Chapter 3

How do you feel about Potions?

Professor McGonagall accepted Charity's teary resignation with only a minimal attempt to change her mind. While McGonagall had assured her that the school board wouldn't have a broom to fly on if it took issue with a pregnant professor staying on, she admitted that disapproving parents would have plenty of other ways to make things difficult. As much as both Charity and the acting headmistress wanted to take a stand, neither of them was willing to make a pawn of the innocent baby.

Charity hadn't told McGonagall who the father was, and McGonagall hadn't asked, but the perceptive witch gave her suspicions away when she gave Charity one final hug on the front steps of the castle. "Take care of the great gift with which you've been entrusted. I pray the child gets your nose."

Charity laughed through her tears, and then she was gone. The next tell was going to be even more difficult. Her parents.

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"I…I'm going to have a grandbaby?" Mrs. Burbage stammered while Mr. Burbage reflexively balled and tensed his hands, looking vaguely as if he wanted to strangle someone—more than likely the man whose identity Charity had yet to divulge.

But Charity was encouraged by her mother's statement. It wouldn't be long before the woman's shock turned into a renewed determination to master the Muggle art of knitting, a habit that had gone by the wayside thousands of times before, but now there were booties to be made!

Charity had yet more revelations to drop on her parents, and since Mr. Burbage seemed to be turning redder by the second, she figured it was best to get on with it.

"You both know how highly I came to regard Professor Snape. Severus. Well, the truth is that my fondness for him turned to something more than respect. I fell in love with him. And he loved me too, and we…the child is his."

A strangled cough escaped Mr. Burbage. Charity searched for the words with which to soothe him, but her mother spoke first.

"I'm going to have a famous grandbaby?"

"Er yeah, Mum, that's actually something else I wanted to talk to you about. As you say, the baby will be born a celebrity, and if there's any hope of him having anything closely resembling a normal childhood…well, I'll have to go away."

Her mother's mouth gaped open, and Charity rushed on with her explanation. "Nobody knows about Snape and I, but once word of my pregnancy gets out and the timing is apparent, they'll figure it out soon enough. And then they'll never let us alone. The press will be hounding us from the moment the doctor smacks his bottom. I've heard you both say dozens of times that the best thing for the Potter child was to have been raised in anonymity with his Muggle aunt and uncle."

Mrs. Burbage looked to her husband and said hopefully, "Little Whinging isn't too far."

"Well…" Charity paused. In one breath she had told her mother she was going to have a grandchild, and in the very next she was going to take that grandchild away from her. "From what I understand, Professor Dumbledore had put very strong protections on the Dursley residence; that's what kept Harry's location a secret. But we…we won't be able to do the same."

"Oh, pish posh," Mrs. Burbage said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Your father knows about all kinds of mysterious charms."

Mr. Burbage moved for the first time since Charity had dropped the initial bomb and stepped next to his wife to place a soothing hand on her shoulder. "Punkin, it's not a mere matter of know-how. There were special bonds required for that charm that we simply don't have. There are other options, but the complexities and ministry oversight would make it near impossible."

He raised his eyes to his daughter and gave a slight nod of his head. He knew what was coming. Charity gulped, and Mr. Burbage firmed up his grasp on his wife's shoulder.

"Mum, I'm going to have to leave the United Kingdom."

"No!" Mrs. Burbage shouted and jumped out of her chair, shaking her husband's hand off of her. "This is utter nonsense. I've put up with the two of you deciding everything for long enough! What does it ever get me? I'll tell you what it gets me—it gets my daughter kidnapped and living like a fugitive for a year, and now it's going to get my grandbaby half way around the world. No! I will perch myself on that roof," she shouted and jabbed her finger upwards, "and stupefy every reporter and busy body that makes her way to this house if I have to. But I will NOT have my daughter and my very first grandchild living in Zimbabwe or Argentina or…or…Saskatchewan!"

Charity's eyes were wide; she'd never before seen her mother so incensed. "Saskatchewan? Mum, I was thinking more along the lines of Paris."

"Paris?" her mother questioned. "France?"

"Yes." Charity smiled when she remembered that Snape had asked the same exact question on the very evening that had gotten her into this predicament in the first place.

"But that's only five hundred kilometers away. How will that protect you?" her mother asked.

"Oh, so now you want me to go farther?"

"No! I-I want you to be safe…and happy." Mrs. Burbage sank back down to her chair and watched Charity with her lips pressed together and her brow furrowed with concern.

Charity gave her mother a small, reassuring smile. "In my situation, distance is not nearly as important as inter-wizard relations. And communication between the magical community of the United Kingdom and that of France is virtually non-existent. Our regions communicate on official policy via the International Confederation of Wizards, but that's about it. We may as well be on different planets."

"It's true," Mr. Burbage said. "Remember what a big deal it was to get Beauxbatons to come to the Tri-wizard tournament in England?"

"Yes," Charity answered. "And by the looks on the Hogwarts students' faces, they'd never seen French students before. How many visits did the three of us go on to Paris when I was growing up? Dozens, but we never once visited any magical friends. Why is that?"

"We…we don't have any French friends," Mrs. Burbage answered.

"Exactly! We don't socialize."

"Ah, but the oldest Weasley boy married a French girl last summer, didn't he?" Mr. Burbage interrupted.

Charity frowned. She hadn't thought of that. "Well, I suppose things might be starting to change, but close ties like that are still not the norm. So while the French magical community knows the big things that go on around here, they don't pay attention to the small stuff. They're not going to know that the witch Snape rescued has left Hogwarts…er, perhaps that is something that would make their radar, but I can go to Paris using a different name, and no one there will think twice about me. And in a big city like that, I hardly think an unmarried mother is going to draw much attention, particularly among the Muggles."

"Are you going to be a Muggle again?" her mother asked.

"No, but I think if there was some way for me to exist more in that community rather than in the midst of the magical one, it would be better." Charity's voice weakened at the end of her sentence. This was where things got a little fuzzy for her. She was set on leaving and certain that Paris was the place to go, but she wasn't at all sure about what she would do when she got there. "I was hoping you two would be able to help me figure that out."

Mr. and Mrs. Burbage turned towards each other, and Charity tentatively watched them. She needed their help or this was never going to work. And if they were still resistant to the idea, her entire plan would fall apart.

After a silent exchange with her husband, Mrs. Burbage turned to her daughter. "You just make sure your new flat has a spare bedroom for when I visit."

Mr. Burbage came and wrapped his arms around Charity. She gave her father an appreciative squeeze and pressed her face into his shoulder to hide the relieved tears that broke loose. She wasn't in this alone anymore.

"Let me do a little digging around, kitten," he told her. "We'll figure it out."

The very next day, Charity sent the family owl to fetch Parisian newspapers—both magical and Muggle—so she could begin her job search. She was looking for something that would provide her both a degree of anonymity and a flexible schedule for after the baby arrived. Three days later, all of her scouring had led to exactly zero such positions.

On the fourth day, Mr. Burbage returned from work wearing an uncharacteristic Cheshire grin. He didn't say a word but plopped down at the table, as usual, and unfolded his newspaper, as usual. He sat opposite Charity, who was busy scanning the want ads of yet another French newspaper. Mrs. Burbage was out in the garden, so it was just the two of them.

Out of the corner of her eye, Charity saw that her father was neither reading his newspaper nor watching the pictures. He was peering over the top of it at her.

"What?" she asked.

"I had an interesting conversation with a colleague at work today."

"Good," she answered politely, but straightened her paper more forcefully than was necessary, betraying her irritation. Her fruitless job search had left her feeling insecure and doubtful that she'd ever again have colleagues, and she really didn't care to hear about how interesting conversations at work could be.

"It concerned you. A possible business opportunity."

"Really?" Charity let her paper fall to the table. Her father dropped his paper too and beamed at her, sending a twinge of guilt through Charity for feeling frustrated with him a moment earlier.

"But I'm not sure it'll work out…"

"Da-a-d," Charity groaned, her guilt immediately fading.

"Well, I suppose it all depends—how do you feel about potions?"

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The next day, Charity dressed for the city and accompanied her father to his offices to meet with his colleague, Lenny Henderson. Lenny did freelance reporting for Magical Minds Weekly and other periodicals published by Mr. Burbage's company. He'd lived in France for a couple of years and still had some connections there.

The reporter was a shaggy-haired Scottsman. He wore a tweed jacket and smelled of cigarettes. He didn't appear to be much older than Charity, and despite his scruffy appearance, his relaxed, confident posture and easy smile left Charity in no doubt that her father's warnings about Henderson's reputation as a ladies' man weren't merely the product of a father's paranoia.

Lenny told them about a Squib in Paris who had occasionally posed as a Muggle to dig up information for his investigative pieces. "Natalie DeMontagne. She's retired from the undercover business now, but I still look her up whenever I'm in town. About a year ago she opened up an aromatherapy boutique. At least, that's what the sign says. The sundries—perfumes, lotions, vitamin oils—are actually mild potions. They're mostly made with ingredients generally available to Muggles, and so she's got the permission of the French Ministry of Magic to operate her shop in a Muggle neighborhood. She calls it Ma Jolie Petite.

"Naturally, the Muggles find her disguised potions to be quite effective. The body mists that claim to attract the opposite sex, do, even if it's just for a short while. But sometimes all an attraction needs is a little push to help it along." He gave Charity a playful wink. "The scents are more pungent and longer lasting than anything a Muggle can produce. And you didn't hear this from me, but there just might be something in her products that seeps into the Muggles' pores and leaves 'em feeling euphoric."

"This is incredible!" Charity exclaimed. "I always told Sn- er, my friends that potions could be the great unifying factor between Wizards and Muggles. But do the Muggles really not suspect?"

Lenny shrugged. "They know something's different about Jolie Petite's products all right. Business is booming. Attracted enough attention that the Ministry swooped in before the Muggles could get suspicious, they made Nat tone things down. So now she's not got such an edge, and growth slowed. But Nat doesn't mind; she never wanted to be Coco Chanel. Just needs to make enough, she says. She's independent, that one. Doesn't ever want to depend on anyone for anything.

"Even still, her business has become such that it's eating into her free time." Henderson let out a low chuckle. "Nat certainly does make good use of her free time, so I told her I'd do what I could to find someone to help out at the shop—a partner."

Mr. Burbage raised a skeptical eyebrow. "If business is that good, wouldn't people be jumping at the chance?"

"You would think," Lenny said and leaned back, reaching his arm around to scratch behind his neck. "But like I said, Nat's independent. She doesn't want anyone who'll come in and try to take over. Not only that, she needs someone who spans both the magical and non-magical worlds because they obviously need some knowledge of magic to be able to work with the potions, but they've also got to be okay with living outside the magical realm and existing primarily with Muggles. Nat's been looking for another Squib, but from what your father said the other day, sounds like you might be just the one."

Lenny's attention was all on Charity, whose eyes flicked quickly toward her father. What he'd "said the other day" was simply that Charity was looking for a change in environment, that her return to the magical world had been jarring and she needed a breather from the community…a discreet breather. Mr. Burbage insisted that Lenny was someone they could trust to keep her whereabouts a secret, even if the reporter didn't fully understand why.

So far, the situation sounded ideal, but Charity and her father wanted to get a look at the business and meet the proprietor before making a final decision, so Lenny arranged a meeting, and Charity and her father took the chunnel to Paris the following weekend.

Charity hadn't vocalized it, but she was approaching that meeting with some trepidation. Filch was the only Squib she'd ever had a personal relationship with, and while she knew it was wrong to think in generalities, she couldn't help but harbor a small concern at the back of her mind that after years of being treated as outcasts, all Squibs had become resentful and bitter to some extent. After all, Lenny had even admitted that Natalie preferred working with another Squib. Was she prejudiced against Wizards?

On top of that, Lenny Henderson struck Charity as the kind of person who was always working an angle, and she was suspicious of what his angle might be here. It simply didn't make sense to her that the rumpled charmer would waste his time on an old Squib while visiting the City of Love. There had to be more to it. What exactly did this woman do for Lenny in her free time that she made such "good use" of?

Charity intended to ask a lot of questions during the course of the meeting. When she entered the boutique, however, she was able to surmise quite a bit without speaking a word. It was obvious at a glance that the proprietor of Ma Jolie Petite was nothing like Filch. Natalie DeMontagne was perched on a stool in front of the glass counter at the back of the store. She looked to be in her mid-forties, and as Charity's eyes traveled the length of the tall, raven-haired woman, from the cigarette perched languidly in her manicured fingers to her lean, shapely legs crossed leisurely under her slim pencil skirt, she understood exactly why it was that Lenny Henderson looked this woman up whenever he was in town.

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Author's Note:

Thanks for reading, darlings. :) Not the most excitement in this chapter, I know, but the plan is for this set-up to lead to some. Let's see if we can have some fun in Paris, hm?

And now Sir Metro, I pass the baton to you. ;)