The Overlooked

Fourteen

Feeling more than a little surreal, Snape sat across a table from Celeste in the Cabin Coffee Bar and watched as she blew on the hot liquid in the mug she held. He still found it somewhat unbelievable that those same lips had been pressed against his only a few moments earlier. What the hell had he been thinking? Of course, that was the whole problem. He hadn't been thinking. He'd allowed his worry for her to overcome his better judgment, and now he would have to deal with the aftermath.

Even at this hour on a Saturday morning, the café around them buzzed with activity. Most likely the Muggles around them were getting an early breakfast in preparation for a day of sightseeing or fishing or whatever it was that Muggles did while on holiday. Since he'd never taken a vacation in his life, Snape couldn't speculate much further.

"Why here?" he demanded, after making sure the waitress was out of earshot and the people around them engaged in their own conversations. "Of all the stunts -- "

"I couldn't stay in Manchester," Celeste replied. She met his gaze frankly, but then her glance flickered to his mouth, and he saw the color burn high up on her cheekbones. After sipping at her coffee, she went on, "Not with those...things...roaming about."

Every muscle in his body seemed to tighten. "What things?"

"I don't know what they were." Her fingers tightened on the heavy white mug she held, and Snape thought he saw her shiver. "Hooded, dark...cold."

"Dementors," he hissed. And here he'd thought Manchester was so safe.... "In the city?"

"Not exactly. A few miles outside, off the Mersey. I needed to get out of town for a bit, take a walk in the fresh air." From somewhere she summoned a smile, although it looked wavery around the edges. "That Occlumency lesson put me off a little. I wanted to clear my head."

While Snape thought he could understand her motivations, still the idea that dementors could be roaming the borders of Manchester made a series of alarms go off on his head. Had Voldemort known all along where Celeste was, and had only been purposely vague in order to see how Snape would react when the girl's existence was mentioned? Or had the dementors been there all along, only to be attracted when the presence of such a strong magical mind came near? It was rumored that dementors preferred to prey on wizard kind...something about the magically gifted soul being so much sweeter to devour....

He forced himself to concentrate on the questions at hand. "And you fought them off yourself? How?"

Her shoulders lifted. Although the day was clear here on the Welsh coast, still it was a little chilly; Celeste wore a fuzzy brown cardigan over a white shirt. "I'm not sure, really. I had all these horrible images and memories going through my mind, and I suddenly felt very low." She gave a small, wry laugh. "Well, that's a bit of an understatement. I felt almost suicidal, if you want to know the truth. Then -- you're going to think this is silly -- "

"I doubt it," Snape said, his voice grim.

She gave him a brief, startled look, then shrugged again. "Right. Anyhow, I heard your voice in my head, telling me to fight it, telling me to make my mind a blank just as you'd shown me, and that's what I did. It seemed to break off their pull on me long enough for me to run to the car and get the hell out of there. Then I got back to Manchester, but it didn't feel safe. So I decided to leave. If you'd given me any way of contacting you -- "

"That was impossible, for reasons I will make clear when I can," he interrupted, giving a significant glance at the crowded tables around them.

At least she was quick on the uptake; Celeste nodded, then said, "I know it's a bit crowded, but Mrs. Evans recommended it when I went out this morning."

"And who, pray, is Mrs. Evans?"

"She owns the guest house where I'm staying. She told me this place had some of the best coffee in town, along with amazing griddle cakes. Speaking of which, I'm starving. I need solid food to go along with this coffee. What about you?"

What he really could use, Snape thought, was a healthy dollop of brandy in the quite excellent coffee. But he guessed that was out of the question. Still, it amazed him that Celeste could sit there and talk about coffee and griddle cakes as if nothing had happened, as if dementors hadn't chased her out of Manchester, as if --

As if she hadn't just given him a kiss he would remember on his deathbed.

But if she wanted to play it cool, then so would he. Snape lifted an eyebrow, then drawled, "If there's bacon involved, breakfast sounds like a worthy idea."

She smiled then, and waved the waitress over. Some time was consumed in placing orders and choosing between crumpets and toast, although his interest in kippers was immediately shot down.

"Nasty little things," Celeste said. "I hate them."

The waitress gave her a conspiratorial wink and replied, "So do I," in her lilting Welsh accent, then disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

"Why Wales?" Snape asked at last, not wanting to get any more sidetracked than he already had.

"Why not?" Celeste replied immediately. Then she shook her head and gave him a rueful smile. "To be perfectly honest, I couldn't tell you why exactly. I didn't want anyplace completely desolate, but I wanted out of the big city. And I'd never been. So here we are."

"Indeed."

She leaned forward then, the familiar impish light in her eyes. "How did you find me, anyway?"

"Magic," he answered, allowing himself just the faintest curl of the lip.

The dimple next to her mouth flickered into existence for just a moment. "I should have known."

"Not mine, actually," Snape commented. "It was actually the Divinations professor who gave me the clue I needed to track you down."

"Divinations? How appropriate."

"I think that may have been only the third time in her existence that she actually stumbled onto a true Seeing. Most of the time she mucks about with tea leaves and insists that everyone in the immediate vicinity is due to meet with a gruesome end."

Celeste burst out laughing. "Well, then, I'm glad all she did was see where I ended up, and not something worse."

Indeed. He was glad as well; so many possible futures promised nothing but pain and death. At least Sybill Trelawney had seen none of those.

Perhaps she had seen some of those less than pleasant thoughts in his face. Whatever the reason, Celeste sobered abruptly, then asked, "And have you come here to scold me, to tell me I've done something foolish and that I should go directly back to Manchester?"

"Nothing of the sort. In fact, I am somewhat relieved by your current place of residence. There have been no attacks in Wales as far as I know."

Some of the color left her cheeks. "What were those things?" she asked, in a low voice.

Snape shook his head. "I would rather not speak of them here," he said, his tone faintly reproving. "Time enough for that later."

"I hope so," Celeste replied. "That is -- I'm sure I won't particularly like what you have to say about them, but I'd hoped you might stay for more than an hour or so. You're always rushing off somewhere."And once again she flushed, then stared down into her coffee mug as if it were the most fascinating thing in the universe.

The novel idea that a woman would actually want to spend additional time with him was immediately crushed by the realization that he couldn't allow Celeste to get any closer to him than she already had. So they had shared a kiss. So she thought she loved him -- or at least cared for him deeply. Once she knew the truth about him she would no doubt feel very differently about the matter.

"My time is not always my own," he said, not troubling to moderate the harshness of his voice. Celeste flinched, and Snape told himself that he was glad.

At that inopportune moment the food arrived, and the taut silence between them continued as he and Celeste bent over their laden plates. Although his appetite had quite fled, Snape forced himself to eat.

Celeste stabbed her fork into a stack of griddle cakes and ate with what looked like a healthy appetite, but she practically radiated tension. "I don't understand you," she said at last, the words spoken so quietly Snape almost missed them in the friendly clatter of the café. "Why did you kiss me like that, if you didn't want to? Why come here at all, if I'm such a burden to you?"

"The matter is not that simple -- "

"It never is, is it?" she burst out. "It's always, 'Oh, I respect you as a person, but I don't see you that way,' or 'It's complicated -- you couldn't possibly understand.'" She put down her fork and fixed him with a direct, unwavering stare. "Try me."

"Not here," Snape said. "You asked for the truth, and I shall give it to you. But don't complain when you find it not much to your liking."

She didn't reply, but merely watched him for a few seconds. Then she gave a slow nod and returned to her food, as if she wanted to get the meal out of the way so that they could go on to more important business.

Snape did the same, if at a somewhat more reasonable pace. It had to be done. He knew he could trust Celeste to keep his secrets, but he wasn't about to let her continue on seeing him as something he wasn't. After she knew the truth, she would of course never want to see him again. And that would be better, wouldn't it? He couldn't allow someone to be close to him, no matter how much he might take pleasure in her company, or look forward to the time they spent together. It shocked him to realize how much he had come to enjoy being with her...of how empty he felt when she was gone.

That couldn't continue, of course. His penance was to go through this life alone, to never allow another person within the prison cell he carried with him at all times.

Celeste's face had the sort of blank tightness he'd come to recognize as a desperate keeping her emotions at bay. Somehow she knew something bad was coming, but she managed to smile at the waitress and ask for the bill without any betraying tremor in her voice. Then she asked Snape quite naturally if he needed her to pick up the tab -- which he did, as he'd quite forgotten to bring any Muggle cash with him. Even as he cursed himself mentally for being so forgetful, she dropped the money on the table and said, "Let's go."

The day had, if possible, become even more beautiful. A few clouds had drifted in from the southwest, but otherwise both the sky and the water reflected a deep, serene blue, as if Voldemort and the dementors and everything else Snape had left behind in England were only a bad dream. The air was fresh and smelled of salt and open water. He found himself wishing that he could stay with Celeste here forever, hidden from the world and its responsibilities. It would take so little, so very little to convince her that it would be better to seek refuge in this corner of Wales and let the war go on without them....

He shook his head at himself. What a weak fool he was. All it takes is one pretty girl to look kindly on you, and you're willing to throw away everything you've worked for all these years? he thought, but the words didn't have the bite they once might have. Suddenly he felt very, very tired.

In silence, Celeste headed north along Marine Terrace and Snape fell into place beside her. About six blocks up, she turned down a side street where a large Edwardian-vintage house occupied the northeast corner. Immediately behind the home was a smallish lot that held a few automobiles; Celeste approached one of these, a bright blue thing that looked barely large enough to fit the both of them, and unlocked the passenger door.

Snape hesitated, looking inside. It was one thing to be carried about London in one of the Ministry's infallible sedans and quite another to be driven through the Welsh countryside in a flimsy metal box piloted by a woman who appeared to have a shaky hold on her emotions at best.

Pausing in the act of opening her own door, Celeste shot him an irritated glare. "What's the matter?"

"I fail to see why we need to take a car trip -- "

"You keep pointing out that you need privacy to discuss these important matters. So I'm getting us out of this teeming metropolis and offering you the quiet you so obviously require to talk to me." She got in the car and slammed the door, then started the engine.

Since there was no point in arguing, Snape bent over and somehow folded himself into the passenger seat. He fumbled with the seatbelt even as Celeste backed the car out of its space and pointed it north. After a few minutes they were out of the town proper and speeding along a highway that identified itself as the B4340.

"Where precisely are we going?" he asked at length, once he had reassured himself that she was going to land them in a ditch. Somehow he'd assumed that she didn't know how to drive.

"A nice woods not too far from town," Celeste replied, her eyes never leaving the road. "Mrs. Evans gave me some brochures to look through when I got in yesterday, and I thought it sounded like a lovely place. I won't try to pronounce it, though -- my attempts at Welsh placenames have already gotten me a few cross-eyed looks."

At another time Snape might have found himself amused by that statement. Now, however, he could only nod and stare out the window, watching as the trees crowded ever closer to the highway. At a signpost marked "Llanilar" Celeste turned right, then followed a narrow lane that traversed a bridge. After making a left, she pulled the car into a small dirt-paved parking lot whose only other occupants were a dusty sedan of indeterminate make and a gleaming piece of German machinery that looked very out of place in that wild setting.

The unknown Mrs. Evans had been correct -- the woods, whatever they might be called, were a lovely place. Perhaps other visitors traversed the paths that threaded between the stands of beech and fir, but Snape saw no living things beyond a few kites overhead, and a shadowy form slinking behind a fallen log. It might have been a badger, or perhaps a fox.

After a time they emerged into an open area with a small hill crowned by what looked like the remains of an ancient fort. Celeste made her way to a bit of wall that still stood and propped herself up against it, then crossed her arms and said, "I don't think anyone will listen here...unless you're worried about that badger I noticed a while back."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Hardly."

She stared back at him, still with that expectant gaze, and Snape found himself wondering what the devil he should say next. Somehow his resolution to tell her the truth and be done with it seemed ridiculous in this place of ancient beauty.

But they were here now, and he knew Celeste must be told.

"I've spoken to you of Voldemort," he said, the words feeling like a weight in his mouth, something stinking and rotten, dragged to the surface after moldering in the dark for uncounted years. "Of how the wizarding world is at war, of the evils he and those who follow him have committed. What I neglected to tell you is that once I was counted among those followers."

Silence followed that statement, a quiet broken only by the chattering of a pair of rooks that rose from among the ruins and dashed away to the south. Celeste watched him for a long moment, her steady gaze never leaving his face. Finally she said, "Once. But not anymore?"

"Not for more than sixteen years." Had it really been that long? The years had begun to run together, years of sacrifice...and solitude.

She frowned, as if digesting that bit of information. "But it's been so long...and if you're teaching at the school, then obviously people realize you're not working for Voldemort any longer. What difference does it make, what you might have done when you were barely out of school?"

He wanted to laugh at the naïveté of that statement. "Believe me, people have been sentenced to lifetime imprisonment in Azkaban for less than what I have done."

"What's Azkaban?"

"The wizard prison." Her expression didn't alter, and Snape added, "Those things that chased you outside Manchester? They're called dementors, and they used to guard the prison. Very few have ever escaped from Azkaban, I assure you."

With some satisfaction he noted that she looked considerably more pale. "But if they're the guards, what are they doing wandering around the countryside?"

"What indeed? The Ministry of Magic has lost its hold on the dementors, and they've gone over to Voldemort's side. It's entirely possible he had them out looking for you."

"For -- for me?" Celeste clutched her arms around herself, as if the cool but pleasant day had turned chilling. "I thought you said that Voldemort didn't know where I lived."

"That is indeed what he told me, but the Dark Lord has been known to obfuscate when it pleases him," Snape replied, then stopped. Damn....

"He told you?" Celeste demanded. "I thought you said you hadn't been a follower of his for more than sixteen years! When did he tell you that?"

"Not quite a week ago."

Again she was silent, staring at him in consternation. Finally she said, "If you don't tell me what the bloody hell is going on, I'm going to scream."

"No need for that," Snape said. He marveled that he could sound so cool, when in fact he thought he knew exactly how Celeste felt. "The Dark Lord believes me to be a loyal follower of his still. In fact, my allegiance is to Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, and the greatest wizard in the world. But of course Voldemort does not know this, and I've worked very hard to make sure he never will."

"Occlumency," Celeste commented. "Of course. How could you hope to succeed as a double agent if you couldn't shield your thoughts?"

"Precisely." Once again Snape found himself impressed with the quickness of her mind. That thought took him back to a time when he had very seriously told his mother that he wanted a smart girl, as if even at ten he had known he didn't have very much to tempt the pretty ones. No doubt his ten-year-old self would have been astonished to learn that he had somehow managed to find a woman who was intelligent and beautiful, and who appeared to want him as much as he wanted her. Since she was so well-suited to him in so many ways, of course he could never actually have her.

Celeste looked down, appearing to concentrate on pushing at a pebble with the toe of her left shoe. "So possibly the dementors had been sent to find me, or perhaps they just got lucky." Although a fall of red-brown hair obscured most of her face, Snape thought he saw the quick glint of her eye as she looked sideways at him. "Since I'm safe now, I'll worry about that later. What I want to know is what you possibly could have done that would make you think you hadn't redeemed yourself after so many years of service. I think you owe me that much."

So she wanted to know, did she? Well, so be it. That was what he had resolved, hadn't he? To show her the worst, and allow the revulsion that must surely follow to drive her away?

"Take my hand," he said, the words harsh, rasping against his throat. "I won't block your mind. Take my hand, and see for yourself."

She stared at him for a second, then nodded. "Legilimency?" she asked.

"Your natural gift," he said. "Go on."

And Celeste reached out and took his hand.

The memories he had spent so many years blocking, the dark events that had scarred his soul all this time, spilled out in a flood. He held nothing back -- not the hatred and bitterness he felt toward the wizard world and the detested James Potter and his friends in particular, not the sense that he had been cheated of something greater, not even the resentment he felt toward his mother for being foolish enough to marry a Muggle and so doom her only son to what he saw as a marginal, half-blood existence. The black bile that consumed him after he left Hogwarts led him to Voldemort's service, to people who promised him some of the power he thought he deserved. And in that service he had stood by and watched both wizard and Muggle tortured, had cast the Cruciatus curse himself more than once, had even looked on and pretended to laugh as the Dark Lord cast the Avada Kedavra on some poor young wizard who had had the bad luck to stumble on Voldemort's headquarters. Afterward, when Snape had crept away to his own humble flat in London, he had stumbled into the bathroom and vomited into the toilet over and over again, until he felt as if he were about to bring up his own innards.

But the worst...oh, the worst...

He didn't know where Lucius found the girl. She was a Muggle, dazed and empty-eyed after Malfoy had hit her with the Imperius curse. They'd all been drinking, and had gone out hunting the back streets of London for easy prey.

"She's not very pretty," Lucius had said, laughing. "But then again, neither are you, Severus!"

And Snape had taken her, half out of his mind with whiskey and lust, while Malfoy and Goyle looked on and cheered. He hadn't stayed around to see what happened to the girl after that. He'd run then, wanting to hide away like the animal he thought he was. And he had never touched a woman since...

Celeste dropped his hand, and the dark tide of memory slipped away.

He looked at her then, waiting to see the horror and loathing take over, to see every ounce of regard she might have once had for him irrevocably destroyed.

Tears glistened in her eyes. All the color had fled her cheeks. But she didn't glance away. "You were so young," she said at last.

"Old enough to know what I was doing," he snarled. "Youth and stupidity can't excuse my crimes."

"Not an excuse, perhaps," Celeste returned. Those green eyes met his, eyes unclouded by hatred or disgust. "But an explanation."

"Don't you dare try to make light of what I did," Snape said. "You weren't there. You can't know -- "

"But I can." Her brows pulled together as she frowned, then continued, the words tumbling out of her in a rush, "You let me into your mind, Severus. So of course I saw what you did, but I also felt what you felt, the anger, the self-loathing, the complete rejection of what you had done in Voldemort's name. I can't excuse what you did -- it was despicable -- but you make it sound as if there's no chance for you to redeem yourself! What have you done these past sixteen years if not penance for crimes committed when you were barely twenty?"

He muttered, "Not enough -- "

"Will it ever be?"

At those words he stopped and stared back at her.

"How many lives have you saved because of this double life you lead? How much information have you passed along to this Dumbledore in order to stop Voldemort?" Celeste paused, and Snape saw her hand shake as she reached up to push a lock of hair behind her ear. "More than the people you hurt, all those years ago?"

The question took him aback. She made it sound as if there were some sort of cosmic balance sheet that could erase what he had done. He began to say so, and she put up a hand.

"That's not what I meant, Severus." Her tone was far gentler than he deserved. "I'm not talking about some Old Testament God and an eye for an eye, a life saved for a life taken. I'm talking about redemption. My parents weren't the overly religious sort, and we didn't go to church very often, but I picked up enough to know that we must believe in some sort of forgiveness for our wrongdoings. Obviously your Headmaster forgave you and saw some hope for you, or he certainly wouldn't have taken you into his confidence, placed you in a position that required such trust." She hesitated, then said, the faintest tremor finally entering her voice, "I could tell you that I forgive you, Severus. But I get the feeling that won't mean very much if you can't find the strength to forgive yourself."

She could have no idea what she was offering him. Celeste had walked through his thoughts, touched the blackness there, and instead of turning from him in disgust offered him understanding and hope. Snape knew he could never comprehend the innate decency of people such as Celeste Jenkins and Albus Dumbledore. They could somehow look past the pettiness and the selfishness and the sense that the world had treated him ill, and still see something in him worth saving.

Words had always been his weapon and his defense, but they failed him now. He could only stare back at her, this girl who had been a question and a mystery, and had somehow become the only real thing in his world. She met his gaze, tears glimmering in eyes that reflected the deep, watchful green of the woods around them. Then she took a step toward him, and another. Not knowing what else to do, he waited, until by some miracle her arms went around him, her warmth pressed against him, the softness of her hair tumbling over his hands as he held her close.

And for now, it was enough.

The Overlooked --