Madame Curie, Potion's Mistress

Chapter Three, Cat & Mouse

The horse-drawn carriage dropped an exhausted Hermione off in front of a converted club turned Internet Café that had seen better days in a ramshackle part of Bucharest. She wondered if Radu had even bothered to keep her private quarters in habitable condition. Hermione had only been here once to set up accommodations, not liking the way the shopkeeper kept staring at her chest and arse. Now she was cursing herself for not bothering to take more time to have a better backup plan. Romania? What had she been thinking? Well, to be honest, she hadn’t been thinking. The whole running away thing hadn’t made sense to begin with but she had stayed away after figuring she had been gone too long to go back home and have her denial of guilt sound plausible, at least to her own ears.

She tossed her raggedy braid over her shoulder and trudged into the ramshackle café’. There were exactly two booths with computers, both in use. A sign in Romanian and English announced Wi-Fi, money changing services and Western Union, calling card sales, a vending machine with Coca-Cola emblazoned across it and of course, a hand-written chalkboard in the native language listing various drinks on offer. Her feet scraped across the dirty floor and rang a small bell at the counter.

Radu burst through the back doorway from behind the counter, laughing as he did. His back was to her and he was shouting raucously at someone who giggled in reply. Turning to see who had demanded his attention, Hermione blushed a deep shade of pink when he gave her a dirty grin and finished zipping up his pants in the process. So that’s what I interrupted. How embarrassing.

Unperturbed by the intrusion, he merely held out both hands and rambled off something very quickly. Staring blankly at the man, Hermione figured he didn’t remember her. She shook her head at him and spoke evenly. “I only speak English, Radu. I am Hermione Granger, and I’ve come to claim the room I paid in advance for if you still have it ready.”

Radu looked puzzled for a minute and looked at her blankly for a long moment before the light bulb went off in his head. “Ah yes!” He exclaimed in his thick accent. “Miss Hermione! Of course, of course, right this way. What a lovely surprise. I have kept your room in top condition.”

With a wary glance at his wandering gaze, she followed him up a steep flight of worn stairs and down a long hallway. At the end of the hall and to the left under the light of a single bare light bulb swinging from the ceiling, a graying door opened with a click from the key he turned in the keyhole. “Your room, Miss Hermione.”

She stepped in and gasped. The opulence of the room made her wonder if she had stepped into a whole new dimension. Rich, plush burgundy carpeting stretched across the expanse of the room from one wall to another. A kitchen nook held the latest Muggle appliances complete with a mini-fridge, microwave, toaster, coffee maker and cutlery. The queen sized bed in the corner was simple but divine with a lovely cream and silver comforter complete with throw pillows and a drape for privacy. A flat screen television was hung on the opposite wall with a DVD player and stereo underneath. He had even installed a faux fireplace with mantle, had fresh flowers cut and a ten galleon aquarium in another corner next to a giant wing-backed chair perfect for curling up in. A series of empty shelves completed the room over a simple desk. Off to side of the entrance was what Radu showed her to be the loo which was quite simple in contrast to the rest of the room.

Hermione was taken aback by the luxurious furnishings. “Radu, are you sure there hasn’t been some mistake? I didn’t pay for this! This is too much, really!”

“Is it not what you wish?” He frowned with displeasure that his guest did not seem happy with the preparations he had made for her. She had said to keep it in top condition, and this was the best he could afford with the money she had given him. “You did say to keep it in top condition, ready for you to stay at a moment’s notice.”

“I-I did? Oh yes, right. I did.” Now it was her turn to frown. How much money had she given him exactly?

Exasperated, Radu strode quickly to a drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a piece of paper that had been re-folded many times over. He opened it carefully and pulled out a stack of Romanian bills and receipts. He was anxious to settle in this annoying Englishwoman and get back to his hot girlfriend downstairs.

“Look here. You signed and I signed. You asked for the best with the money you gave me. This is the exchange rate from British pounds to Romanian lei. You can buy much more in my country with the money you have given me than what you can buy in England. If it does not please you, you are free to change the room as you see fit as long as you do not destroy anything. The building is old and not easy to repair. Now if there is anything else I can do for you?”

His continued frown dawned on the dumbstruck witch that he actually thought she was displeased with his efforts! In a concerted effort to dissuade him from this line of thought, she took one of his hands in both of hers, accepting the paperwork and money as she did so. “Thank you so much Radu! I’m quite pleased with the results. It was just such a pleasant surprise and I will make sure you are handsomely rewarded for your efforts.”

At this change of heart a warm smile broke over his uneven features and his gaze turned from irritated to a bit mischievous. “If there is anything else I can do for you, anything at all…..” His eyes raked up and down over her figure appreciatively despite her ragged and travel-worn appearance.

“Uh, no thanks. I think I’ll be fine.”

With a slight bow and quirk of his lips he replied, “As you wish.” Leaving the key with her, he strode out without looking back. She immediately locked and strongly warded the door behind her and sank in a heap into the plush pile at her feet. It certainly was a nice room. With a heavy heart she set about making the place her own, all the while refusing to entertain thoughts of the extreme hurt in her heart at missing and abandoning her friends and family and the uncertain future that awaited her.


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“Dammit!”

Snape slammed his fists against the countertop of the Internet Café’ he was visiting to see if Madame Curie had been there.

The IP address he had tracked to the service provider had led to a network of twisting alley-ways that were littered with hole-in-the-wall Internet Café’s such as this one. At this rate it would take him a week just to weed through them all. It really irritated him the provider couldn’t have been a little more specific with the address. With a shrug and a French epithet thrown his way, Snape had been forced to retreat due to the large number of Muggles crowding the lobby with some complaint or another.

With a heavy sigh very uncharacteristic of him, he quickly flipped a few coins onto the counter for the man’s trouble and continued down the twisting street to the next shop. This really sucked. He had better things to do with his time. Then why wasn’t he doing them? Because you are besotted with the brilliant witch you old fool, he chastised himself internally. Such a stupid thing it had been to fall in love with a witch over the fucking Internet. If it had been anyone else he would have laughed at them. In his rational mind the idea of falling for someone over ‘cyberspace’ was a fool’s undertaking. The feelings were a false projection of one’s hopes, dreams and ideals onto an unknown identity and transforming it into the epitome of what one wanted in a partner and falling in love with the façade.

Only now it had happened to him, and it was not just merely a façade. The feelings that drove him to search in vain for the elusive witch were very much real and tearing him apart inside with each frantic second that passed. The fact that he didn’t have a real name to go on besides her business name was not helping matters any. If she wanted to remain hidden there was no way he had of following her to the ends of the earth if she had paid off a tight-lipped shopkeeper that was good at blocking his Legilimency skills.

A dingy shop with a faded sign was next on his little improvised route. Curling his lip in disgust but not one to leave any stone unturned, he gingerly pushed the door open and made his way to the counter. A grizzled looking, haggard man with three or four days worth of gray shadowing his chin in sparse clumps stared idly at a laptop in the deserted café’. The place was a real tip. Severus greeted the man in French and the man simply pointed over to the computers.

“You got one hour of free use of the computers and then you gotta buy something if you wanna stay longer.” The man hadn’t looked up once.

“Oh good, you speak English.” What a relief that was. Snape hated the way the French language rolled off his tongue like he had his mouth full of excrement.

That got the man’s attention. He peered through hair even more greasy than Severus’ and studied him with bloodshot eyes. “Hey man, do I know you?”

“No sir, I am sure I have not made your acquaintance until now. I would like to know if you are familiar with a woman by the name of Madame Curie.” Severus usually found that if he kept his inquiries simple he got better results.

“Mebbe.” The man squinted and frowned at him like he was a kid asking for a free drink. “Depends on who’s askin’.”

Now he was getting somewhere. “I am an old acquaintance of hers and have lost contact. I was aware she resided in France and need to conduct urgent business with the Madame. If you could be so kind as to enlighten me as to her current whereabouts-“

“I ain’t tellin’ you nuthin.” The man stood up from his chair, the Hawaiian shirt and faded khaki pants seriously out of place in Paris. “The lady took off out of here like Satan was chasing her. I’m assuming she had good reason to by the looks of you.”

Severus wondered what, exactly, it was about him that made people respond to him in such a way. In his opinion he had cleaned up quite well since the war, going so far as to bathe daily and dress much more suitably to whatever environment he happened to be in. Today he was dressed in casual black slacks, a button-down black shirt and a black sports coat. Ah-ha. It was the black that did it. Perhaps he should have left his black dragon hide boots behind as well.

“I will pay you.” Money talks.

That seemed to get the man’s attention. “How much?”

“What is your asking price?”

“How much you got?”

Snape’s fingers twitched. He really, really wanted to hex the man. It would be so simple to force him to tell him what he wanted to know. It was not his intention of bringing any attention to his little search, however.

Severus reached into his pocket and pulled out a Muggle billfold; black of course. In a move he had seen his father do many times in an effort to impress others, he opened the lip of it and fanned his thumb across the bills so the other man could see there was no lack of funds for the asking. It seemed to work. The greedy shopkeeper licked his lips as his eyes flicked from Snape’s to the money and back.

“You jus’ hand that wad of bills over and I’ll tell you what I know.”

As the man reached for the wallet Severus pulled it back sharply. Gaze never leaving the other man’s face, he took out a few and set them on the counter. “If you tell me the general location of where she went I will double that amount. If you have an address, I will quadruple it. And if you tell me her name you can have the contents of my wallet.”

That really seemed to interest the dirty old American. The bloke’s hand literally shook with anticipation as he took a tattered shoebox from under the counter and dug through it. Pulling out a pen and paper he scribbled something down and pushed it across to Severus. An address it was, and what the hell? She had gone to Romania?

“How do I know this is the correct address?” Snape leaned forward threateningly, widening his stance so the way he held his body was unmistakable in its message.

“I know because she asked me if I knew of anyplace where she could set up a second shop in another country. A buddy of mine gave me his brother’s address in Romania. I assume she set up shop there.”

“You assume?” That was the wrong thing to say to Severus Snape. He reached over the counter and fisted the man’s horrid shirt in one fist, pulling him nose to nose.

“Look man, I don’t want any trouble alright? The chick lit out of here like her heels were on fire and this was the only place I knew of she might have gone. Hell she never left the damn place as it was hardly before the day she took off outta here.”

This was interesting news. Why would such a wonderful, bright and brilliant witch set up and run her multi-million galleon business from a shit-eating hovel such as this?

Releasing the man from his grasp, Snape threw down half again what he had promised. Before the man could object he interjected. “Because you are not positive of Madame Curie’s whereabouts, I am only rewarding you half as much as promised for the address. If you are wrong my friend, I will be back to collect. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

Turning on heel Severus made to stalk out with supreme haughtiness when he swiveled his neck round one more time. Quirking an eyebrow he inquired, “What did you say the Madame’s name was?”

The shopkeeper was busy stuffing the bills in his pocket. “I didn’t,” he muttered. “She never told me her real name.”

With a vivid sneer Snape fisted the piece of paper with the address in Romania and strode to an alley where he could safely Apparate back to his rented room. He had a witch to track down.