Keeping Emma

Chapter 2: First Date, Last Date

After agreeing to meet at a local pub that evening, Emma and Severus left the deli and walked outside into the muggy summer afternoon. Once on the sidewalk, Severus pulled Emma into the narrow alley between the deli and the baker's shop next door, spinning her around until her back was against the deli's brick exterior wall. He placed the fingers of one hand under her chin and gently lifted her face. Then, his mouth swept down to hers, and he began to playfully tease her lips with his. Emma moaned, fearing that her legs were going to give away beneath her. She closed her eyes and brought her hands up to his chest.

Then, she heard a stange popping sound and her hands were suddenly clutching air. Startled, she opened her eyes and he was gone. She was alone in the alley. She looked down the alley but only saw a stray cat walk out from behind a garbage can. Stepping back out onto the sidewalk, she looked in both directions, but Severus was not to be seen. The street was not very crowded at all. With his height, he should have been easy to spot. Wondering if she was hallucinating, she turned and made her way up the street toward the used bookstores to spend the afternoon browsing.

Severus apparated back to his room in the Leaky Cauldron. He silently pointed his wand toward himself and transfigured his outfit back into the wizard's garb he usually wore. His strategy for Emma held one fatal flaw. With her staying at that youth hostel, they could not spend the night there. But neither could he bring a Muggle here. There were a few Muggle inns nearby where he could get a room, but he doubted he'd be able to convince her to sleep with him this soon anyway. Damn, he wanted her tonight--so badly he could taste it. He had neither the time nor patience to gently seduce naive American Muggles. Oh well, he decided, dire times called for drastic methods.

Severus pointed his wand toward the bed and said, "Accio potions." A case of deep green, made of fine dragonskin, sailed out from under the bed and floated toward him. He grabbed it, carefully laid it on the table, and opened it. Inside was a rack filled with two dozen crystal vials of potions, all powerful, all capable of stimulating some very dark effects, and all very illegal. But they would also be very profitable when he sold them down on Knockturn Alley.

He carefully withdrew a vial of deep red liquid and held it up to the window, admiring how the light made it gleam like a rich jewel. It was not a love potion. The last thing he wanted was a cloying, lovestruck woman. Neither would it render Emma senseless or unconscious. Only Muggles had that little finesse. How any man could find pleasure in an unconscious woman was beyond him.

This was the potion he had perfected during his sixth year at Hogwarts. It only worked on women. A man could down the entire vial and be totally unaffected. All he had to do was scrape off a few skin cells and add them to the potion so that Emma's attraction would be for himself alone. Merlin knows he had never been good at sharing. There was more than enough potion in this single vial to keep Emma in his bed for the entire summer, if he wanted.

This summer was going to be fun. Emma would be just the release he needed before the school year and ten months of enforced celibacy began. Once she was under his control, he could apparate with her back to his house on Spinner's End. She'd be oblivious to it. She was alone, so nobody would miss her. He could have her call her mother a couple times to keep the woman from becoming alarmed and alerting the authorities. Then, a few days before she was to return to America, he'd stop giving it to her. As it slowly wore off, she'd begin to come to her senses, but she would remember that she had consented to everything and had even been the aggressor. He made a mental note to pick up enough anti-pregnancy potion to prevent any complications from happening on that front.

He carefully tucked the vial into the inner pocket of his robes and closed the case. Then, carrying it, he hurried down through the taproom and into Diagon Alley to buy his classroom supplies, with a little side trip down Knockturn Alley to sell the remaining potions.

*****

Emma browsed through the bookstore, clutching an old, beautifully illustrated hardcover volume of Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess possessively. The book had been her childhood favorite, and she still liked to reread it from time to time. After getting her fill of bookstores, she stopped inside a small used clothing shop just to browse and walked out with a very nice pair of designer jeans and a pretty little black silk tank top that had tiny black crystals sewn around the edge of the deep V-shaped neckline. Double satiny spaghetti straps were held together by little crystal encrusted clasps. The top showed more skin than she usually displayed. Emma did not even know if she'd have the nerve to actually wear it, but at less than three British pounds, it had been a great bargain.

Emma made her way back to the youth hostel. She was supposed to meet Severus at eight o'clock. A part of her mind kept telling her to not go. Although he was only four years older than she was, she felt like a silly, gauche twelve-year-old around him. If only Amy were here. Emma laughed at herself ruefully. If Amy had been here, she would have been the one with the date tonight, not Emma.

When Emma made her way up to her fourth floor room, the two Russian girls were there getting dressed. Emma had problems dealing with the boldness of these two girls. They thought nothing of strutting around the room stark naked every day. Emma always carefully assembled her things and made her way up the hall to the showers fully dressed. Then, she hid behind the opaque curtain in the stall while she dried off and dressed. She knew it annoyed the girls who were waiting, but there was no way she could act that way. Just then, she noticed that the top that the blonder girl was removing was her missing one.

"Hey, what are you doing with my top?" she yelled.

The two girls looked at each other and laughed.

"Oh, the little American does talk," said the lighter blond in lightly accented English. "I only borrowed it. Here you go," she said as she finished pulling it off and threw it at her.

"You didn't ask permission," said Emma.

"You were not here when I wanted to borrow it," replied the girl with a shrug. "My name is Katya, by the way, and this is my sister, Mischa. We come here every summer. We actually live in New York City. Our father is in the Soviet Diplomatic Corps. Sorry, but I can't resist anything by Calvin. So, what is in the bags? What did you buy?"

After less than a half hour, Emma had told the two girls about Amy's desertion, her meeting Severus, and about her planned date tonight. The two Russian girls exchanged weighted looks.

"Emma," began Mischa. "Perhaps it would be best if you did not go to this meeting alone. You do not even know this man. You said yourself that you're not sure about him. It's always best to listen to that little voice of reason."

"It's not that we want to, how you say it, rain on your parade, but we are a few years older than you and we've traveled extensively. It's not a safe world out there. You need to be careful," added Katya.

Mischa suddenly hit her sister on the shoulder. "Katya, why don't we go with Emma tonight? We were trying to come up with something to do. We can go in a few minutes apart and just, you know, watch her back. Emma, if you decide to spend the night with him--"

"Oh, I won't," stammered Emma, her face turning red. "Believe me, I mean, really, I just met him. I don't sleep around like that."

Katya and Mischa looked at each other again and smiled. "Oh, isn't that cute," said Katya. "How provincial. Remember when we thought that way too, Mischa?"

"Yes," said Mischa, laughing, "when we were twelve. But seriously, Emma, let us check him out. If you see one of us run our fingers through our hair and then get up, excuse yourself and meet us in the ladies room. Now, go wash your face and I will do your make-up. I have some blush that would work for you, and some eye make-up. Our foundation would be too light for your skin, but you don't really need it with your skin. Do you tan?"

"No, I'm just naturally this color. My mother's family was Italian. She said that the man who fathered me had green eyes just like mine." At the girls' curious look, Emma explained, "He took off shortly after she told him she was pregnant, and she was never able to find him."

A few hours later, the three girls were making their way up Wardour Street together, Emma wearing the tight designer jeans and skimpy black silk tank she'd bought that afternoon. She felt braver with Katya and Mischa backing her up. As they passed the men outside the adult theater, one large, scruffy man asked what the price would be for the three of them together. Katya stopped and gave him an assessing look. "You can't even afford a pair of good jeans. How could you possibly afford us?" Then, laughing, they continued their trek up the street as the man, enraged, yelled obscenities after them.

All three girls carried their backpacks with their belongings up to the train station first, securing them in lockers for the night. It was an ingenious idea. Emma wished she had thought of it two days ago. Emma secured the key to her locker in the pretty black evening bag Katya had lent her. It also contained her identification and financial resources. Emma recognized other residents of the hostel doing the same as they prepared for a Friday night out on the town.

When, at last, they reached the pub where Emma was to meet Severus, they were nearly a half hour late. Katya and Mischa sent Emma in first, saying they would enter in a few minutes. She saw him sitting at the end of the bar, drinking something of a deep amber hue from a bell-shaped glass. He saw her and let his eyes travel slowly down and up her body, stopping at the deep vee of the tank top that revealed most of her ample breasts. She felt her face flush as she made her way over to him, suddenly regretting her choice to wear the top.

He stood as she climbed onto the barstool next to him. Placing his hands on her bare shoulders, he slid his left hand up her arm to her throat, moving her hair to the side. Then, he placed his mouth to her neck, letting his lips slide to her ear and whispered, "I was beginning to think you weren't going to come." He continued to nibble playfully at her neck as his hands ran down her arms.

Emma shut her eyes as the sensation took her breath from her. The few boys she had dated in high school had never made her feel like this. They had been clumsy and rough as they had tried to grope her, their mouths sloppy when they had kissed her. She knew that she should make him stop before he got the wrong idea about where this night was going, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

Suddenly, he stopped and sat back down on his own stool. He motioned to the bartender and turned to Emma. "What would you like to drink?" he asked.

"What are you having?"

"Bourbon," he answered.

Emma was clearly confused. She had no idea what to order. "You've never even been in a pub before, have you?" he asked, laughing.

"It's not my fault. Where I live, they raised the legal drinking age to twenty-one a few years ago. And I turned eighteen just last week."

"That's okay," he said. "Believe it or not, I have no interest in getting you drunk, so perhaps you'd better take it slow." Then, he turned to the waiting bartender and said, "Another Bourbon for me and a Coke for the lady." A simple soft drink would work just as well as alcohol to cover the tast of the potion. And failing all else, a drop of it on his own lips could be transferred to hers in a kiss.

Just then, Emma heard Katya's and Mischa's voices as they entered the bar, laughing. They sat down at the other end of the bar and ordered tall, exotic looking drinks. They flicked their eyes around the room in a detached casual manner, taking note of where Emma and Severus were seated. Severus noticed the two tall, light-haired women. They were beautiful but worldly and jaded.

As Emma slowly sipped her soda, Severus kept up a steady steam of conversation. He seemed intensely curious about her life in America, her job at the restaurant with her mom, her friends, and her plans for college. "So, your mother is a waitress and you never met your father, then? Have you any other family? Any grandparents?"

"I'm an only child. My mom has an older brother somewhere, but her parents were angry when she got pregnant and threw her out. She heard that her dad died about ten years ago, and then her mother died just last year. Then there's my best friend, Amy. She's the one who was supposed to come on this trip with me, but her family is very upper class and does not approve of our friendship, so her father arranged an alternate activity."

"Have you called your mother to let her know you arrived safely?"

"No, that's way too expensive," said Emma. "I did send her out a postcard today. I promised to send one out each week to let her know I'm okay."

Severus finished off his second drink and ordered another. Excellent, he thought, it would be weeks before Emma's mother even began to suspect that she was missing. By then, it would be too late and she would be powerless to cause a stink. After all, Emma would return home on schedule, no harm done, with quite an education under her belt.

After the bartender deposited the two fresh drinks in front of them, Severus picked them up and slid off his barstool. "Come, Emma, let's sit at that booth in the corner. We can have more privacy."

Emma noticed Mischa staring at her from across the bar. She ran her fingers through her hair and got up, making her way to the ladies' room. "Sure, but excuse me a minute," said Emma. "I'm going to the ladies' room." She could feel Severus' eyes on her as she walked away from him.

"So, how is it going?" Mischa asked.

"I don't know. It seems to be going okay. He's asking a lot of questions about my mom, my plans for college."

"Well, he did pass one test. Katya gave him a very hot look earlier, and he immediately turned his head away rather contemptuously. So, he must be interested in you. What are you drinking?"

"He just ordered Coke for me," said Emma.

"Well, he's not trying to get you drunk. Now freshen your lipstick and let's get back out there."

Severus had moved to the booth he had earlier indicated. Emma made her way over to it and slid into the seat across from him. Severus immediately got up and slid in next to her. Emma glanced over toward Katya and Mischa. Katya was telling Mischa something. She seemed quite excited about something.

Severus placed his hand on her face and leaned in to kiss her, lightly nibbling at her lips. Then, he sat back and pushed the Coke toward her. "You'd better drink that before it goes flat, Emma."

Emma lifted the glass to her lips. Suddenly, Katya was there, grabbing her arm, causing some of the drink to spill on the table.

"Don't drink that. He put something into your drink while you were in the bathroom. I saw him do it," she said.

Severus was clearly pissed. "That's a lie," he said. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"

"Someone who thinks you are a pig who is trying to take advantage of this girl," said Katya angrily.

"Let me out of this booth, Severus," said Emma, pushing him away from her.

Severus got up but stood at the end of the booth. "I can prove she's lying," he said. He picked up the glass of Coke and drank it down in a single drink. "Would I do that if I had drugged it, Emma?"

For a second, Emma felt unsure. She looked at Katya.

"I know what I saw, Emma," she said.

"You know, Severus," said Emma, "I'm not taking the chance. It's just not worth it. I'm leaving, and I don't want to see you again."

Emma grabbed her purse and slid out of the booth. As she walked out of the pub, she heard Mischa call Severus a pig. He, in turn, called her something worse.

Once outside on the street, they quickly walked away from the pub, finally stopping about two blocks away.

"Are you okay?" asked Katya.

"Yeah," said Emma. "I feel like a total idiot. But I'm okay."

"You're not the idiot, Emma," said Mischa. "He is. Come on. We know a nice club not far from here; up near Trafalger square. College crowd, live music, dancing. It'll be fun."

"Thanks, but I think I've had my fill of fun for the night. You two go on. I'm going back up to the station to get my backpack, and then I'll just head back to the hostel."

"No, we'll walk with you then," said Katya. "You shouldn't be alone on the streets this late."

The three girls retraced their steps to the train station and Emma retrieved her backpack from the locker. "Listen," she said. "I hate that you feel you need to babysit me. Go on to that club and have a good time. I can make it back to the hostel on my own. It's not that far."

"Are you sure?" Katya asked.

"I'm positive, said Emma, smiling, "and thanks. Who knows what might have happened if you had not been there."

The three girls hugged and went their separate ways. Katya and Mischa stopped to look back at Emma one last time from about a block away. It would be the last time they would ever see her.