“Celeste Jenkins?” Albus Dumbledore frowned and pushed his spectacles a quarter of an inch further up his nose. “I don’t believe I recall a student here with that name.” The wizard paused by one of the spindle-legged tables that each held a delicate silvery instrument, tapped a long forefinger on the table’s edge, and watched with mild interest as the steam the fragile-looking object was emitting shifted from white to pink and then back to white again. “I once danced a superlative tango with a young witch named Celestia Nimblefoot -- back at the International Confederation of Wizards conference in 1927, I believe.”

Snape tightened his jaw until he could hear the mandibular joint creaking slightly. Taking a breath, he replied, “While that may be fascinating, Professor, I’m not sure it’s entirely germane to the subject at hand.”

Seemingly ignoring that comment, Dumbledore inquired, “Have you ever danced the tango, Severus? I enjoyed the dipping especially...”

“No,” Snape ground out, since of course he had never danced anything with anyone, let alone a tango. Crossing his arms, he met the Headmaster’s mild blue gaze and forced himself to remember that while Dumbledore might act like one’s dotty great-uncle, the elderly wizard happened to be the greatest mage alive. Save one, perhaps. “Do you have any precedent for this? For someone so obviously possessing magical talent to have been completely ignored by the wizarding community?”

“Curious. Although of course the fact that something has never happened before doesn’t necessarily preclude it from occurring at some point.” Dumbledore fiddled with the embroidered cuff of his robe, then cast an unreadable glance at the portraits that lined the wall behind him. Most of them appeared to be dozing, since the hour was late, although Snape thought he caught the gleam of an interested eye beneath Phineas Nigellus’ lowered lid. “There was Chloris Strathmore...but in her case it turned out that the family crup apparently ate her Hogwarts invitation letter. She started one term late, as I recall. Sorted into Hufflepuff, I believe. And of course you might have heard of Aubrey Aldamare?”

The Aldamare case had been before Snape’s time -- the man had been active during the late 1940s, in the confusion of postwar London -- but Snape remembered reading a passage on him during his History of Magic lessons. Aldamare had set himself up as a magician, a wizard of the first order, and his skills with illusions had been so advanced that it had taken a Ministry of Magic investigation to discover that the man was in reality simply a Muggle with astonishing facilities of sleight of hand and a deft touch with smoke and mirrors. In the end Aldamare had been Obliviated back into a desk job in the office of a local M.P., but the case had confounded the wizarding community for a while, as no one could understand how such a powerful wizard could have been overlooked for schooling at Hogwarts.

“Yes, I remember the case,” said Snape. “But I don’t think that’s what we’re dealing with here. Celeste Jenkins seemed to me to be the strongest untrained Legilimens I have ever encountered.”

For a moment Dumbledore did not reply. He watched the spinning motion of one of his odd little devices, seemingly entranced by the tiny rainbow-like flickers it gave off. Then he asked, “And how old is the young woman in question?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Snape replied. Celeste Jenkins looked to be somewhere in her mid-twenties, but determining age was tricky enough in Muggles, and even more so in those with wizard blood. He lifted his shoulders, glad to feel the familiar heavy drape of his black robes. “But young enough that she would have been a student of mine if she’d ever attended Hogwarts.”

“This does trouble me somewhat,” admitted Dumbledore at last. He made a minute adjustment to the device on the table before him, and it began to spin faster than ever. Apparently satisfied, the Headmaster finally turned to face Snape. “An untrained Legilimens, practicing amongst Muggles. If Voldemort should somehow discover her existence -- ” With a shake of his head, he continued, “As far as we know, none of his cadre are particularly skilled in this sort of thing -- present company excepted, of course. No doubt he prefers it that way, since of course then he need not work as hard to keep his thoughts shielded from them. But to take someone who has no wizarding training, put them under the Imperius curse, and use them for his own ends...I can see Voldemort enjoying that very much.”

As could Snape. The uneasy thought had already crossed his mind, almost as soon as he had left Celeste Jenkins sleeping on her shabby couch and found a secluded alley from which he could Disapparate. Voldemort’s contempt for the world of Muggles had undoubtedly done much to shield the mysterious Miss Jenkins -- even if word had somehow reached the Dark Lord’s ears that a psychic of some talent was plying her trade in the prosaic environs of Manchester, no doubt he would have dismissed the rumor as so much more self-deluding Muggle tripe. An unbidden image of the young woman’s face rose up in Snape’s mind then -- the frank, friendly way she had looked at him, and then the terror in her eyes as the prophecy began to pour forth from her lips. If she had looked terrified then, he could only imagine what her reaction would be if Voldemort were ever to get his hands on her. And that, he thought grimly, must never happen.

“She seems safe enough for now,” Snape said at length. “Or as safe as any Muggle these days. There have been no attacks in Manchester.”

“Yet,” said Dumbledore.

There was no arguing with that. Manchester, as the second-largest city in England, did not present a particularly tempting target -- the Dark Lord had always preferred to focus his attacks on places that weren’t so densely populated. Since the country was dotted with small villages and out-of-the-way hamlets, Voldemort had his pick of isolated victims. But simply because the Dark Lord had followed a pattern in the past did not mean that he wouldn’t change it in the future -- especially if he learned that a large urban center contained a tempting prize such as Celeste Jenkins.

“You must go to her again,” the Headmaster said, after an uncomfortable pause. “We need more information, and as you were the person who first established contact, I believe you are the one who should follow up. At least we are between terms at present, so your schedule is more fluid.”

Well, that was one way of putting it. To keep up the pretense that he was a devoted follower of Voldemort, Snape had secured a safe house in a rundown Yorkshire neighborhood, a wretched little hovel that he was compelled to share with that piece of two-legged vermin, Peter Pettigrew. Once Hogwarts had let out for the summer, Snape had divided his time between his sparse but comfortable quarters here at school and that narrow, miserable house in Spinner’s End, a place that reminded him uncomfortably of the shabby home of his childhood. Luckily, his status as one of Voldemort’s inner circle allowed him the freedom to come and go as he pleased, so a few days away from the safe house wouldn’t be cause for too much comment, even for Pettigrew, who was always trying to stick his pointed nose where it didn’t belong.

After he’d left Manchester, Snape had come straight to Hogwarts, glad to throw off the miserable Muggle attire he’d adopted and immerse himself for a few precious hours in the familiar surroundings of his quarters. And, of course, meet with Dumbledore, who unfortunately hadn’t done much to illuminate the mystery. Because the simple question remained -- if Miss Jenkins really were a witch and not a Muggle, how could her existence have gone undetected for so long?

“I’ll need to go back to Yorkshire for a few days first,” Snape said after a moment. He did not bother to elaborate; Dumbledore knew very well why Snape was spending time at Spinner’s End, and although both of them had managed to get along so far without any of their plans being discovered by Voldemort, still they kept their conversations heavy with allusion, with meanings understood but not explained. What Snape would have liked most -- to spend quiet time alone here at Hogwarts, untroubled by the intrusions of a pack of empty-headed students -- certainly was not going to happen any time soon. Then again, his life hadn’t been his own for many years now.

“Do as you must, Severus,” responded Dumbledore. For a second his gaze was anything but mild. “You know that I trust your judgment.”

And after that there was really very little left to be said. Snape inclined his head slightly, acknowledging both the statement and the weight of responsibility that went with it, then took his leave, trailing back down to his office through corridors that displayed a notable lack of life. Even Peeves, who normally would have at least found some sort of snide comment to make about the Potions Master’s hair, looked down on Snape listlessly from his perch atop a suit of armor, apparently decided it wasn’t worth the effort, and disappeared somewhere up into the rafters.

Very few members of the staff besides Dumbledore had ever seen Snape’s private quarters, and he preferred it that way. He got quite enough of socializing during mealtimes and saw no need to invite any of them back to his sanctuary. No doubt the students visualized all sorts of gruesome interior-decorating details, from death’s-heads carved on his bedposts to obscure instruments of torture used as paperweights, but the actual reality was a bit more prosaic. Books, of course, shelves and shelves of them, but beyond that, a well-worn but comfortable leather armchair, a heavy roll-top desk, a serviceable table and chairs of questionable origin (Biedermeier in style, but probably knockoffs dating to the early years of this century). And in the sleeping chamber, a narrow carved bed and matching night table that had once belonged to his mother. The furniture was the only relic he had of her, save one small photograph he kept stowed in the top drawer of his desk. From his father, he had nothing.

The companionable quiet closed in around him as he removed his robes and hung them from a spiral-carved mahogany rack he kept for that very purpose. On a small table next to his armchair sat the latest issue of Potions Illustrated -- a pedestrian effort most of the time, but occasionally it contained a few pieces of useful information -- still with the Charmed ribbon holding his place. The ribbon had been a gift from his mother on his tenth birthday; even then Severus Snape’s bookish inclinations had been readily apparent, and the present of the bookmark (which would always remember your place, even if you set the book down without marking it) had seemed to him the most wonderful thing in the world at the time. And, of course, since Severus had obviously treasured it, his father had felt compelled to offer his criticism.

“Stop encouraging him,” Tobias Snape had said. “The boy always has his nose in a book as it is. I don’t know whether I’m raising a son or a mushroom!”

As usual, the sneering remark had precipitated another argument, from which the boy Severus had quietly crept away, clutching his precious bookmark and hoping that the argument wouldn’t escalate into an outright fight. At least his father hadn’t begun drinking yet, and so in the end only harsh words were exchanged....

Scowling, Snape turned his back on Potions Illustrated and instead went to the table, from which he lifted a bottle of port, poured himself a very small glass, and allowed himself a drink. The sweet warmth of the liquid seemed to flow through his entire body, right down to his fingertips, and although he did not smile, he could feel himself relax somewhat. He only wished he could stay here for more than this one short night, and leave directly from here to Manchester, but too long an absence from Spinner’s End would be noted...and possibly questioned.

Instead, he drained the port, readied himself for bed, and went directly to sleep without speculating any longer on Celeste Jenkins or the puzzle she presented. The best way to keep her safe was to forget about her for now -- he didn’t dare return to Spinner’s End with her name or face uppermost in his thoughts. Of course, Pettigrew could no more pick her image from Snape’s mind than Peter could change the shape he took on as an Animagus, but there was always the risk that Voldemort might summon Snape some time during the next few days, and better he should prepare for that eventuality now.

After all, why dwell on her memory when he would see the real thing soon enough?

***

As it turned out, Snape found himself detained in Spinner’s End until early Friday evening, though thankfully not by Voldemort. Instead, the Carrows dropped in Wednesday night, on the run after a round of Muggle-baiting and torture in Grimethorpe. He could find no good reason to get rid of them before they were ready to leave; any eagerness to depart would undoubtedly have given rise to awkward questions. So he stayed with ill grace, cooped up in the dilapidated lodgings which he had detested from the moment he set foot in them, until at last Amycus and Alecto decided they had made themselves scarce long enough and mercifully departed.

Before they left, Alecto laid a poorly manicured hand on Snape’s sleeve and said with a simper, “Thank you so much for your hospitality, dear Severus. It is good to know that there are still places of refuge for those who are loyal.”

He had picked her hand off his arm as if removing a crawling insect before saying, “I am sure Peter enjoyed your company very much.”

Of course the woman was too much of a dimwit to pick up on the subtle insult contained in his words. Snape, a barely concealed sneer tugging at his lips, had watched with relief as she and her equally lumpish brother finally took themselves off. Fortunately, his ill temper was as well known among the Death Eaters as it was the students at Hogwarts, and the low-level loathing he had displayed toward the Carrow siblings during their tenure at Spinner’s End probably seemed to them no more than his usual poor humor.

Still, it was with a feeling of intense relief that he drew on the drab Muggle garments he wore whenever he found it necessary to move unnoticed amongst nonmagical folk. Peter had disappeared, probably in search of some sort of libation to get him through another weekend with Snape. The rat had taken to drinking excessively of late; Voldemort tended to frown on that sort of behavior, but Snape at this point was supremely unconcerned as to Pettigrew’s fate.

The evening had moved on past eight o’clock by the time Snape finally Apparated in the same alley he had used earlier in the week. At this time of year the skies were still fairly bright, although the slanting quality of light told him that night would be falling within the hour. As he moved quietly out of the alleyway he saw that the streets were crowded with Muggles in search of entertainment, the long work week finally drawing to a close. He wondered briefly whether Celeste Jenkins would even be at home -- after all, she was a young woman who no doubt had better things to do than sit at home on a Friday night.

It was even possible that she might be married, although he had seen no ring on her hand. She might not wear one, but somehow he doubted that. His limited experience had told him that women tended to embrace that symbol of their servitude, whereas men often abandoned it altogether. Certainly his mother had worn her wedding ring until the day she died, even though his father (as far as Snape could tell) never had. But something about Celeste Jenkins and her home spoke of one who lived alone.

Still, he was here in Manchester now, and if she happened to be out, he’d either find someplace to wait for her return or simply come back the next day. By this time Pettigrew was used to Snape’s haphazard comings and goings and wouldn’t ask any questions...especially if he were occupying himself with a gin bottle.

The dank air around Snape seemed to lie damply on his shirt collar. This summer had been unseasonably cold and damp so far. Unfortunately, he knew the reason why -- the Dementors had thrown off the Ministry’s yoke and wandered the countryside freely. Even worse, Dumbledore had said they were breeding. So far none had been reported in the vicinity of Manchester, but the gray, grim weather they caused had pervaded the entire country. Snape noticed that the crowds around him on the streets seemed uncharacteristically quiet, the usual bright humor of a free Friday night muted by the heaviness of the atmosphere.

Before he knew it, he found himself standing on Celeste’s doorstep, the bright green of her front door seeming dimmer in the gray onset of twilight. He noticed that the sign had gone from the bay window and wondered if that were her way of saying she was not presently open for business. But there was no help for it. Dumbledore expected him to see this through, and, although he did not want to admit it to himself, Snape was curious as to what he could learn from Celeste Jenkins about her past.

He knocked, then waited in increasing trepidation as a long silence followed. Perhaps she really had gone out. He had just raised his hand to knock again when the door finally opened, and Celeste Jenkins stared out at him with startled eyes.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”

This singularly obvious remark made Snape pause for a moment as he looked back at her. Certainly she did not look as if she intended to go out -- her heavy hair was pinned up in a truly disastrous fashion, with random strands escaping the pins and falling every which way. Even Hermione Granger would have been hard-pressed to achieve such a rat’s nest. In addition, Celeste had on faded jeans, argyle socks, and an appalling vomit-green mohair cardigan over what looked like a man’s white undershirt.

Affecting not to notice her untidy appearance, Snape inquired, “Do you have a moment?”

“I -- well, I -- ” She floundered for a moment, then said, “Well, yes, of course. I am sorry -- do come in.” And she stepped aside and let him enter the hallway, even as one flustered hand rose to her head, and she began surreptitiously pulling the pins out and depositing them in her jeans pocket.

Snape followed her into the front room, noting with some amusement that Celeste continued to fiddle with her hair the entire time until she had it lying in a reasonably acceptable mass down her back. She indicated that he should sit down on the couch, then hurried over to the stereo system and shut off the cacophonous sounds -- Snape hesitated to call it music -- that had been streaming forth from the speakers.

“Sorry about that,” she said. Her manner seemed somewhat nervous, but perhaps the mere fact of his reappearance had thrown her off-balance a bit. “I don’t usually see clients on Friday nights -- ”

As he had thought, judging by the lack of signage in her window. Well, no help for it now. He saw all the evidence of a solitary evening around him -- spice-scented candles burning on the mantel, a half-drunk glass of red wine on the coffee table, a copy of C.G. Jung’s Dreams lying open on the couch next to him. As his gaze fell on the book, he raised an eyebrow; certainly that was not what he would have expected her to pick up for some light weekend entertainment.

Snape decided to forego an apology, even if he could have thought of one. Instead, he met her puzzled stare and said, “Our last session...raised some questions.”

“Did it?” she replied. “I was under the impression that you couldn’t get out of here fast enough, Mr. Snape.”

Her tone sounded matter-of-fact, but he could tell she was slightly irritated. “May I be perfectly honest with you, Miss Jenkins?”

“Only if you stop with the ‘Miss Jenkins’ nonsense and call me Celeste.”

“Very well, then.” Snape cast about for the best way to approach the subject, then decided perhaps it was best to start from the beginning. “You have some astonishing abilities, Celeste.”

She said nothing, but watched him through narrowed eyes, obviously wondering what was going to come next.

Some men might perhaps have been put off by her silence, but he had faced much worse than subtle hostility from a woman who merely seemed to question his motivations. Ignoring the awkward pause, Snape asked, “Have you always had the ability to read other people? To see the future?”

“No,” she said. “That came on seven years ago. Right after -- right after my parents died.”

That was somewhat unexpected. Wizard-born children usually began exhibiting signs of their abilities long before they received their official invitations to study at Hogwarts. He himself had been able to perform simple levitations -- not unlike what he had seen Celeste do in the bookshop -- by the time he was six years old. Snape wondered if there were any precedent for someone’s magical abilities appearing after they had achieved adulthood; he’d certainly never heard of such a thing.

“So nothing before that?” he inquired. “No odd flashes -- no strange things occurring that had no logical explanation?”

“None,” she said firmly. “I’m afraid I was quite a dull child.” Finally she smiled a little, as if amused by her ordinariness.

Well, he hadn’t thought it would be that simple. As he’d made his way over here through the clammy evening, he’d wrestled with how much information he could afford to divulge to her. Usually the wizarding community did everything in its power to keep its very existence secret from Muggles, but occasionally that unspoken rule had to be ignored. Oh, he had no intention of giving everything away to Celeste Jenkins, but he had to tell her enough so that she would allow him access to her mind. If she was hiding something, he should be able to detect it soon enough.

“I may not have given you the whole truth during our first session,” he said, choosing his words with care. At that statement Celeste’s mouth thinned slightly, but she remained silent, obviously deciding to let him speak his piece. “I myself have some small abilities in this area as well. And let me say that there are not so many of us that I could afford to let you slip by me.”

“So you’re saying you’re psychic, too?” Looking annoyed, she sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “No offense, Mr. Snape, but if I had a pound for every time someone tried to feed me that line -- ”

He held up a hand. “Let me finish. I am not saying that I am psychic...at least not in the way that you may think. To be precise, I have some skill at the art of Legilimency, which allows me to read the memories and thoughts of those who will allow it. I certainly make no claim to having the gift of divination as you do.”

Her gaze shifted to the half-empty glass of wine that sat on the coffee table before her. No doubt she would very much have liked to take a drink at that point, but her manners were good enough that she would not do so in front of him. “So how does this Legil -- Leg -- ”

“Legilimency,” he supplied.

“How does this Legilimency differ from what I do?”

“In my case, it required years of practice, whereas it seems as if you’ve developed the gift spontaneously and on your own. That is,” Snape added, “unless you had an instructor you haven’t yet mentioned?”

“Hardly,” Celeste said. “Believe me, this was all trial and error on my part.”

“As I had thought.” He paused for a moment, wondering how best to phrase his request. “But your gifts do interest me, and so I had hoped that perhaps you might allow me access to your thoughts for a moment.”

“You want to read my mind.” Her tone sounded flat, disbelieving.

“To put it baldly, yes.”

A silence fell then, as she stared at him, and Snape held himself upright and unmoving under her inspection. There was every chance that she would order him out of the house, of course. Simply because she did the same sort of thing to others every day didn’t mean she would allow that sort of scrutiny to be turned on herself.

Finally she gave a small, uneasy laugh and said, “Well, you do have me fairly caught, don’t you, Mr. Snape? If I refuse you, then I’m quite the hypocrite, aren’t I?” Not bothering to wait for a response, she continued, “All right -- but one thing first.”

“What?” he asked, hoping she wasn’t going to ask anything too outlandish of him.

“What’s your first name? Pardon me, but if you’re going to go wandering around in my mind, I’d like to know that much at least.”

He would have preferred not to tell her, but he had to allow that much trust between them. “Severus,” he replied quietly.

“After the Roman emperor?” she responded.

Her reply startled him somewhat; he wouldn’t have expected her to know the reference. “And my grandfather,” he said.

“Interesting,” Celeste said. “It suits you.”

Not sure exactly how to reply to that comment, Snape went on, “Then if you will allow me -- ”

“Of course.” She shifted slightly in her fussy Victorian chair, looking a little ill at ease for the first time. “Do you need me to do anything?”

“Just remain as you are, and relax.”

“Easy for you to say,” she replied immediately, but then she took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a few seconds, and reopened them. “I’m ready.”

“Very good.” Unlike Celeste, Snape did not need to touch the person upon whom he would cast the spell of Legilimency. Instead, he faced her squarely, staring into her eyes, which looked almost brown in the dimness of the room. No words needed to be said aloud; he only let himself fall into her mind, sorting through the ordinary chaos that everyone, both wizard and Muggle, held within.

Scattered impressions rushed past him, the detritus of her everyday life. For a second he caught a glimpse of a lean black-haired man whose image was tinged with a certain amount of wistful curiosity, and it took him a second to realize that he was looking at himself as Celeste saw him. But he had no time to contemplate that novel concept -- she held herself fearlessly open before him, and he saw faces come and go, clients, friends, those she passed on the street...but no family at all that he could tell. Backward he sifted through her memories, seeing a sandy-haired young man over and over whose memory-image was tinged with resentment and sadness. Then at last, repeated many times, a man and woman in their late thirties or early forties who must have been her parents -- the woman had Celeste’s delicate features and hazel eyes, though her hair was quite dark. Snape saw Celeste at school, Celeste on holiday somewhere on the shore, and then a Celeste much younger than she was now, with braces on her teeth, probably about the same age as the first-years who plagued his existence.

But after that it was as if he hit a brick wall. He could find no memories that placed her any younger than eleven or so, nothing...until he caught a flash of something that didn’t seem to quite fit. Stopping there and letting the unceasing flow of unrelated memories move past him was one of the hardest things he had ever done. But there it was again -- a birthday party, with an eleven-year-old Celeste sitting behind an enormous cake with hideous purple and pink frosting. That shouldn’t have been noteworthy...save for the fact that the sparklers on the obnoxious confection appeared to be the same Everlasting Borealis specials that Snape had seen on some of the students’ cakes at Hogwarts. What on earth?

He tightened his focus, and the scene dropped into place around him almost as if he had been there. The hordes of relatives, none of whom looked even remotely Muggle-ish. Celeste behind the cake, glowing with excitement. And her mother handing the girl a large envelope that Snape recognized immediately.

“Of course, it will be quite a wait until you can attend,” said Celeste’s mother. “But we are so proud of you, darling, so proud.”

“Will they teach me to disappear?” the little girl asked eagerly.

“‘Disapparate,’” Celeste’s mother corrected gently. “But yes, that and so many other wonderful things.”

The young Celeste smiled, and turned to look up at her father. She opened her mouth, but what she had intended to say Snape would never know, for instead the image darkened suddenly, and he felt an echo of some hideous, searing pain high up on his forehead, just as the memory-Celeste clapped her hand against her head and screamed, screamed as if she were being burned alive, or torn limb from limb. Clusters of concerned relatives swarmed the girl, and then the scene went black.

Snape came back to himself with a gasp he managed to choke short, only to see the present-day Celeste looking at him with some concern but no apparent recollection of the events he had just witnessed.

“Severus?” she asked uncertainly. “Is everything all right?”

What a foolish question. How could it be all right, when he had just seen that she had been no more born a Muggle than he -- less, for it certainly appeared as if her parents were both wizard folk. And that pain -- that pain which had appeared in the exact same spot as the damned Potter boy’s scar --

“Your birthday,” he said at last. “What day is your birthday?”

Celeste looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “What on earth should that matter?”

“Tell me!”

Obviously deciding it wasn’t worth arguing with a madman, she said, “Halloween. October thirty-first.”

He wanted to laugh, but didn’t dare. The pieces were still scattered, but Snape thought he was beginning to see a pattern, insane though it might be.

“Severus -- ”

Celeste had begun to look frightened, the healthy glow that usually warmed her skin notably absent. But he didn’t know what he could say to her -- didn’t know what he might reveal without putting her into further danger.

The scent of the candles burning on the hearth suddenly seemed cloying, and he stood abruptly, wanting nothing more than to be away from this place so he could think.

“What is it?” The urgency in the young woman’s voice had begun to warp into outright fear.

Snape ignored her and headed toward the front door. Dumbledore needed to be told, but first --

“Where are you going?” Celeste cried, obviously driven past all propriety by his odd behavior.

Snape paused on the doorstep, staring into her taut, lovely features. “To see if there’s a pub!” he snapped, then disappeared into the night.