Severus Snape sat in a secluded booth in the Three Broomsticks holding a small photograph in an ebony frame. The teenaged girl in the picture brushed her shaggy blond hair back, smiling impishly, and threw her arms around her companion’s shoulders, kissing his neck exuberantly. The gangly youth in the photo, looking like he might topple under the girl’s onslaught, smiled faintly from under a mop of greasy black hair, managing to look embarrassed and pleased at the same time, and slipped a hand around her waist. Just a year later, Severus remembered, they had both promised their futures to other people, with disastrous consequences. He slid the photo back into an inner pocket, rubbing his forearm unconsciously, and looked up to see the adult Tess McGonagall approaching.
“Hello, Severus,” she said, smiling a bit wanly.
“Good afternoon.” He rose until she had seated herself across from him. Rosmerta came over and, casting a suspicious glance at Tess, took their drink orders. After her high heels tapped away from them, Severus found himself staring at the woman across the table from him, trying to put his finger on the subtle changes in her appearance. She’d grown her hair out, of course, and tamed it into a long braid which today was wrapped around her head like a crown. She was more muscular than she had been twelve years ago, and she carried herself differently. She was wearing jeans and what seemed to be a sleeveless vest of black leather, which were precisely what he would have expected of her, but over that she wore a billowy robe that seemed to be made of sari silk. Most intriguingly, something about her eyes was different. More guarded. He wondered if she’d learned Occlumency, and what could have happened to her to require such a skill.
She settled herself gracefully in her seat and said, abruptly, “So, I’ll give you three minutes to tell me everything that has happened to you in the last twelve years.” She looked at her watch. “Starting … now.”
Perhaps not so much changed, he thought, catching the hint of challenge in her eyes. Severus made her wait, as though he were considering an appropriate answer, before finally declaring, “Absolutely nothing worth mentioning.”
Tess grinned. “Oh good. You can’t have missed me, then.”
“Of course I have. My life is incredibly dull without you around to complicate it.”
Rosmerta brought their drinks. This time, Tess caught the unfriendly glare. Her eyes followed the innkeeper back to the bar while her smile faded. She heaved a sigh. “Mine has been much too complicated.”
She turned her attention to her Gillywater and didn’t seem inclined to elaborate, so Severus offered, “Hagrid told me you’ve traveled around the world.”
“More or less. I never got to China.”
“Why not?”
She leaned back and took a deep breath. “By the time I got to Indonesia, I was tired of wandering. Some … unfortunate things happened to me there, and I decided to leave, and that’s when I heard about a place in Australia where you could go and never see another human being for years and years. It sounded like a good place. Peaceful. So I went there, and I lived in the desert for six months. I did a lot of thinking there. And I realized I had to come home.”
“Why?” Severus asked softly, not daring to hope.
She met his eyes, smiling sadly. “Unfinished business. There were too many people here I cared about, and who might still care about me. Or so I thought. Experience seems to be proving me wrong.”
“There are still those who care about you, Tess.”
She looked down at her hands and said, “I would prefer that you call me Theresa.”
Inexplicably, Severus felt as if the air had rushed out of his lungs. When he could breathe again, he said lightly, “Of course. Theresa.”
An awkward silence spread between them. Finally, Theresa looked around and said, “Well, this place hasn’t changed at all in twelve years, has it?”
“No,” Severus replied bitterly, “It would seem not.”
* * *
Late that night, Theresa sat forlornly on a bench in the Hogsmeade train station, staring into empty space. Twelve years ago, after an even more disastrous interview with Severus, she had gotten on a train here and never returned. She had believed there was nothing left for her here. Now she was back, and so far, she had found that Remus wouldn’t talk to her, Mad-Eye Moody ” whom she had grown up calling “Uncle”” had tried to blow her head off, Dumbledore had helped her avoid prison but hadn’t tried to contact her afterwards, Severus still wanted more than she was willing to give him, and the authorities were still determined to keep her away from Harry.
Minerva hadn’t returned from Greenland yet, but Theresa had heard from her solicitor, who had confirmed that Minerva was trying to have her declared legally dead, “for the sake of closure.” He was sure Minerva would be glad to hear from Theresa, he’d written, but Theresa was sure she wouldn’t be. Theresa technically owned the house Minerva lived in when she wasn’t at Hogwarts. Their parents had left it in her name, and it was only with her permission that Minerva lived there. Theresa had never grudged it to her ” after all, Theresa had lived in London with Sirius since she was eighteen ” but apparently Minerva wanted to make the arrangement more permanent. They had never been close, and the year Theresa had lived with her after their parents’ deaths had badly damaged what minimal relationship they’d had, but it was still a bitter blow to find herself nothing more than a legal complication to the only relative she had left.
Perhaps, she thought, drawing her knees up to her chin, she’d been right to leave. Perhaps she should get on the train when it arrived in the morning, and keep going until she got to China. No one would miss her here.
With a sigh, she stood up and paced the length of the platform. Even if no one here would miss her, she had to admit that she missed them. She had always told herself that she would find somewhere nice, or someone nice, and settle down to lead the peaceful, domestic life that was all she’d ever wanted. But no matter where she went, no matter who she met, it was never right. It wasn’t home. Now she’d been wandering for so long, seen so much action, she didn’t know if she was even capable of settling down. But she wasn’t happy wandering “ her stay in Australia had taught her that. So where did that leave her?
Thus far, she had been able to avoid looking at the wanted poster stuck to a pillar across the platform from her, but now she approached it and looked Sirius Black in the eye for the first time in twelve years. Azkaban had been cruel to him. His face was gaunt as a skeleton, his handsome smile dead and gone, and his eyes were hollow and haunted. Overcome by a sudden wave of longing, she leaned her head against the pillar and sobbed. She had been so angry with him when he went away. Just like her father. How could she love another man when such horrible things happened to the men she loved?
She stood there crying, her head bowed against the pillar, until she could feel the cold concrete pressing into her forehead. Then, suddenly coming to a decision, she stepped back, tore down the poster and rolled it into a tube. Then she turned on her heel and marched out of the train station without looking back.
* * *
Theresa had visited twenty-two countries in twelve years, and in none of them had wizards been as segregated from Muggles as in Britain. She had wanted to take lodgings in a wizard inn, just because it would be more respectable, but thanks to the awful picture of her that had run right on the front page of the Daily Prophet ” her hair all awry and a disgusted look on her face as she Disapparated to get away from the mob of reporters who had charged her on the Ministry steps ” she couldn't find an inn that would have her. She'd changed most of her cash to Muggle money anyway, so she had taken a room in a Muggle place and used her Muggle car to get around. It was probably better to avoid notice in any case.
The afternoon after her meeting with Severus, Theresa stood on a rocky Scottish shore, not far from where she had sat on her car reminiscing about her parents, looking out at the deadly-looking rock barely visible between the sky and the sea. Was it possible for anyone to swim that far?
As possible as it is to escape in the first place, she thought, looking down at the photocopied bill in her hand, with the large heading, “Lost Dog,” sprawling across it in her best formal, Hogwarts-trained handwriting. Living in a Muggle place had its advantages, she reflected. Muggle places had telephones. Turning to face inland, she scanned the coast. If you'd just landed here, and you were cold and wet and probably hungry, which way would you go first?