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The Overlooked by ChristineX [Reviews - 3]

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Fifteen

From the diary of Celeste Jenkins:

July 8, 1996

Everything has changed...and yet, oddly, I feel as if I’ve gone through my whole life just waiting for the moment when everything would become clear.

For one thing, I know now that the main reason my father never brought us to Wales on holiday is that he himself was Welsh, and the chance of his family’s anonymity being destroyed too great. But I suppose I should try to get this down in some semblance of order, so more on that later.

My feelings for Severus haven’t altered one bit, even though I’m sure many people would have been completely repulsed upon learning the less savory aspects of his past. But because I was able to walk in his thoughts, know the utter wretchedness and confusion that had driven him to serve Voldemort for that brief period, I know any condemnation the world might give him would still be far less than what he has taken upon himself all these years.

I know he must have suffered some sort of sea change, for afterward he let me hold him for a long time. The Severus Snape the world knows probably would not have allowed such a thing. And oh, the feeling of his arms around me, the sound of his heart beating as I lay my head against his chest! I wanted nothing else than that, to let the world close down to the two of us and the feelings we shared for one another. Perhaps this unknown wizard, this Albus Dumbledore, who had somehow found it within him to trust Severus even after all the dark things he had done, had tried to offer comfort in his own way. But I got the feeling none of that counted for much. For whatever reason, my loving Severus despite his past gave him the first hope he had known in a long, long while.

We clung to each other for an uncounted length of time, and then he kissed me again, very gently, the touch of his mouth on mine so different from the mad impassioned kiss he had given me on the quay, a kiss that felt as if it had somehow been torn from him. I wanted to tell him I loved him, but somehow the words seemed silly and trite, and I remained silent. Then again, I was doing nothing to shield my thoughts from him; very likely he already knew the depth of my feelings.

Afterward we walked along the paths in the forest, still not speaking, just sharing the day and one another’s company. I wasn’t sure what I should say, and Severus seemed disinclined toward conversation, although not in a sullen sort of way. Rather, it seemed as if he just wanted to take the time to absorb what had happened, to fully understand that rather than driving me away, his revelations about his past had only made me want to be with him more. I suppose some would think me a fool for feeling that way, but if I’ve learned anything during the time I’ve worked with people, it’s that they have an infinite capacity for change, if only they would allow themselves to embrace it. Severus had let himself be trapped in the dark corridors of the past, caught in a maze of his own making. I could only hope that I had begun to make him see that he had so much of value to offer the world, that -- rather than an act of weakness -- his forgiving himself would be a sign of great strength.

Some time went by, and then he asked, in quite a normal voice, whether I were hungry. Surprisingly, I found that I was, rather; fresh air always gives me an appetite, and it had been a few hours since breakfast. I said I was, and offered to drive us further up the coast in search of something appetizing for lunch. Instead of demurring, as I half-expected he would, Severus said that sounded like a good idea, and we were off.

Despite all the time we had spent together previously, the rest of that day felt like a first date, for lack of a better term. I pointed the little Corsa northward along the B4572 until we came to the seaside village of Borth, where we followed our noses to some delectable fish and chips that we washed down with several pints of ale. After that we walked along the shore for a time and watched the tourists with their collapsible beach chairs and ludicrous sun hats -- “Muggles,” Severus said, in a half-amused, half-contemptuous tone, but I got the feeling much of his disdain had been tempered by my presence. Perhaps if I’d been raised in the wizarding world I would have felt the same, but I had been a Muggle, or at least brought up to think I was one, and I couldn’t feel the same scorn toward those who just looked to be ordinary people enjoying a holiday. In some ways, they were the lucky ones, after all -- at least they had never heard of Voldemort.

Severus talked about Hogwarts, and Dumbledore, and asked me about my schooling. In some ways, I couldn’t help but think that my own secondary education, lacking in Charms and Transfigurations as it might have been, was somewhat superior. At least I had had geography and algebra and physics, Latin and French, not to mention more composition classes than I cared to remember, but it seemed as if all those mundane subjects were abandoned in the wizarding world once children reached their eleventh year and were identified as having magical powers.

“How do they know?” I asked, pausing at the water’s edge, my jeans rolled up and my shoes dangling from my hand. Severus of course had refused to participate in any such undignified behavior and stood a few paces back, the hems of his black trousers liberally dusted with fine white sand.

“It’s always been that way,” he replied, as if surprised that I would ask such a question. “On your eleventh birthday, the owl comes with the invitation to Hogwarts.”

“As simple as that,” I commented. “And what happens if the prospective student was born to nonmagical parents? You hinted that that does occur occasionally.”

“In such cases, a representative from the school will often go to meet with the parents.”

I glanced over my shoulder at him, and pushed back a wayward strand of hair that had gotten caught in the fresh, sea-driven breeze. “Not you, I would think.”

“Of course not.” His mouth thinned. “Albus once said that I was ‘somewhat lacking in interpersonal skills.’”

“That’s an understatement,” I replied with a grin.

Severus frowned, the familiar deep line appearing between his black brows, and I laughed.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I said. “I love you, and even I know that.”

The air between us seemed to freeze, and I thought, Oh, God, that’s done it....

But then he -- well, it wasn’t exactly a smile, but the corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly, and the look he gave me was anything but cold. “Thank you for pointing that out,” he said, his tone dry, and suddenly I knew everything was all right. Maybe he couldn’t come right out and tell me he loved me, but at least he was willing to accept the fact that I loved him. The rest would come in time.

The drive back to Aber didn’t take more than an hour; at that point I was convinced that Severus would find some reason to disappear as he had done so often in the past, but he gave no indication that he intended to leave any time soon. So I parked the car behind the guest house, thanking God that the redoubtable Mrs. Evans supplied parking for her guests, as spots on the street were in short supply. We wandered down to the shore and walked along the Promenade all the way to the Castle grounds, where we spent more time exploring and enjoying the excellent view of the harbor from its commanding position on the promontory. And all the while I kept wondering what Severus’ purpose in such idleness was, as all of our previous meetings had had such set objectives.

Then I realized, as I stood on the hill above Aberystwyth and he kissed me there again, once a gaggle of German tourists had retreated down the path toward the parking lot, that he was merely trying to steal these moments with me, to take this time and hold it close, since the chance might not ever come again. That moment of enlightenment brought home to me how difficult and dangerous his life was. It had been easy to forget, for a few enchanted hours here along the Welsh coast, that a very great evil shadowed his life...and mine.

But I refused to let those dark thoughts ruin the day. If we made an odd pair, the dour-looking man with the unrelieved black clothing and the slightly bohemian young woman with wind-tousled hair in need of a combing, I certainly didn’t care. Let other people think of us what they might. At least here we were safely anonymous.

As the day slid toward dusk, we made our way back down to the pier, where we headed to the Brasserie and enjoyed a truly decadent meal. Of course I had to put it all on my credit card, but it was worth every penny. Severus looked concerned that once again I had to foot the bill, but I didn’t mind. He deserved a treat, and I could afford it. Besides, I was relatively certain that Voldemort’s minions lacked some of MI5’s investigative capabilities and probably weren’t up to tracking me down through my credit card use.

Afterward we watched the lights in the harbor, and then Severus finally walked me back to Bodalwyn House. I hesitated at the rear entrance. Part of me wanted -- oh, desperately wanted -- to invite him back inside with me. But I knew that would probably be rushing things a bit too much. Although the thought of Severus making love to me sent a shiver of delicious anticipation up my spine, I realized that I would have to be very, very careful. For a second, the face of the unknown girl he had assaulted all those years ago flickered into my mind, and I forced it away. I couldn’t help her now, and from what little Severus had told me of the Imperius Curse, very likely she would have had no recollection of what happened to her that night. That didn’t make it right, of course, far from it. However, I couldn’t help thinking that Severus had lived in a self-imposed prison because of what he'd done for far longer than anyone who might have been convicted of the actual crime probably would have served.

So I let him kiss me again, there on the back steps, a quick and hurried kiss. Then he reached out to brush his fingers against the side of my face and murmured, “I’ll come back as soon as I can.” And with that he melted off into the night, no doubt to find a safe alley or dark corner from which he could Disapparate unobserved.

For moments afterward I could still feel his touch against my cheek, the pressure of his lips on mine. I smiled, then let myself in, happy in the knowledge of a perfect day.

***


I had no way of knowing when Severus would return, of course, but Aberystwyth is not a large place, and I felt safe in wandering its environs, knowing that he could find me without too much difficulty whenever he did manage to get back. So the next morning, after fortifying myself with sausage and eggs at a little café down the street from the guest house, I wandered off to the Arts Centre, another place Mrs. Evans had suggested I would enjoy exploring.

Since I had time to kill, I walked there, just taking in the sights and sounds of the town. Although it was July, the University still had the summer term going on, and I saw a good number of students roaming the streets or clogging the outdoor tables at various eateries. Funny thing, though -- although of course they were a good bit closer to me in age than Severus, I didn’t feel much of a connection to any of them. My university days, short-lived as they had been, were now far behind me.

Mrs. Evans had told me it wouldn’t take much more than twenty minutes to make the walk, but she’d neglected to inform me that most of the journey would be uphill. By the time I got to the Arts Centre, I felt fairly winded, and so I stopped in a little café on the grounds to have some tea and get my breath back. Besides, it felt good to just sit there for a while and watch the crowds go by.

But then I felt as if I’d recovered myself enough to do a bit of shopping, and I forged ahead into the gift shop, which offered some lovely local pottery and other arts and crafts that ranged from hand-loomed shawls and wraps to beautiful silver jewelry studded with garnets and other cabochon stones. I paused, looking down into a case that held a lovely assortment of brooches. I’d never much been one for jewelry, but it would be nice to have something that reminded me of Aber, and a brooch pinned to the lapel of a coat or blazer wouldn’t get in the way as a ring or bracelet might.

Suddenly I got a prickly feeling along the back of my neck, as if someone were staring at me. I glanced up from the case to see a dark-haired woman who was probably in her late fifties looking straight at me, her face quite pale. Our eyes met, and she whispered, “Bettina?”

I froze. Bettina was my mother’s name, of course, and I did resemble her a great deal, save for the minor differences in our coloring. Clearing my throat, I said, “Excuse me?”

The woman blinked. “No, of course, you couldn’t be, but -- forgive me, but you look so much like someone I used to know.” Her accent was strong and lilting, clearly Welsh.

It couldn’t be a coincidence. God, how I wished Severus were there. Perhaps he would have been able to tell me whether this strange woman was a Death Eater or simply someone out of my foggy past. But I was alone, and forced to rely on my instincts -- which normally were quite good. So I took a breath and said, “My name is Celeste.”

If anything, she looked even more ashen after that statement. I could see her fingers tighten on the gaudy tapestry bag she held. “My dear,” she began, then paused. Her dark eyes seemed to water suddenly. “I’m your Aunt Bronwen.”

What? How? I opened my mouth, questions bubbling to my lips, and she held up a hand.

“Not here,” she said, casting a quick glance around the crowded shop. “I live just down the hill -- let’s grab a bus and have a chat, shall we?”

I wasn’t sure what to do, but I knew one thing -- I wasn’t about to let a chance to learn more about my family slip me by. So I nodded wordlessly and followed the strange woman out of the shop and out to the bus stop, where we took one of the numerous buses that trundled up and down the hill back into the town proper, where she apparently had a flat over a tea shop. It was a fussy, feminine apartment, with too many side tables and antimacassars for my taste, but it did seem to enhance her air of harmlessness. Once we were inside, I asked, “Are you one of my mother’s sisters?”

She’d slipped into the kitchen, apparently to set a kettle on the stove. “Some tea to settle my nerves,” she explained, then came back out into the crowded living room. “No, I’m from your father’s side of the family.”

I must have given her a skeptical glance, for she certainly didn’t resemble my redheaded father very much.

“Not by blood, dear,” she replied. “I was married to your Uncle Rhys -- one of your father’s older brothers.”

“‘Was’ married?”

Again her dark eyes got that misty look. “Gone,” she said. “In the war with You-Know-Who.” To my surprise, she crossed herself. For some reason I had never thought of witches and wizards as being particularly religious, but on one of the walls behind her, almost hidden by a plethora of decorative plates and pastels of idealized countrysides, was a portrait of Jesus.

Feeling more than a little overwhelmed, I sank onto a floral-upholstered couch and waited while she tended to the tea. After she had deposited a Royal Albert tea set on the tabletop and poured me a cup, she settled herself in a pink wing chair and sighed.

“You look so much like her,” this unknown aunt of mine said. “Your hair is redder, and your eyes closer to green -- hers were hazel as well, but with more brown. We were school friends, you know.”

“I don’t know very much,” I said. “I’m only just now finding out something about my past.”

“But you do know -- ” And she paused delicately.

“That my parents were wizards?” I finished. “Yes, I’ve learned that much.”

Nodding sadly, Bronwen commented, “I was never quite sure that keeping such a secret was a good idea. But Avery and Bettina insisted it was for the best, and since the rest of the family was in agreement, I had to go along with it.”

“Even after -- ” I swallowed. “Even after they died?”

Again she made the sign of the cross. “Even then. My dear, don’t you know anything of how the Fidelius Charm works?”

“The what?”

“The Fidelius Charm.” She sipped at her tea, then set the cup down on the marble-topped coffee table. “Your mother was the Secret-Keeper -- she always excelled at Charms. Anyhow, the entire family swore never to reveal the fact of your existence or your whereabouts, nor to approach you or your parents for fear of drawing attention. And even if the Secret-Keeper dies, the Charm lives on. We couldn’t have come to you, even after we learned what happened to your parents.”

“Well, that’s useful, isn’t it?” I snapped. “What would have happened if my parents had been smashed up on the M60 when I was only twelve, or even sixteen, instead of nineteen? Who would have taken care of me then?”

“Celeste, dear -- ” She did look truly distressed, but I was also angry, far angrier than I would have thought I could be. Fine for her to sit here and worry and fret in her pink living room with her Old Country Roses tea set while I had been orphaned and thought myself completely alone in the world.

I broke in. “If Severus hadn’t found me, I’d still be blundering around in an oblivious fog -- ”

“Severus?” Bronwen repeated, shock clear on her round face. “Severus Snape?”

“Yes. He found me in Manchester, and -- ”

“Oh, dear.” The teacup rattled against its saucer as she picked it up and gulped the hot liquid inside. “Really, I’m sure it’s because you know nothing of the wizarding world, but Severus Snape is not the sort of man you should be spending any sort of time with.”

“Well, if being a member of the wizarding world means being a blind, prejudiced -- ” With a conscious effort I bit off the rest of the words. One would think I’d gotten my temper from my redheaded father, but in actuality he’d been quite a mild man, and my mother the fiery half of the couple. Luckily for me, Bronwen didn’t look angry, but just exceedingly worried. In a somewhat calmer tone, I continued, “He’s been very kind to me.”

“Kind?” One eyebrow lifted, and she shook her head, as if she couldn’t quite connect that word with Severus Snape. “My dear, he’s a known Death Eater -- ”

Former Death Eater,” I corrected her. “And you needn’t worry about any of that, as he told me the truth about himself. Besides, Albus Dumbledore is the one who told him to teach me.”

“Oh, well, Professor Dumbledore...” The words trailed off, and my Aunt Bronwen suddenly appeared wary. “Teach you what, precisely?”

“Magical defense, mainly,” I replied. “And something of Occlumency and Legilimency. Apparently I’m something of a natural Legilimens.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. What a child you were -- pulling prophecies out of thin air, knowing what people were going to say before they said it -- ”

She spoke so casually of my childhood, of memories and times that had been lost to me forever. I made myself take a sip of the strong tea before asking the question that had been tearing at me all along. “Why?

To her credit, she didn’t pretend to misunderstand my meaning. For a few seconds she remained silent. One abstracted hand went up to smooth a nonexistent hair away from her face. Despite the fact that she had to be in her middle or late fifties, no gray showed in her hair, although whether that was due to magic or a deft hand with the dye bottle, I couldn’t be sure. Then she sighed and said, “How much do we know of the ‘whys' of anything? Why were you born with these powers? Why is Harry Potter the boy in the prophecy, and not someone else? Why -- ”

“Who is Harry Potter?”

Bronwen gaped at me, as if she couldn’t believe I would ask such a question. “But of course you couldn’t possibly know about any of that,” she said immediately, excusing my ignorance. “That’s a story for another time. Simply said, he’s the only person to ever survive an attack by You-Know-Who, and apparently he is the only one who can defeat...him.” She cast a quick glance over her shoulder, as if she expected to see Voldemort lurking in the corner behind the silk ficus tree.

“Does Voldemort know about that?” I asked, and saw her flinch at the name.

“Of course he does,” she replied, after another one of those furtive looks behind her. “Why do you think he tried to kill the boy?”

With some impatience, I inquired, “But what does any of that have to do with me?”

“We still don’t know for sure. But it was on your eleventh birthday that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named tried to kill the Potter boy, and somehow -- somehow you felt it.”

“I felt it?” Suddenly I had the sense that the world had turned to quicksand, that I was being pulled down into a place where there was no refuge, no solid place to hold on to.

“Yes -- we were having a family get-together at your parents’ home. You’d had a party earlier in the day for your friends, but this was later in the evening. And then, just as you were about to blow out the candles on your cake, you gave a scream the likes of which I’d never heard before or since. You clapped your hand to your forehead, and we could all see it -- a scar appeared there, in the same place, as it turns out, that Harry Potter himself has a scar, which he got from surviving You-Know-Who’s Killing Curse.”

Apparently glad to have gotten that over with, my Aunt Bronwen allowed herself another large swallow of tea, looking rather regretful that it wasn’t something a bit stronger. She gave me a sidelong glance, as if expecting me to say something, but I sat there, frozen, my mind working furiously. That first time I’d seen Severus, I’d woken up with a bloody awful headache that was centered, curiously enough, high up on my forehead. Could I have had some sort of horrible flashback to my eleventh birthday? And had Severus already begun to put the improbable pieces together? If he had, that would certainly explain why he’d felt the need to get out of the house and someplace where he could get himself a stiff drink.

All I was left with, however, was the same question. “Why?”

My aunt shook her head. “As to that...no one of us knew for sure. Oh, you’d been very gifted from an early age -- why, before you were even four you were telling people where they’d mislaid their glasses, who was going to drop in on your parents next, that sort of thing. At first everyone found it amusing and said they’d thought something like that might have happened -- the child of a seventh son and a seventh daughter.” She gave me a quizzical look. “I suppose you didn’t know you had quite such a large family, did you?”

“Severus told me,” I said absently.

“Hmph.” Although I got the feeling she wanted to expound further on Severus Snape’s shortcomings, she limited herself to that one disapproving throat-clearing and then went on, “But then it was things like telling your Uncle Emrys not to take his broom to the Quidditch match -- and sure enough, the man had a midair collision on the way there that landed him right in St. Mungo’s -- or you saying that your Aunt Marigold should move her potions supplies someplace else, and luckily she listened, for didn’t the Axe flood that year and go straight into her cellars?”

Her face told me she expected a response, so I stammered, “Well, erm -- if you say so -- ”

“At any rate, it was all mostly harmless, and certainly helpful to those who paid heed to your words, young as you were. But then the dreams started, when you were about ten years old. Nightmares of dark forms, and snakes, and glimpses of horrible things...” Bronwen shuddered. “The worst of it was, you’d have these dreams, and then we’d hear tell of the latest evildoings by You-Know-Who and his followers, and they were always what you’d dreamed. Drove your parents about mad with worry, as you might guess.”

“But why didn’t they tell anyone else?” I demanded. “It sounds as if this Albus Dumbledore is the one person everyone goes to for help -- why on earth wouldn’t they ask his advice?”

My aunt fidgeted with her teacup. “Well, your mother had a bit of bad blood with the Headmaster, and proud as she was, she didn’t want to have to ask for his help.”

“‘Bad blood’?” I repeated. “What on earth for?”

“A foolish prank, really, but Dumbledore was new to his post back then, and I suppose he had to make an example of her. Besides, Quidditch is a serious matter.”

I suddenly felt that if Bronwen mentioned one more thing or person I’d never heard of before I’d scream. “What is Quidditch?” I ground out.

She got another one of those startled looks in her eyes, but managed to reply, “A game, played on broomsticks. Think of it as football in midair -- although it’s much more complicated than that.”

At first I wanted to laugh. Football? Was she serious? But then I recalled the general teeth-gnashing and hair-pulling that regularly went on at Topham’s whenever Manchester United fudged a match and decided that here at least was something the wizard and Muggle worlds had in common. “So what did she do?”

“Cast an EverSteer Charm on her broom right before the big match with Hufflepuff, even though the brooms are supposed to be impervious to outside charms. She was Seeker for Gryffindor, and the best Charms student Professor Flitwick said he’d ever seen....”

I sighed, sorted through the questions I wanted to ask, came up with roughly five hundred, and shrugged. “I take it that’s against the rules?”

“I should say! So Dumbledore found out somehow -- I suppose her hanging off one end upside down without appearing to steer the thing tipped him off -- and he banned her from Quidditch for the rest of her time at Hogwarts. Oh, that set her nose out of joint, I can tell you. Called the Headmaster an interfering old busybody and a few other choice phrases I shan’t repeat here. But she was still angry over it years later.”

Well, that was my mother all over again. Oh, I loved her -- she was the sort of person who somehow managed to charm everyone around her -- but she could hold a grudge like nobody’s business. It didn’t take much for me to believe she would avoid seeking Dumbledore’s help, even for such a serious matter as her only daughter’s dark and developing power of prophecy.

“All right,” I said after a moment. “I suppose I can see why my parents might not ask for help. But to take me away from everyone, to hide me -- well, what was the point? Severus made it sound as if everyone thought Voldemort had been defeated for a time.”

She couldn’t avoid wincing at the mention of the Dark Lord’s name, but Bronwen said simply, “Your parents knew he wasn’t dead and gone, not completely. You kept having the nightmares...and so, fearing that somehow he would track you down as the connection grew stronger, they took you away. We all took part in the Fidelius Charm. And then your mother kept casting charms on you as you grew up, to keep your magical abilities at bay.”

“And she was just going to keep doing that forever? Sounds a bit impractical, don’t you think?” Anger sharpened the sarcasm in my voice, but Bronwen merely sighed, looking very weary all of a sudden.

“Of course she hoped -- we all hoped -- that You-Know-Who would be defeated, that his death would release you from this odd connection you have.” She let out a breath, then asked hesitantly, “Do you -- that is, do you still -- ”

“Do I still dream of Voldemort?” I asked, my tone harsh enough to have come straight from Severus’ own mouth. Bronwen flinched again. “Sometimes. Of course I had no idea who or what I was dreaming about, not until Professor Snape told me. And many of my powers seemed to come back not long after the car accident.”

“I would expect so,” Bronwen said, “since your mother was no longer there to keep blocking your magic.”

Not knowing what else to do, I drank from my teacup, even though by then the liquid inside was barely lukewarm.

“I know this must be very difficult for you, my dear,” she said. “As for the final question -- why you? -- I don’t know. Your parents didn’t know. Your gift for Divination is very, very strong. Your father once told me he thought you might be connected with V -- with him simply because the conflict with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was the thing that would define several generations of wizards, the one thing around which all our possible futures centered. So naturally it would draw your mind like iron filings to a lodestone.”

“Then what should I do?” I asked, my voice hard, barely my own. “Do I keep running and hiding, all the while hoping that someone takes this bastard out before he catches up with me?”

“C -- catches up with you?” my aunt quavered.

“Why do you think I’m here? On holiday? I ran -- ran because two dementors almost got me, just outside of Manchester. Severus seems to think I’m safe here for now, but how much does that really mean?”

At the mention of dementors, all the blood seemed to drain from Bronwen’s round cheeks. Still she managed to say, “They’ve never been spotted in Wales -- at least not yet. We are somewhat out of the way here, thank God.”

Her words did relieve me somewhat, but my thoughts kept jumbling all over one another, trying to reconcile what my aunt had just told me with the parents I thought I had known. Oh, it was one thing to be told by someone who hadn’t known them that they had once been wizards. But to hear Aunt Bronwen talk about my mother hanging upside-down off broomsticks and my father discussing my gifts of foresight as if he were talking about my latest test scores was enough to make me feel quite wild. I longed for Severus. I wanted to discuss these latest revelations with him, to see if my aunt had let something drop that made no sense to me but might possibly be of vital importance.

“No one knows I’m here,” I said quickly, for my aunt still looked strained and worried. “I didn’t say anything to any of my friends back in Manchester, so no one can get any information out of them, even if they know the right people to ask.”

“No one?” she repeated.

“Just Severus,” I replied. “But I trust him.”

That statement didn’t appear to reassure her -- if anything, it did the opposite -- but she didn’t know him as I did. So I added, “And so does Albus Dumbledore.”

To which my aunt gave a faint nod, and managed a watery smile. If it required the Headmaster’s name to give Severus any sort of credibility for her, so be it.

For myself, I knew I could trust him with my life....

The Overlooked by ChristineX [Reviews - 3]

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