Chapter Five

SIRIUS

He wouldn't look at me.

I was surprised he had let Hermione in, but I took the time to be glad that at least he wouldn't think that she had sent me down; at least he'd realise I'd come of my own accord. That was if he were capable of thought; I wasn't entirely sure that he was.

'This ends today, Severus,' I said flatly as I began to take books back out of the boxes in which he'd put them, realising with a start that he was packing. I just added them to the general mess in the room; I'd straighten things up myself, I didn't want the elves gossiping about this.

He was still standing in the middle of the floor where I'd pushed him back into the room; his head hung and his hair had dropped over his face, and he looked as forlorn as anyone I have ever seen. He'd lost the way, and somewhere along the line I'd let that happen. Where he had stood with me and refused to let me go, I had let him slip away, unnoticed. He had given me himself, his whole being, all of him, and I had not taken the time to see that he had nothing left. I'd just let him be here, isolated and alone, with only whatever torturous bewilderment he had left himself with for company.

I laid the books down, stood up and led him unresisting to the settee. I sat him down and pulled him to me the way he'd had held me in the shelter, feeling his cold emptiness against me; at least this time two hearts were beating, we had moved forward after all. I could feel his crushing despair; I could feel it run in his very veins, as though it were confused and searching for a way out. We sat there for a long time, maybe hours, saying nothing, as the tension slowly and painfully subsided; I realised he had fallen asleep.

I understood now; I understood part of what had happened, a bit of what I needed to do. Dumbledore couldn't have told me; he didn't know himself. I hadn't had to give him any power or any of my strength, he hadn't needed my heat or my magic; there were no incantations or whatever else he had had to use to give me back my life. I just had to hold him while he found his way back ... and be at the end of the road waiting when he did. That was part of it, but he was asleep just now. Later, I promised myself, once he saw I was there for him and he had something to live for, we would maybe do the other bit, but for now I let him rest; Merlin alone knew how much he needed it.

*****

HARRY

It wasn't Sirius who came back into the Library a little later; it was Hermione. She looked relieved as she flopped down beside me and knocked the board game so that all of the pieces moved out of their places.

'Oi ... watch what you're doing,' Ron flared. 'I was winning.'

'Well, you'll just have to win again, Ronald,' she said and turned to me. 'Sirius is with him.'

I felt the relief she was showing flood though me; it was only then I realised how worried we had all become. I looked across at Remus who'd just stood up to leave; I could see he felt the same way. I'd been down a few times to see if he was okay, as we all had, but he hadn't answered the door. I'd been tempted, very tempted just to break it down, but I hadn't. Cowardice on two counts, I suppose. I hadn't really wanted a dose of his vitriol if he were alive, and hadn't wanted to be the one to find him hanging from the rafters if he weren't; how's that for the guy who'd just slain the Dark Lord?

I'd gone to Dumbledore; I suppose I really was worried about him, and I suspect I hadn't been the first to voice my concerns to him. He'd told me that Snape would not take his own life; he seemed sure of that, I don't know why. He also told me that only Sirius and Severus could sort this out and that they would when the time was right ... whatever Dark Magic Snape had used had bound them to one another. He seemed quietly confident that he would be okay eventually. He said that Sirius had reached a crisis point in the shelter, which had made the conditions right for what Snape had done, but he felt that Severus wasn't there yet. He seemed to think Sirius would know when he was; I wasn't so confident.

I had wondered though why Dumbledore hadn't stepped in when Snape had closeted himself away. The elves had told Hermione that he hadn't had any food sent to him for over a week, and I was sure she would have told Dumbledore that, but from what he said, there was nothing he could have done.

'Did you see Severus?' I asked.

Hermione pulled a face. 'Yes, he looks awful. He was packing, Harry; I think he was leaving Hogwarts. Sirius just arrived as I was going to get him; I don't think he would have even been there if I'd had to go and find him.'

Ron gave her a look. 'How come he let you in when he's not seen anyone else?'

'I suppose I was just the one who turned up when he subconsciously needed someone to stop him. It didn't really matter who I was.'

I pulled the Marauder's Map from my pocket and laid it flat on the board game, knocking Ron's piece further from the winning post as I did so; he resisted commenting and looked skywards instead. Sirius and Severus were both in Snape's rooms. I felt someone behind me; it was Bill. He reached over my shoulder and folded the Map up again; he was right, we didn't need to know any more.

*****

SIRIUS

I eased away from him, pulled his legs up to where I'd been sitting and put a rug over him; he was so exhausted that he didn't even stir. I watched him for a while; perhaps watched over him would be a better description, before turning away to start on the mess.

It must have been quite late by the time I'd straightened the place up. His books had obediently returned to their appointed places with a spell; in fact most things had, there were few mid-air fights with objects, most things here knew where they habitually resided. Even the fire I'd lit earlier had begun to warm the colder corners of his rooms.

I went into his bedroom; the bed was unmade and there were clothes scattered around, it looked as though the elves had stopped calling. I changed the linen, and the dog in me recognised that it had been a good few days since he'd slept here. The bathroom looked as unused as the bedroom; there was no drying water to hint of earlier ablutions. I turned on the taps in his bath, and unstoppered a very expensive looking bottle. As I laced the running water with a hefty dose of whatever it was, I became aware of being watched.

'You can go now; I promise not to drown myself,' he said. Below the dishevelled clothes, the tangled hair, and what looked like five days of beard, he looked a bit more like himself.

'Not right now.' I nodded to the bath. 'Do you think the plumbing will cope, or should I hose you down first?'

He gave me a look, a Snape look, and let his lip curl; I confess to having felt a lump in my throat at seeing it. 'I'll just leave you to it, then,' I added hastily before he could hex me. 'I'll just be out there.'

*****

SEVERUS

When I awoke I felt startled and unsure; for one awful moment I thought he'd left me again. Then I heard him messing about in my bedroom, doing Black things, probably opening drawers and poking about where he'd no business poking about. I wasn't prepared for how swamped I felt by relief that he was still here; he must have been here for hours. And he'd come himself; Hermione hadn't gone for him as I knew she was going to do, probably that was why I'd allowed him to stay. I know it was why I was still there when he came. I knew I felt better, through the slamming headache and the dull realisation of the state I was in, I knew I felt better, and I knew it was because he was near. And I knew it was more than that; I knew he had come to me... not out of obligation or sense of duty, or because he felt he owed me any debt, or even because he had nothing else to do ... he had come to me because he wanted to.

I let him muddle about for a while as I scanned the room; he seemed to have put things back to how they should be. I let myself be impressed by his magical cleaning skills for the moment, assuming the whole lot would fall about my ears when I stood up, but for now I was impressed. He'd finished whatever he was doing in my bedroom and had moved into the bathroom. I stood up, preparing myself for the dizziness I expected, surprised when it didn't materialise. I ran a long glass of water and drank it off, feeling its coldness creep about my body, as though it were banishing whatever residue of madness might have hidden within me.

I heard water running as I walked towards the bathroom; that reminded me of the pressure that had built up in my bladder, and I hadn't yet sunk to the depths of having a slash in the sink in my study, at least I hoped I hadn't. I knew he felt me watching him.

I stifled a smirk at his remark; I knew it was another sign that I was feeling better, that I welcomed his impertinences the way I suppose I always had.

'Remember what you said about not drowning.' He backed away theatrically.

I closed the door with relief; I only had the strength to break so much ice at one time. I'm afraid I had to virtually peel my clothes off, and I winced at what Granger must have thought of me, as I tossed them into the laundry basket. I took my time shaving the four or five days growth, pleased that my hand wasn't shaking, whilst avoiding really looking at myself. I sank down into the bathwater, noticing he'd been very free with Lucius's bath preparations; I reminded myself to top it up with water before he came again ... then again, maybe he wouldn't be coming back. I lay for a long while before reluctantly pulling the plug; every now and again I'd searched for his presence and found its comforting closeness. I'd have known if he'd left; I would have felt the void.

I dressed in fresh clothes and braced myself.

He was sitting at my table with his long boot-clad legs slung up on it, smoking and drinking a mug of something hot. He must have known I was on my way out, another steaming mug sat at my place. My heart was in my throat; I really did not know what to say to him. How do you say thank you to someone who has plucked you from the abyss into which you've thrown yourself by mistake? I know his casual air had been rehearsed for hours, but at least he'd come up with something, which was more than I'd managed.

'I've sent for food. I don't know about you, but all that cleaning makes me hungry.' He flashed the grin.

'Is that your usual excuse for the pitiful state in which you normally present yourself?' I knew that was a bit rich coming from me that day, but it would have to do.

'Eggs, scrambled eggs and toast.' He watched me.

'I don't like eggs.'

'I knew you'd say that,' he replied. 'You've got black tea and dry toast, you can magic anything you want onto it.' He gave me a "try and come back on that" smirk.

We could have gone on like that for hours, I suppose, sitting thinking up smart retorts to hurl back and forth at one another; it suddenly seemed like an awful waste of time. I stood up. 'I don't want food, Black,' I said, before I could stop myself, before my inborn reserve overtook the surge of recklessness. 'I want to try ...' I trailed off; he knew what I meant.

I could see he had something on his mind, some mad thing he wanted to get off his chest. I confess I was stunned at what he said, more with the perfection of it than any sense of foreboding about how we would have to go about it. I wondered if I smelt Dumbledore somewhere in the background, pulling his strings like the grand puppet master he was.

'Can we do it alone?' he asked. 'I'm sure Bill and Remus would help, if you think we need them.'

I didn't know; I felt the very un-sureness creep over me and tried to push it away. I must have shaken my head, and I know he sensed I was at a loss.

'Not tonight anyway,' he said. 'Tonight you're going to get some proper rest and eat a proper meal. I meant to mention it before; you're far too thin.'

*****

SIRIUS

I wasn't at all sure if this were the right thing to do; my resolution leaked out of me about the same time as he opened the stone bottle and the fumes leaked out of it. He looked better this evening, at least he looked rested, and I know he'd slept most of the night before; I saw that from where I lay awake beside him. I had waited until he was asleep again, before climbing on top of the bedclothes beside where he lay beneath them; I hadn't wanted him to think I was pressuring him into any kind of sexual activity if he woke, nothing was further from my mind at that point.

I hadn't left his side at all through the day; I got both breakfast and lunch sent down, and although he ate little, at least he made an attempt. It didn't escape my notice, or his I suppose, that no one had seen fit to come down to hammer on his door. I ignored the way he tried to pick a fight over nothing, and when he became surly when I wouldn't join in, and even ignored when he grabbed me and tried to throw me out; he wasn't a physical match for me anyway, and he wouldn't be like this for much longer, that much I promised myself. He gave up on trying to rile me into leaving and lapsed into a sullen silence instead, seemingly content to dose me with accusation from his black eyes alone.

I waited until he seemed to snap out of it again, and berated myself for not seeing it through all the times I'd taken the lure and swum off.

'Now, Severus, let's do it now,' I said, eyeing the stone flask with trepidation I hoped I didn't show.

He nodded, just once, and I saw him fumble in his robe; I knew he was checking the dagger was where he wanted it.

I watched him begin his incantations; they sounded more weird and frightening than they had the last time, somehow alien and threatening. He must have felt my unease, because he looked up from the little stone flask.

'If you have doubts, Black, stop me now.'

No, I had no doubts; I had fears, and reservations, but I had no doubts, not about him anyway. 'Hurry up, before I chicken out,' I said, trying not to notice how the slimy smoking leaf was eating his flesh. Merlin knows where I found the courage, but I opened my mouth, and he placed a bit on my tongue and then a bit on his own. There was no pain, and that surprised me; I had assumed that I had been so confused when Bill had put the thing on my tongue in the Infirmary that I just hadn't noticed. I felt something though, but it defies me to describe what it was; the best I can do is that I was drawing away from that room to another place.

He took the little dagger from his pocket, and his chant became quieter and quieter until I could barely hear him muttering. I realised that the room had dimmed somewhat, and I had to strain to even see him; it was the same fog that had surrounded the bed in the Infirmary. I held out my arm as he held out his hand; I wished it weren't shaking, but it was steady enough for him to draw the dagger once across my flesh and catch the blood in the flask; he sealed my wound so quickly that it seemed it had not happened. He handed the dagger to me, and I slashed into his arm before my nerve failed me, collecting the blood once more. It came in gasping spurts, quite unlike the steady splash of my own, and I knew why that was.

We sat facing one another, and he held the flask in front of him, chanting again, as the contents seemed to puff something into the air, something that wasn't there... five little gasps of nothing. He handed me the flask; this time I drank unaided and he drank too, and we watched one another, and I swore this time I would not leave him behind or take of anything of his, nor would I leave my emptiness inside him to take its place. This time we would put everything back where it belonged.

I don't know who slumped in unconsciousness first, but when I awoke he was still sprawled across the table; at least this time he was breathing.

*****

DUMBLEDORE

I was disappointed in Sirius. I'm not sure what I had expected, perhaps for him to grasp what I'd said and run to Severus's rooms with a Gryffindor banner flying behind him. Then again, I had not really spelled it out; how could I, weak old man that I am. I had considered going to see Severus, but I didn't, and looking back I understand why. I was ashamed again, that I had not stepped in when I should and had interfered where I should not, the failings of the aged.

I was about to douse the final two torches and seek my bed for the night, when I felt it, the wave of menace that creeps through a place when Dark Magic is performed, that certain unease that makes men stand from what they are doing to look out of windows to see if there is an intruder lurking, or check the door is properly locked against some unknown peril, or makes a dog bark at nothing more that the night. I felt it creep through Hogwarts, and knew that no one else did.

I wondered if I should go down, but what would I find? Better this way, better just to have pointed vaguely and left the traveller to find his own way. At last the two sconces I still had lit at that late hour dipped for a moment, and Fawkes let out a shrill cry; I knew it was over.

I only hoped it had balanced the scales; somehow I thought it had. And after all, what was one little dabble in the Dark Arts?

*****

SEVERUS and SIRIUS

He had changed; I know he had, I know it wasn't just me looking for something that wasn't there. He had never exactly been a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, and I know he would hex me into next week for using that kind of label in the same sentence as his name, but something had shifted. If he had smiled I would have run straight for Dumbledore, but the way he twisted his lip at me in some type of disdain, as I passed him my cigarettes across the table when he dragged his head back up, made my heart sing.

I watched him take his own cigarette box from the pocket of the black layers he wore and slip one from it; he let it dangle from his thin lips and squinted through the smoke. 'What do you feel?' he asked.

'I don't know,' I replied, and he caught me in the lie, as I should have known he would.

'When you feel like telling the truth, you can let me know,' he said in that way he had of brushing people off. He stood up and lifted a book from one of his shelves and began to read ... a goddamned book, after what we had just done.

*****

He was lying of course. It's a Gryffindor trait I suspect; they're all expected to be noble and forthright, and when they find that they're human they just lie instead. James had been the same, I mused, realising that I hadn't felt the little tug of regret I usually felt when I thought of him. I'd moved on, into uncharted waters in some way, in that I was taking control of my life by letting another control it for me. I was following the star I'd always thought was out of reach, and now I found it was almost in my grasp. It was a heady experience, almost as heady as the other experience that was trying to manifest itself.

I knew how he felt; I just wanted it to come from him, it was easier for me that way, and I'm a coward when it comes to my own feelings. I wondered how long he was going to stare at the top of my head, not too long; he was a Gryffindor, another of their traits was impatience, they saw their quarry and went in for the kill, no messing about except to raise their ruddy banner and shout "charge". I had to catch myself before I did the unthinkable, but I stifled the smile; that wouldn't have done at all, I still had some reputation to maintain.

*****

I knew he was waiting for me to say something, but I was going to let him stew. I glanced at the book, hoping it was upside down and I could catch him out, but they're clever, wily too, the damn Slytherins. I knew what he was doing; I knew his damn superiority attitude was waiting for me to go to him, just as I knew the stirrings I was feeling were real, and that he was feeling them too. I let the tension rise another notch and found myself almost squirming in adolescent anticipation; it had been a long time, longer for me than it had been for him, I suspect. Damn Slytherins, everything on their plates and still wanting more.

'Good book?' I ventured, and wished my voice had sounded a little less husky.

'Not particularly,' he replied without lifting his damned head.

I tried in vain to think up a punch line. It was becoming warm in the room; I knew it had nothing to do with the dying embers of the fire. 'Why are you reading, Severus?' I asked.

He looked up in feigned surprise. 'I usually read when I have nothing better to do,' he said and dropped his head again. 'What do you want, Black? You're ruining my concentration.'

*****

He was determined to make a meal out of it, just as I was determined to let him. I'd caught him out though, transparent tart that he was, sitting there with his mouth half-open in invitation.

'I suppose coming to bed with me is out of the question?' he asked, and I confess I almost dropped my ruddy cigarette; it had only been a prop anyway, holding me up in some obscure way, a bit like the book ... I didn't even know which one it was.

I could have knocked him back I suppose, if I had wanted to, if I hadn't been the one who had led him thus far. The responses ran through my mind; there weren't that many. I wondered if I should look up in shock, but that wouldn't do; I'd only end up looking foolish and I didn't think I'd like that. I really had to reply in some way, but I was finding it hard to find my voice.

'Not necessarily,' I said eventually, without realising that I had looked up after all and found what I needed to find, his own vulnerabilities, his own doubts, and in retrospect I have to say that whilst it was not the subtlest reply I have ever delivered it was the most effective.

'I fed you that line, Severus. Don't run away with the thought that you're getting all the credit.' He gave me a slow smile; it was one I hadn't seen before.

*****