The Overlooked

Six

From the diary of Celeste Jenkins

June 29, 1996

So the mysterious Mr. Snape is a wizard. Or at least claims to be.

Actually, that's a claim I can't really refute, because after he had gone I went back into the front parlor and retrieved the crystal ball he had somehow managed to make appear on the coffee table there, and then hurried to the reading room. Although I had seen the thing appear with my own eyes, somehow I had thought it must be some sort of trick -- that he had a second crystal ball hidden on him somewhere and produced it through some sort of legerdemain in order to fool me into thinking he had magical powers. But when I entered the reading room I saw the little brass stand the ball usually rests on sitting there in the center of the table, quite empty. And when I lifted the ball to look at it more closely, I knew it was mine -- there's a small nick in it at what would be the equator on a globe, from the time HBC had decided the fringe on the piano scarf would make a fun toy and dragged the whole thing down onto the floor. Luckily the rug kept the crystal from shattering, but it had rolled across the floor and smacked into one of the bookcases, resulting in the tiny chip. I somehow doubted that Severus Snape would have been able to procure a crystal ball with a nick in it in exactly the same place as mine.

But of course it didn't stop there.

Not only had he told me he was a wizard, but he also quite calmly informed me that I was a witch. Now, I may have made jokes on the subject in the past -- again, just my way of coping with these odd powers I seemed to have acquired out of nowhere -- but I'd never been serious. As he apparently was. Not much of a man for a joke, this Severus Snape.

It didn't help that right after he told me I was far too old for formal schooling as a witch, I had the most unseemly urge to start giggling again -- Severus might be the human being on the planet who resembles Yoda the least, but all I could hear in my head was the little green Jedi Master insisting that Luke was far too old to begin Jedi training. I could probably put the blame for that on my father -- he'd had the oddest obsession with the Star Wars films. I still have all the tapes somewhere in a cabinet, even though I haven't had the heart to watch them after Dad died. We'd always shared that ritual. Strangely, I don't remember seeing the first two films at the cinema, even though I would have been old enough, but I do recall queuing up for hours with my father to see the third one. My memory's like that -- full of odd little missing bits, fuzzy areas that I just can't seem to bring into sharp resolution no matter what I do.

Snape's bombshell was shattering enough, I suppose, but what really bothers me the most is the feeling that for every small bit of information he gave me there was ten times as much undisclosed data floating out there, submerged and just waiting for the wrong time to appear, much like the iceberg that hit the Titanic. And we all know what happened to the Titanic.

It took me a long time to fall asleep last night.

Today I managed to pull it together a little bit, mostly because I had a lunch date with Fiona and she was bound to notice if I were preoccupied or unnaturally quiet. You can't be friends with someone for almost twelve years and not have them pick up on those sorts of things.

I'd hoped that my little scene with Severus in Topham's had gone unnoticed, but apparently not. No sooner had Fiona slid into the booth at the Old Ship where I was waiting for her than she demanded, "So what was going on with that man at Topham's last night?"

"Topham's?" I asked cautiously. I certainly wasn't above playing stupid if it put Fiona off the scent.

I should have known better. She raised an eyebrow and gave me the standard "this is Fiona you're talking to" look before replying, "Reggie said you were having quite the spat with some greasy-haired man in black at the bar around nine."

Now, I know for a fact that Fiona had a date with the new account executive at her office for that same Friday night, and you'd think she would have had more important things to worry about. But I also know that Fiona has intelligence-gathering resources that would put MI5 to shame. Affecting an air of unconcern, I said, "It wasn't anything -- just a slight difference of opinion with a client of mine."

She looked as if she had another pithy comment to make on that subject, but I was granted a slight reprieve by the arrival of the waiter, who took our orders -- salad for her, cottage pie for me -- and then disappeared again. Fiona does have a tendency to plumpness and looks on salad as her savior, whereas I seem to be able to eat pretty much anything I want without putting on a pound. Whenever Fiona asks me how I do it, I just tell her that being psychic burns a lot of calories, and for all I know that's true. I do tend to get very hungry after intense sessions and inevitably go on a cupboard rummage afterward.

But after the waiter had gone Fiona fixed me with a sharp blue eye and said, "A client."

"Yes."

"Since when do you have arguments with your clients in bars? Since when do you even go into bars with your clients?"

Since never, of course, and she knew it as well as I did. But Severus had upset me so much that I didn't stop to think what I was doing -- I just went charging after him, intent on getting answers. I wasn't used to someone walking out on me like that, and my anger had made me careless.

Not sure what to say, I busied myself with the tea the waiter had set in front of me, fussing with the sugar and cream far beyond what it required.

"Are you seeing someone you don't want to tell me about?"

Ever since Alex and I had broken up, Fiona seemed to think it was her responsibility to oversee my personal life, since I apparently was doing such a bad job of it myself. No doubt she'd be very offended to learn that I had gone off and met someone on my own instead of relying on her somewhat dubious fix-ups.

"No," I said, after taking a sip of tea. "There is absolutely nothing going on between the two of us." Nothing romantic, I added mentally. Of course there was something going on...I just would have been hard put to explain exactly what it was -- especially to Fiona.

She looked a little relieved at that statement. "Well, I'm glad to hear it, since Reggie made him sound fairly dodgy -- not good-looking at all, and a lot older than you to boot."

For some reason her offhand dismissal of Severus Snape irritated me to no end. After all, the man was a wizard...did it really matter that he didn't resemble Brad Pitt? Anyhow, I found that I liked Severus' looks. Of course he wasn't handsome, or even attractive, really, but he was...interesting. And greasy-haired? I had just assumed that he had a heavy hand with the hair gel. Besides, Fiona had never heard him speak. A girl could imagine all sorts of things she'd like said to her by a man who had a voice like that....

But I knew if I launched into a passionate defense of Severus Snape then Fiona would think something was surely going on, and that was the last thing I needed. Instead, I just helped myself to another healthy swallow of tea and said airily, "I suppose so. I don't really pay that much attention to my clients' appearance."

Which had always been the truth before -- they were clients, after all, no more than that. Alex had been an exception, but I certainly hadn't encouraged Alex. It wouldn't have been professional. But after a while he'd made it clear that he wasn't going anywhere, and it somehow seemed easier to be with him than to keep fending him off. Maybe that was why his leaving in the end had upset me so much. He'd done all the pursuing, yet once he had what he supposedly wanted, he found he couldn't deal with the situation.

I must have been frowning, for Fiona asked suddenly, "Everything all right? You look upset."

"Sorry," I replied. "I was thinking about Alex."

"Well, don't," she said severely. "Inconsiderate bastard. I thought you were well over him."

Of course I was...it had been almost two years, after all. But the nastier the breakup the longer it seems to linger in one's memory. I didn't bother saying that to Fiona; I'd cried on her shoulder over Alex enough as it was. "Oh, absolutely," I said. "He just pops in the brain every once in a while for no reason. But enough of him -- how was your date?"

And after that I could just sit back and listen to her rattle on about this Roger Hawkins person and his numerous charms, including the way his backside looked in khakis and the fact that he had a new BMW. But all the while my thoughts kept straying to Severus Snape and his miraculous powers, and I hoped that I would get to see him again in the near future. Luckily once Fiona gets going she very rarely stops for breath, so since I more or less maintained eye contact and nodded and interjected a few comments along the lines of "oh, really?" and "sounds wonderful" at appropriate intervals, I doubted that she ever noticed my heart wasn't really in listening to her description of her wonderful date.

After lunch Fiona wanted to go shopping, but I found I wasn't that interested; the weather continued murky and dank, and I just wanted to go home and put my feet up and relax. I should probably just admit here that the real reason I wanted to go home was that I didn't want to miss the possibility of another drop-in visit by Severus Snape. Somehow I doubted he was the sort of person to ring me up and leave a message on the answering machine. Fiona seemed a little disappointed, but the truth is that we don't make the best shopping companions, since I always have a clear idea of what I'm looking for and am in and out of a shop quite quickly, whereas she could happily shop for hours with no clear notion of what she wanted, just letting serendipity guide her to a new and exciting purchase. So we said good-bye in the crush of Market Street, and I called a cab, not wanting to wait for the bus.

When I got home, an owl was waiting on my doorstep.

It was quite a beautiful bird, a sleek and well-fed-looking horned owl who swiveled its head in my direction as I approached and regarded me placidly out of round golden eyes. It acted as if there were nothing strange about it sitting on the front doorstep of a row house in Manchester.

I stopped a few feet away from the bottom step and stared at it. Already my life had begun to feel like the opening chapters of Through the Looking Glass, but really -- an owl?

As I hesitated there, feeling somewhat flummoxed, I heard someone approach. I turned and saw Reggie standing on the sidewalk, watching the bird with vaguely puzzled dark eyes. Probably he was on his way to start the early afternoon shift at Topham's.

"You got an owl on your doorstep," he said helpfully.

"Thanks, Reg, I can see that,"I answered, wondering how much of the ganj Reggie had smoked that afternoon before drifting in to work.

"Bit strange, don't you think?"

"Erm...well...maybe it's hurt," I hedged. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a flash of something pale against the bird's left leg, and I slowly swiveled my head to get a clearer look. It appeared to be a piece of paper or parchment rolled up and tied on with a black ribbon. What the hell?

But even as my brain tried to wrap itself around that particular bit of information, realization dawned. It had to have come from Severus. Who but a wizard would send a message tied to an owl's leg? After all, I thought shakily, it's not as if I gave him my e-mail address....

"Want me to call someone?" Reggie asked.

"No -- no," I said hurriedly. The last thing I needed was for anyone to get close enough to notice the bit of paper tied to the bird. "I can take care of it -- I'm used to birds -- my mother used to have a Norwegian Blue -- "

Fortunately, Reggie didn't seem to notice that I was babbling, and he hadn't known me long enough to realize that my family had never owned a bird, Norwegian Blue or otherwise. With a fatalistic lift of his shoulders, he said, "Right then. Better be goin' -- think I'm late." And he sauntered off toward Topham's, not giving me or the owl a second glance.

With him safely out of the picture, I could return my attention to the bird. It really did seem quite tame; it had sat there the whole time watching me with a sort of disinterested curiosity. At least, I hoped it was tame. I didn't feel quite up to explaining an owl bite to the staff of the local emergency room.

Walking slowly and carefully, I closed the distance between the owl and myself, then squatted down so that I was more or less at eye level with it. "Is that for me?" I asked it, then felt like a complete fool. But once you've been told there's magic in the world, it's hard to figure out what the boundaries might be. For all I knew, the bird could talk -- or might be Severus Snape in disguise.

But the owl just hooted softly, and lifted its left leg, as if encouraging me to take the piece of parchment attached there. Now that I was close enough, I could see that it really was parchment, or at least a type of paper that mimicked it. With hesitant fingers, I reached up and untied the ribbon, still not sure whether I was going to get pecked for my trouble. After I had retrieved the note, however, the owl just placed its foot back down on the top step and watched me as I unrolled the crackly parchment.

The handwriting was black and slanting, completely unfamiliar, but it seemed so distinctly Severus Snape that I didn't even need the scrawled "S" beneath the main portion of the note to tell me it had come from him. It contained only a few lines.

You need several items that cannot be obtained in Manchester. Clear your schedule Monday afternoon. I'm taking you shopping. I shall Apparate into your front parlor so as to avoid notice. After the "S" came a postscript: Muggle clothing is frowned on where we're going. Attempt to find something suitable.

"What the bloody hell is a Muggle?" I asked the bird.

It blinked. Then it suddenly spread its wings, flapped them once, and took off, startling me so much that I lost my balance and actually fell over on my backside. For a second all I could do was stare up at its departing form from my ignominious position on the front walk, and then I hurriedly got to my feet and looked around, hoping that no one had seen me just land on my posterior. But although there were some people out and about on the street, nobody seemed to be looking in my direction.

I jammed the note in my purse and then rooted around for my keys. As usual they had migrated to the very bottom of my bag, but after about a minute of scrabbling I located them and let myself in the house.

HBC sat in the center of the runner that lay on the hallway floor, her tail switching violently back and forth. No doubt she'd sensed the owl that had sat on just the other side of the front door; the mail slot had been installed somewhat sloppily and tended to let in quite a bit of street noise -- and some lovely drafts as well.

"It's taken itself off, so calm down," I said. "As if you'd know what to do with it even if you somehow managed to get the better of such a whopping great bird." I had always counted myself fortunate that HBC was far too lazy to bother with chasing mice -- disposing of the sorts of "presents" many cats left for their masters wasn't exactly high on my list of new and exciting things to do with my spare time.

If the cat could have sniffed, I have no doubt she would have. Instead, she rolled halfway over on her side and began licking a rear haunch as if that were the only thing of importance in the universe.

"That's what I thought," I said, and continued on into the front parlor, then dropped my purse on the coffee table and fished out Severus' note. "Nervy bastard, isn't he?" I muttered, after giving the cryptic missive a second read. "Not so much as a 'by your leave.'"

Not, I have to admit, that my Monday schedule was terribly packed. Most people don't like the possibility of getting bad news on Mondays -- I suppose it's too much of a shock to the system on top of having to go back to work after the weekend -- so I had only one client. And I can't say I'd regret having to postpone her appointment; Emily Peters' sessions tended to consist of me confirming her suspicions about the philandering of her husband, followed by lengthy discussions as to why she couldn't possibly leave him, ending up with a protracted meeting of minds with my tissue box. I suppose I should be more compassionate, but really -- how much evidence does one person need to realize that a man is a complete bastard?

"'Muggle clothing,'" I mused. I had to assume that Severus was taking me someplace wizard-y, so deductive reasoning would suggest that he wanted me to dress like a witch; ergo, "Muggle" must mean nonmagical people. Or at least I hoped that was what he meant. As to Apparating -- well, it sounded somewhat dangerous. I planned to be elsewhere in my house at 3 o'clock on Monday so he didn't Apparate right on top of me. Or into me. Or through me. Or whatever else might go wrong that I couldn't think of at the moment because I didn't know what the hell he was talking about in the first place.

For a second I thought about ringing up Fiona and seeing if she'd gotten home yet -- no doubt she'd be happy to hear that I'd changed my mind about shopping after all. Then I thought of how I could ever possibly explain to her that I had to find the sort of outfit one might need for twirling about on stage and singing "Edge of Seventeen," and decided that probably wasn't such a good idea. It would be very out of character, and Fiona might start asking probing questions again.

I've always eschewed the sort of over-the-top bohemian looks commonly associated with psychics, palm readers, and what-have-you. While I will confess to owning some somewhat funky articles of clothing, I always match them up with jeans and plain shoes. Likewise with jewelry; I have a few good pieces that belonged to my mother, but I rarely wear them, and never when I'm doing a reading. They still have some faint psychic echoes attached to them, and I don't need the distraction.

No, I'll just have to go shopping on my own. Luckily Oldham Street and its environs have plenty of funky little boutiques where I figure I can find something "suitable." Too bad Severus hadn't been a little more specific as to exactly what "suitable" means, but at the very least I'm guessing it's not blue jeans. I think I caught him giving my clothes a niggling, narrow-eyed look once or twice. Not that I can blame him -- I was a complete fright last night. It figures that the one Friday I decided to stay in and let myself go he'd show up. Anyhow, I figure he probably expects me to wear some sort of dress.

And if he doesn't like what I choose, then I'll just let him know that next time he can draw me a picture, or include a cutting from Vogue or something like that. If nothing else, it'll be fun to watch him scowl at me a bit more.

I find I'm getting used to it....

The Overlooked --