Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Severus let himself look at Lucius for just the briefest moment, enough to satisfy himself that he held his head with pride, just as Severus had expected him too; he wasn't a Malfoy for nothing. He hadn't let them down, and Severus could have asked for no more. He carefully ignored the fat man sitting on the settee; it would not do to look at side issues just now. He turned at last to where he knew the two men's wands pointed at his back.

'What is all this nonsense about your brother, Black?' he asked. 'Andromeda seems to know no more than I.' He read the confusion before Regulus opened his mouth. It was becoming worse, and Snape recognised how dangerous that was; he dared not let Regulus know too early that he was a cornered rat, for now he had to let everyone get into place.

'Let us leave my brother out of this, Severus,' Regulus suggested.

'Let us go somewhere private to talk,' Snape countered. He heard Dursley whimper as Regulus mentioned his name, but he didn't take time to enjoy the grim satisfaction of that. 'I have a great deal I would like to clarify.' He nodded to where Lucius seemed to sit more upright, as though he were ready to spring to his feet; he suspected his injuries were superficial.

'Let us just stay here,' Regulus said. He fingered the flask that Andromeda had given him. 'Perhaps you could fetch me some water, Barty,' he said, 'if you're not too tired, that is.'

Regulus worked open the glass stopper as Crouch stamped off, and sniffed the hint of almond, the telltale sign of Veritaserum, which was hardly surprising as it was almond essence from Hogwarts's kitchens. He measured four drops from the flask into the water Barty brought back for him. 'Cover Snape,' he said to Andromeda and Crouch, as he dropped to Lucius's side, holding his wand to Malfoy's face until he drained the glass.

He waited for a few moments before he started. 'What is your name?'

'Lucius Augustus Malfoy,' Lucius replied with a frown.

'Are you a Death Eater?'

'Not now.'

'Is my brother alive?'

'No.'

'Is Severus working for Dumbledore?'

'Not that I know of. But Severus is right there; why don't you ask him?'

Regulus grasped a handful of the mane of white-blond hair, streaked as it was by a little blood. 'I am asking the questions, Lucius. All you need to do is answer.'

Snape could hear the rustle of Andromeda's robe at his side; he felt the shift of position when Regulus grasped Lucius's hair. He hoped there wasn't going to be a rash action, not now, not now that they were almost ready to make a break for it.

'Now, where does Severus's allegiance lie?' Regulus tugged the hair, and Lucius closed his eyes briefly. 'Or so help me but I'll pull every last stand of this out by the roots.' He tugged viciously again to demonstrate his point.

Above him Snape heard a muffled thud; someone had become messy. He looked towards the ceiling. 'Do you have company?' he asked mildly.

'Andromeda, go upstairs and see everything's quiet up there,' Regulus ordered, distracted from Lucius for a moment. 'And, you, keep your smart mouth closed for now, Snape.'

'Shall I go too?' Barty asked.

'No, you cretin, what is the point of everyone being upstairs, and me being down here on my own?'

He was losing the place; Severus could see that. One moment he was Voldemort and the next what was left of Regulus Black: just a confused mess, a stupid vain pup who'd gone into the long grass to have a piss with the big dogs, and found he'd got lost. Snape had had one kind fall of the dice with Andromeda being asked to leave the room; it shouldn't be long now, just a few more minutes until the Polyjuice completed its cycle. He knew the kitchen was secure; he'd seen the door swing a tiny bit, just after Barty had got Regulus's water. They'd even anticipated that. Kingsley had not to break in until he had seen someone get water for the Veritaserum, and if that didn't happen he had not to assume anything, but wait for a signal.

Sturgis Podmore and Lupin and Barney Finnegan should have secured upstairs; as far as they could tell there was only Bellatrix and the two Lestrange brothers at the most, and the Dursley woman. In fact Severus had only forgotten one thing, one tiny miscalculation; but that was all it ever took ... just one thing to be out of place in a house of cards, for the whole lot to come tumbling down.

Lucius caught his eye for a moment, and Severus let the corner of his mouth twitch in approval, just to let him know he knew he had held firm for them, to let him know it was nearly over and give him an extra bit of strength to see it through, as he heard footsteps on the stairs. He felt his wand in his hand; softly, softly, nearly there. Regulus was on the point of standing, hauling Lucius to his feet, and Barty was watching them as Sirius and Lupin came silently into the room.

'Watch out, Black,' Vernon Dursley squeaked from the settee as Snape raised his wand. But Barty had turned at Dursley's warning and blocked his aim, and his Cruciatus Curse shot off Crouch instead of Regulus, as he heard the words, and the world stopped for just a moment.

'AVADA KEDAVRA.'

*****

He could still see them, through the reddish mist that had descended on his vision: Regulus's wand hand slowly dropping to his side, the remains of the green light seeming to follow the tip like a reluctant halo, the shock on the faces.

He wanted to tell them things, things he had always wanted to say, but had never taken the time nor found the words. He wanted to tell them not to blame themselves, and that it had been his own fault; he should have known better, he had known better. He wanted to tell them to look after one another, to be kinder than they ever needed to be, because everyone was fighting some sort of battle. He wanted to tell Lupin not to look across the room that way, that it was all right, and that he could handle this in his own way. But he hadn't the time to say everything he needed to say, and now he couldn't seem to concentrate to regret all the time he had wasted.

And he needed to concentrate now, on the tightrope he had walked for so long, but he seemed to be faltering, losing his balance, his feet slipping from below him. It was a long, long fall; but then again, it didn't really matter anymore ... Lucius Malfoy was already dead.

*****

It was carnage after that; a slaughter that left no one alive in the house except for Sirius, Severus and Lupin downstairs, and Finnegan hauling the blubbering Vernon upstairs to sit with his wife and son, once he had freed him from the stranglehold that Snape had on his fat throat, and Kingsley patrolling outside and Sturgis Apparating for Dumbledore.

Lupin alone of the three downstairs had killed no one; he had dived to Lucius's side, mindless of his own safety, and still sat on the floor with Malfoy's head on his lap, as inconsolable as he would be for many days to come.

Sirius stood against the wall, shaking all over in shock and remorse, and Merlin alone knew what other emotions. He had shed Andromeda's robe to the tight trousers and sweater he had worn below them, before he had come back down the stairs, before what happened, when everything was different and Lucius was still alive. He couldn't take it in. He looked across to where Snape sat with his head in his hands in the seat Barty Crouch had dozed in. Sirius wondered if this were how Severus had felt when James had died; he supposed so. He wondered how he had ever managed to think again, walk or talk or eat or sleep, far less begin to put his life back together. Lucius was dead, and Sirius just couldn't grasp it.

He heard the door and braced himself for the fury; it didn't matter anyway. Nothing mattered now; Lucius was dead, and nothing would bring him back, not even Dumbledore's wrath.

*****

It was worse than Dumbledore had feared. The dead bodies didn't matter, except for one, of course; they didn't matter any more than the dead bodies of any other mortal enemy. And he would deal with the Ministry; this would not be a problem. There would be no trials; he knew that. It was the living who worried Dumbledore. There was not a scratch on any of them, except for what Lupin had got earlier from Bellatrix and Rabastan, but he shuddered at their deeper wounds.

He crossed the room to Lupin first; he was going to give him his hand to help him to his feet, but he did not feel like letting Lucius Malfoy's head lie on the ground. He creaked down to sit with him instead, nodding across the room to where Sirius stood at the opposite wall and Snape sat on the chair.

'Sirius, Severus,' he said quietly, quite unable to stifle the passion in his voice. 'I want you to come and sit with us, with Remus and Lucius and me. What has happened here today has hurt you all very, very deeply. Do not think for a moment that I cannot feel the pain in this room.'

He watched Sirius look away; he knew his emotions had got the better of him, perhaps that was no bad thing. 'Sirius,' he said softly. 'Do not turn away from me, boy. Please, Sirius, let an old man at least try to offer what comfort he has.'

*****

Kingsley came back into the room and called over to where the four men sat on the floor against the wall, with Lucius's head still on Lupin's lap. 'The squad is here, Dumbledore,' he said softly, avoiding looking at any of the others in some kind of respect for their grief. He nodded to where Regulus's body lay next to Barty Crouch's. 'We'll just move them away in two seconds, and then clean up upstairs.'

Dumbledore nodded his thanks.

'Andromeda's here, too,' Kingsley went on. 'She'd like to come in. Is that okay?'

'Yes, of course it is,' Dumbledore replied.

The clean-up squad moved the two bodies quickly and silently and left the room. Andromeda passed them on their second trip as they dragged Barty Crouch out; her face was tear-streaked, and white with shock and sorrow. Dumbledore moved up a little towards Lupin so that she could squeeze in between Severus and Sirius. Women were so much better at grief than men were; they had no awkwardness, they were not bound by stilted convention, they could touch and cry and say words of nothing that could mean so much.

Dumbledore wondered at this painful peace they had endured when they had thought Voldemort fled, and at the toll the death of this most complex of men had taken on the lives in this room. He knew Sirius had loved Lucius Malfoy since he had been a schoolboy, and of course, he had felt the emotion coming from Lucius himself when he had told him of how Severus had brought his brother's body to his care; he knew how deeply Severus must have cared for Lucius and trusted him to do that. And then there was Lupin, a newer different kind of love, but one just as profound; one that had surprised Dumbledore when he had recognised it on his visits to the Manor. And yet the only thing that mattered just now was that Lucius Malfoy was dead, and they had all let it happen.

*****

It had been building up steadily during the week since Lucius's death, Lucius's cold-blooded murder, Severus snarled to himself, and something had to give. He found no peace, no outlet for his rage. He had to get away from there for a while, away from Lupin's desolation, from Black's still stunned shock, even from the two little boys who had automatically turned to him, mistakenly recognising him as being the only one of the three men capable of offering them the attention little boys needed.

Severus left the drawing room, taking Draco and Harry with him; neither of the other two even watched him go. He took them to the charmed room they had made to protect them from Regulus, and found he was joined by the fairies. He had to stifle his emotion as they ran up his arms and nestled in neck. He could feel them nuzzling their sympathy, and found himself struggling to maintain his outward calm, as it threatened to fray at the edges and spill his outrage and pain and guilt, until there was nothing left of him.

How many times was he to suffer the knowledge that he had failed to protect the one he loved? Alexus, James ... and now Lucius. How many more would die because Severus Snape could not protect them? He did not hear the fairies take the little boys and place them in the playpen, or remember when it became dark, or notice that he had not eaten for two days. He was so steeped in despondency that he did not even realise someone else had come into the room, until he felt the hands on his shoulders, and came so near to letting the flood barrier break that he shuddered with the effort of holding it back.

'We'll go now,' Black said into his hair from behind his seat, in that way he had of knowing Severus did not like to be watched when he felt the way he felt then: vulnerable, at a loss as to where to turn, how to move from today to whatever tomorrow there was. 'Lupin is asleep, but he knows where we're going. And the fairies will watch the boys,' he added.

Snape felt himself nod, angry with himself. He had not had the grace to offer Black any comfort, and he knew he should have. Sirius's loss was greater perhaps than his own was, and he was the one to make amends first ... as he always had been. 'Black ...' he began, but he just didn't know how to go on.

'It's all right, Severus,' Sirius said and squeezed his shoulders, just a tiny increase of pressure. 'Just let's go one step at a time. We've something to do, you and I, a door to close.'

It was only half an hour later that they Apparated to Surrey. This time Severus wasn't in disguise, nor was Sirius; they had no need to hide.

'Shall we knock?' Sirius asked. 'Or perhaps we should just show ourselves in?'

'Ever the maverick, Black,' Snape replied, with his hand poised to rap the door. 'I'm sure we shall have to revert to your way of doing things soon enough.'

'What are we actually going to do, Severus? Just so I know; we forgot to discuss it.'

'You would not have listened anyway,' Snape said dryly, admitting to himself that he felt better somehow already. He let his hand fall on the door.

There was the same twitch of the curtain and flood of light on the doorstep, but this time no one came to the door. In fact nothing happened, until a few minutes later they saw a blue flashing light, and a Muggle motor vehicle emitting a horrendous noise.

'Apparate now,' Sirius hissed. 'Diagon Alley, see you there.'

*****

'We've checked the grounds, Mr Dursley, and asked the neighbours. Nobody saw anything. There aren't even wet footprints on the doorstep, and it's pouring.' The policeman scratched his head under his cap. 'Not much more we can do, I'm afraid.'

'They were there, I tell you,' Vernon hissed, his face purple with rage and fear and ominously high blood pressure. 'Weren't they, Petunia?'

'I didn't actually see them,' she simpered to the younger of the two officers. 'I did hear a sound like a knock though, just like Vernon said.'

'Perhaps it was a cat?' the first policeman offered.

'A ruddy cat doesn't dress up like a weirdo,' Vernon spluttered, and then stopped himself.

'What kind of weirdo?' the policeman asked with a frown. He looked around, and caught sight of the brandy bottle Vernon had taken out to pour a snifter to calm his nerves, and seemed to give his partner a sidelong look. 'Just call us back if you get worried again, Mr Dursley,' he said, cocking his head to his mate, and turning to leave.

Vernon was about to call them back and tell them he'd have a word with the Chief Constable, when he caught Petunia's anxious look and remembered that he really just wanted this all over forever. He listened to the click of the front door as the two policemen showed themselves out, and heard the soft clunk as the doors closed on their squad car, and it drove back up Privet Drive, without its blue light flashing.

He saw Petunia mouthing soundlessly, and assumed the old girl had eventually gone gaga, bad breeding, as his sister would say, and turned to find she wasn't gawping at the wall after all. Two men were standing in the middle of the room, as though they had materialised from thin air.

'Now, look here,' Vernon said, puffing out his chest in terror more than anything else, 'the police will be back in a minute or two. You two had better make yourselves scarce.'

'He doesn't look much, but then, I don't suppose they ever do,' the one who wasn't Tobias's son said. 'I suppose that's why they can't get one of their own.'

'I doubt it was anything to do with ugliness of anything but the heart,' Snape said in what Vernon though was a very sniffy, pompous way, considering what he knew about his upbringing, stuck up little poof.

'I wonder if his wife knows?' the other one asked.

'Knows what?' Vernon asked, his voice sounding a bit squeakier than he would have liked.

'Knows what?' Petunia asked at the same time, and Vernon wished she'd shut her stupid horse face up.

'Why don't you go and check Dudders, my dear?' he said with a horrible grin. 'Let me deal with these two gents.'

'Gents,' the one with the blue eyes said. 'That's what they call public toilets in the Muggle world, Severus. Did you know that?'

'Why don't they just call them public toilets, Black?' Snape asked. 'Sit down, Petunia,' he added smoothly, without even looking at her.

'Maybe they think it's not polite?' the one called Black said.

'Isn't that where Lucius told you they rape little boys?' Snape asked with a puzzled frown. 'That's not polite.'

Vernon made an involuntary noise that sounded halfway between a gasp and a squeal. He thought he might have a heart attack, almost wished he would; perhaps he could pretend to have one. He wondered if the man called Black was related to the other Black, the dead one; he thought he might be.

'Do you think we should tell the neighbours as well?' Black asked.

'I think it's only fair. This is a decent neighbourhood. The people here have paid a lot of money to live next to ...' Snape trailed off for a moment, nodding his head vaguely in Vernon's direction. '...That.'

'Tell them what?' Petunia asked, her voice sounding brittle and hysterical.

'It's all lies,' Vernon roared. 'A pack of filthy lies.'

'Vernon?' Petunia asked, giving her husband a look that was part puzzlement and part suspicion.

'Lies, I tell you.' Vernon puffed his chest out again, reaching for the brandy glass that shattered just before his hand reached it.

'What are you all talking about?' Petunia asked.

'You tell her, Black,' Snape said quietly and looked away.

Vernon had heard it; he heard the edges of what sounded like defeat in Snape's voice: pathetic, no guts at all, just the way he'd always been, just the way he had been that night, so long ago. He found to his alarm that his prick had begun to stiffen at the thought; it had been a while since it had done that. 'You're a liar, Snape,' he said in his panic. 'It's all lies.'

'What is? Who is that man?' Petunia asked, and Vernon noticed she was addressing him now, and not the two men who had invaded his living room. 'No one has said anything, Vernon, so how can you say it's lies?'

'Shut up, you shrew,' he said viciously, losing the place for a moment. 'No one asked for your input.' He stood up from his chair and froze. The two men and Petunia were looking to his crotch, to where the beige trousers, which were stretched tightly over his bulk, were slightly tighter than usual, just where a damp patch had appeared, at about the tip of his swollen prick.

'Vernon,' Petunia said in horror, 'sit down.' She eyed his crotch meaningfully again, in distaste. 'I demand to know what is going on,' she said, dragging her eyes away to Snape. 'Please.'

It was Black who spoke. He did it so quickly and fluidly that Vernon didn't have a chance to voice his indignation until it was over. He had been seized by a wheezing fit of some sort, and by the time he could breathe properly again, it was too late; the front door had closed on the two men, and Petunia had already left the room to pack her suitcases.

'Better?' Sirius asked quietly, as they Disapparated beside the kitchen garden.

Snape was surprised; he had expected to feel hollow, dissatisfied, regretful of what they had done. He didn't feel good, he couldn't say that, but he did feel better.

*****

It was almost a month later when Draco walked into the dining room. Both boys had become quite steady on their feet by then, much to the chagrin of the elves. Draco looked up at Lupin, with his father's pale grey eyes. 'Dad, Dada,' he said.

'Not me,' Lupin said with the best he did with his smile these days, and pointed to the portrait of Lucius that was above the fire. He had thought it would have come alive by now, but it had been too long; it wasn't going to happen. 'That's Dad,' he said.

Sirius sat at the top of the table, and Snape sat at his side, with Harry in a highchair between them, playing with his breakfast.

'Dada,' Draco insisted.

'That's your dad,' Lupin said and pointed again.

'Dada,' Draco said in satisfaction, as the temperature in the room dropped a telltale few degrees, and Lupin's jaw dropped along with it.

'That's my seat, Black, I believe,' Lucius said from right behind him, causing Sirius to actually jump, so that he spilt his coffee right across the table. But for the fact that Sirius could see right through him, he would have thought Lucius had truly returned from the dead.

The three men looked at him in a mixture of bewilderment and shock. He looked exactly as he had when he had died, white-blond hair just slightly dishevelled, almost hiding the ugly swelling on his forehead, and streaked with a little blood from the thin trickle at the side of his mouth. Ever the one to put his best side on view, he held his mutilated hand behind his back.

'I would have thought you would have remembered me,' he said archly. 'Or perhaps none of you has ever seen a ghost before.' He raised his eyebrow, in his Slytherin way. 'And get off my seat, Black. I do not intend to stand all through breakfast.'

'You can't sit,' Sirius mouthed stupidly. 'You'll fall through on your arse.'

Malfoy gave him a superior look. 'I can sit on that seat, and I shall do so whether you are in it or not.'

Sirius moved along and watched carefully to see if Lucius simply assumed the position of sitting, but surely a ghost couldn't even manage that for long. 'How did you do that?' he asked; he seemed to be the only one who was doing any talking.

'What's the point of having fairies in one's home, if one can't get them to do little chores every now and again?' Lucius replied smugly, crossing his legs elegantly as though to prove he was quite comfortable.

There was something fitting about him sitting there; not that he could eat, and sometimes he seemed to wander off into his other world, but the few remarks he made seemed to have been deliberately chosen, as though he had been thinking about them during his month-long absence. Sirius knew why he had joined them; he knew he'd come to tell them to move on, to start living again.

Lucius surprised him by turning first to Lupin. 'Has my will been read yet?' he asked.

'No, it's tomorrow in fact, at Imperius et Libris,' Lupin replied. 'Dumbledore invited me along, but I don't think I'll go; I'd have to cancel a class.'

'They can't do it without you, Lupin,' Lucius replied. 'Has Dumbledore not told you?'

'Told me what?'

'You're the main beneficiary, with the proviso that you leave the residue after your death to Draco,' Lucius delivered with evident satisfaction. 'And, of course, I prefer you not to allow Severus to starve.'

'I hope that's a joke,' Lupin spluttered, and forgot to close his mouth.

'Not at all,' Lucius replied with his expensive smile, just the same as it always had been. 'Look at Severus and Sirius; they know. Shame on both of you for not telling him.'

'You can't do that,' Lupin whispered.

'I certainly can't change it now.' Lucius smiled again and spoke as though the other two were not there. 'I owed you more than money could ever repay you, Lupin. You were the brother I never had, the friend I never deserved. You never judged me, even when I know you must have had doubts. I cannot tell you how you enriched the time we had here,' he said, looking fondly to where Draco was watching him. 'It was the most precious of my life.'

Malfoy seemed to finish with Lupin all of a sudden, content to leave the misty-eyed, somewhat bemused werewolf to his own thoughts, and turned to where Severus sat watching him, his lip twisted in grudging affectionate amusement. 'Now, Severus. I want you to put it away. I know, perhaps better than anyone, the pain you've endured, when you were young, and then with James. You've got a lot to do. You've got to protect Harry until he is old enough for what you know he has to do in the future.'

'Voldemort isn't dead, is he?' Severus asked.

Lucius shook his head. 'No, not all of him at any rate. That task falls to Harry; your task is to get him there and bring him back.'

Sirius looked at Snape; he had funny feeling he'd already guessed that.

'James ... and Alexus ... have you ...' Severus began, and seemed unable to voice his question.

'Yes,' Lucius replied as Snape looked at him sharply. 'Your pain hurts both of them, Severus. You must let them rest.'

'Alexus ... he remembers me?' he asked.

'You are the only thing he remembers of his life on earth. Did you know that it is only love that can bind a ghost to a person or a place?'

'What's the Bloody Baron doing in Hogwarts then?' Sirius asked.

But Lucius just laughed. 'There is a certain code of honour that does not allow me to disclose that.' He turned once more to Snape and Lupin, and surprised Sirius again. 'I would like to speak to Black alone now for a few minutes. I'm sure the breakfast can wait. Leave Harry here with us.' He waited until both men had left with the little blond boy, waving as Draco waved back, before turning at last to Sirius.

'It was to see you that I came back, Sirius,' he said.

Sirius couldn't remember if he'd ever heard Lucius call him anything but "Black"; he didn't think so. 'I see,' he said, but he didn't.

'I wanted to tell you some things which I should have told you a long time ago.' He paused for a moment, holding Sirius's eyes. 'I have always loved you, ever since we were boys, but ... I simply loved Severus more ... and I would not have you take second best where I would not take it myself. Does that make sense?'

'No,' Sirius replied. 'But I understand.'

'No, I don't think you do. You missed the first and most important point, and that was that I always loved you. But he needed me, Sirius; even though he did not love me as he loves you. As Severus said himself, it was a very uncomfortable triangle.' He heaved a sigh. 'I'm not explaining this very well.'

But he was; Sirius understood him now, understood Lucius's craving to be needed ... perhaps that had been something that had drawn him to Lupin too. Lucius had needed to give; not his money or his body or his possessions ... he had needed to give his love to the very few people who could see below the dazzling glossy exterior to the man below. Sirius felt somehow more at peace.

Lucius smiled in satisfaction. 'You do understand. In a way it was my selfishness that did not allow us to be together, and if I had the chance ... I would do the same again, except for one thing.'

'What?' Sirius whispered.

'I would tell you how much I loved you, and I would never have let you doubt, but I would not have let you harbour the false hopes you may have had either. That was greed on my part; I wanted you both, and ended up with neither.'

He let the smile through again, and Sirius could see he was beginning to fade; perhaps he was tired. He knew that very soon he and Harry would be left in an empty room, bereft of everything but the dust of his dreams and the ache in his heart. He had just one more thing to ask Lucius anyway; one thing that had bothered him for a long time, since shortly after he'd left school.

'Were you having an affair with James Potter, Lucius?' he asked, quite sure of the answer.

'Off and on, yes, but I think you always knew that. Which one of us wasn't? Except for Lupin, of course,' Malfoy asked with his knowing smile. 'James was everyone's prize. It is only a wonder no one ever told Severus. Go to him, Sirius, go to Severus; he deserves better than he has ever had, and so do you.'

'Makes me wonder how James managed to spare time to father the boy,' Sirius said with a guilty grin; it felt good on his face, something familiar that had been absent for too long. He looked to where Harry was still sitting in his high chair, with his expectant chick look on his face, as though he knew the bit about him had still to come.

Lucius arched his eyebrow. 'I think we both know better than that,' he said as he smiled a mysterious knowing smile.

'Me?' Sirius breathed, shaking his head; it couldn't be, the timing wasn't right. 'Lupin?'

'Not Lupin either.'

'You?' Sirius asked incredulously.

'Hardly,' Lucius replied. 'I tried it once and didn't like it, thank you.'

'It can't be Severus,' Sirius said. 'He's never lain with a woman.'

'True,' Lucius admitted. 'But I had a long chat with Lily the other day. She seemed even more content than James that Severus had Harry in his protection.' He looked across to the door, as though checking they were still alone. 'She found a scroll from Severus one day, arranging a meeting with James, and ... well, Lily was an expert Potions maker, every bit as good as Severus, and she did so want a child ... and what with James seeming to be more interested in other things.' He sighed theatrically and nodded to Harry.

Sirius had begun to laugh; it felt so fucking good. 'Are you telling me she took Polyjuice and went to meet Severus, pretending she was James?'

Lucius shook his head in mock disapproval. 'Terribly devious creatures, women are.'

He began to fade again, and Sirius felt the emotion well up in him as though it would overflow without his permission. 'Will you come to see us? You won't leave us completely will you? Please, Lucius.'

'I'll be here forever; when you are long gone,' Lucius said with the first regret Sirius had heard. 'Go to him now. It's hardly fair that he's all on his own, left holding the baby.'

*****