This is just a quick author's note to let you know that the sequel to Phoenix Song, Phoenix Tears (or, Hermione Granger and the DH) is now posting. You can read it here : http: // ww w. fan fiction .net/s/5129305/1/ (just remove the spaces)

Well, what are you waiting for? Leave me a review, and then go and read the next part!

Here's a little snippet just to (1) work around the ff rules so that they don't delete this entire story and (2) whet your appetite . . .

DISCLAIMER : The characters and many of the situations described in this story are the property of the incomparable J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this story, which exists as a work of tribute.

Severus Snape stared down at the small phial she had pressed into his hand. He recognised the contents immediately. "Felix Felicis?" he asked. "Where did you get this?"

"It's Harry's," replied Hermione Granger. "It's a long story. We divided it up tonight."

Only a scant mouthful remained in the bottle. "This is your share," he said, struck by sudden certainty. He pushed the phial back towards her, but she stepped away from him, shaking her head and pulling her hands behind her back in refusal.

"No," she lied, then added more truthfully: "You need it more than I do, sir."

Severus had no need of Legilimency to read the sincerity behind Granger's gesture. Her good faith glowed. He glanced from her to the small glass container in his hand. His heart ached. Felix Felicis, liquid luck. There was no clearer way to display her whatever decision he made now, it had to be quick: Death Eaters had breached Hogwarts' defences, he had to find Dumbledore and kill him before someone else did, and Luna Lovegood was only feet away, separated from Severus and Granger by the door of his office. This was not the moment to stare at a student and think about kissing her.

Or was it? With only the tiniest twinge of guilt, Severus thumbed the cork from the bottle in his hand and tilted back his head, drawing the contents into his mouth.

Granger's response was immediate. She beamed at him with delight; her lips parted slightly as her smile spread across her face. Severus struck immediately. Shifting the empty bottle into the hand that held his wand, he freed his left hand and reached out across the distance that separated them. He took a firm grip of her chin. The tips of his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her cheeks, forcing her jaw open. As he stepped closer and lowered his head, her smell washed over him. The Felix Felicis tingled against his tongue. The warmth of it spread outwards—down his throat and up through his sinuses—though he had been very careful not to swallow any. He crushed his mouth against hers and as soon as he managed to manoeuvre his bottom lip between the two of hers, he opened his mouth, transferring the liquid contents from one person to the other. She struggled silently: her hands pulled ineffectively at his fingers and her tongue pushed up against his in a futile effort to push the Felix Felicis back up into his mouth.

Severus' eyes were pressed closed, his concentration narrowed to the points of bodily contact. Her lips were inordinately soft. Within seconds, she was forced to swallow, and her struggles ceased. Severus could provide no justification to prolong his behaviour, but he drew back only reluctantly, stretching out the last brief seconds of contact between his lips and hers as long as possible.

His eyes fluttered open almost immediately, and he stared at the face before him: the curl of an eyelash, the curve of her lip, the soft groove between her nose and her mouth. His left hand slipped from her chin, sliding across the edge of her jaw and down her throat to rest with his fingertips lying in the hollow at the base of her neck. He could feel the unsteady beat of her heart and the rise and fall of her breath. He wanted to kiss her again.

"Hermione!" Lovegood punctured the moment, her panic evident in the cadence of her voice. "Come quickly!"

The interruption brought Severus immediately to his senses. He pulled away from the young woman in front of him, and gave her one last glance before he turned on his heel and ran.