Fighting for love - Severus Snape fanfiction (BOOK TWO of A Magical Muggle)

Chapter 19

One night, Severus woke up suddenly from a nightmare. He had fallen asleep on the couch during that Saturday afternoon and when he jumped startled, he noticed it was past dinner time. He missed it, but he didn't care, he'd eat something later.

The nightmare tormented him more than his empty growling stomach. And as much as he tried to focus on the book he had been reading the whole weekend to distract himself, he couldn't help but replay the images of his nightmare - the room on fire; hearing Ana screaming for help. That's everything he dreamed about ever since she disappeared. Ana being in distress. In danger. And there's nothing he could do to help. Much like the reality he was living in at the time.

Not being able to take his mind off such an awful dream, he got up and decided a drink was the only thing that would calm him down, even if just for a moment.

When he discerned every bottle in his chambers was empty, he had to close his eyes and take a deep breath to stop himself from destroying everything around him.

Instead, an idea crossed his mind, so, he took his wand, grabbed his coat and left Hogwarts, intending to go to Hogsmeade. There was no alcohol in the school - that he knew of - so he shall find it elsewhere.

As soon as he was outside Hogwarts' grounds, he disapparated and aparated right in front of Hog's Head Inn.

Aberforth greeted him modestly, apprehending the look on his face. A knot in his throat hindered him from talking to Severus, so he remained in the back room of the bar, feeling all sorts of bad emotions from obscuring the fact that he had seen Ana and knew where she was.

Two hours later, as Severus was still sitting at the bar after being served several drinks - enough to put anyone into an alcoholic coma - Aberforth no longer had the power in him to stay away. He couldn't watch the man destroying himself like that.

"Severus - drinking yourself to death won't do you any good," he stated.

"It keeps the pain more bearable," he replied in a stern tone, without looking up. He continued playing with the Whiskey glass with his hand, spinning the beverage and the ice cubes as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

Aberforth closed his lips in a thin line, wondering if he did the right thing approaching such a wrecked soul.

"It clouds your mind," he insisted.

"It is clouded already," Severus replied, taking a sip of the drink, emptying the glass and slamming it down in the counter, gesturing to the bartender to fill it up again.

The bartender approached Severus with an almost empty bottle of whiskey he had opened when the broody man appeared that night, but Aberforth gestured to his employer, making him halt his pace and walk away without serving Severus. Albus' brother approached Severus and sat on the stool next to him, staring down at the raven-haired man and taking a deep breath before talking again.

"Ana is a clever woman, Severus. And she will return to you."

Severus clenched his fist around his empty glass, bothered by the lack of drink inside of it, and by the man next to him.

"How do you know that?" He suddenly groaned and spat out. "She's gone and I cannot feel her anywhere. I used to feel her wherever she was, but I cannot do that ever since she vanished."

"She might have been closer than you think," Aberforth said under his breath.

Severus didn't look at him. He acted as if Aberforth didn't even speak to him. He went to the Head's hog on purpose, not only because it had alcohol - which he needed - but because Aberforth reminded Severus of his dear friend Albus. The friend he killed. Perhaps that is why Ana left - the heaviness of what he did took a toll on her and she finally woke up to see the wrong he had done in the past.