Severus roused himself at eight the next morning after a paltry three hours of sleep. He cleaned himself and donned fresh robes. Once presentable, he went to Lupin's room.

The werewolf would have to remain in the Snape manor until he was well again, a detail Severus had not overlooked; he had already assigned the house elves their responsibilities for looking after him. However, he felt the need to check on Lupin that morning before he shut himself up in his laboratory for the day.

Severus came to the heavy door of the guest room and opened without knocking. He was greeted by the sight of his wife, bending over Lupin's form.

"Celeste?" Severus said sharply. Celeste's head snapped up. "What are you doing here?"

"I was checking on him to make sure he was alright. I didn't know whether you would bother to," she added.

"I do not like him, but I am not altogether unprofessional, madam," Severus said, drawing nearer. "How is he?"

"He's still sleeping," she said. "I wish I was," she yawned.

"Go back to bed."

"No. I have to be up to look after Speranza anyways."

"Hmm." Severus uncorked a bottle of a shadowy green potion and poured a dollop of it into a glass. He stirred in some water from the pitcher.

"Lupin? Lupin!" Severus barked.

Lupin groggily squinted in Celeste's direction.

"No. Over here."

Lupin rolled his head to face Severus. He made a strangled sound in his throat and his eyes fluttered shut once more.

"Hold his head up for me," Severus ordered Celeste. With Lupin's head at the right angle, Severus pressed the rim of the glass against the man's lips.

"Lupin, you have to drink. It's a restive potion."

Miserably, Lupin's eyes cracked open again and he forced his lips to take the liquid. In a few minutes the potion was consumed and Celeste dropped the man's head back on the pillow.

"He will be asleep for several hours more," Severus said. "It would be best not to disturb him until then."

Celeste nodded and followed him out.

As they sat at the table in the kitchen eating the breakfast that Constanza had prepared, a white owl glided in the window and came to rest upon the clay knob of a crock sitting on the tabletop. Severus snatched the letter.

"Malfoy," he muttered darkly. He quickly read the letter, tossed it to one side, and continued eating his breakfast. When the owl hooted expectantly, he waved it off with an impatient hand.

"What did the letter say?" Constanza asked.

"Lucius is peeved with me for not owling him about a visit. He invited me to come by a couple weeks ago and I never did."

"Are you avoiding him?" Celeste asked.

Severus looked at her shrewdly. "I suppose it wouldn't do well for others to begin to suspect that, too." He leaned back in his chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Malfoy is having a dinner this Friday. He wants me to come, with my wife. Perhaps I should go, after all."

Severus saw the gleam in Celeste's eye and reminded himself that she had been trapped in the manor for nearly three weeks, with no company besides an infant daughter, a recluse mother-in-law, and occasionally a werewolf. "Would you like to go?" he asked.

"I haven't anything to wear," she said. Severus rolled his eyes. He had helped her pack all her things after all, and had witnessed any deficit in her wardrobe.

"Well, providing that calamity solves itself by the end of the week, would you like to go?"

"Yes."

"Very well, then," Severus said, flipping the letter over onto its face and scribbling something on the back. He tied the parchment to the owl's leg and the bird left.

X X X

Celeste made a sighing noise every time she finished a page and turned it over, Severus couldn't help but notice. He looked in her direction more than once as she took notes for him from a stack of thick and mildewy old tomes in the corner of his study. She was chiseling her way through the seven-volume set Severus had on lunar forces.

She sighed once more and flicked over a page, causing Severus to look up from his own book. He watched distractedly as she pulled a lock of hair behind her ear. He was not used to having someone else so close to him while he worked.

Severus forced himself to get back to work by reminding himself what Dumbledore would say if he could see him now. It would probably be some annoying, ambiguous statement that would haunt him for years to come.

"Curse the old man," Severus muttered under his breath.

"Pardon?" Celeste called over her shoulder.

"Nothing," he growled.

Celeste merely sighed and turned the page. Again Severus's eyes were drawn to her. He cast about for something to say.

"Have you found anything interesting?"

"No. Then again, I'm reading the volume that deals with the waning gibbous, so I don't exactly expect there will be much relevant information here."

"I see."

The curl on her neck, the one and the same curl he had been so entranced by the preceding day in the kitchen, shifted against her skin as she turned her head back to her work. His fingers twitched, and he fixed a glare on nothing in particular.

"How do you suppose Lupin is faring?" Celeste asked suddenly. "It's nearly three. Should we check on him?"

Severus leaned back. "We could see if he's awake. He may be hungry."

"I was thinking I could go get some tea anyways. I'll check on him on the way," she said as she rose from her chair and stretched. Severus watched the way she rubbed her neck with her hands.

When the door clicked shut behind her Severus buried his face in his hands.

X X X

Lupin was conscious by the evening and off by the following day. His wounds had healed nicely, Severus had his control transformation notes, and Lupin had experienced the most attentive post-transformation care he had ever had, or so he told a flattered Celeste.

Friday evening found Severus viewing himself critically in his mirror. His robes, black as always, were of a fine material that would quickly place his status as a wealthy pureblood. He hoped his dress was enough to intimidate others into avoiding conversation with him; he found these dinners noxiously tedious.

Constanza had more than happily agreed to watch Speranza for the evening, and Severus had suddenly realized an unexpected benefit of having a small child when it occurred to him that he could use Speranza as an excuse for him and Celeste to leave the dinner early. The very thought that he could halve the duration of the ordeal made the whole evening ahead of him less daunting.

He adjusted his high collar and stepped back from the mirror. He doubted he would ever be satisfied by what he saw there.

Celeste was already waiting at the bottom of the stairs, her cloak wrapped about her to protect her from the chill of the evening. She gave him an odd sort of smile when he descended. She seemed to be anticipating the dinner. Severus draped his cloak about his shoulders and opened the door for her. "Madam."

She passed through the doorway and he followed her down the steps. They would be walking to the perimeter of the property to Apparate to the front steps of the Malfoy manor; it was the proper way to arrive for such an occasion.

After they had Apparated onto the manor steps, a house elf answered the door at their knock. "Sir," it squeaked, bowing its head, "Madam."

Severus and Celeste followed the young house elf through the hallway of a grandly decorated manor. The taste in this household seemed to be for curios and objets d'art that Lucius and his wife had brought back from distant parts of the world while on their travels. It was apparent that Lucius merely sought a way to show off. He was a sophisticated little dandy, or so Severus would have described him.

The house elf led them towards the sounds of people talking and laughing, and soon they came to a large room that Severus saw was filled with individuals of varying degrees of acquaintance and nobody.

"Severus!" a jovial voice called from somewhere nearby. Lucius Malfoy came into view and gave Severus a falsely warm handshake. "And you brought your lovely wife. Stella, was it?"

"Celeste," Severus said through his clenched teeth.

"Ah, yes, that's right," Lucius said dismissively, looking Celeste up and down. "I specified in my letter that he was to bring you, my dear," he said.

"That was...very kind of you," Celeste said uncertainly.

"Please give your cloaks to the house elf," Lucius said. "Dobby, come here."

The house elf, Dobby, came forward a little warily and held out his arms to take the cloaks.

"Dobby is a terrible house elf, but I'm lending the other one to my mother-in-law. She's bedridden." He turned to the house elf. "But if we have another incident like the one with the ironing this morning, I will have you head cut off and put on the wall, bed-ridden mother-in-law or no." The house elf squeaked and dashed from the room with Severus and Celeste's cloaks. Lucius laughed wickedly. "I was at the Black household yesterday. Have you ever heard of their stuffed elf head collection? I have to say I quite like the idea. It seems to have some sway with Dobby, at least."

With that, Lucius was abruptly distracted by a passing guest and seemed to forget Severus and Celeste. Celeste turned to her husband. "Stuffed heads?"

Celeste soon spotted someone she knew and left Severus to say hello to her. Alone now, and having no desire to involve himself in meaningless conversation with the crème of inbred pureblood society, he shifted to occupy a niche between a tapestry and the doorway so that he could watch the occupants of the room. They were mostly young people, and the majority of them seemed to be behaving much less composedly than if their older acquaintances had been present. The chatter was noisy, the laughter decadent, and rather too much wine was being served. He noted with slight satisfaction that Celeste was holding the same glass she had been given half an hour ago; however, the group of people she was talking with were a little too rosy-cheeked in his opinion. One young man in particular seemed to be a little too friendly, perhaps a side effect of the wine, perhaps not. Severus ground his teeth as the man's hand brushed Celeste's elbow.

Dinner was announced after an hour of Severus's skeptical observings. The guests rose and walked to the dining room across the hall in small groups and pairs; Celeste found Severus and took his arm. At the dining table, however, their names were on small cards at nearly opposite ends of the table. Severus was positioned between two people he did not know, and sat across from a couple who seemed very involved with each other. Celeste, on the other hand, sat at the head of the table on Lucius Malfoy's right.

Celeste cast him a somewhat surprised, if apprehensive, look, and took her seat.

The seven-course meal passed rather slowly in Severus's opinion; then again, he spent the meal analyzing Celeste and Lucius's every move. It seemed Lucius would alternate between talking in a low voice to Celeste while refilling her goblet, and talking loudly to a man on his left about money, travel, and other things that supposedly impressed young women. Severus looked up and down the table for Narcissa, wondering what she thought of the display, when he spotted her at the other end off the table doing much the same as her husband with a pair of young men. It would seem that Lucius and Narcissa were well suited for each other.

As Severus's eyes dragged along the far side of the table, seeking a distraction from Lucius and Celeste, he came gaze to gaze with the heavy-lidded eyes of Bellatrix Lestrange. A slow, cat-like smile crept to her lips. She nudged her husband's arm and Rudolphus turned and spotted Severus as well. He suggestively raised his eyebrows, and then resumed the conversation he was having with a man across from him. Bellatrix remained smiling at Severus in an unnerving way.

Severus directed his attention at his dessert before him. An uncomfortable encounter after supper was no doubt in the cards. He could not fathom what it was that Lucius had wanted to discuss with him and the Lestranges; but no doubt Bellatrix and her husband already knew, putting him at a disadvantage.

The dessert dishes were cleared and the guests rose from the table in an ununified manner. Some people gathered around the fireplace while others wandered back to the drawing room. Severus looked about for Celeste and spotted her at one side of the room, waiting for him, when he suddenly found himself surrounded by Rudolphus, Bellatrix, and Rabastan Lestrange, Rudolphus's brother.

"Severus Snape," Bellatrix said in a singsong voice. "Long time, no see."

"Mrs. Lestrange," Severus said curtly. "What a pleasure to see you again."

"How are things, holed up in that old school all the time?" Rudolphus asked.

"No less tedious than in my schooldays, Lestrange," Severus said loftily, warranting a chuckle from Rabastan.

"Well," Bellatrix said pleasantly, "Lucius and we have been putting our heads together and we think that we may have come up with something to ease the boredom."

"Let's use Lucius's study, shall we?" Rudolphus said, leading the way out of the dining room.

Severus cast a look in the direction where he had last seen Celeste and found she had vanished. Feeling the excuse that he needed to find his wife was a rather weak one, he surrendered and followed the Lestranges out of the room.

They entered a small room on the second floor in which a fire blazed hungrily in the hearth. Rabastan tossed a log onto the flames with a brutish hand and remained standing silently by the mantle, as Bellatrix seated herself in a high-backed chair like a queen and Rudolphus went to stand behind her.

"What is this about, that you and Lucius have been apparently hounding me down for the past few weeks?" Severus drawled in a bored voice.

Rudolphus grinned. "The Dark Lord, Severus."

Severus froze upon hearing the unexpected name. "Pardon?"

Rudolphus stepped out from behind his wife's chair and crept across the oriental rug toward Severus. "The Dark Lord, Severus. We are going to return him to power."

Severus's mask of disdain covered the muted shock he was feeling. Was this to be the second rising of the Dark Lord, so soon? No, it couldn't be, Severus told himself. The Potter child didn't even know how to hold a wand yet.

"I see," Severus said with a contemptuous curl of his lip. "And how exactly were you planning on doing that?"

Bellatrix rose from her chair suddenly, a furious flush colouring her face. "You were in his inner circle, with us!" she hissed. "Together, we were his most staunch and loyal supporters. Don't you want him restored, so that we may continue to help him with his work?"

Bellatrix's legendary volatility had been sparked, Severus saw. "It is not that I believe the Dark Lord will not or cannot return to power," Severus amended. "It is merely that no one knows where he is." He gave them all a rather supercilious look. "As such, your plan to restore him to his former position seems quite ambitious, indeed."

Rudolphus was looking at him intently. "What if I told you that the Aurors who nearly put your dear father in prison knew where he was?"

Severus sneered. "Frank and Alice Longbottom have Voldemort's mailing address in their address book, do they?"

Bellatrix bristled indignantly. "As head Aurors, they are privy to much of the Ministry's secret information. They've been investigating Voldemort's whereabouts for the past three years and we believe they have finally uncovered something. Lucius says he saw a report—"

"Where is Lucius, if I may ask?" Severus wondered aloud. "It was he who mentioned this to me in the first place."

"Lucius will not be interrogating the Longbottoms with us. His position in the Ministry is too valuable to the Dark Lord for it to be threatened," Rudolphus said.

"I see." Severus looked at each of the Lestanges' faces in turn. He noticed that Rabastan had not said anything, but he wasn't surprised, as Rabastan was reputed to be a rather thick individual.

"There is no need for you to question my loyalties," Severus lied at length. "If the Dark Lord has a staunch and zealous supporter, it has always been myself. I merely doubt that the Longbottoms have any idea where he is, and I believe it would be fruitless to question them." He paused for effect. "The Longbottoms are a very popular couple. They are both war heroes, and I think that should any ill befall them, one way or another, wizarding society would demand a harsh justice to whomever was responsible."

"So," Rudolphus said, "you are not with us."

"I do not think it would be prudent," Severus said.

"I'm sure your tune will change once we get the information we want from the Longbottoms," Rudolphus said.

"Perhaps."

"Very well. But keep your mouth shut about this, Snape." Rudolphus paused and smiled. "You were always good at doing that."

Severus gave a polite nod of his head, and swept from the room.

Poking his head into several noisy rooms, Severus could not find Celeste anywhere. After his tense encounter with the Lestranges he wanted nothing more than to collect his wife and leave early, but Celeste had apparently been swallowed up by the monstrous house.

Severus twisted the latch of a secluded room at the back of the house, not really believing he would find Celeste this far from the rest of the party, but checking all the same. He was somewhat surprised to see that Celeste was standing in the room by the fire, alone. Severus quietly stepped into the room and shut the door noiselessly behind himself.

A log in the grate collapsed, causing an upward shower of sparks to rise in the smoke. The light of the flickering flames played against her white skin, making it a golden orange, and her hair gleamed darkly in the dim room. As always, one stray curl had unraveled itself from the others and hung against her neck.

Severus found himself feeling oddly impure as he stood there in the shadows watching her. It was perhaps because of the sinister encounter he had just had with his former Death Eater companions. It was a bad idea to come to this dinner.

Celeste sighed, making the same noise Severus had grown accustomed to hearing the past week while he worked beside her. She raised her wineglass so that the rim grazed her lip, and held it there.

Severus was about to step forward and speak to her, tell her something, say that perhaps they should leave, now, together, when the double doors at the far side of the room opened and Lucius Malfoy entered the room.

Lucius's white teeth gleamed in the dim light like the fangs of an animal that had spotted its prey. He closed the doors behind him with a snap, and, having caught Celeste's attention, closed the distance between the two of them.

"You got away from me, my dear," he rebuked.

"I was looking for my husband."

"Ah. And where has he got to, do you suppose? I haven't seen him for the better part of a half hour." Lucius grinned. "Do you think he left the party without you?"

"I should hope not."

Lucius laughed indulgently. "Your glass is nearly empty. May I fill it for you?"

"No. Thank you."

Lucius filled his own glass and went to stand close to Celeste. Lowly and deliberately, he said, "You are a very lovely woman, do you know that?"

Celeste did not respond, though Severus could see her shoulders tense.

"Does Severus ever tell you so?" Lucius smiled when she didn't answer and took a leisurely swig from his glass. "That's unfortunate."

A tense pause ensued while Lucius nursed his glass.

"What do you see in him, if you don't mind my asking?"

Severus began to suspect that Lucius was a little drunk, if he was daring to be so blunt in his approach.

"What do you mean?" Celeste asked.

Lucius seemed to pick his words. "I mean, the quality that beautiful people usually value the most in others, is beauty, my dear. You are quite beautiful. Severus is not."

"I like his face. He looks like his mother, and my daughter looks like him."

"Unfortunate for your daughter," Lucius said dryly, taking another sip from his glass.

"He has been good to me," Celeste defended.

"Good!" Lucius laughed. "I could tell you stories about Severus that would change your mind about that rather quickly."

"I don't know if I care to hear them," Celeste said.

Lucius swirled the wine in his glass. "You're even lovelier when you're afraid." Lucius reached out and touched the curl on her neck. Celeste tried to pull away, but his hand was already wrapped round the back of her neck, holding her in place as he whispered with winey breath against her cheek.

"I've known your husband all his life. I was there when they put the Dark Mark on his arm. I was there when–"

Lucius stopped abruptly. His eyes had met Severus's from around the shell-like curve of Celeste's ear.

Celeste, sensing the third presence that had caused Lucius to stop, turned to look over her shoulder. Her wide eyes met Severus's, and Severus at last stepped out of the shelter of the shadows.

"Celeste," he said simply. In a colder voice, "Lucius."

Lucius quickly withdrew his mouth from where it had been pressed against Celeste's cheekbone and guiltily shoved his hand in his robes.

"Severus," Lucius said. Celeste did not say anything. "You should know better than to play the spy in someone else's house."

Severus merely looked at him.

"I have a party to host. I should go." With that, Lucius left the room and closed the doors behind him.

Celeste had her back to him as she stared into the fire before her. Severus wished that she was facing him, but he couldn't think of anything to say to make her turn around. He walked forward until he was standing beside her and stared into the flames with her until the heat hurt his eyes.

"How long were you watching for?"

"Since Lucius entered the room. I was going to ask if you wanted to leave."

"I wish you had."

They were silent again for a few minutes.

"Would you like to go now?" Severus asked. "I doubt we will have to make our excuses to our hosts."

Celeste did not respond. Severus looked at her.

"Celeste?"

Celeste turned suddenly and faced him. Her blue eyes were dark and uncertain in colour in the firelight.

"Why did you do it?"

"Do what?" he asked.

Celeste extended one hand towards Severus. She grasped his wrist and pulled it towards her; Severus could feel his skin tingle under her touch. Slowly, deliberately, she pushed up his sleeve.

Severus stared down at the gruesome black mark on his arm.

"That," she said.

Severus raised his eyes to meet hers, her own dark and ambiguous eyes. "I didn't," he said.

Celeste looked at him, confused. "Then who made that choice, if it wasn't you?"

Severus contemplated the weight of his answer. "Those who had more power over my life than I did."

Something akin to compassion flickered in Celeste's eyes, then was gone. She dropped his hand and turned back to the fire.

The curl on her neck gleamed golden in the firelight, and cast a twirling bluish shadow on her fair skin. Unbidden, as Severus watched himself almost with horror, his hand rose and brushed the curl off her neck.

She did not pull away.