The Hanged Man

Chapter Five: In Vino Veritas

June, 1991

The door creaked outwards, sighing, accusing, as if to remind him.

Occasionally, Severus Snape was also not a man of his word.

On this particular occasion, however, promise-breaking had been somewhat non-negotiable. A fact he'd more than ascertained through earnest, forceful attempts to keep his word. But Dumbledore had accepted no debate, no reasoning-- not even a patient, knowing indulgence of misgivings. You will return to Miss Branch, Severus. No softened "we" sprinkled between benign smiling and twinkling. This was not an errand of curiosity or concern. Nor contrition. This was one of those works that fell under their agreement of so man years before. The sort that the Headmaster had only to frown in order to remind him: this was an order.

And, after so many years, it chaffed to be reminded. Things between them had not worked that way for some time, and he didn't appreciate the tug at his gut--the feeling of being dragged backwards.

But that was the nature of his alleged salvation, his freedom traded against the precedence of his better judgment and a long, desperate span in Azkaban. And, as the damned girl had reminded him, a trade to "save his soul." Ridiculous. Actually, he'd intended to save someone else altogether. Well done, as usual, Severus.

Dumbledore should have released him when the Dark Lord fell. Should have left him to the overly adequate penitence of playing the ex-Death Eater with Lucius and marking the essays of students who barely knew which end of a cauldron was up.

As if on subconscious cue, his left arm grew heavy, stiff.

That was the problem, wasn't it? It wasn't over. It might be starting all over again.

A fact that slammed his brain as he observed the door of #10C, open wide and defenseless, listing with its accusing sigh on splayed hinges.

He didn't pause to think: he didn't tick down the possibilities for traps or observers. His wand stretched sword-like before him, he charged two long strides over the threshold, searching for the culprit, the vandal, or--worse.

And it was worse all right. But not in any way for which he could be prepared.

No signs of struggle. No toppled bookshelves or flying curses. Not even a body. That he could have handled. That he had handled.

But Lina Branch was unharmed and, from the looks of it, quite alone. She was stretched, lazy-limbed, across her usual armchair, an echo of the photo he'd seen of her lither, leaner mother. She had, apparently, abandoned the charade of long sleeves in the summer, dressed in a light cotton camisole, yellow-paged book resting open across short-clad thighs. A thin-stemmed glass graced her free hand, her other engaged in its habitual trek through limp strings of dark hair.

No, this was not something to which he was at all accustomed. He refused to lower his wand, waiting certainly for the trap to spring.

It seemed to be taking its time.

She looked up from her book, eyes pale and only vaguely interested in his dramatic entrance. "Professor, please come in. I've been expecting you."

His mouth opened, but his mind caught up. Of course she'd known. Merlin bloody well knew what on earth she wouldn't be expecting.

"How kind of you to leave the door open for me," he snarled, wand still drawn if only to maintain some feeling of control. "Kind and remarkably dim-witted."

She simply shrugged, setting the book aside and taking a sip from the almost empty glass. "I'm nothing if not considerate. Besides, it's easier than trying to adjust the wards-- at least for the likes of me."

Nothing but a wan smile as he closed the door, adept fingers running down the locks as a magical film of gold hummed in answer to the nauseatingly familiar click-click-click.

He was really beginning to tire of this place.

"Please, have a seat. With or without the wand pointed between my eyes."

But his wand had fallen to his side even before she'd commented. He knew, all at once, from the nakedness of her marked arm and the gentle, amused sigh of her voice, that this was the girl. The genuine Messalina Branch--Messalina Malfoy. No posturing or guarding; for some unfathomable reason, she had dropped the charade. She sat easy, and her hands moved slow, languorous paths as she reached to refill her glass. The blush spotting her cheek answered his suspicions fully: the girl was well on her way to getting pissed.

If the intention had been to throw him off, she'd scored a rare "O" in his book.

"Please, sit, Professor. I've brought out refreshments perhaps more to your taste that tea." The decanted bottle sat between them, half-emptied already and sparkling blood-red in that damned, ubiquitous sunlight. Bloodwine, a decent vintage. He couldn't suppress a sneer. Chateau Maloy, 1959.

He had to applaud her developed sense of irony at least. He lifted the already poured glass, inserting it warily beneath the excessive mass of his nose. No alarming undercurrents, no obvious traces of magical addition. After eleven years as a Potions Master and a brief but educational stint among Death Eaters, his olfactory system was more finely-tuned for poison than any other in England. And the bezoar stayed in his pocket as well. A stitch in time, after all.

But Muggles had their own unfamiliar methods, he was sure.

"I can't brew potions, Professor, but if it will set your mind at ease, I'll have the first sip then."

The playfulness in her voice unsettled him more than any fear of poisoning.

"That won't be necessary, Miss Branch," he said finally, taking his now accustomed seat across from her. He would usually have assumed that such drastic change in behavior meant stratagem or manipulation. But the girl's returned gaze was so genuine, so simple, he didn't bother puzzling with it. People had that look after imbibing, of course. But this was more basic. More natural. More coherent.

She raised her drink in his direction. "In vino veritas, as they say." And the glass became half-empty.

Half-empty. He'd never seen it any other way.

He set his portion aside, untouched.

"Ahh, I've failed to please yet again," she sighed. "Just as well. It's got a hollow, bitter flavor to it. After its namesake, eh? I'm surprised my dear father would put his hallowed name on such a substandard product. He seemed so concerned about that..." Regardless of the appraisal, she partook of a second gulp.

And, despite himself, he felt himself unwind slightly. If she wasn't in the mood for another round of Seer versus Death Eater, he certainly wouldn't begin with provocations. There would be time for that later. "I realize, Miss Branch, that I had agreed not to inflict my presence on you again; however, after the information you -shared--on our last encounter, the Headmaster--"

"Excuse me, Professor, but we can return to the Headmaster's concerns in a moment. First, I feel I should apologize. For--what happened last time."

Severus Snape did not like being interrupted, but he liked apologies even less. Contrition did not engender in him either forgiveness nor gratitude. In fact it gave rise to the purest form of resentment, reeking as it did of Gryffindor self-righteousness. His well-worn reflex was to tear at such morality shows--to rip friendly facades to shreds until only anger and disgust remained. He preferred familiar territory.

But he bit his tongue, frowning, as he searched for some calculation to neutralize this ridiculous non sequitur.

"Even if you were acting like a right bastard."

That almost sufficed. Almost broke the scowl. At least she wasn't acting noble or trying to bear the onus of the incident. The insult kept him sitting. "I am a bastard, Miss Branch, and I am not in the habit of apologizing for it."

Upturned lips refracted, cracked, through glass and wine. "I wasn't expecting an apology. And I didn't have to consult the cards for that."

The vice-grip of tongue on teeth loosened. "Yes, well, as I was saying, the Headmaster was most anxious that I return after I revealed the information you so vehemently hurled at my head--"

"Don't worry," she chuckled, "I'm not apologizing for that."

He began reconsidering the proffered wine, if only to quench his rising umbrage at interruption. "As I was saying, the Headmaster wished--"

He paused, hand halfway to the glass.

"Do you already know what I'm going to say? Because I'd rather not engage in useless--"

"No, please, go on. I'm not omniscient, for Pete's sake."

Damn well seemed like it last time, his mind hissed bitterly, as he sniffed at the glass again, this time appraising rather than searching. Earthy and weak.

"Please go on. I'll try not to interrupt, Professor."

"Indeed," he acquiesced, taking the wine in two small mouthfuls. She was right: it tasted like dirt and rosemary and slammed the palate with the unpleasant film of Skelegro. But he, too, found himself taking another swig, wondering if it was laced with some drug that kept the drinker drinking. It sounded like the perfect Malfoy method of marketing.

"The Headmaster wishes to make a request of you."

She watched him with pleased concentration, clearly gloating over the tacit victory of his second sip. "I see. And why did the Headmaster not come to make this request himself? I mean, besides the fact that you and I have developed such a natural, amiable rapport."

Besides the fact I'm Albus' bloody postowl and workhorse you mean, he heard himself saying. Might have said with a few more glasses. But he was not foolish enough for this "in vino veritas" play of hers...

"The Headmaster is rather busy at present. Seeing to the arrangements for a very particular student who'll be arriving next term."

"Harry Potter--" her mouth muttered before her pressed lips indicated immediate regret.

Damnit, he remembered, of a sudden. She knew too much. He shouldn't forget that. He shouldn't forget what she'd said...before...

"And--what is the Headmaster's request then?" The attempted breeziness had the feeling of a badly constructed shack in the midst of a hurricane. "I can't begin to imagine what the most powerful wizard of our time could possibly need from Messalina Branch, the pitiable Squib."

He chewed through the statement in measured sips. The questionable assertion of Squibhood was interesting: but more interesting to him was her very apparent disdain at Dumbledore's pity. It was that familiar streak of Slytherin, which was apparently genuine to her. She made an interesting specimen when honest: the carved unicorn and serpent of her wand flashed through his mind.

"The Headmaster wishes you to use your apparent skills to answer a question for him."

The ease of her features faltered, blush draining from her cheeks.

"Absolutely not."

And the inevitable obstacle. It had been too easy thus far, and he knew it. "May I ask-- ?"

"I-- I do not use my...ability... for the benefit of anyone. Even the Headmaster of Hogwarts. I hardly use it at all, actually," she said, flat-voiced.

"You were not so reluctant to go digging through my past to suit your purposes."

This actually appeared to sting her. Further proof, he decided, that she was being remarkably candid. She likely wouldn't have betrayed this weakness otherwise. "That was different. I had to be sure you wouldn't--put me in danger. That you could be trusted."

The wine betrayed him too with a brittle, derisive chuckle. "And, you discovered...?"

"Harmless as a houself." Her smile had returned but the gray eyes faltered a little over her glass. Translation--I don't know.

"Hmm. Some Seer," he sneered, sitting back, feeling the wine begin its dizzying track down his veins. "Perhaps I should clarify the Headmaster's request. He is not asking how to bet on the Quidditch World Cup or how to invest his money with the goblins. He wishes you to read the cards for...the Dark Lord."

This silence had a shattering life of its own.

"As you read mine," he pressed. "Past, present and--future."

Lurching, astonished quiet measured itself in small draws of wine. The easy expression the alcohol had traced across her features morphed into lines heavy and sober. Glowing flashes of claret slicked the stillness, half-drunk glass of bloodwine pierced by a stream of sunlight. A tinge of Slytherin crept, slow, back into the rise and fall of her voice.

"And...what could the Headmaster possibly offer in return for such a service?"

Dumbledore had been mistaken: there was definitely some of her father in her.

"His assurances of protection. And, to that same end, lessons in the master of Occlumency. Provided, of course, by myself. As I said, the Headmaster is regrettably--"

"Busy," she hissed.

"Yes. But he fully understand the need for a woman with your gift -especially for one possessing no other apparent magical abilities--to learn the art."

Hand forced through hair, wine all but forgotten in the flashing sun. "That's quite good of him."

He considered himself somewhat of an authority on observing the unsaid--on a kind of Legilimency that required no magic or wand. And, tracing the down-curved veil of her eyes, he knew, without a doubt, that she was considering something far beyond the realm of bargaining or Occlumency. He knew just as certainly that she was carefully leaving something hidden, holding some further issue of the deal quite close to the chest. Perhaps she knew something already: perhaps she was fitting together pieces of some vague, cosmic puzzle. Damned if he could guess the scope or nature of divination. But he could read the subtle signs of negotiation--of an opponent who still had an advantage.

"I'm not sure that's a very fair trade."

You're telling me. But then the Headmaster was not always in the business of making entirely equitable arrangements.

"It is an opportunity to aid the wizarding world," he said, unenthusiastically repeating the Headmaster's delightful, familiar response to this accusation. "And, if that doesn't appeal to you, consider the pragmatic side. If you don't agree, the Headmaster will not stop pestering me. And I, in turn, will have no choice but to continue showing up on your doorstep."

A small, wine smile slipped past her guard. "I've noticed that."

And, more worrying, he almost felt himself return the gesture of amusement. Somehow, in the course of the sarcasm and languid limbs, she'd managed to disarm him, leaving him with a sensation altogether unfamiliar. Comfort--of a sort. He could almost relate to the slow flicker of her gaze, the heavy breath of consideration. The dawning realization of a choice thrust before you: go on as you are or submit to Dumbledore and risk-- quite a bit. There were far fewer threats of Azkaban and fare more guarantees of protection, but he could see the mirror of that moment here. Like watching the back of your own head: familiar and unfamiliar all at once.

Wine, Severus. Just wine. Remember what you're dealing with. Remember what this quiet young woman was last time...

She'd attacked as a Dementor, drawing all the darkness into the dusty light, holding it up to his eyes with the harshest of pleasure. You don't switch that kind of sadism on and off: you can't affect that. It had to be a part of a person, as bone-bolted as an arm or a leg. And the girl sitting across from him, sipping and machinating, was still the same.

The slightest façade of trust and friendliness: by Merlin, why did that affect him so? Pathetic really.

But, he knew, that was precisely why he felt an affinity with her and her situation. That flash and rend in her eyes as she'd ripped into him. That creeping arousal in her voice as she'd circled his overwhelmed mind. He'd seen it in her, the way he'd only seen it behind mask and hood. She wasn't a noble Gryffindor taking on the glorious cloak of the Order. She could, in a different life, have found herself seduced to the otherside. This choice would not be natural and Right to her: that's what made it a real choice. Like throwing out your compass and letting someone else lead you.

No more wine, Severus. You're waxing philosophic. If there was one thing he'd learned it was never to trust anyone who might remind him of himself.

"And you think--I could master full Occlumency?" she asked finally.

"The fact that you've already exercised the art with some small force seems to indicate that you're capable of performing at higher levels, despite your...disability." Only a blink in response. "I am an accomplished Occlumens, and I believe, with some practice, I could help you improve." If you're not as big a dunderhead as I usually have to teach, his mind finished almost by rote.

"Improvement isn't good enough. If I'm going to do what Albus is asking, I need absolute mastery. Against--" A pre-emptive amendment caught her words. "Against the most powerful of Legilmens."

Another certainty: the girl was no fool. She understood the risks.

"I cannot guarantee anything. But, as I said, I have no doubt --no bloody doubt-- that the Headmaster will insist on my instructing you to the utmost of your capability."

"Ahh. How diplomatic. By which you mean you'll teach me as much as my puny Squib mind can manage."

Yes, she understood. He shrugged and sipped the last of his wine despite his own prohibitions.

She sighed and retook her drink with a vengeance. The mixture of decision and its necessitated doubt chasing a ring around the lip of her glass, single finger following its trail. "Well, I suppose that's all I can ask." The glowing crystal gave a soft, reluctant hum. "I'll do it then, if only to keep meddlesome wizards off my doorstep. My landlady gets closer to chucking me every time someone of questionable normalcy appears on my doorstep."

"You were moving house any way, were you not?" he asked, aware, after doing so, that the question had come far too casually. He set the win aside, resolute. Enough was enough, after all.

"I suppose I will be. I saw that I would be, so I decided a spot of packing wasn't out of order."

Sweet Merlin. Why did he keep forgetting what she was? It was unnatural: people -even wizards--didn't talk about Time that way. He didn't enjoy the slight vertigo every time she spoke of the future as if it had been a holiday destination a few years back.

And he certainly didn't like the feeling of lopsided power. Especially with a Squib.

That was more like it. Empathy is only good in theory: in practice, the girl could be... dangerous?

Judging by the breezy rearrangement of features, she must have sensed his response. "So--how to we proceed then?"

He shifted. "We do not--yet."

"Ahh. Dare I guess there is yet another addendum?"

The sardonic Malfoy lilt in the question was enough to reawaken his concentration. "Indeed. The Headmaster is unwilling to enter into any arrangements until you explain...that."

He had not gestured, but her gaze flickered, knowing across the naked, spotted surface of her forearm. Familiar yet again. Certain marks had to be explained: he remembered that far too well.

"I see. A convenient way to satisfy his curiosity and get me to do a little intelligence work," she signed, wine sloshing exasperated in its glass. "The Headmaster certainly is a clever man." On her lips, "clever" had all the force of an expletive.

He understood Dumbledore's "one more things" as well. He understood the checkmated feeling that went with them even better. "He is indeed. But it is, after all, quid pro quo of a sort. You seem to know all the sordid details of my past and could, no doubt, know as much about the Headmaster. Consider this a bit of--leveling the playing field. You needed to determine if I was trustworthy: the Headmaster wishes the same assurance regarding you."

The look she had settled on his came from a hard, steady place she had veiled until now. It was stronger and more sober than he could have imagined possibly in her clearly tipsy state. She seemed to be watching some shadow-play behind his eyes, and he was overwhelmed with the sensation of Legilimency.

But there was no magic: at least, none being channeled outwardly.

Those are the eyes of a prophet, he realized slowly, fingers twitching with discomfort. That's why they call them Seers: it was the kind of gaze that looked not at but beyond.

"Well, I did say 'in vino veritas,' didn't I?" she said, pushing the last drops past her lips with a shrug. "I suppose I'd ought to put my wine where my mouth is so to speak. -What do you want to know?"

"Where you got the Mark. Why it looks so--unusual. And what relationship you have with Lucius Malfoy," he replied, hearing Dumbledore's voice echo through his own. "As far as my experience extends, there were no Squibs amongst the Death Eater ranks..."

Her smirk was top form, her sigh heavy with unwillingness. "No. Thank goodness they overlook us pitiful blights on wizarding society when they go - recruiting--junior members."

She turned in her seat, settling back into the languid, draped position that appeared to be a Branch family pose. "As I informed you on our first encounter, my mum, Antigone Branch, was a Slytherin student some years ago. The Branch family had some history in the house, among them my grandmother and her father. My grandparents, who had been a fairly well-off pureblood family, had fallen in with Grindelwald and enjoyed great favor until his downfall. At that time, my grandmother was sent to Azkaban, and my family's assets were frozen and confiscated. From what little I recall -and what I have since pieced together--my grandfather was exceedingly bitter about this and was forced to raise my mum on a pittance, relying often on the kindness of many money-lending friends to make ends meet."

He nodded. It was a familiar plight among Slytherins of that generation. A few similar cases had occurred after the more recent Dark Lord's fall. It was dangerous, this betting on dark lords, unless, like himself, you had no carefully-hoarded pureblood fortune to protect.

"My grandfather died the year my mum came to Hogwarts. During the summers, she stayed with a distant aunt -you know how Slytherin relations work, I assume--and I can guess that this auntie was less than charitable. I never met her, even when Mum was scraping for food, so I assume there was no love lost between them. Regardless, my mum entered Hogwarts a penniless orphan. Poor but ambitious enough to be sorted into Slytherin, her head no doubt swimming with ideas of our family as martyrs to the pureblood cause. An idea she tried to stuff in my brain at an obscenely young age, and which I can only guess my grandfather successfully implanted in hers."

It was almost unnecessary for her to explain how her mother had wandered into Lucius Malfoy's grasp. But he let her continue, watching a patch of sun slither across the black glass bottle that bore the infamous name in question.

"So, you can imagine how a man like Malfoy would catch her attention: wealthy, powerfully, and attractive -everything my grandfather thought we Branches should be." Her slim finger sliced through her hair, briefly offering a full, hideous flash of the snake and skull insinuated across her Malfoy-white skin. "I imagine she threw herself at him. Impressed him in the only way someone as poor, powerless, and dull as my mum could--with her sex. They had a casual, secretive affair: I assume secret since no one seemed to guess when my mother became pregnant. No one, but, Headmaster Dumbledore...?"

He snorted. "As you said, he can be quite clever. But even he was not certain until he saw your wand."

"Ahh, of course. Well, then it must have been a very stealthy affair. But I have little doubt -very little doubt--that my mother got knocked up on purpose. She wanted a claim to Malfoy. She always did."

Again, a typical Slytherin story, he mused. But then most Slytherin stories were new incarnations of the same inbred pattern of power, ambition, and hedonism. It was all depressingly familiar.

"My mum left school when she discovered her pregnancy. It was Malfoy's sixth year, and, having turned sixteen and come into some allowance of sorts, he allowed my mother to move away from her aunt's care and into a flat in Knockturn Alley. She lived there, supported by him and, perhaps, his father--I don't know. He told her that as soon as he graduated and was settled into his share of the Malfoy fortune, he would marry her. It was everything my mum could have dreamt of."

He shifted again, limbs grown heavy with wine and history. So depressingly familiar.

"As you know, Malfoy did not keep his word. I've no idea if he ever had any intention of doing so, but, surprisingly, I think he might have, at first. He was young, and fathering a child must have given him the impression of power and adulthood. He supported my mum and me for four years, during which time I believe he must have joined those first seduced by--the first who would become Death Eaters." She was almost whispering now, entire body subconsciously drawing away from her confidante. "I feel sure this only pleased my mum further."

While she paused, eyes drifting in muted lament over the empty bottle between them, Snape tried to tabulate the timeline of her story. Lucius had been six years his senior, and, by the time he'd reached his fifth year at Hogwarts, Malfoy had been the most known and familiar recruiter of Slytherins interested in joining the Dark Lord's ranks. It seemed to add up except for one person glaringly absent from the account...

"And then my mum found out about Narcissa Black."

Right in one.

"She learned through the gossipmongers in Knockturn Alley that Malfoy, with the express approval of his family, had been courting a seventh-year Slytherin named Narcissa Black. Her family was pureblood, upstanding, and powerful, and, beyond that, the young Narcissa was purported to be quite a beauty. Precisely the type my mum knew could threaten everything she'd been promised. And, to make matters worse, it was becoming apparent, as I rounded the five year mark, that I was not going to be the powerful Malfoy heir my dear parents had dreamt of. The mediwizards at St. Mungo's had warned my mum that I responded to early medical tests in odd ways: sometimes indicating a Squib, sometimes not. As you know, most Squibs are identified within the first three years. Common magical objects don't respond as readily to them and, in to the early years of childhood, no incidents of uncontrolled magic are observed. Screaming tantrums for Bertie Bott's do not result in shattered glassware--that sort of common magical experience."

Every word was clinical, and he felt as though she was describing the symptoms from a textbook rather than experience.

"The uncertainty of my condition gave my mum hope, but she couldn't ignore it forever, nor could she keep it from Malfoy. He visited less and less and, with the drop-off in his presence, came a noticeable decrease in funds. My mum was forced to swallow her pride and take a part-time job at a shop near our flat. Things began to grow--unpleasant. Malfoy, bored of her, besotted with a new female conquest, blamed her for my weak blood. My mum would remind him of her family's bloodlines and of his promises to her. There was a lot of screaming. Those are my clearest memories of that time, actually. Probably where I got my temper, my mum."

Temper indeed. For a brief moment, he almost felt a pang of empathy for Lucius: he'd stared into the daughter's temper, and it was harrowing. But then he remembered that she had inherited Lucius' temper as well, which, though usually cloaked behind a cool, aristocratic superiority, was every bit as hot and violent as any other Slytherin-cum-Death-Eater. The girl had, then, inherited a double dose of temper. "And--how does this explain the Mark...?"

"I'm getting there," she said, uncrossing her arms to expose the mark in question. She watched its faint eyes only a few seconds with the solemn disapproval of a parent reprimanding a misbehaving child. "Eventually, as it became clear Malfoy was likely going to marry Miss Black, my mum's reminders of promises made turned into sideways threats. She would expose their affair. She would take me to the senior Malfoy and demand some recompense. Or, when things became very dire, she threatened to make it known that Malfoy had fathered a Squib: that the so-hallowed pureblood family had a streak of weakness. Miss Black would of course be unable to marry him, and he would have no choice but to remain with her. But Malfoy kept my mother at bay with promises of continued support and insistence that his relations with the other woman were to please his father and nothing more. And Mum bought it, I suppose, until she actually heard of the engagement."

Yes, he remembered this quite well from the other side. Narcissa had been the favorite of Slytherin in his school days--a sort of ideal woman to whom all his classmates applied for snogging rights. Unsuccessfully. When it became clear that Lucius had interest in her, however, her stature became one of downright awe. She became the undisputed Queen of Slytherin, and Lucius had asked for her hand the very day of graduation. It was difficult to imagine that, at the same time, Lucius' paramour and this girl had both been waiting in the wings, hoping for the possibility of his affection. Lucius had made his intentions with Narcissa very clear to everyone else.

"Then my mother did something very unusual. She didn't get angry or take her story to the senior Malfoy or the Daily Prophet. She invited her lover to our flat for dinner, congratulated him on his coming marriage, and told him she was chucking him. That she wouldn't compete with Miss Black nor be content as an unacknowledged 'kept woman.' They had a very cordial farewell dinner, and Malfoy told her he was happy for her. That she deserved better. That he'd try to help her get on her feet--try to get her a job at the Ministry. Secretarial or something. She said something along the same lines. And then--Malfoy collapsed on the floor. I remember this because he still had a bit of his dessert left, and I'd been eying it when he passed out."

Snape blinked. He had not expected this turn, nor would he have expected such rash naivety from a Malfoy. But, where women were concerned, men -especially Lucius--tended to act with far less blood available to their brains. "Poison?"

"I don't know what it was, but she'd put it in his wine: we'd all been eating from the same dishes. Whatever it was knocked him cold, and I remember my mum dragging him to the sofa and explaining to me that wine made grown-ups sleepy. I finished Malfoy's dessert while my mum was in the kitchen. When she came back, she had a tiny cauldron full of something and proceeded to rub it on my arm. She kept telling me to be quiet, not to ask questions, that this was something to help 'Daddy' wake up. Then she dragged me over to the sofa and rubbed some of the salve on Malfoy's arm. I was crying, her grip on me was so tight. When she pushed our forearms together, there was all this smoke and the smell of burning meat. I don't remember what happened after: I passed out."

For some reason, his arm twinged. It was a bizarre story, and he couldn't imagine what reasoning could bring a mother to inflict that mark on her child. But, theoretically, it was possible. The "salve" was almost certainly a strong mixture of Mimesisalve, a potion normally used in cosmetic magic. The Dark Mark, however, was a complex spell, running far deeper than the skin. Mimesisalve could not have fully transferred it, perhaps accounting for the warped, incomplete appearance of the girl's pseudo-Mark. Something like trying to stamp a set piece of parchment: the shape transfers, but the fine details are obscured, lost. "What did Lucius do? Did he know?"

Her fingers wrapped, tight and unthinking, over the skin of her arm. The thin, darted pink of skeletal eyes peeked out from beneath her grip. "I don't know what happened exactly. When I woke the next morning, Malfoy was gone, and my mother didn't mention it, even when I complained about the stiffness in my elbow. I can only guess at my mum's thinking now, with a bit more... understanding than I had then. It had to have been a desperate gamble to attach me to Malfoy in an undeniable way. It might have given her more to threaten him with: she could not only reveal his bastard child -a Squib--but she could further reveal his association with--" She swallowed, squeezing her arm more tightly. "--the Dark Lord. Perhaps she thought, in fact, of going to...him...himself, in some attempt to put pressure on Malfoy. I honestly can't guess which of these ideas ran through her head: but, whichever it was, it was a desperate, last-ditch attempt to connect me -and through me herself--with Malfoy. It did not have the effect she'd planned."

With each word, the girl's eyes had moved resolutely further from him, turned head sitting stiff atop a long, twisted neck. In sharp profile, he couldn't help but notice: she had Malfoy's nose. Plain, large-ish, angular, and upturned.

He knew what had prompted the withdrawal: he saw it occasionally with Dumbledore. It was the same look that arose in conversation when discussing the indiscretions of a woman in the presence of her son. It was the need to distance the words from the listener: to make a monologue from a dialogue. And it tended to occur whenever anyone discussed Death Eaters with Severus Snape.

"Malfoy did not return, I take it," he replied briskly, the way he always acknowledged the implicit discomfort of such discussion.

"No. He did not. But he knew what she'd done...somehow. So he sent several of his...associates to handle the situation for him."

And the discomfort no longer felt implicit. A gray eye scouted tentatively towards him, beating a quick retreat upon meeting beetle black resistance.

So the girl had run into Death Eaters before her removal from the wizarding world: the fear he'd run up against in the market was born of more than stories and secrecy. She had seen the cloak and the mask firsthand. He'd rarely met anyone who had and lived to recount the experience. He joined her in the discomfort now, feeling the inexplicable need to interject, "I was not among them."

She had not even asked, and he regretted the assertion immediately. It reeked of self-deprecation.

"I--I know." Her eyes lasted a bit longer on his this time. "At least I was fairly sure. It was one of the reasons I--checked." She released her grip on her arm, turning back to her monologue. "There were three of them that night. They grabbed me and dragged me into my mum's room. They looked at my arm, and one of them touched his arm to mine to reveal the...result of my mum's actions. They asked me if I ever felt it: if it hurt. I just cried and cried. I couldn't speak. They started--they beat my mum: but I couldn't stop. I couldn't. One of them knelt down next to me: it was a woman. I remember because that surprised me, her voice. I'd pictured all the Death Eaters like my dear father, I suppose. So when she started talking to me I that soothing female voice I just--cracked. I explained everything about that night and that it sometimes hurt a little: just sometimes, usually when I was asleep. And then I asked if they could make it go away and if they could tell my dad I was sorry and I didn't want him to be mad with Mum. I just babbled everything out until it collapsed into sobs again, and the woman sort of patted my back and told me I'd better be quiet now while the grown-ups worked things out. I just remember her voice. I just remember being terrified of that sweet, quiet voice."

He swallowed with some difficulty. It was hard to digest the story, especially remembering so many like it from the other side. He distracted himself with trying to guess who the woman could have been. It didn't sound like Bellatrix at all. He doubted Narcissa would have been sent to handle such business. Perhaps Junia. Junia had a little girl: she might have known the best way to...handle a terrified, sobbing Lina Branch.

"Then they turned to my mum. I don't remember everything: I was crying and covering my face. But I remember they had wands: two pointed at me, one at her. They weren't yelling. They were talking very, very soft. My mum's face was white -ghost white--and she was crying without making a sound. The only thing I really saw was my mum taking hold of one of their hands and one of the other men doing a spell that lit up the whole room. And then, they all got ready to leave. And the woman--the one who'd been so gently stroking my back--took hold of my should, jabbed her wand into my neck and said to my mum in that same sick, soft voice, 'Remember. If you break that, you won't be the only one who dies.' And they disappeared. And my mum fainted."

She was quiet again, words guttering out into a slight hiss of breath. For a sickening second, her child's voice -the racked, sobbing squeal--overlaid the sound from her lips. He forced a deep inhale, clearing his mind. He'd always had a gift for that. Had to have. The voice, the picture of a woman crying without a sound, the shuddering image of Death Eaters cradling a tiny porcelain-white child: they swept clean, replaced with the familiar black slate. The cold, hard center of a mind erased. Once again, all depressingly familiar.

"They...let you live."

Air caught against her teeth. Perhaps it was her own version of coping--of pushing away the memory. "Yes. I can't explain it, even now. There certainly would have been no danger in killing us: just put it down to another Death Eater incident. Might have even been explained away if they learned I was a Squib. There are only two reasons I can imagine they spared us. Either Malfoy feared my mum had told someone of their relations and felt it could all be traced back to him. Or, on the other unlikely hand, there's the chance that Malfoy, when it came down to it, really didn't want to kill us."

The cold blankness swelled. "I doubt that very much."

He knew he was being cruel. He threw every bar purposefully, hurled every poisoned word with precision. There were only a few times -a very few times--that he regretted it.

But she didn't flinch. Or blink. Or breathe. She chuckled softly, sunlight seeming to crumple before her smirking gaze. She turned back, no longer concerned with sparing him. "You really are a bastard," she sighed, with an odd lack of spite. "Don't worry. I'm under no illusions as to the sort of man my dear ol' dad is. He certainly had no compunctions about killing my mum when he got the chance a few years later in that damned brothel." The smirk was brittle and broke apart against his emotionless face. "I think I try to believe it for her. I think she might have wanted me to."

"So...you think Lucius killed her?" he asked, taking back the abandoned wine glass almost without thinking. He'd heard what he needed now: alcohol would be all the more welcome.

"I don't think he did. I know he did."

He stopped himself from asking how this time.

"They murdered her. In her whoring bed. They--Malfoy and his colleagues again no doubt--tortured her for hours. I don't know why. That--was not clear to me. Perhaps you...?"

Well, at least she wasn't ignoring his past now. "No. As I informed you, I had no knowledge of your mother or any of her affairs until Dumbledore told me." Bloodwine made excellent, absolute punctuation.

"Yes, I'm sorry. I imagine there were loads of killings that didn't even make the Daily Death Eater."

Yes, be a bastard right back. More Slytherin. More...comfortable.

"So, there you have it. Mimesisalve, a fucking barmy mum, and a father with a conveniently available Dark Mark and an inability to detect the smell of poisoned wine. Will that be enough to satisfy the Headmaster, do you think?" She was cool, relaxed again. It was admirable, if...a bit disconcerting. She might prove an apt Occlumens after all.

"What about the Occlumency? And the divination--?"

Flat lips, flat eyes. She became a study in two dimensions.

"That happened long after. Is it really necessary--?"

"I am merely asking the questions I can guarantee the Headmaster will have for me. If I have no answers, he will send me back, and we will have to start this all over again, upsetting your landlady needlessly. So, unless you have a second bottle corked away for tomorrow--"

"My mother left me at Our Lady of Mercy, a Muggle church, when I was a little older than seven," she interrupted, trampling his snark with a tone not unlike his own elocution when lecturing. "My parents adopted me only a few months after. I told them about the wizarding world I'd come from. It took them sometime to believe me, but I did provide some proof in the form of Sickles and chocolate frogs and a nasty birthmark that turned black at odd, random times. They were very religious and felt most comfortable ignoring it and its relation to me. But I was not ready to give it up just yet." She swept her hand at the hundred texts staring back at them through the creased pupils of their spines. "I was very foolish. I refused to accept my Squibhood. I took my Muggle allowance and had it changed through Gringotts order. I set up a whole mail order system with a bookshop in Diagon Alley and had a new text every week. I told myself if I studied enough in every field, I was bound to find something I could manage. Maybe even something I'd be good at. And, of course, if I could do that -if I could be a witch--I could go on to Hogwarts and my mum would have me back, and I could--return." She grinned. "Actually, I rather favored Potions. It seemed a discipline suited to someone for whom wand-waving was not any option. I probably know more on the subject than your seventh-year N.E.W.T. students: just couldn't manage the practical, I'm afraid. In fact, at eleven, I saved for three weeks to order a few ingredients. Tried to mix a hair-growing elixir in my Muggle mum's mixing bowl. Turned out to do nothing more than stink up my closet for near a month."

He snorted. "If it makes you feel better, I've had quite a few students achieve the same remarkable result," he grumbled, draining the last few ruby drops from the hollow of his glass.

She studied him over the empty, round lip as he drank. "Yes, well, I did everything right. There was just no...magic. That was about the time I gave up. I decided to concentrate on studies at my Muggle school and try to settle into my Muggle life. That lasted about two months before Dumbledore showed up on the steps."

His spine objected, pressed suffocatingly stiff against the sofa cushions. He shifted, uncrossing and recrossing his legs, trying to imagine this woman, seven years younger, leading Albus Dumbledore into a Muggle living room. Just like this, perhaps. But with no explanations then, Albus would have had no idea. He didn't look forward to enlightening the conscience-heavy ex-Gryffindor about Miss Branch's past. Seeing that regret in the Headmaster's eyes always made him feel somehow responsible. It made his own conscience stir. He did not enjoy secondhand guilt.

"I was excited for a split second when the Headmaster showed me the letter. It was like a confirmation: I wasn't hopeless. But then I remembered that I was. That I might have some infinitesimal amount of magic, but it wouldn't be enough. And, if my mum heard what a failure I'd become... I wasn't willing to go through that. So I sent the Headmaster on his merry. But it did spark something in me: a new, er, research interest."

He arched a brow. "Divination?"

"No. Squibs. I started researching theories about Squibhood: what causes it, why it happens to certain people. I even tried to combine it with some Muggle science--genetics and the like. There wasn't much of anything definitive on the matter, but I began to formulate my own theory, my own explanation based on a mixture of experience and study."

She had leaned forward slightly, and he was amused to note a tinge of excitement in her voice. He could now believe she's read all these books: he could believe she'd spent her childhood wrapped in pages and diagrams. He recognized the signs.

"You see, there's no reason why Squibs, children of fully magical parents, should not possess magic themselves. Magic acts like a sort of recessive trait. After all it can emerge in the children of Muggles: but wouldn't the parents--or at least one of them-- have magical abilities? To pass the magical trait on, the parent would have to have magic as well but dormant-- to be a sort of Muggle Squid of sorts."

He merely shifted his sore spine once more.

She didn't even notice him, lost in explanation. "So Squibs, like parents of Muggleborns, must have magic but no ability to channel it. No ability to focus it outside themselves. I guessed this must be the case with me also. I imagined the magic built up inside me, flowing through my blood--a bit like wine. I decided I would attempt to feel it: to focus it in my mind. My book orders then turned to mental magic, disciplines like Occlumency. Disciplines that involved feeling the magic that must, I felt, be inside. And, to my surprise, for once, I actually felt something."

Despite himself, he was listening intently. The concept was...novel. Occlumency trained the mind to use magic like a mental shield or an internal patronus. Exercises used to learn Occlumency often involved turning the reflexes of spell casting inward: one reason, of course, most witches and wizards found it so challenging. Like trying to write with the left hand when you'd only ever used your right.

"I felt what I knew must be magic. And I began to be able -very slowly--to control it. All inside, of course. But it was something. Then, on a bit of a whim, I spent my fourteenth birthday money on any titles the bookseller could find with 'mind magic' in the title. The post came with five titles: three in Occlumency, one about non-verbal spell casting, and one about divination. And that was the one that changed everything."

Fingers twined in fingers as she hurried over her own words. He watched her sparking eyes closely: she certainly was tenacious. And clever. To a degree.

"From the first second I opened that book -the one, incidentally, that met so violently with the back of your head--from that first moment, it all made sense to me. When I focused my mind, I could see it. For the first time, I could see the magic working inside. Tea leaves, constellations, scrying mirrors, the throwing of sodding Muggle dice. But there was one thing I knew I had to try--far more than anything else. And for that I had to sneak back to Diagon Alley. I needed tarot cards."

"You--went to Diagon Alley? By yourself?"

She shrugged nonchalantly, but he could decipher the discomfort beneath. She had been afraid to go back. To go back and face the memory.

"Y-yes. I snuck out, like any good teenager. And, no, I didn't--even bother trying to look for Mum. I had no idea where she was and...the flat had been annexed by a herbalist shop. Anyway, I visited Madam Fortuna's and bought a tarot deck that set me back several months of book ordering. But I needed a very special deck. The quality of the cards effects the quality of the reading. The cards they carry in the Muggle world are poor substitutes, mass-printed on bleached, chemical paper. No magic at all. No presence. So, I found the perfect set. Unique, used many, many times. Beautiful. Incredible. I was so...excited."

"Until...?" he interjected, and, when she furled her brow: "Occlumency maybe, but I can still read faces."

She turned her eyes away as if to be sure. "Unfortunately, I went to Diagon Alley on rather a busy day. And, as I was strolling, intending just to...pass by our old flat...just to be sure...a very familiar gentleman was leaving Borgin's. Accompanied by his--young son."

Wine soured in his stomach, all acidic lurch. "Lucius?"

"Yes, damn it. I practically ran straight into the boy," she sighed, winded, as if she'd just collided with the young Malfoy all over again. "I excused myself. I didn't look at him -at my father--but I-I couldn't help but stare, for the splittest of seconds, at the boy. My brother. Tiny, hateful face. My own damned eyes looking back at me. Then--I ran. I ran like hell, and I never went back."

"Did he recognize you?"

"I--don't know. I don't think so. But I did...feel something. A little jolt up my arm. As when I--when you touched me." Her throat rumbled, and her fingers plucked at the folds of her camisole. "Anyway, I went straight home and read the cards for my mum. I saw the murder. And I thought about that boy. It was a--jarring day."

"Indeed." He considered that jolt a moment, perhaps a byproduct of the botched spell buried in her flesh. He considered what it would mean for Lucius to know she was alive. Probably not much, ultimately. He might want to kill her, but, so long as he didn't know where to look, it would come to naught. If, however, he learned what she could do...

"I can read faces too, you know," she said, shifting as he had, betraying her own groaning muscles. "Those were my exact thoughts at the time. So, I redoubled my study of Occlumency. Determined that should my dearest dad ever track me down -or any of his old friends--that they should never see what I have seen or know what I know."

"About your mother?"

"Among...other things." She sniffed, kneading her neck. "And that is where this line of inquiry ends. There's nothing more that the Headmaster could possibly need to know."

The wine was gone and had clearly evaporated from both their veins. He knew when he'd reached a wall: he was done. His muscles demanded adjournment as loudly as the crisp finality of the girl's voice. "Yes, I agree. I will return to Hogwarts and let Dumbledore know of the agreement," he said, unfolding his body with groans he was far too young to make. "If he agrees, we will meet for your contribution some time next week."

"Not here," she said simply. Demanded, more like.

"No, I agree. I'm tiring of this place myself. I suggest my house. It's near here and it's much less--sunny."

"Sounds lovely."

"I will contact you with the address and details tomorrow. I'm afraid you'll have to endure a piece of owl post."

"One owl only. Nothing suspicious, if you please."

Looking at her, he felt the souring lurch again. She was smiling a wide, winding smile. It was a sure sign he needed to go. Immediately, before--

"Oh, there is one more think."

He wilted, muscles unwinding back into his seat. It had come back to him in one flash, come too late. She had been holding something back. Another "one more thing." In some ways, he thought, she was as much Dumbledore as Malfoy.

Serpent and unicorn, Severus. You forgot.

"I agreed to read the cards for...the Dark Lord--" Her strength wavered, as it always seemed to, over those words. "However, there is one obstacle to such a reading."

A growl through crooked teeth. "And that would be?"

She leaned back, returning to the easy posture she'd adopted earlier, languid, lazy power in the curve of her back. "Tarot decks, as I mentioned, effect the reading. They are...like windows. If you want to see the street below, a regular little bay window will do nicely." She indicated the sun-lined squares beside them. "If, however, you wish to see the details of a great vista -if you want to see the panorama of the furthest horizon--you'll need a very large, special window. And very clean glass."

He clenched his fists. He wished, for a flickering moment, that he could throw her through her damned panoramic window.

"The Headmaster is asking to see the broadest panorama imaginable--Fate. The Fate of many people. To make an accurate reading I will need a very specific, very powerful deck." The smile was gone. She spoke the words with the same breathy quiet she reserved for the Dark Lord's appellations. "The Velius Malorum. The tarot deck of the great sorceress Borgia."

Her look indicated that the name ought to strike him with force. She must have been disappointed then: he had never been a student of that art. In fact, he quite disdained it. He was, of course, familiar with the dark sorceress Borgia. She devised a number of ingenious -not to mention insidious--poisons he'd brewed during his Death Eater days. He could only assume whatever tarot artifact the lady had possessed was equally powerful--and dark.

"If you are looking to have the Headmaster invest in some pricey acquisition for you, I'm afraid you will be sorely disappointed."

She did not blink nor return the bite in his voice. "It would be quite an investment, I imagine. However, one cannot simply stroll into a Hogsmeade shop and purchase the Velius. It is one of a kind: and I've no idea where it is at the moment."

So--not only purchasing but questing as well. Why did everyone assume him to be their personal errand boy?

"I am not a Niffler, Miss Branch," he said, drawing himself taller in his seat, glaring down at her draped, lazy form. "The cards you possessed seemed more than adequate for your -investigation--of my own life. You will read You-Know-Who's fate just the same as mine: that is the agreement, Miss Branch. Take it or not. The Headmaster has already set the terms."

The smallest of smiles tickled her lips, demure enough to stoke his rising rage. If there was one thing that could set a seemingly placid Severus Snape into fits of shaking snark, it was being manipulated. Feeling control of a situation slip from this long fingers...

"If you'll forgive my saying so, reading your cards and reading his is an entirely different affair. You're life, for all its undoubted color and importance, is nonetheless somewhat more...commonplace."

Luckily for her, the small smile disappeared without a trace just moments before he decided that, wine and tragic pasts aside, he was not out of the race for a bit of confrontation. The ugly incident of their previous encounter had drifted from his mind for a time, but he could feel it returning as his irritation grew. He saw her face again, angled beneath his, Malfoy eyes driving into his overrun mind...

But anyone looking on would never have guessed the girl had ever smiled, had ever had the strength to even rise from her seat.

"Besides, it doesn't work. I've--tried before."

Sharp words melted from his tongue. He realized, fully and for the first time, what a power the girl lounging there, heavy-faced, truly had.

"You've--read the Dark Lord's cards--"

"I said I tried," she emphasized, suddenly an odd mixture of tension and repose. "Of course I tried. I may have left the wizarding world, but I'm still a witch. I still cared--and, of course, when the Mark became slightly visible again...well, the Headmaster clearly understands the need. To know why."

All four eyes present distinctly avoided the snake and skull glaring silent at her words.

"But, as I said, the cards I use, while very good, are simply not enough. I saw bits, pieces unconnected: like seeing a shadow and the sun. I could tell something was there, but the truth of the thing itself eluded me. To see the whole of it -as I did with you--there is only one deck still in existence with the recquisite power, inherent magic, and adequate scope. And that's the Velius." The wan smile peeked again, briefly. "Rather like trying to stir Veritaserum with a wooden spoon instead of a dragon's claw, to use an analogy you might understand."

Yes, yes. Put in those terms, he came dangerously close to believing her. After all, the cards must be like any other magical tool: the purity and the specifics of the tool were often every bit as important as the process that utilized them. As a Potions Master he could vouch for that more readily than most. He was beyond meticulous when it came to selecting ingredients or equipment. But it was not, he decided, unlike the careful fitting of wand to wizard. Each wizard needed a particular wand with particular properties and strengths that could help reveal or even determine his strongest skills.

But, despite the sense of it, he wouldn't let himself believe the truth of her request fully. This whole situation had already burdened him with the possibility of Occlumency lessons over the summer holidays. He didn't cherish the thought of sleuthing for dark artifacts on top of that. "Be that as it may: do you have any idea where we might find this Velius?"

"Yes. I can tell you where to begin. Last I knew, it was in my mother's possession."

"Your--mother?" he spat, without thinking. A flash of her desperate search through Antigone Branch's final belongings resurfaced. She'd been looking for it, even then.

"Yes. It had belonged to my grandmother, a gift from Gridelwald. She was quite the admirer of Borgia, and he gave it to her as a congratulatory gift for her marriage. When she went to Azkaban, she gave it to my mother. However, since it was not among the knick-knacks the Headmaster brought, I can only assume it was no longer hers when she died. For all I know, she sold it to pay rent. She had no idea of its value."

He leaned back finally, relinquishing his height to the tired insistence of his back. There was absolutely no knowing where the cards could be now: the elder Branch had died six years before. In six years time, a dark artifact of any value would have made its way around the world through black market trade. The only lead he could immediately call to mind was Mundungus, and he mostly confined his trading to stolen cauldrons and amulets of particularly suspect effectiveness. Perhaps Borgin. Or any number of Knockturn Alley entrepreneurs. But this kind of artifact was esoteric, even for them. They generally preferred items with a bit more flash. Easier to move that way.

He stood suddenly, halting the turn of thoughts in place. He had not agreed to this: to playing spy and whispering in dark corners all over again. Besides, he couldn't go about asking questions without raising suspicions, certainly the last thing Dumbledore -or the girl for that matter--could want.

"I'll discuss the matter with the Headmaster. Until then, I believe, we will have to postpone any further--"

She was on her feet just as quickly, and he braced himself for an explosion.

But the girl standing before him was, once again, remarkably different from the one who had stared him down on their last encounter. Her eyes wide, her lips parted rather that clenched, her hand almost reaching out to touch his arm before retreating from propriety--she appeared desperate...pleading. It was, in its own way, more disconcerting than any amount of anger.

"Professor, please. Please, don't. I know--you don't--" She stopped, eyes reflecting the collection of her broken thoughts. "I need those Occlumency lessons. I know that. I also know that you... will find the Velius. I--saw it. But, please. Do not delay the lessons. It's vital, it's--I've already told you so much..."

He watched the silver dart, slight and quick beneath his gaze, trembling like memories in a pensieve. In the turbulent gray, her pupils, solid and midnight black, watched back, staring through in the way he imagined only a Seer's could.

"Why?" he growled down into her eyes, itching to push through them--to see what she had seen.

But something held him: something kept him dancing across the desperate surface of her gaze, transgressing no further. Something Severus Snape rarely admitted to in himself.

It was fear.

"Why--do you need them so immediately? You've waited years. You're sequestered and hidden here, and you must know I've no intention of..." He would not finish. Refused to admit anything while caught in her eyes.

Her hand succeeded this time, fingers light and uncertain on his arm. The peculiar jolt shuddered his bones, as if the strange mark was reaching out to him. He snatched himself from her, already reaching towards the door.

"The Dark Lord is alive, Snape."

She'd whispered, but somehow the sounds resonated, tolled through the sluggish, sunlit distance between them.

"He's alive, Professor. That's why. And--he's coming."

He ventured only a brief glance back at her stormy, rooted gaze. He felt lost in it.

"It will be soon. That's why."

The locks clicked free, and Severus Snape disappeared with a low, heavy pop.

***************************

A/N: Sorry it has been so long since the last chapter. I started my first term of graduate school and, what with working full-time as well, it's proven a bit more time-consuming than I'd imagined. No time for Severus...it's tragic.

That being said, I've got an additional two chapters after this written. However, I'm so old-fashioned, I still write long hand and then type everything in. But I'll try and get them typed and edited asap.

Also, I'm looking for a patient, experienced beta to help me wade through these things. I get to where I can't see typos anymore...If you're interested, please let me know.

Next chapter: back in the "present." A little snippet before things begin in earnest.