadn't. Either way, the result was the same. The door swung gently open and the bearded wonder entered. Hmm. Perhaps the whisky was a bit stronger than he had thought it to be.

"Severus, I thought perhaps it was time that I came down to see you. The end of term is always such a mess, isn't it? I simply haven't had the chance to get around to the staff until now. How is the Ogden's tonight?"

The man asked far too many questions - and there was something slightly odd about him tonight; it seemed as if his mouth and his words were out of sync. Snape frowned slightly, then gestured to the chair on the other side of the fireplace. The one where Hermione had sat for lunch the other day ... damn. The blank mind had been so nice whilst it lasted.

"Albus," he said, nodding as the headmaster sat down and re-arranged his beard to his satisfaction. "Some whisky?"

"Oh, I think that would be rather nice on a night like this, Severus. Shall I help myself?"

Definitely out of sync - and the twinkle seemed rather more pronounced than usual. He nodded once and watched the headmaster locate a glass with a murmured Accio, then pour himself a rather generous measure of the whisky. He sipped at it thoughtfully, holding the glass up to the light after the sip.

"Good heavens, Severus, where did you get this? I can't remember the last time I saw a whisky of this vintage."

"Back there, somewhere." Snape gestured in the direction of his cupboard. "Not sure where it came from. Does it matter?"

"No, not at all. I suspect it of belonging to your predecessor - or perhaps her predecessor, given its age. Amazing what you can find lurking in the depths of this school, waiting to be discovered, isn't it? All sorts of things, and not all of them what they seem at times."

Dumbledore was looking at him meaningfully. Snape wasn't inclined to rise to the bait, but it seemed that his subconscious had other ideas, and rather more control at the moment.

"I'm not sure she wants to be discovered, Albus." Oh good grief, had he actually said that? Snape put the whisky down carefully, although the table did seem to have moved slightly further from his reach than he recalled. He caught the glass before it fell, though, and positioned it more carefully on the low chestnut table. Perhaps the next sip should wait - until next year. Or next century.

"Sometimes things are found, whether they want to be or not."

"In this instance, I think someone else has found her. Or perhaps his etchings have." Now he sounded petulant, and he really didn't like that.

"Perhaps he has nothing more than a general sense of location; I think he may be looking at the wrong thing - smoke and mirrors, if you will."

Snape picked up the whisky again - to hell with it. He needed more alcohol if he was going to deal with Dumbledore when he was in this sort of frame of mind. Unsubtly cryptic.

"It really doesn't matter what he's looking at, Albus, or whether he's found anything. It's not about him; the choice is hers. It's always been hers. Since you've started this remarkably maudlin conversation, you may as well hear the rest of it. It doesn't matter what I think - it only matters what she thinks; and I can tell you that she doesn't think of me. Oh, don't shake your head, you know she doesn't. I'm the Potions Professor, the one she had an ... unfortunate incident with some years back. The one she's having to work with, even though she doesn't really want to. I know, I know, she doesn't hate me - I'm spared that at least. Perhaps she even respects me, who knows? But that's all there is. And I have had far, far, too much to drink."

Snape stared at the whisky, amber gold and fractured firelight in his glass, and waited for the words of wisdom - the platitudes, the comments, the advice. The lemon drops.

In the silence the fire chattered in the stove, bark and sap swelling and cracking in the heat, embers shifting and settling with harsh sighs and leaping flames.

Finally, just before Snape looked up from his glass to check that Dumbledore hadn't left in the middle of his soliloquy, he heard a soft chuckle.

"Then there's really nothing more for me to say, is there?" There was an odd emphasis on the word 'me', but Snape dismissed it. The fire seemed oddly out of focus now, the flames blurred. His hearing was probably equally blurred, but he looked up now to check.