Chapter 19:

"There was a storm here last night," Ron told Harry through floo. Every since Hermione had told of her suspicions, the Weasleys in New York had been checking in every so often with the Aurors. Kiki put down her quill.

"A storm? My Sam can't stand storms," she said, chin resting on her head. "That is, if she can remember she can't stand storms. You think she's still a light sleeper?"

"I don't know," Hermione said, poking her head in next to Ron's. "But how many Aurors are over here?"

"Ace is over there," Harry replied, "as is Kingsley and a few others from other teams. We should find her."

"Yes, but you two should get your heads out of the floo and go have fun! It's your vacation!" Kiki mock-scolded the two Weasleys. Hermione and Ron laughed as they ended their conversation.

"Uncle Severus, what are you doing?" asked a little voice. Severus looked up from his work and then down at the Lupin girl standing next to him. He was in the Hogwarts library, doing some research to help find Sam faster. It was also the Saturday before the Hogwarts' students returned home for the holidays and usually teachers were preparing last minute exams before they lost them to Santa Claus, sugarplums, gingerbread cookies and presents. Severus sighed and put down his quill.

"Nothing, Lily, just doing a little work."

"That doesn't look like Potions work to me."

"Well, well, well, aren't we very astute."

"Thank you. But it still looks like Charms to me. Isn't that Aunt Mione's specialty?"

"Your Aunt Mione is an insufferable know-it-all and happens to have many specialties."

"But still…shouldn't Mr. Flitwick be doing this?"

"This isn't for a class, Lily."

"Then what's it for?" Lily asked. Severus sighed. There were days it was easy to forget that Lily, Jamie and Sam were all six-years-old and then there were the days where it was painfully obvious they were still little girls. And sometimes, both could happen within one conversation.

"I'm researching something to help us bring Sam back, okay, Lily?" Lily nodded and skipped out of the library, much to Madame Pince's dismay. She huffed but turned away with a look from Severus. A half hour later, the library door opened and Severus feared it was Jamie, who was a lot more persistent than her sister. The person took a seat across from Severus, who looked up to see a different Lupin sitting there—Remus. "What do you want, Lupin?"

"To help," Remus replied. "Lily told me you were doing research, so I thought I'd help a little."

Severus stared at Remus before saying, "Thank you. I haven't read these yet." With that, he pushed some books towards the DADA professor. Remus smiled and started to read.

Kiki walked out of the ministry, intent on heading straight home. However, Harmony and Bianca appeared and grabbed her arms. "What are you guys doing?" Kiki asked, being dragged away from the apparition point to Hogsmeade and to the direct one to Diagon Alley. "I have to go home! I have two children to take care of and a husband to drag out of the library!"

"Don't worry. That's what my husband is for," Harmony said. "You are in need of a major girls' night out!"

"No husbands. No kids. No worrying about husbands and/or kids," Bianca added as they arrived at their destination. Inside the restaurant sat Eden, Tonks (with a cat-who-ate-the-canary look on her face), Ginny and Luna. Bianca and Harmony pushed Kiki into a nearby chair. "And we'll tie you up if you don't stay."

"Why does everybody say that? And how long did you know about this?" Kiki nearly all but attacked Tonks, who merely grinned larger. "DAMN YOU ALL! Alright, I'll stay. But NO dessert. Once again, husband to drag out of the library."

"What's Severus doing in the library anyway?" Eden asked, turning from Ginny. "Is it about the tests before Christmas? I know those are coming up."

"It's about Sam. Everything is about Sam," Kiki whispered. Luna leaned over and squeezed one of her hands. "He's trying to find some spell that might explain why she hasn't tried to contact us."

"What's if it's Stockholm Syndrome?" Bianca asked, after they had ordered. Everyone looked at her. "I had to do a project on it while attending muggle university. It may explain a lot."

Harmony nudged Bianca. "Do tell," she urged as Kiki leaned forward.

Bianca blushed from all the attention as now everyone at the table was still staring at her. "Well, it's basically where the hostage or kidnapped child in this case, will start to become almost brainwashed by his or her captors and become loyal to them. They will not question them and defend what these captors do."

"Maybe that's it then," Kiki said, digging into her food. They turned the conversation to a lighter topic before they finished their meal. With that, they dispersed. Bianca and Ginny returned to Grimmauld Place together.

"I feel bad," Bianca said, suddenly. Ginny gave her a look. "I didn't tell the whole truth about Stockholm. The hostages take on this loyalty to their captors because of their fear of what the captors will do or have done."

"No, you had to. That probably would've scared Kiki," Ginny said.

"I just hope it isn't the case with Sam."

"Me too."

Kiki shrugged off her cloak when she got back to Hogwarts. "I see you left the library," she said, walking over to hug her husband.

"Of course. I had two children to feed. Don't ask how the kitchen has breast milk because I didn't want to know." Severus buried his head into her hair. "Remus didn't bother telling me about the girls' night out till I was done flipping out and had fed Madi. So, how was it?"

"Okay. Maybe it would've been better if I had actually known about it. Some surprises are not good."

"Ahh, I figured it was a surprise since Remus was the one in charge of telling me the news."

"Remus is trustworthy. Sirius isn't."

"What I meant, m'dear," he said, sweeping her into his arms, "was the fact that you didn't tell me yourself about it."

"What put you in such a good mood?" Severus deposited her on the bed. "Oof. A little gentler next time?" she said, rubbing her back.

Her husband, however, was not listening. His back was to her and he was shuffling through all these papers. Kiki took the opportunity to make faces at him behind his back. "Stop that, I know what you're doing." She stuck her tongue out. "Ah, I can see now why you're so such good friends with our favorite mutt." A pillow was thrown at his head. "Alright, I'll stop! Here," he said, sitting down on the bed with a book.

Kiki looked down and then back up. "Darling, I speak Italian, not Latin."

"Ha. Anyway, it discusses an old memory charm that I am certain Lucius knows."

"It's related to the Dark Arts?"

"Yes."

"Oh. What does it do?"

"Well," Severus said, "it's not like Obliviate which erases the memories, this one records over the memories."

"Say what?"

"No, hear me out. The casters, say me, takes a person, say you, and let's say that I want you to think you've been married for me the entire time between the end of the first war and now, okay?"

"Okay…"

"And I think about what I want your memories to be and when I say that, all your memories from that time is recorded over by the memories I want you to have. It would take a lot of power on my part because of the length of time I need to cover, but with Sam, Lucius would only need seconds."

"So, Sam has no recollection of being Samantha Snape?"

"Precisely. To her, she has lived whatever life Lucius decided to give her when he cast the charm."

"Is there anything that could trigger it to come back, like it sometimes does with Obliviate?"

"I was hoping so, but it appears it doesn't. There's a complex charm you have to use to take it off the person in question, and once again, the age decrees how many people will be needed to cast it. If this is what Sam is under, she will only need two well-trained Aurors or even three. I think maybe just Hermione and Albus alone could do it," he explained, drawing his wife closer. "We can get our little girl back."

"What about her memories now?"

"What? We'll be re-recording all her old memories."

"Darling, she's been with the Malfoys as Serena now for three months, she's bound to have memories of that time. Will they last beyond the charm?"

"I don't know. It doesn't say in this book."

"Stupid book not having all our answers."

"Kiki?"

"Yes?"

"Go to sleep."

Kiki leaned over and kissed Severus. "Okay. G'night."

Kingsley staked out the Malon apartment with fellow Auror Addie Monroe, pretending to be a newly married couple who just relocated to the Big Apple. "Oh, you should meet the Malons. They just moved here from England as well," the old landlady said. "Such a sweet family. They have the most adorable little girl."

Kingsley and Addie nodded. "So this is what Sam looks like?" Addie said, holding a picture of Sam provided by the Snapes. "She's a cute kid. I think little blonde girls are adorable, but she's a pretty brunette."

"She's also very smart, too," Kingsley said.

"Really? How old is she? Five?"

"Six. She'll be seven in April. And just so you know, she is with the Malfoys and obviously two blondes with a brunette daughter might draw some suspicion."

"Not necessarily. I know two brunettes who both had a recessive blonde gene and their oldest has beautiful blonde hair. She's ten."

"Great. Anyway, try to keep a low profile. Sam, er, Serena will be smart enough to know if something's out of the ordinary. She'll be alerted and if the spell Severus thinks was used on her is right, she'll run to Lucius faster than you and I can come up with a story. And you can bet your pretty little smile that he will notice us."

"You think I'm pretty?"

"Monroe?"

"Shacklebolt?"

"Shut up. And it's Kingsley."

"Alright. And it's Addie for me."

"Whatever. Oh, I think she's coming," Kingsley said. "Let's pretend to be moving in boxes." Addie nodded and the two started as Rosita walked up with little Serena.

"Hola," Rosita said. "You new here?"

"Yes, we just moved in yesterday," Addie explained. "I'm Natalie and this is my husband Eddie."

Kingsley shook Rosita's hand. "Pleasure. You work here?"

"Si, for the Malons. They live upstairs. This is their daughter, Serena. I'm her nanny."

"Oh, aren't are you the sweetest thing? I'm a sucker for little blonde girls," Addie said, crouching down to meet Serena's eyes. She moved behind Rosita, no longer in view of the Aurors.

Rosita took the little girl's hint. "We should be going. She has a piano lesson soon," she said, moving away.

Once they were gone, Addie turned to Kingsley. "She doesn't look like Sam Snape, but I must admit, she does look like a Malfoy," she said.

"Oh, that's Sam alright. I could tell, trust me."

"Oh, fine. I'm going inside. Don't forget the boxes, dear."

"Wouldn't dream of it, sweetheart."

Once back in their apartment, Serena tugged on Rosita's skirts. "Don't tell Mommy and Daddy about them," she said. "I don't like them and I don't think they will."

"Oh, Serena, why don't you like them? They seemed nice."

"It sounds weird, but I got the feeling they're going to take me away from my Mommy and Daddy."

"Oh, honey."

A/N: I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I know I did! Anyway, I'm entering the last few weeks of school (sarcastic yay). And the Registrar works in mysterious ways. I was doing Add/Drop yesterday and got the class I was originally locked out of. Thanks go to whoever dropped it! Anyway, Fanfiction now has the new "reply" feature so no more thank you's! But, some of the posters at and I are trying to get an American Girls section started and if you want to help, we would appreciate it! Thanks! - Mac