Princess

So absorbed in scheming the future Severus was when he apparated back, that he paid hardly enough attention to the present and so he noticed the tall, dark figure just in the last possible moment.Though having his back turned on Severus, there was no mistaking the man guarding the entrance of the hideaway motel - it was Rabastan, which ment that Rodolphus and Bellatrix weren't far away. 

They were found.

With heart stumbling in waves of raw panic Severus sneaked back in to the asile he used for apparation and with finely directed spell he broke one of the windows at the back of the building. With proficiency of a stray cat Severus jumped up and climbed through the window, landing in some staff area of the locals' cafeteria. Hiden by disillusionment charm he stalked in to entrance hall, where Rabastan now moved from outside to the reception desk, talking to the same girl that yesterday accepted Severus and Ide in. By the look of hers the conversation was very unpleasant and she kept shooting nervous glances around the room in silent plea for help.

The truly worrisome thing was, that there was no sight of Bellatrix, therefore she already had to be in the depths of the motel.

With regards to the fact that Rabastan was too thick to notice the subtle disruption of Severus' concealed frame, he confidently sneaked through the room straight for the staircase and quietly he raced up. On the second floor - that was one floor below the room where Ide was - he had found Bellatrix and Rodolphus. They wore frown of concentration, walking from doors to doors with their wands outstretched, performing nonverbal incantations.

Severus sighed with relief and crawled for another flight of stairs when they turned their backs. Even though they were tracked down somehow, his wards still seemed to withstand Bellas' effort to locate the particular room. 

They didn't have much time though.

While entering his room, Severus fastly canceled his camouflage and was welcomed by rapturous "Sev!" 
He could cry from the relief of seeing the girl alive, though they were still far from being out of the woods at the moment.

"This is your room now and you are going to take a nap. Obliviate" Severus bluntly announced to the nanny woman and then hit her in between her eyed with the spell. She blinked couple of times and then, without any protests she laid in to bed and closed her eyes.

"She's alright" He informed Ide, in case the display made her concerned, and proceeded to fastly stuff all of their belongings in to his leather satchel. In under two minutes they were all packed, but Severus did not dared to leave the motel same way he did came in; it was very likely that Bellatrix and Rodolphus already proceeded on to their floor and no disillusionment would help the two of them to pass right around them.

"Who needs a floo conection, right? We are wizards, thus we will leave through the fireplace" He whispered to Ide, while fixing her on to his chest, using a blanket as a provisory baby wrap. They crawled in to the cold, dirty fireplace and Severus transfigurated one wall of the burnt bricks in to very steep staircase; a brick ladder more likely. He sealed the grate behind them and with Ide tightly tied to his torso he began to climb.

Though difficult the ascent was, with the craggy stairs all slipery and raining soot in their faces, and Severus' limbs being all shaky from the surplus of adrenaline, he carried on confidently and in consistent speed, all the while calming Ide with whispered promises. The poor child was terrifed, but she clearly understood the urgency of the situation, because despite the rivers of fat tears running down her sooted cheeks, she remained quiet.

The morning sun blinded them when they finally emerged of the dark tunnel. Also, the thatch roof provided itself to be slightly more slant than Severus have anticipated. His stomach made an unpleasant lurch when he fully straightened up. It was not like he ever suffered from the fright of heights, but having a child strapped to his body seemed to temporarily change that. He coiled one arm around Ides' back, while the other gripped his wand and also contributed in maintaining their equilibrium.

Crouched and very slowly, they crawled over the motels' roof and climbed to another - thankfuly flat - rooftop of the adjoining building. They were able to continue like that for couple of houses; sometimes with the need to conquere few feet gaps by jumping, but then they got to the end of the block of closely attached edifices, and there was no longer anywhere to jump to, apart from the ground of course - an idea that Severus fancied very little.

He allowed himself two or three breaths to steady down, as the performed parkour - especially with the sloth-like clinging baby - was some serious exercise, before figuring out the next move. They couldn't just jump down; even with a help of a cushion spell, the shock of the impact would be way too much for a toddlers neck. The sight of a tenuous brick chimney gave Severus an idea though. As a slim serpent, a rope shot from the tip of Severus' wand, he deftly caught it mid-air and fixed it around the chimney.

"Sev?" Trembling voice echoed from the depths of his cloak and blanket, just as they gangled some ten feets above the ground.

"Yes baby? You have been quite brave, you know? Seems like we're striving for a lot of adventures lately, doesn't it?" He cooed mindlessly in response while descending the last bit in to relative safety of the ground level. His palms were burned raw from the rope, but he did not felt any pain yet, still riding high on cold adrenaline. "What would you say to another shoo-shoo ride?" He asked then and was met with quite adorable excitement.

.

At the railway station the two of them made a real spectacle, which was hardly preferable, considering that they were on a run. Enjoying the benefits of having both of his arms free, Severus left Ide tied in the baby wrap, even though he hoped that there will be no need to climb anything up or down any time soon. Despite Severus' efforts to somewhat clean them up - with aid of both, spells and handkerchief - they still showed signs of crawling through a chimney, and their cranky image was topped by ugly plastic bag, filled with bunch of necessities Severus bought while waiting for the train.

They recieved lot of side-eyes, even in London where every second was a bigger freak than the first, and Severus hoped that no muggle calls Social welfare office upon him, though such encounter would be still much more welcomed than another run-in with Bellatrix.

It started to rain during the ride. Ide contently consumed apple sauce from a jar with a paper straw and listened to Severus' quiet elocution; he had bought a book in a news stand at the station - Anne goes to farm - very arresting story indeed, and he readed it out loud, while massaging murtlap essence in to his chafed palms.  It was a strange moment of peacefullness in the middle of the massacre they happened to be in.

.

At the very time, on the other side of the city a woman in her fifties was laying spread angled atop of an unmade bed with brown sheets. Her face held wrinkles which indicated that she liked to smile a lot, but now, her face was frozen in to a leathery mask of terror, her eys wide open, thouhg no longer seeing.

.

It was well in to afternoon when they - under a set of yet different names- checked into yet another shabby motel. It was a good thing that London offered many of such, given their engagment in the twisted game of a fox and hounds.

The new room was even shabbier than the one before, having somewhat of mediveal vibe - and smell - to it, but it was not as if they could be very picky, really, as Severus' supply of muggle coin was deplenting rather fast, and in the end, it would be of little matter whether they'd be attacked in this shit-hole or in a five star hotel, wouldn't it?

First thing first, Severus sighed with grim resolution when they settled in, and ventured in to the poky bathroom, turninig on taps of the peeled off bathtube. He was quite content to avoid most of the baby-maintaince things in the last couple of days, but after the morninng events the girl resembled a chimney brush more than anything else, therefore a bath was necessirely in order, whether he liked it or not. Ide - who grew rather fussy over the course of last couple of hours - sat on the floor, leafing through her book which Severus spelled, so the silly illustrations were moving, and diligently ignored all Severus' commands to get undressed. Well, he wasn't really sure whether she was capable to comprehend and execute such a command, but he decided to give it a shot anyway, before having to perform the task underhand himself. When the bath was half-way filled Severus turned the water off and tentatively tried its temperature, first with his fingers, then wrist and then even his elbow, to make sure that he won't accidentaly boil the baby.

"Alright, in you go" He exclimed when the water provided to be satisfactory and ploped the girl inside.

Soon enough it became apparent that Ide held baths in similarly high regards as trains. On a whim Severus decided to top it by adding a generous amount of magical foam and bubbles, as a kind of compensation for the arduous morning and also for the parents-murder thing. It definitely worked. No mind that the girl was recently orphaned and hunt down by bunch of evil wizards ever since - she had a chamomile scented foam in her bathtube and if the delighted shrieks and laughs were anything to go by, it seemed to be enough to make her the happiest kid in whole wide world. At least for the time being, that is.

As the bed-time loomed near, the girl once again gave vent to her scorching desire for her mother, and Severus - on the end of the rope himself - to his great shame and imediate regret snapped that 'she's dead and never coming back.' So all in all, it turned out to be very unpleasant evening, which no amount of murmured apologies and unicorn related tales could make right. He did have a way with kids.

Later, long after Ide cried herself to sleep, Severus still sat in an worn-out armchair by the bed, his bowed head reeling about milions of abhorent things. In short, he was teriffied. Over and over again he tried to think up some way out of this infernal mess, and again and again he failed. The brilliant plan of his clearly turned to ash; not that decieving the Dark Lord was not praiseworthy feat - it indeed was, and scarily so - but with Bellatrix breathing down their necks, it was all for naught. And one cannot simply take down Bellatrix LeStrange. No. Killing the bastard Willkins was bad enough, risky enough, but just the thought of the pandemonium that would break loose should he kill Bella, rendered Severus physically ill. He was also terrified for Lily. Did Dumbledore got his message and did all necessary to keep her safe? It was crazy to think that they were now most likely in a very similar situation, he and Lily. Both of them in hiding in order to save their kdis before Death Eaters. Well, maybe not that similar, as he was a Death Eater himself (albeit apparently bungling one. It was depressing to think that he was not even able to do the thing he did wrong right) and Ide - or whatever her real name was - was definitely not his his. But kinda similar anyway.

Only when the inky sky behind the dirty-glassed window infused with the minty grey hue of upcoming down, Severus rose from the armchair, not really registring, until then, that the night gotten away on him during  his desperate brooding. During the few hours before he expected the girl to wake up Severus strengthened the basic set of wards which he put in place right upon their arrival; now, he placed a dozen of low-burning candles over the floor in a geometric patern, and sliced open his - just healed - palm with a silver dagger, writting a protective formula ᛊᚢᛊᛏᛟᛞᛁᚱᛖ ᛁᚾᚾᛟᛊᛖᚾᛏᛖᛊ with his blood over the threshold. 

Before the sun fully breached over the horizon, Severus even managed to take a shower too, which was scandalously overdue at that point, and after that he waited. He waited for any kind of news from any kind of source, he waited for murderous Bellatrix to break in to the room at any moment, and he waited for his dark mark to flare in to life with his masters' summons, but strangely enough, nothing happened. And strangely enough, it made Severus all the more restless and agitated.

And the suffocating phenomon of waiting went on.