Chapter Three

LUPIN

I was terrified; I didn't think I'd even been as scared at any time during the war. I didn't know what to expect, how to prepare for failure or accept any success that we might have. I had always been brought up to believe that Dark Magic was the root of all evil, and here we were in the very bastion of defence against those Dark Arts, practising them ourselves. I could feed myself any amount more of that sanctimonious drivel I cared to, to cover up the fact that I was just plain scared... for Bill, and myself, and for Harry and Sirius, but most of all for Snape; I doubted he would survive failure.

We were in the Infirmary. I wasn't sure where Poppy was, but she'd made herself scarce; we hadn't seen her at all since Dumbledore had had a quick but intense conversation with her when we arrived back from the shelter. There had been a lot of nodding and shaking of heads, Dumbledore nodding while Poppy shook, until she had finally given a quick frightened look along to where Bill and I had laid Sirius on a bed at the far end. I was touched by one thing though, even through my fear, as I saw her lay a hand of comfort on Snape's arm as he passed her; women are so good at that, un-stifled as they are by what convention dictates to us men.

'What's that?' I whispered as Bill lifted a stringy looking bit of vegetation from a stone bottle with the aid of metal tongs. The moment it left the bottle it began to give off choking yellow fumes.

Bill shrugged, his eyes watering in the acrid gas. 'I don't know, for fuck sake; I'm only doing what I was told.' He let the thing smoke away on the metal tray on which he'd placed it and looked up the Infirmary to where Severus had his head bent over a book. 'I'd kind of hoped Dumbledore would have overseen this.'

'Hardly,' I replied as Severus straightened and began to walk back down to where both Bill and I were carefully looking at him, or the still smouldering vegetation, or the walls or the floor or one another, or anything indeed that wasn't the dead man on the bed. I shuddered to myself, shying away from so many issues. If Sirius were dead, where was his mind, his awareness, his soul? Had they fled to whatever afterwards there was? Had his body begun to shut down, his organs perish and his flesh putrefy? But I knew none of these things had happened; wasn't that just what Severus had made that forbidden step to stop? Hadn't he placed himself in front of the door marked "death", and held up his hand?

'What have we to do next?' Bill asked him. I was glad it was him, glad he sounded as unsure about all of this as I did. I kept trying to remember that it had been Dumbledore who had called us out of the Infirmary a couple of hours ago, seemingly content to leave Severus alone with Sirius for the first time since we'd come back. When I saw Kingsley leaving through the front doors I understood; some agreement had been reached, someone somewhere had made a decision, and I knew it had been a joint one. My biggest concern now was, what if it were all in vain?

Severus had just given us an odd look when we arrived back, when we'd asked what he wanted us to do. Dumbledore had been very specific that we had not to mention words like permission or consent or approval, and all three of us knew just to start from some vague status quo without questioning how it had been reached.

'Some things are going to happen now,' Snape replied to Bill in the flat voice he'd been using since we'd moved from the shelter. The fiery passion he had shown when he had first confronted Dumbledore had fled, and I doubted he had the strength to call it back. 'I have to know I can trust you,' he said, and for the first time I saw his own fear; the depth of it staggered me.

'We're here, aren't we?' I replied.

He nodded uneasily, and I knew it was more at what was happening, than the fact that we were the ones who were helping him in whatever way he saw fit to allow us. I felt I should say something more, and yet I just didn't know what that should be; perhaps something to acknowledge the fact that at least I understood the courage or passion or whatever it had been that had led him to commit this ultimate act of ... I struggled to even think of what I meant; perhaps sacrifice is the wrong word, but I knew he had made his own life and freedom forfeit to save Sirius, and somewhere I envied him the knowledge that he had done so.

'I have to visit him,' he said doubtfully. 'He has begun to retreat again ... and I cannot afford for him to go any further away.'

He placed one of his pale hands on top of Sirius's, where they lay clasped together on top of the white sheets that totally covered him, except for the forearms and the hands. It was as though they had been allowed to show themselves to remind everyone that this was a man who had not quite finished with the world. 'Do not do anything at all unless I ask you to, you have to trust me,' Severus said. He didn't wait for assent, but he lifted the smouldering slimy leaf from the metal dish with his bare fingers; I could see it eating into his flesh, but he seemed not to notice as he opened his mouth. I almost disobeyed him immediately; I suspect I would have done if Bill hadn't gripped my arm as Severus laid the leaf on his own tongue.

*****

SEVERUS

It was all I could do to go through in my head what needed done, without having to relay it to Weasley and Lupin as well. Of all the men that I knew, I was fortunate at least that it had been these two Dumbledore had brought with him to the shelter; they would not willingly let Sirius down. And I needed them there; I needed them to call me back if I strayed too far, I needed the knowledge they had brought back with them that I was being allowed this chance. I had to make sure that whatever price I was to pay was worth the cost. I felt them watch me, but could find no words to allay their fears.

'When he begins to awaken,' I began, trying to put some feeling into my voice, but I couldn't afford to waste the energy. 'If I do not do so too, put one of these leaves on Black's tongue.' I could see Lupin balk at that, see he doubted if Sirius would allow that; I had no assurance to offer.

'When I begin my incantations it may seem as though we move away from you.' I struggled to say what I meant. 'We will appear to have moved further away, and in a way we will have.'

'You mean onto another plane?' Weasley asked.

I nodded slowly, aware of their concern that my breathing was becoming shallow and rapid. 'Something like that,' I agreed; it was as good a description as I could have given. 'There may be other physical manifestations. Not live ones,' I hastened to add, as Lupin seemed to start. 'The light will become dimmer around us, and it may be hard for you to actually see what is happening.' I gasped and saw Lupin hold out his hand as though to steady me, but I realised that wasn't what it was ... it had begun already. It would have to do; they would have to understand, I needed everything I had now. At last I turned to where he lay waiting somewhere for me, a star shining only in the firmament of my mind, and I reached out my hand.

*****

SIRIUS

I wondered if I'd made a mistake, if my hopes and dreams as well as my life had flashed before me, in that moment between sleep and wakefulness, dark and light, life ... and that other place he'd told me not to think about. I was beginning to think I was alone, that maybe he had forgotten already; I began to turn, to walk away from I could not remember what ... and then I found he'd locked the door and I could not pass.

I think it was the silence that I feared most, not the loss of human voices and day to day sounds, not the wind and the rain and music and the sound of my own blood being pumped through my body; it was the finding of a silence so profound that it seemed to press upon me, seeping into my fading awareness, stealing through my veins instead of my blood.

The shock of hearing him again was almost pain.

'Do you understand what we have to do?' he asked.

I nodded my head, surprised I could still do that, and found I was opening my eyes; I didn't remember closing them. 'Where are we?' I asked.

'At Hogwarts,' he said, and lapsed again into uttering the strange incantations I realised were what I heard when I first heard him return. It didn't look like Hogwarts to me; it looked hazy, as though I were searching through fog or thick glass ... and there was something out there.

'What language is that?' I asked, as the cadences rose and fell and he seemed to become more breathless.

He didn't stop his chant except for a moment, to put his hand on my arm. 'Ancient Macedonian,' he gasped. 'Stay with me now, Black; it is vital that we do this first time. I could not do it again. I shall not be permitted.' He went straight back to his chant without telling me what I had to do.

I felt him fumbling in his pocket where he sat beside me on what I now realised was a bed, and he withdrew a small rusty-looking dagger; I supposed that was ancient Macedonian too, I certainly didn't recognise the runes on the hilt, or the script that seemed to coalesce on the blade as he drew it across his arm in a vicious slice that made his blood spurt. He dipped back to his pocket again, and this time he brought out a small stone flask; I could see he was struggling and wondered if I should help.

'Hold the flask under my blood,' he gasped.

It was slippery in my cold hand, from his blood and something else, as though it were alive and was reluctant to do what it was bidden, but I managed. The contents of the bottle hissed as I caught his blood, and he sealed his wound. I almost dropped it; it writhed in my hand with more of a life of its own than I had. I felt faint as I handed it to him, consciousness swimming away in the way he warned must not happen, as he drew the knife across my own arm and squeezed. There was nothing there, nothing flowing; how could there be? But that seem not to concern him, and I was so far away from the realms of anything I knew about that I didn't even know what questions to ask. And yet something seemed to leave my severed veins, something he needed in that bottle, as much as his own blood; I understood with a start that it was emptiness.

I watched him raise the stone bottle to his lips and drink, and then turn to me; I could almost feel his touch as he tilted my head and poured some of the liquid into my mouth. I couldn't quite taste it, couldn't quite feel the touch of his hand on my throat as he massaged it.

And then I realised he was no longer there; he had disappeared ... and yet he hadn't. He had just moved, and he was now occupying the same space I occupied; he was within me as I was within him. I could see that whoever or whatever was behind that fog had noticed he had gone too. I wanted to warn it not to interfere, that he was here and he had not deserted me.

And then I saw him again beside me, as the fog began to clear, and the silence was replaced with noise, and something happened to my chest which made me gasp, and it was so long since the air had filled my lungs that they wept at the sweetness of it, and I realised my heart had staggered to life, dragging me with it as the dried streambeds of my veins flowed red. His head was hanging to the side, his eyes almost closed, his mouth slightly open and he had stopped his incantations; something screamed at me that he had stopped breathing too.

At first I thought Lupin was trying to strangle me, that he and Bill did not know who I was. He had my head in an arm lock and was prising my jaws apart as Bill held something out towards me; it made my eyes sting and, well ... it was just fortunate I had no strength to resist.

When I woke again I knew I was in Hogwarts. The old Infirmary looked the same, with Poppy Pomfrey standing at the end, talking to herself, as she arranged and rearranged her foul potions on her shelves, straightening her already straight wimple and flattening her already flat starched skirts around her. There were no other patients, unlike the wartime days when the place had overflowed with the broken remains of our people. As Dumbledore pushed open the door and looked along the ward, I began to really realise for the first time that I was alive ... and that had not always been the case. It helped to take my mind off the bigger thoughts, the ones that were too big for me just now; I would look at them a little at a time, as I gathered courage along with my strength.

*****

DUMBLEDORE

I had no regrets, save one, and that was that I had not had the courage to assist. I had only realised that I wanted to when they were too far into whatever they were doing to be able to accept another member. A poor excuse, I know, but nonetheless the only one I have.

I learned two things that day, as I walked the short distance to Sirius's bed, which was not at all bad for an old man who thought he knew everything already. The first and obvious one was that he was alive, and I was quite overwhelmed at my joy. The second one was much more profound and I suspect I shall never admit to it for fear of it being taken out of context.

I realised how dangerously close I had been to committing the very atrocity that marked the Dark Forces apart from us, the taking of a precious life, two precious lives in fact, by failing to allow what had happened here. I had come so near to sacrificing two men, who had given everything of themselves to protect us in our most desperate times, in the name of principle, and so plunging myself into an abyss of self-doubts and recrimination that would have followed me to my grave.

I learnt the fact, so staggering in its simplicity that I almost gasped at how it had escaped me for so long, that magic could not be light or dark, only the person who wields it. It was my own secret and not one I would ever share.

*****

HARRY

I went down to the Infirmary two days after we got back; no one had been allowed the day before except Bill and Lupin. I was quite frankly terrified; I trembled inwardly at the thought of an empty Sirius looking slightly away from me as he spoke whatever Snape made him say. I'd had nightmares about him sitting with me in the Three Broomsticks, while unspeakable things crawled out of his eyes and nose, and his hands turned to claws. Even Dumbledore's assurances that he would not be in an advanced stage of decomposition did little to allay my fears.

He was sitting up in bed and Lupin was with him. He gave me a smile and looked right at me for the first time in almost a week. He looked pale and tired and run down and very much alive.

'Sorry for spooking you all out like that. I bet you haven't brought Ron with you.' He laughed at that.

'Err, no.' I felt myself smile; nothing had crawled out of his nose. 'Are you ... em?'

'Alive? Yes, Harry, I'm alive.' He winced as he turned a little. 'I'm not sure my muscles were glad about that when I woke up, but I am alive. I just haven't started kicking yet.'

'Is that it then?'

'I'm afraid not. Snape's mixing up some awful brew that he'll have Hermione force feed me at hourly intervals, probably for the next ten years.'

'Where is he?' I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral. I hadn't quite worked out how I felt about what had happened; apart from being happy Sirius was alive, of course.

'Playing in his lab, I suppose.' He gave a sidelong grin to Lupin.

That annoyed me a little; I thought he'd have shown a bit more gratitude, even if he did hate Snape. 'Is he going to stand trial? Or aren't you bothered enough to have found out?'

'Harry,' Lupin said warningly.

'Sorry, Remus. It's just that Severus may indeed have to stand trial for keeping him alive, and it would be common decency to show a tiny scrap of concern for him.' A red mist had begun to descend on my brain.

'He's not going to stand trial, Harry; nobody blames him for what he did,' Sirius said in a placating tone, one which really made my temper rise.

'Blame? What the fuck has blame to do with it?' I stood up; I knew what I meant, even if he didn't.

'Harry, come back here.' It was Lupin again. 'And, you, keep that mouth of yours shut for a change,' he snapped, pointing at Sirius as I turned back round.

'It doesn't matter,' I said quietly, my anger had dissipated; it was just the injustice that had rankled me. I tried a smile. 'I'll come back later.'

'Severus Snape is a deeply disturbed man, Harry,' Lupin began in some type of explanation.

'Yeah,' I gave Sirius a long look, 'he must be.'

'What do you want from me, Harry?' Sirius asked, irritated in a way I misread. 'A tearful declaration of love? Maybe suicidal remorse at the twenty-odd years I've hated him?'

'No ... none of that, nothing quite so melodramatic. I was thinking more around the lines of a tiny bit of respect, if you couldn't manage a little concern or gratitude.'

'Harry, there are no words to describe the gratitude I feel for what he did. I think Dumbledore has managed to accept this because he has allowed himself to believe that Severus lent me power to keep me alive, and by the time I died he was too weak to draw back. Don't you know that I know that is fucking bullshit? That he's powerful enough to have drawn away at any time? That he risked his fucking life never mind his freedom, and quite possibly his sanity, because of what he did for me? Do you think I have drawn a breath since I woke up, without thinking about that ... or ever will?' He gave me a disappointed shake of his head. 'Is that what you think of me?'

There wasn't much I could say; up until he'd said it, it was exactly what I'd thought. Then I remembered what Hermione had said about it being the way they dealt with one another. 'No,' I said, with a silly smile of remorse. I crossed to the bed, bent over it and wrapped my arms about his shoulders; he was warm and alive, and I thanked Merlin ... and Severus Snape.

'I'm going out to get some tea. Anyone want some?' Lupin asked tactfully.

'Yes.' I gave him a grateful smile and turned to Sirius. 'What will happen to him? I mean, is he okay?'

'Snape? Yeah, he'll be fine. School is re-opening in a few weeks, after what would have been the Christmas holidays, and he'll have a load of first years to terrify for the first time in a couple of years; he'll be in his glory.' He gave me a level look. 'And before you shoot me down, I know that's not what you mean, but it's all you're getting.'

I couldn't content myself; I hadn't seen Snape since he'd left the shelter with Sirius and Bill, and I just couldn't rid myself of that image. 'I mean his mind, Sirius.'

'His mind's okay, Harry. At least it was when he called me all of the ungrateful bastards and mangy flea-ridden dogs under the sun, a couple of hours ago. He just needs rest; he brought himself damn near to the brink of draining everything he had, but he'll be okay now.' He gave me the serious look, the one he reserved for the few occasions when he was telling the truth and wanted me to know it. 'I wouldn't lie to you about that.'

'Why did Remus say he was disturbed?'

'He was talking about something which is not any of your business, and I am not going to discuss it with you ... and out of respect for both Severus and myself, I would prefer that you did not pursue this.'

'He's in love with you, isn't he ... and ... while you were dead, he was acting out some kind of weird fantasy, wasn't he?' I was piecing it together; it was scary stuff. 'Putting words in your mouth and pretending to himself that they were yours.'

'Harry, stop this now.' Sirius seemed to think for a moment before he went on. 'A little bit of what you said is true; one very important thing isn't. He never put any words in my mouth; he only directed my train of thoughts at any time. Anything I said to anyone was my own words.'

I looked along the Infirmary as I heard Lupin come back in, only it wasn't him; it was the black-garbed figure of Snape. He looked pale and drawn, and he had bluish shadows under his eyes, but the feverish look of two days ago had gone; it had been replaced by weariness so deep that I wondered how he could stand. Bill was with him, and I was glad of that, glad someone was watching out for him as well; I had a feeling Sirius might forget. I didn't miss Bill's worried frown; I think the same thing troubled him.

Snape gave me a curt nod; there was something strange about the look that accompanied it though, as if he grudged the very fact that I was here, and yet at the same time I knew it wasn't anything personal, not like the way we had been towards one another when I'd still been at school here. I put it away; I was so relieved that I had no room to harbour doubts.

He curled his lip at Sirius as he sat down heavily at the other side of the bed. 'I see that you have not bothered to do as I requested. How typical of you, Black,' he said, seeming more like the Snape I knew. 'Do not think of blaming me if your recovery is incomplete.'

'What?' Sirius asked; he seemed mystified.

'How can you expect to recover if you lie around all day like the lazy cur you clearly are? I told you to exercise, which, even in your case, means removing yourself from bed.'

'I've had visitors,' Sirius flared. 'More than you've had, I bet.' He eyed the flagon of greenish sludge that Snape produced with a flourish from his black robe. 'What's that?' he asked, his voice laced with suspicion.

'Medicine, you'll die without it.'

Bill and I left them to it; they didn't need our help to play this game. I just hoped Sirius would notice that Snape wasn't well; he tended to overlook things like that.

*****

BILL

I'm not easily humbled; I suspect that has something to do with the fact that my very upbringing gave me a running start in the modesty stakes, but I found myself almost staggered at the lengths one human being had gone to, to save another. And it wasn't even that, we had all made sacrifices, done bold deeds in the name of the defence of our people; it was Severus's very refusal to accept the realities of nature, the irrefutable truth that death is the ultimate fact of life.

He had seen the impossible, the door barring the way of lesser men, and had smashed it down with a combination of sheer power and will and, there was no denying the fact, love. But it had taken a terrible toll on him, and I hoped I wasn't the only one who had noticed just how damaged he was. I'd have a word with Dumbledore about it, about the fact that he seemed to be filled with self-doubts that had nothing to do with whether what he had done was right or wrong.

Sirius was out of the Infirmary now; he had been for just over a week. He had always been popular, a combination of good looks and good humour, a bit of a wild streak and money he wasn't afraid to splash around, but now he was like a man who needed to live life to the full, today, in case tomorrow it had run away from him again. I suppose that was hardly surprising; he'd had it snatched away from him once and had rotted twelve years of his prime in Azkaban, and now he'd had it almost snatched away again. He spent time with Harry and the rest of the younger men, and Lupin and me, and it was only after a while that I noticed Severus seemed to draw back when anyone went near Sirius; only it was worse than that, he actually seemed to recoil, as though he had been dealt a blow, like a mental Cruciatus.

He had taken to only speaking when spoken to, apart from when he was with Sirius, as though he would answer queries, but would venture nothing of his own; I had an uncomfortable feeling he felt he had nothing left to give. It worried me a little that it was Sirius who was the object of his obsession; there were more compassionate souls around who might have poured some kind of oil on his troubled waters. Then again, perhaps that was what had drawn him to Sirius, the very fact that he was one of the few men who didn't really care what others thought, the same way as I had mistakenly thought of Severus for all these years.

He refused to come to the Three Broomsticks with us the last night before he all but disappeared, and I had expected Sirius to stay at Hogwarts with him, but he hadn't. I was going to stay myself, but he didn't even meet my eye. To my shame I went to Hogsmeade. I'm a better man that that, I should have stayed, maybe I could have taken some time to get into that mind of his, maybe I could have headed off what he was doing to himself.

My mother always said that we do not know the measure of any man until his limits are tested; I understood that now. I understood that Severus Snape had seen the limits and had walked beyond them; I hoped he could find his way back.

*****