Anam Cara

Thirteen

I didn't think it got this hot in London. Summer had finally arrived and it had arrived with a vengeance. It had been be ninety degrees most of the week. I entered my flat and tossed the key onto a table by the door. Air conditioning was unheard of here, but a simple charm kept my flat considerably cooler than the outside air. I arrived home and headed straight for the shower, peeling off damp clothes on the way. I stood under the cold water until I felt human again, threw on an oversized tee-shirt and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

A jarring buzz from the intercom by the door called me out of the kitchen. It was followed by a voice wreathed in static. "Clare love, you've got a delivery coming up."

"Can't you hold it, Kenny?"

"No can do, sweetheart. This one needs your siggy!"

"You sign for it!"

"Sorry, sweetie. Already on the way up. Wouldn't take no for an answer." His voice dropped in volume and developed an annoying, conspiratorial tone. "Quite frankly I can't imagine anyone telling this one 'no'. He's just what you need. Hell, honey, he's just what I need!"

"Kenny, you old goat, I've been home ten minutes, I'm hot, I'm soaking wet and I'm tired. The last thing I need right now is some pubescent, pretty-boy leering at me."

"That's alright, dear. You keep the package and send the courier back down to me. I'll be happy to take this one off your hands."

"I'm going to have you fired!"

This was infuriating. For the past several weeks I had not only had to fend off David's suffocating attempts at mothering, but Kenny's decision that I needed a diversion. It didn't seem to matter that our ideas of diversion differed greatly. The very last person on earth I needed to see at that moment was a pimple-faced courier. I went to the door ready to get rid of the interloper as soon as humanly, or magically if need be, possible.

The elevator doors slid open, but it was no courier or delivery boy that stepped off. Not unless delivery boys had taken to wearing custom tailored suits from Savile Row. This particular suit was raven black, darker than midnight, and was walking straight towards me carrying two dozen white roses.

I slammed my fist into the 'Panic' button on the intercom panel.

"Kenneth!" I snapped, my eyes glued on the approaching figure. "The roses are yours!"

I blinked my eyes hard to clear what I thought I was seeing but the picture in front of me didn't change.

Severus Snape had stepped off the elevator, looked back at it over his shoulder with an inscrutable look on his face and turned to face me. All at once he let his presence hit me. I felt the familiar sensation of falling into him, as if there were no space between us. It took my breath away. The roses, mere props, were tossed aside, and the arms that had been carrying them were around me before I'd gotten my mind around what was happening.

I buried my face in the blackness of his suit and drank in the essence of him.

"Is this real? This isn't a dream, please tell me this isn't a dream."

"This is real," he murmured. "This is as real as real can be."

It was the voice that did it, made it real. It was just like flipping a switch. The loneliness, and frustration of the past seven months mixed with the shock of this sudden, unexpected return and poured out in a torrent of tears. I knew it was silly and melodramatic, but I didn't care.

His embrace was eager and searching, as if his hands thought his eyes were fooling him and the living being in his arms was not the same one he'd last seen lifeless at his own doing.

"Severus," I whispered. "I can't breathe."

He loosened his grip and stepped back quickly. I looked up at him, saw him clearly at last. He looked shaken, and his dark eyes had a look in them, a shadow, that I'd never seen before.

"What?" I whispered and touched his face, "what's wrong? What could possibly be wrong?"

"I never thought--" he looked to be choking on his own words.

He raised his hand to my face and his fingertips brushed my cheek. I saw the pictures in his mind, the night at Malfoy's. He was reliving the scene and his memory of striking me brought a phantom memory of my own, not only the stinging pain of the swat, but my distress at the ease with which he'd delivered it.

He winced and pulled his fingers away as if he'd touched a flame.

He showed me what I hadn't seen. I saw the angry flash of light, heard a sickening sound, saw the crumpled form on the ground. I felt a dizzying sense of panic and a struggle to contain it.

"I didn't know if you'd had time. The spell was so difficult."

"You saw the raven. I made sure you saw the raven."

"It was too real. I didn't expect that. The sound! That horrible sound--there's nothing like it, the sound of death. That death was real. Seeing you--not breathing, no heartbeat. I couldn't be sure."

More images, coming so fast they were hard to follow. A dead, sick feeling. Shadowy figures surrounding me, wishing them away.

Don't touch, no closer!

"A kill on the first strike Severus? We'd hoped for some sport."

Too many feelings; fury--boiling white hot fury, crippling desolation, and the panic--the mounting sense of panic. Too much to remember; get away, time--so little time, the place, the portkey. Sport! They'd wanted sport!

I took his hand and placed over my heart. "Do you feel that? Do you feel my heart beating?" He couldn't not feel it, it felt to me like it was ready to fly out of my chest. "You'd have known if you'd killed me. You'd have known instantly." I smiled and twisted my fingers through his hair. It was clean and soft, slipping like liquid through them. It had been a long time since he'd spent the day in a sealed dungeon full of cauldrons all set at the boiling point of blood. I wound a thick black ribbon of it around my hand. With a quick pull I told him, "If you'd killed me I would have haunted you until you went stark, raving mad."

Finally he smiled."Yes, there is that to think about."

He said nothing for a long time. I could feel his gaze moving over me and I suddenly realized how I must have looked.

"Oh, look at me," I whimpered. I look like a drowned rat...wearing something I pulled out of a bin!"

His eyes met mine again and he whispered, "Just look at you." His hand slid up to the back of my neck and he pulled me closer. "Your hair?"

"Don't you like it?" I asked, knowing the answer.

"I hate it."

I started to answer, "Tough," but never got the chance.

***

Hours had passed, but we didn't know or care how many. It was dark outside once we noticed our surroundings again. We laid locked together in a comfortable embrace that was so familiar it was easing the long months of loneliness out of memory.

"It must be difficult for you, living like this."

"Living like how? You forget. This is what I'm used to. I never lived in a 500 year old manor or a 1,000 year old castle before. Going to Hogwarts was like stepping back in time a hundred years."

"That's not what I meant."

I looked up at him. "You mean being Clare. No, that's not so bad either. Actually we should both consider ourselves lucky to be rid of that awful Doctor Claros."

"Oh I don't know, she was mad as a mooncalf but she had her good days now and again."

"Really!" I sat up. "Do tell."

"Let's see," he scratched his head and stared fixedly at the ceiling. "No one could whip up a plague of spiders quicker than she could and as much as I hate to admit it she did know her way around a bubbling cauldron."

"High praise indeed."

"There's more," he held up a hand. "I have to say I have never, ever, seen a woman who was quicker with an unforgivable curse. Some might say that's a flaw but I'd rather have someone on my side who's ready to let fly a good cruciatus than someone who's going to crumple into a useless heap of hysterics, wouldn't you?"

"I suppose that would depend on who she was aiming at, wouldn't it?"

He continued, "And, this is important, she had an absolutely endless supply of the most inane, banal, useless and trivial information imaginable."

"What?"

"It was phenomenal, really. It was extraordinary the absolute tripe that would spew incessantly--"

"Rather like what's happening right now?"

"No. This is insight."

"Well that's alright then." I jumped up and started looking for something to wear. "Get that gorgeous suit back on, we're going out. I want to show you something." I found a simple shift dress that suited my mood. He watched me slip the red silk over my head and reached out to pull the zipper up the back before I even thought of asking him to do so.

"I thought you hated red," he whispered, nuzzling my ear.

"Melpomene hated red. Clare is in a very red mood this evening."

"I have to hand it to muggles in one respect," he said. "They do have far better ideas than we do about how women should dress."

I retrieved his black silk tie from the back of a chair and slid it around his neck. "Do you remember the last time we were in London together? Do you remember having to hide? Tonight we are going to walk right down the middle of the street, and no one will know, or care who we are. Not a single person would think 'There's those professors from Hogwarts. What are they doing here? What are they doing together?' No one here's even heard of Hogwarts and most of them would laugh in your face if you went right up to them and told them you were a wizard."

On the way out the door I stopped to pick up the roses that had been unceremoniously dumped on the floor hours earlier. They were horribly wilted but a quick spell revived them. I broke a bud off and tucked it into Severus' lapel. When the elevator doors opened into the lobby, Kenny was waiting, yawning and looking at his watch in an exaggerated manner.

"That must have been some delivery, dearest." he cooed.

"A deal's a deal, Kenny. Here's your part." I handed him the roses, then leaned over and kissed him full on the mouth. "That's from him," I whispered nodding towards Severus. "He's shy."

He laughed and made a show of mopping his brow with one hand and making a fluttering motion over his heart with the other.

"We're going out, don't wait up," I said.

"In that dress, honey? You'll be back before anyone says 'do you want fries with that?'"

I laughed and we left, Severus giving Kenny a baffled look.

"Does that person serve any useful function?" he asked me once we were well outside.

"He makes me laugh. And he kept me sane--no, kept me alive when I first got here."

"Then I'd say that is a 'yes'."

It was near closing time for the shop, so I decided to stop by there first. I thought it might help to show Severus that Clare was less removed from the wizarding world than he might have thought. As we walked through the front door my main assistant looked up from something behind the counter.

"Oh hi, Clare," she looked at me with a surprised expression.

"Don't worry, I'm not checking up on you," I told her.

She was still staring at me and I realized why. She'd never seen me dressed to go out, and she'd most definitely never seen me with a date. I turned to Severus. "This is my right hand, she keeps the place open. Lachrimosa. We call her Lacci."

Lachrimosa?

She calls herself that, thinks it's--I don't know. I have no idea what she thinks it means. Her real name is Debbie.

He nearly choked on a laugh.

Lacci was a thin, dark haired waif who favored the goth look and harbored a morbid fascination with vampires. I knew it was cruel but I couldn't wait to see her reaction. I wasn't disappointed. Her black-outlined eyes nearly popped out of her head when Severus turned towards her.

"A pleasure to meet you," he said to her in a taunting drawl, glided towards her, took her hand and brought it to his lips. I was quite honestly surprised she didn't faint.

"Just wait here one minute," I told him. "I'll be right back. Lacci, Have you seen Lenore?"

No one answered. Lacci followed me though, nearly falling over in her rush.

"Bloody hell, Clare where have you been keeping him locked up?"

I looked up at her and tried not to laugh. "Who?"

"Him!" She hissed.

"Oh. Him." I opened the back window and let out a loud, shrill whistle. "Lenore!" I ducked back in, leaving the window propped open wide.

"Who is he? He's your brother. First cousin. Please?" She peeked out into the shop.

"No, sorry. No relation. You need to go back out front. We're still open, you know."

"I don't believe this," she sighed. "You come in here day after, day with this, I don't know, cloud around you all the time, like a character in some gothic novel--"

A black streak flew through the open window, winged past us and out into the shop.

"I assure you, Lacci I am not a character in a gothic novel."

She continued without missing a beat, "and now you show up here looking like--this--with that!"

"I don't think I give you enough work to do." I busied myself with something in a drawer.

"Well who is that then, out there?"

I peeked around the corner of the curtain and smiled. Grinned probably. Snape was staring in disbelief at Lenore who was staring beadily back at him from atop the hat rack she'd claimed as her roost.

"Mine," I answered. "He's mine."

"Clare!"

"Oh, alright. I met him, at...um...the University. Remember I did those lectures? He's a professor. Chemistry. I think."

"Crikey! I should have studied harder at school."

"Go home, Lacci," I shook my head and laughed.

I came back through the curtain and opened the till. Lenore flew over and perched on top of it, eyeing the coins. I flapped a hand at her. "You are not a magpie! It's degrading for you to act this way." She took great offense at that and took off back to her perch.

"She's a raven," Severus said, walking towards me. "A raven!"

"She's not a raven, Severus, she's the raven."

He whipped around and looked at the bird who was now happily preening her blue-black tail feathers.

"Do you mean to tell me that bird--"

"Yes, and we've become rather attached. You know how it is. It's odd, I've never had a familiar. Now look what I've ended up with." I finished closing the register, picked up a fair sized wad of cash and held it up. "Are you hungry?"

Fourteen

In the heavy, hazy state between sleep and wakefulness, I had the sudden and unmistakable impression that I was alone. It had been a dream all of it. I struggled to wake but was being pushed down into a unsettling state, not asleep but somnolent, not awake but fully aware.

'It wasn't a dream!' I heard myself in my head. It couldn't have been. I felt his energy in the room--I could feel him in the room. I could taste him, smell him. It was no dream. In its delicious stupor my body felt loose, disjointed, well used and overly sated. I knew it to be warm in the room but I was shivering. I tried again to break through the surface and awaken, but the drowning was blissful. Memories came. Were they memories? Feather soft touches, stroking, petting. I gave into the reverie with a whimper. The sense of delirium grew, the touches changed. I was held fast, held down and heard myself cry out--pain, delicious--tasting like more. I ignored the tiny part in the back of my mind that was screaming for consciousness. Then there came a real scream with a gasp as something tore through me and caused an burst of stars behind my eyes. 'I'm dying.' I thought. I didn't care. If this was what dying felt like it was a pity people could do it only once. I struggled to breathe through a violent shudder, surely a seizure, that lifted me off the bed.

I gulped for air, clawed my way though the darkness and forced my way into light. I was awake! Not dead, not dying but looking, when the haze cleared, directly into Severus' eyes. He was lying on his side, just out of my reach with his head propped on one hand, his free arm stretched out hovering just over me, palm down. He wore a wicked smile.

"Ye gods," he said with a smirk. "What a view!"

I thought about pushing him off the bed. "Incubus!" I hissed. "Enjoyed that, did you?"

He didn't answer that but slid over to me saying. "It's time to wake up."

"Most people use an alarm clock," I told him. "A normal person would have just said, 'time to get up' and maybe given a little shake!"

He looked disappointed. He moved closer. "Would you have preferred 'a little shake'?"

I leaned back, just a few inches, avoiding him. "You enjoyed that view?" I bit my bottom lip.

"Oh yes," he whispered. "Very much so."

"Really?"

I swung my arm out along the mattress and knocked his arms out from under him. He hit the bed like a ton of bricks. I sprung at him, straddled him, grabbed his hands and pinned them down. He was stunned. "I like this one better."

"Not bad," he said grinning. "Not bad at- What the bloody hell is that?"

The most awful racket had come from the front room. A loud clatter that sounded like the windows were going to come crashing in followed by piercing screeches punctuated by a suddenly familiar croak.

"Lenore!" I exclaimed and half jumped, half rolled off the bed and out of the room. If my heart hadn't been beating so fast from the fright of what I'd heard, I would have laughed.

Lenore was perched on her usual ledge, her feathers puffed out tripling her normal size. Her black beak hung open in a silent screech which made her look like a gargoyle. Cowering against the opposite corner of the ledge was a fair sized grey owl, clutching a small parcel. It's wide, staring yellow eyes gave it a look of complete and utter indignation.

I turned to the bedroom door just as Severus was staggering through it looking like he was ready to fight Voldemort hand to hand.

"Mail's here," I said. "Were you expecting something?"

Severus studied the scene with narrowed eyes. "Well," he started, looking warily at me, "which one are you going to let in first?"

"Lenore, I think," I said, chewing on a fingernail. "I don't think she's ever seen a post owl before. Maybe you can coax her into the bedroom."

"Maybe you can coax her into the bedroom," he countered. "I'm not getting near that bird. I've seen friendlier creatures come out of Hagrid's--wherever it is he keeps his--things."

"Oh, fine," I snorted and reached for the window latch. "I'll get her. Can't have a big, bad, evil Death Eater frightened by a blackbird, now can we?" I turned the handle and looked at him just before I pushed on the sash. "Does the dark wizard want to hide when th...ow!" He smirked and I pushed open the window. We both ducked when Lenore, in full fury, streaked through the window with a disgusted croak and landed on the back of the sofa, hissing at the owl, who was still regarding her warily.

"That thing is a menace," I heard Severus mumble through clenched teeth.

"Lenore!" I held my arm out towards her. She shook herself down to near normal size and chattered at me, from deep in her throat. "Come on," I said quietly and she flew onto my shoulder. She slipped slightly on the silk of the shirt I was wearing and dug in with her talons. I walked towards the bedroom with her still chattering indignantly. Just as I was taking her inside, she hopped up, turned back to face the owl and shrieked loudly, a last word of warning. I brushed her off my shoulder and she flew into the bedroom, lit on top of the mirror on the dresser and assumed a sulky pose. "He'll be gone in a minute!" I hissed at her. She hissed back. "The owl, you miserable creature!" I shut the bedroom door on her and inspected the damage she'd done to what I was sure had been a terribly expensive shirt.

The owl had mustered enough courage to hop in and drop it's parcel. It took a quick survey of the flat, hooted with disapproval and took off back through the open window.

Severus was picking up the parcel. I watched him incredulously. "Who knows you're here?" I asked him.

"Pardon?"

"Who knows you're here? Where did that owl come from. I've never had a post owl here."

He looked up with an enigmatic expression. "I'm not here. I'm in solitary protective custody in Azkaban. You know that."

I made an exasperated sound. "Then that owl's got a lousy sense of direction."

He dropped the parcel on the sofa and came up to me, smiling, "No, his sense of direction is fine. Do you have your wand handy?"

"I don't have a wand! I'm a muggle, remember?"

"Ah yes," he said. "Do you know where mine is?"

"In there." I pointed towards the closed bedroom door. "You'll have to get by her if you want it."

"I think not," he said looking at the door like it was the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. He snapped his fingers and his wand appeared in his hand.

"Neat trick, that," I told him.

Engorgio, he said, pointing his wand at the little parcel which immediately began to swell to the size of a small suitcase. In fact, it was a small suitcase.

I laughed when I saw it. "You packed? Is this a holiday weekend for you?"

He grinned and opened it.

"I hope that razor is in there," I said peering inside. "You could use it about now."

He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as he lifted an oblong box out of the case. "This," he said presenting it to me with an exaggerated flourish, "I believe, belongs to you."

I took it from him, speechless.

"You really should be more careful. One day you'll lose it and won't get it back again."

I stood there, staring at the box, unable to move, unable to open it. I didn't need to open it. I knew what it was, I could feel it. It was part of me.

He stepped behind me and opened it for me, not taking it from my hands, just easing the lid off the box while I watched.

"But--" I managed.

"It's about time, don't you think?" he asked quietly. His scratchy, in need of that razor, cheek brushed against my face as he leaned over me, took my wand out of the box and with some sleight of hand that I missed completely, exchanged it with the box in my right hand. I ran my left hand over it and turned it over and over between my palms, feeling it's vibrations, feeling its familiar aura.

"Well," I heard him as he moved away, "Why don't you just get re-acquainted?"

***

I opened the drawer and lifted Hester's potion book from where it had been hidden. It looked different. I remembered dropping a dull, timeworn volume of tattered pages into a dark shadow. What I held now seemed alive. The leather cover was battered, but had a patina of age that gave it a sheen that was nearly a glow. There was an aura around it that I hadn't felt before. I used my newfound wand to conjure up quite an attractive wrapping for it and started out of the room, only to nearly run into Severus on his way in.

"I thought you'd gotten lost," he said.

"No, I was looking for something." I felt rather stupid saying that holding the present right in front of him.

"Where's Edgar?" he asked, peering warily over my shoulder.

"Lenore! Not Edgar! Her name is Lenore!"

He gave me a sly grin.

"Now I don't even feel like giving you this," I told him, holding the package out for him to take.

He did take it and walked past me into the bedroom to sit to sit down and open it.

When he did it was worth every minute of the many hours of painstaking labor I'd spent pouring over it, cleaning and restoring it

He ran his hand over the cover, "Where did you find this?"

"It found me. I thought you'd like it. I know you have one but--"

"Like it?" He turned over a thick vellum page and his eyes lit on some scribbled figures. "I don't have--" He tore his eyes away from the page. "I don't have anything like this."

He turned another page, handling the book like a holy relic. "I've seen one, I think Professor--" his voice trailed off as he found something more interesting than what he had been saying.

"You're not going to read it now, are you?"

"What? No," he was turning it sideways to examine some marginalia. "Just a minute."

I'd seen that look before. He was a lost cause.

"There must be notes by--"

"Eight," I told him.

"Pardon?"

"I'm sure four of then were witches, starting with this Hester. Two wizards. I don't know about the others, but there are eight distinct hands in there. Hester and Lilith, they're the oldest. I suspect mother and daughter. Maybe sisters."

He looked at me in amazement. "Go on."

"The next, I think must have been a wizard, I could only find the initials T.D." I leaned over and found the pages on which I had discovered those initials. "He was a nasty one, I think. He shows up on almost all the poison pages."

"How did you...?" he was honestly overwhelmed.

I smiled at him. "I had a lot of free time on my hands. Oh, look, now this is interesting," I pointed to another set of notes on T.D.'s page. "See that lettering? That was written with a metal pen nib, not a quill. I'm guessing muggleborn. There's no name for this one, unfortunately, but it's comparatively modern."

"The measurements are different as well. The others are quite primitive, guesses really. These are precise."

"There you go. See, it's easy once you get started." I sat back to let him continue on his own. The room became silent. I was filled with a peace I hadn't known in years.

Which meant, of course, it was the perfect time for the telephone to ring.

I knew it was Lacci. I sat down at the small writing table by the window and picked up the phone. She didn't even wait for me to answer.

"Sorry Clare, I have to ask you about- I didn't interrupt? I mean--"

"No!" I almost shouted. I could picture her holding the receiver away from her ear. "Sorry, no. No, Lacci you did not interrupt anything. What is it you need? And don't you dare sound disappointed!" I made a face at the phone. I half listened to Lacci's list of troubles while staring blankly out the window. Eventually she might come to something that needed my attention.

"Is that it?" I asked her when she'd finished making up excuses. "Maybe this afternoon, probably tomorrow. Good-bye, Lacci." I put the phone down, but stayed at the desk.

Severus didn't bother to look up but asked, "How is the dear girl feeling this morning, satisfactorily anemic?"

"Oh, leave her alone. Everyone has hobbies, her hobby is vampires."

He grimaced. "Yes, well, she's never met a real one. How do you think she'd take to Adrianna? " He closed the book and looked up. "She reminds me of someone I knew in school."

"I bet she does."

" No, really. During my sixth year, a series of junk novels spread through the school like a wildfire. One was this awful, tawdry vampire romance. You should find a copy of it for your friend, she'd enjoy it. Every girl in the place was reading it. All the time. Then they all started trying to look undead. The teachers were worried that they were actually bleeding each other so they'd look appropriately pallid. During the holidays a group of us got hold of one of these books and spent hours reading it aloud to each other, howling with laughter. That's when we came up with the plan. First, we decided who would play the vampire. "

"That must have been difficult."

"We did use the description in the book. So, the others started spreading the story we'd cooked up. They said that something had happened while during the holidays. They didn't know what was wrong with me, I was always tired, couldn't get up in the morning, wandered around all night-- a marvelous set-up. By the time classes started they were ripe for the picking. Of course it was more difficult to pull off during the day, but dark glasses worked wonders, I kept the hood up on my robe as long as the teachers would allow it, and always sat as far away as I could from the windows. I even walked around light patterns on the floor. It didn't take long, the vampire hunters picked up the scent--this one girl in particular. I don't remember her name."

"You do too remember her name, it was Bethany Frobisher."

He looked at me strangely. "So we arranged the trap. A party that went into the early morning hours. It was too easy really. She'd been shadowing me from the start. Even before the stories were spread. I pretended to not to notice. To this day I don't know what she was looking for, but I let her get me alone, or so she thought, just before dawn and let things go from there as she saw fit, sticking to the script, of course. Being that the script was a lusty romance novel just made it that much more fun. Just when things got, shall we say, to a crucial moment--"

"How old were you?"

"Sixteen. Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Go on," I switched on the ministry's communication interface that was sitting on the desk.

"Right. Just as things were getting rather...close, I dramatically noticed that the sun was rising."

"Oh no--"

"It was quite a performance if I do say so myself--with lots of declarations about burning for love and ending with some ridiculous plea along the lines of 'I don't care if I die, 'as long as I have you.' "

"You son of a--"

"Oh, but it was so very romantic, and she was so very, very brave sending me away to save myself with some speech, directly out of the book mind you, about how we could have all the time in the world if only I'd save myself that night. I could make it so we could have eternity. I suppose that in the excitement she'd forgotten that I'd been walking around in broad daylight all along."

"Well I suppose there was some justice. At least you didn't get any."

"It was worth it. I was never going to 'get any'. A nibble, perhaps. Besides there were plenty more where she came from, after that I had to practically beat them off with a stick. One day in the library Hugh Delamere started my robes smoking with some hex and a dozen girls ran out sobbing. A few first and second year boys went with them. I got detention for a week with Corrigan for that."

"Oh come on, how long could you keep that up? Dark glasses and hiding from the sun? You played Quidditch didn't you?" I typed a short message and sent it to one of my contacts at the ministry.

He watched me, suspicious. "What are you doing?"

"Absolutely nothing. So, how did you explain your daywalking?"

"I didn't have to. The experts did it for me. They had all kinds of explanations. I was only half vampire, or only vampires made from muggles couldn't go out in the daylight or I'd hear a whisper, 'He's awfully good at potions you know'. But then the next book in the ridiculous series came out and spoiled everything." "You must have been heartbroken."

"I was. It was about a werewolf."

"Howls of Desire"

"Got it in one--wait a minute. Don't tell me!"

"Fine. I won't. But if it makes you feel better, in my opinion, the best one was Passion Unwrapped. About the mummy who wasn't really a mummy at all but an archaeologist who'd been cursed by a mummy." A beep distracted me. "Ah! Bethany Frobisher, your forgotten pursuer. You must have made quite an impression on her."

"What is this?"

"Working for Magical Law Enforcement has some advantages. 'Bethany Frobisher, Department of Regulation & Control of Magical Creatures, Beings Division. Currently stationed in Romania on an indefinite, undisclosed diplomatic assignment.' " I looked up at him grinning, "Oh, I wonder what she could be doing in Romania, Severus, do you have any ideas?"

"One or two," he said, much more seriously than I had expected. "Is there any more?"

"Why? What's the matter?"

"Can you find any more? Can you find out when she was heard from last?"

I read the innocuous words again to try to see what I'd missed. "I don't know, I could ask."

"Ask!"

I composed a message quickly and sent it. "It might take a while. This isn't my usual department."

He looked miserable. "It doesn't matter. I know the answer. They'll tell you she hasn't been heard from since November of last year." He stalked off and stared out the window. I watched, shocked.

"What are you talking about? November?" I searched back and tried to make sense of his exasperation and sudden change of mood. Suddenly it started to fall into place.

He turned back and looked at me. "Yes, you see it now, don't you?"

"Vampires. Adrianna's party. You'd gone to meet with someone and you said something had happened."

"We'd lost an emissary. I had no idea who it was. I stopped asking a long time ago."

"I'm sorry. Maybe it wasn't her. Maybe they'll tell me she's been back a year and is back home raising her seven nocturnal children."

He managed a wan smile. "Seven?"

I shrugged. "Seems the type. You need to get away from all this, Severus. Far away. It's past time. You've spent too much. You've lost too much."

"Yes," he said quietly. "That's something we need to talk about."