The Overlooked

Twenty

As he couldn't Apparate directly from Hogwarts, Snape Floo'd once again from Dumbledore's office to the hearth in the erstwhile Order of the Phoenix headquarters. Although the Order had abandoned the Black home for all intents and purposes after Sirius's death, still it was used for emergency meetings and other expediencies. The only thing Snape needed, after all, was an untraceable means to get from Hogwarts to London. He'd barely stood upright and brushed the soot off one sleeve of his jacket before he Apparated straight into the shabby hotel room where he'd left Celeste.

She was sitting on the bed, moodily munching away at the contents of a bag of crisps. As soon as he appeared, she started. Crisps flew across the ratty orange and gold coverlet.

"I know I shall never get used to you doing that," she remarked, and began gathering up the scattered crisps.

"Obviously it was wisest for me to come in here directly," Snape replied. "This way, no one can see me coming and going."

Giving the crisps she held a rueful look, Celeste stood and then went over to drop them in a dust bin. "Intellectually, I know that. But it is a little startling. Good thing I was dressed."

That stray comment conjured up several enticing images, none of which he thought it wise to pursue at the moment. Still, he could see her point. "A risk worth taking," he drawled.

A lopsided grin caught at Celeste's mouth. "Feeling a bit cheeky today, aren't we?"

Was it possible that he could have missed her so badly after being separated for only a few hours? Somehow it felt as if days had passed since the last time he had seen her. Then again, some of that time had been spent in Voldemort's presence. An hour with the Dark Lord had begun to feel interminable to Snape, especially when he considered the additional burden of hiding his involvement with Celeste.

"Hardly," he said, and there must have been something ominous in his tone, for the smile faded from her lips.

She turned to face him and asked, "What is it?"

"Sit down."

Her immediate reply was to cross her arms and give him a steady, expectant gaze. "Something's gone wrong."

It was not a question.

"Perhaps. It's difficult for me to say for certain." Since she didn't appear to be willing to move, he did so instead, perching at the edge of the lumpy bed and pointedly pushing his robes aside so that there would be room for her to seat herself next to him.

He could see her hesitate, but after that brief pause Celeste did sit down. Having her that close to him threatened to undo his brittle calm. All he wanted suddenly was to pull her against him, feel the heat of her mouth on his, to lose himself for a few precious minutes or hours in the glorious oblivion of her embrace. But he had not come this far to lose his head now.

"There have been...developments," Snape began, choosing his words with care. "You know that the Dark Lord summoned me to his presence. Apparently he wished to charge me with a special task."

"A task?" Celeste repeated. "What task?"

"Finding you," Snape said flatly.

For one hideous second all she did was stare back at him. Then he watched as her eyes crinkled in sudden mirth, and she let out a gasping laugh.

"I fail to see the humor in the situation," he snapped. Really, had the strain of the past few days finally broken the girl's mind?

His comment only elicited more laughter. Celeste brought a hand up to her mouth and drew in a few ragged breaths. It took a few seconds for her to sufficiently compose herself to say, "I'm sorry, Severus. I know this isn't a joking matter. But oh -- how I would have loved to have seen your face when Voldemort asked you to track me down!"

"I'm sure my face revealed nothing," Snape replied, feeling nettled.

"I suppose not," she said, sounding a little calmer. Then she reached out and put a hand on his knee. The touch startled him; he still wasn't used to Celeste's ready affection. "Don't mind me. It's just -- just whistling in the dark, I suppose."

He wanted to say that he couldn't see how that might possibly help, but refrained. Just because she reacted to things differently from how he might didn't necessarily mean her actions were wrong. This was such a novel idea that he paused to consider it for a moment. Surely he wouldn't have entertained such a notion before Celeste came into his life.

"If you wish," he said finally. "It doesn't change the fact that our situation is now made doubly dangerous."

"How exactly?" she inquired. His expression must have conveyed precisely what he thought of this comment, for she said, "Oh, don't look at me as if I were a simpleton! I would think that if you'd been given this job by Voldemort, then it would be easy enough to pass him false information just as you've done all these years while working for Dumbledore."

"Perhaps -- if I were working alone. Unfortunately, I am not."

Some of the light went out of her eyes then, and she folded her hands in her lap, the pale fingers twisting around one another. "How do you mean?"

Once it was gone, he found he missed the pressure of her hand on his knee. "I mean that Voldemort has assigned me a partner, one who even now is in Aber, making inquiries about you."

"Oh," she said, in a very small voice.

"Exactly," Snape said. "Now, perhaps you weren't in town long enough for anyone to have known much about you -- and I trust that you didn't go telling your life story to every sympathetic waitress and barmaid you met -- but people do like to gossip, unfortunately...especially to one of their own. And I'm afraid this 'partner' that the Dark Lord has burdened me with is a Welshman."

"Oh," Celeste repeated, looking even more subdued. Then her chin lifted a bit, and she added, "I don't know how much he could really find out -- I didn't speak to much of anyone. Not about anything important, anyway."

Just your aunt, he thought. And that may prove to be our undoing....

But he did not bother to tell her that. Recriminations now would be pointless, as the damage had already been done. "What about this Mrs. Evans, the woman who manages the guest house where you were staying?"

Celeste lifted her shoulders. "She wanted to pry, but I didn't tell her much. Just that I was from Manchester and on an open-ended holiday."

Snape felt a cold, hollow sensation in the pit of his stomach. "You told her where you were from."

"Well, of course. You have to give that information when filling out the registration forms at a hotel."

"That information could have been falsified. Do you think I gave them Hogwarts' address when I booked this room for you?"

She didn't reply, but stared down at her lap instead. Finally she said, in a small voice quite unlike her usual tone, "No."

The defeat in her voice stopped him. Snape had opened his mouth to give her a further rebuke for her carelessness, but why? Obviously she'd gotten the point, and pressing her further on the issue would do neither one of them any good. Surprising himself, he reached out to push back a lock of hair back from her cheek. The strand felt softer than he could have imagined, and he had a sudden memory of that glory of mahogany spread out on the pillow next to him when he had awakened this morning.

"Perhaps it won't matter," he said at last, in a voice so gentle he couldn't be sure it was even his. "At any rate, you're not in Manchester now...and no one knows that you're even here. I trust you didn't go out much?"

At his obvious change of subject, Celeste managed a weak smile, then replied, "Just down to the chemist's for a few necessities, then next door to that secondhand clothing shop. Thank goodness the chemist stocks all sorts of things these days -- I wasn't looking forward to having to wear secondhand knickers!"

He almost laughed at her comment. Trust Celeste to find humor in that sort of practical matter. Still, the remark pointed out all the things he hadn't stopped to consider when he moved her so precipitously from Aberystwyth.

"No one noticed me, I think," she went on, brows pulled together as she appeared to mentally review her brief shopping expedition. "Everyone seemed to be focused on their own business. When I was at the chemist's I thought about having them ring up my own chemist in Manchester, but I decided that mightn't be a very good idea."

"Why on earth would you need to call Manchester?" Snape demanded, mystified.

Color flamed high on her cheekbones. "Well, we did leave everything behind in Bodalwyn House...including my pills." Celeste gave him a direct look, then must have taken note of what he guessed was a mystified expression. "My birth control pills."

"Ah." Inwardly Snape felt thankful that his pale, sallow skin was not the sort to flush easily, or he might have had the same reaction as Celeste.

"Anyhow, I thought that was too risky, so I fell back on Plan B." She leaned over to the battered night table that stood next to the bed and picked up a small paper bag. From there she produced a string of foil-wrapped packets and grinned. "Not my preference, but better than the alternative, don't you think?"

Brow furrowed, Snape stared at the innocuous-looking little packages for a moment, not sure exactly what she was getting at. Then comprehension dawned. He'd never had need of the things, of course, but that didn't mean he'd never heard of them. To think she'd had the nerve to buy a string of the bloody contraptions! "If you think I'm going to put one of those -- those -- " He broke off, and gave Celeste a forbidding stare. "I assure you, I can think of a better way to manage the situation."

"Really?" she asked, looking amused. "Let me guess. When all you wizards and witches are thirteen or fourteen or thereabouts, you get taken off into separate classes and given the Talk...and maybe some suggestions on spells and potions to deal with this sort of thing?"

Her tone was wry, but actually, she wasn't that far off from the truth. Although physical intimacy before marriage was frowned on in the wizarding world even more so than it was with Muggles, hormones invariably got the better of quite a few teenage witches and wizards...and so students at Hogwarts were taught a variety of ways to avoid conception. Snape, Potions expert that he was, knew of no fewer than a dozen different draughts to prevent pregnancy. Unfortunately, he had none of them here with him now, but at least a third of them need only be taken within forty-eight hours of intercourse, so that needn't be a barrier to intimacy. He could just nip back to the dungeons, brew up a batch of the most efficacious potion, and bring it to Celeste.

Assuming, of course, that they would even need it. But he looked at her again, at the hint of a smile curving her lips, and knew that it would take Voldemort breaking down the door and storming the place with an army of Death Eaters to keep him from spending another night with her.

Snape cleared his throat. "Something like that. At any rate, it's a matter I can take care of."

"Glad to hear it," she said. Her eyes met his for a second, and his breath seemed to strangle in his throat. Beneath the amusement he saw a desire that matched his own. Mad it might be, but if he were forced to give her up forever, could he not steal at least a few more hours of joy first?

Then she looked away, and let out a small, rather forced-sounding laugh. "First things first, though. It's almost supper time -- are you hungry? I know I am...especially since you made me spill half my bag of crisps."

"I suppose so," he admitted. What with all the chasing around he'd done this day, he'd hardly stopped long enough to consider such a thing. Now that she had mentioned food, however, his stomach let him know it was high time for a proper meal.

"Great," she said, and picked up a folded piece of paper from the night stand. "Bloke down at the front desk told me there's a Thai place down the street that delivers. I thought it mightn't be a very good idea to go out. Do you like Thai food?"

Did he? Snape couldn't recall having ever sampled the stuff. "I have no idea."

"You have led a sheltered life, haven't you?" Celeste asked.

He would never have thought of his situation in such terms, but to her point of view, it might appear that way. Certainly he had faced terror and doubt and darkness she couldn't begin to comprehend, but all of that had been narrowly circumscribed by the limits of the wizarding world. The familiar commonplaces of her milieu were almost as exotic to him as the magic of his world was to her.

All he said, however, was, "Hardly."

Her mouth curved upward in a smile. "If you say so, Severus." She opened the menu and appeared to pore over its contents. "I'd better not get anything too spicy, just in case. But I think I can come up with something that you'll like. And I got something else at the chemist's, too." With that she leaned over and appeared to fish something out from beneath the bed. With a flourish, she drew a bottle of wine from a paper bag and said, "I was hoping I wouldn't have to drink this all by myself...."

***

The night and the day that followed were a blur. Snape made one hurried side trip to Hogwarts in order to mix the potion that would prevent conception and bring it back to Celeste, but otherwise most of that time was spent in the room with her, in hours of lovemaking alternately languorous and impassioned, in sharing meals, in sharing the tiny cramped shower stall while Celeste pushed her naked body against his and laughed at his discomfiture when she insisted on massaging her herbal shampoo into his unkempt hair. In between these activities she would sometimes turn on the television and attempt to explain bits and pieces of the shows to him, but as he couldn't quite get past the belief that watching these idle moving figures in a box was a complete waste of time, she didn't have much success.

The one subject they both studiously avoided was the future. Snape didn't want to destroy this brief idyll with shadows of what might come to pass, and Celeste apparently felt the same way, or at least was content to take her cue from him. Instead, they practiced the Expelliarmus spell with the borrowed wand he had given her, to such success that the person or persons occupying the room below theirs pounded on the floor with some asperity after both he and Celeste had collapsed simultaneously after a particularly wicked double-disarming. Other times, they focused on Occlumency, until Celeste could parry any attempt he made to invade her mind.

All her successes should have made him feel more secure. Instead, Snape became aware of a sense of creeping anxiety, as if all the precautions they had taken would amount to very little in the end. The formless dread he felt, however, refused to take shape, and he pushed it to the back of his mind. Surely it was only his own paranoia. Celeste was safe here for now. And after he had met up with Rhys Davies in Aber, Snape would have a better idea of what his next step should be.

He took his leave of Celeste late Friday morning. His Muggle garments he'd brought with him when he'd returned from Hogwarts with the contraceptive potion, so there was no need to return to the school. He assumed that Davies would also be in disguise; the man worked as a spy for Voldemort, and even with some of the wild attire he'd seen Muggles wearing in London, Snape doubted that wizard robes would go unnoticed.

Celeste kissed him good-bye, an almost fierce kiss. "I won't bother to tell you to be careful," she said, "for it's second nature to you by now. But do come back as soon as you can."

"I will," he promised. He reached out to touch her cheek; its velvet-soft texture still surprised him. "Stay indoors, and keep ordering in."

Her green eyes seemed to laugh at his words. "Such a chore. I'm going to be positively fat by the time this is all over."

Snape merely lifted an eyebrow -- certainly he had seen no alteration in her form over the past few days, even though they had been cooped up inside the cramped chamber and had eaten more rich food than was probably good for them. Then again, they'd come up with a surprising variety of ways to work it off.

"Well, best not keep Mr. Davies waiting," she said, and although her tone sounded amused, her something about her expression had gone deadly serious. "And don't worry -- I'll fill you in about everything you've missed on EastEnders while you're gone."

"I can hardly wait," he drawled, then bent and kissed her once more. After that he fixed in his mind the image of the alleyway he had used in the past to Apparate back into Aber, then murmured the words of the spell.

The scent of salt hit him immediately; he'd spent so much time cloistered in Celeste's room that it seemed as if he'd almost forgotten what fresh air smelled like. Snape lifted his head and let himself take in a deep draught of the clean sea breeze. It seemed to strengthen him and help clear his head. Although he was fairly certain that Davies was no Legilimens, still Snape made sure his mental barriers were in place before he stepped out of the shadowy alleyway and set forth to the pier for his meeting with Voldemort's agent.

Nothing seemed to have changed since Snape had last walked this path; the same crowds bustled along the shore, and the same cars and buses fought for space along narrow streets that had never been designed for modern automobiles. He saw no hint that an innocent woman had met her death at the hands of the Dark Lord's agents only a few hundred feet from here.

As planned, Rhys Davies waited for Snape at the head of the foreshortened pier; apparently it had been damaged in a storm some years back and never fully restored. The younger man had also donned Muggle attire -- his faded blue jumper, worn jeans, and dirty trainers made him even less conspicuous than Snape's black dress pants and black collared shirt. Evidently Davies had far more practice mingling with Muggles than most other wizards of Snape's acquaintance.

"Davies," Snape said, once he'd approached the Dark Lord's agent and was fairly certain the other man had spotted him.

"Snape," Davies returned, with an easy grin. "Right on time -- but I suppose I should have expected no less."

If Davies had been counting on him to acknowledge the compliment, he must have been disappointed. Dispensing with the pleasantries, Snape asked, "What have you found?"

"Some good leads," Davies replied, apparently not at all put off by the Potions master's brusque manner. "That Mrs. Evans does like to talk, I'll give her that. Especially once she found out I was from the same town as her dear, departed husband."

Snape lifted an eyebrow but made no other reply.

Seemingly undeterred, Davies went on, "This girl's going by the name Celeste Jenkins. I put it about that I'd met her in a pub and been quite taken with her, but had lost the number she gave me. Mrs. Evans had no problem believing that story -- not with a girl as pretty as Celeste."

The agent's casual use of Celeste's name chilled Snape. So he'd found out that much already. However, Snape knew he couldn't let Davies see how perturbed he was. Instead, he merely said, "Indeed."

"Quite a looker, that girl. Pity." The man shot a keen blue glance in Snape's direction. "Makes me wonder what the Dark Lord really wants her for."

Quelling the urge to wrap his hands around Davies' throat and slowly throttle him, Snape drawled, "Why don't you ask him yourself? I'm sure he'd be more than happy to fill you in."

The remark hit home, he could tell; Davies went visibly paler and said, "No worries, mate! Just making conversation, so to speak."

Again Snape raised an eyebrow and forbore comment. No doubt Davies' easy manner served him well when gleaning information from unsuspecting Muggles and wizards alike, but already Snape was wondering how long he would have to endure the unlikely Death Eater's company.

"Anything else?" Snape inquired, after an uncomfortable little silence.

"Nothing much here," Davies replied, visibly relieved that Snape had put the discussion back on track. "She might have had family here, but Mrs. Evans said she gave her address as Manchester. So we're off there next."

Damn. Although Snape had known from the start that Davies would probably ferret out that little tidbit, he'd sincerely hoped that the unknown Mrs. Evans would be a little more discreet. But obviously her professional scruples couldn't stand up to Rhys Davies' dubious charm.

"You have her direction, I suppose?" Snape inquired, in tones of utter unconcern.

For the first time, Davies looked somewhat put out. Then he said, "Yeah, but it took some doing. I couldn't get that much from Mrs. Evans without it looking too suspicious. I thought about hitting her with a Crucio a few times to get her to spill it, but the Dark Lord had told me to keep a low profile, what with the Carrows offing the aunt just a few days ago. But then a delivery man came to the back door, and I was able to sneak a look at the register while the Evans woman was busy. So I've got it here." And Davies produced a smudged piece of paper that proved to have Celeste's address written on it.

Several curses bubbled up in Snape's mind, but he forced himself to maintain an expression of bland approval. "Excellent. Then it's off to Manchester, I suppose."

"Right." For a moment Davies looked a little worried. "You been to Manchester? It's just that I'm not sure of the best place to Apparate."

"Allow me," Snape said. The last thing he wanted was to perform a side-along Apparition with Davies in tow. However, he had to appear to be doing everything in his power to track down Celeste for the Dark Lord, so he instructed the Welshman to follow him back to the handy alleyway, from whence they Disapparated, only to appear in another alley a few streets over from the used bookshop where Snape had first seen Celeste.

"Handy," Davies commented. "Been here before?"

"Unfortunately, I was born here."

Not waiting for the other man to reply, Snape strode out of the alleyway, thinking furiously. There was no way Davies could possibly learn of Celeste's current whereabouts from anyone in Manchester, so Snape guessed it wouldn't be too dangerous to allow him to see her home, look through its contents so as to assure himself that she really was gone.

Since he'd seen the address for himself, and since he'd told Davies that Manchester was his town of birth, certainly the Welshman wouldn't think it odd that Snape would be able to find Celeste's home fairly easily. As Davies struggled to keep up -- he was a good three or four inches shorter than Snape and found it difficult to match the Potions master's long strides -- he panted, "Know where you're going, then?"

"Yes," Snape said, without bothering to elaborate.

The house didn't look much different, except that the plants in the flower boxes were beginning to look a bit wilted. Celeste's sign no longer sat in the front window, and a yellowed newspaper languished on the front doorstep.

Since Apparating in from the front was out of the question, Snape suggested that they go in through the back, off the alleyway. Davies just nodded, and followed along as Snape made a detour down the alley and then approached the back gate of Celeste's property. The door to her kitchen was securely locked, but all it required was a quick "Alohomora!" and the door immediately opened.

"Nice," Davies commented, giving the immaculate kitchen a quick look-around. He went to the refrigerator, opened it, then shook his head. "Pretty much empty."

"Check the rest of the house," Snape suggested, and they both moved forward, surveying the ground-floor rooms. All was in order, if a bit dusty.

From there they ascended the steps to the first floor, only to find it just as tidy and empty. Snape had never been in Celeste's bedroom before, and found it to be as uniquely hers as the rest of the house -- walls painted the same warm terra cotta shade as the reading room, a lush quilt of what looked like vintage velvets and embroidered silks on the bed, antiques in dark woods. A photograph of her parents sat on the bedside table, and the walls were covered in fabric hangings that appeared Middle Eastern in origin.

"Nothing," said Davies, looking disappointed. He went to the table next to the bed and rummaged through its one drawer, but found only a few pens, a small box of what seemed to be costume jewelry, and a garish paisley scarf. "Scoured, looks like."

"It does appear that she planned to spend some time in Wales," Snape agreed, after making a show of inspecting the half-empty wardrobe. "But since she has already left Aber, determining her current location may be somewhat difficult."

Davies scowled, expression wavering between frustration and fear. No doubt he was already worrying about what Voldemort would say if the two of them went back to report that Celeste Jenkins had effectively disappeared.

"Maybe she talked to someone, told them where she was going?" mused Davies. "Girl had to have some friends."

"Possibly," Snape allowed, all the while wondering what on earth he would do if Davies actually managed to track down any of Celeste's acquaintances. If the Welshman got desperate enough, Snape didn't harbor any hope that he would avoid using the Crucio spell to get information.

"Let's take another look downstairs. Maybe she's got an address book or something."

Since he couldn't think of any way to protest that plan without sounding suspicious, Snape trailed after Davies as he went back down the stairs, and then out to the front parlor. The phone sat on a small table next to the sofa, and Davies went there immediately, opening up the small drawer the table held and pushing around several bits of paper he found inside. "Nothing," he said disgustedly after a moment. "Some take-out menus, a bunc of receipts."

Snape repressed a smile. Apparently Celeste's bout of ordering-in back in London had followed a long-established pattern. The lack of an address book didn't surprise him; she had no family that she'd been aware of, and her circle of friends seemed fairly small. Then again, she should have had some record of her clients' contact information, but perhaps she had taken that with her.

"Suppose it's time for more legwork," Davies said at last, after he had shut the drawer and thrown a baleful look in its direction. "I spotted a pub down the street -- maybe someone there knows something."

That wouldn't do at all; someone in Topham's might recognize Snape as the man who had been seen there arguing with Celeste only a few weeks before. He began to open his mouth to utter some form of protest, only to stop dead at the sound of a key in the front door lock.

Davies whirled to face the entryway, and Snape fingered his wand, which he still held in his right hand.

The door opened, and a fair-haired girl who looked vaguely familiar peered in. For a few seconds she stared at the two men in consternation, and then she demanded, "Well, who the bloody hell are you?"

The Overlooked --