Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Severus watched Lucius turn, as he pushed the kitchen door open. He was surprised to see that not only was Malfoy unconcerned by his sudden appearance, but he wasn't the only visitor; Dumbledore and Lupin also sat at the table with Sirius. His earlier notion of Sirius and Malfoy having some sort of clandestine relationship fled, as it was replaced by the realisation that all four men looked serious, most of all Black. Severus suspected they had a warrant with them to take him to Azkaban. Damnit, he cursed inwardly; just when he'd decided he'd prefer to stay here, decided that he might have a look to see if there were anything in life worth living, instead of marking time until he died... fucking typical.

'What's wrong?' he asked sourly. 'As though I haven't guessed.'

Lucius frowned at him. 'Guessed what?'

'That my trial has offered me a one-way ticket to Azkaban, all expenses paid, of course.'

'No, actually,' Lucius replied, and gave Sirius an uncomfortable look. 'It seems that Regulus Black is dead.'

Snape blinked in surprise, and shot as near to an apologetic look to Sirius as he could manage. 'When? What happened?' he asked as he took the conveniently empty seat between Lupin and Sirius, ignoring the four equally empty seats at the other side of the table.

'They don't know yet,' Black replied. 'Lucius just heard and got in touch with Dumbledore.' He nodded to where Malfoy sat, with Kreacher gazing up at him as though he were an object to be revered, perhaps even worshipped.

'Voldemort?' Snape asked as he tried to catch up. 'He's surely not powerful enough to kill a fly just now.'

'I don't know, Severus,' Lucius replied this time. 'I think the word came from abroad. I didn't know the owl, and the message was anonymous, and written as though English weren't the writer's first language. I can only assume it was genuine.'

'What kind of owl?'

Severus watched Lucius shrug in the way he knew made his silver-blond hair ripple on the shoulders of his dark green velvet doublet. 'A great grey, I think,' he replied with what he must have assumed was a fetching little smile.

'What do you mean, you think?' Severus snapped, pretending he hadn't noticed Malfoy's attempt at flirting; surely if he'd learnt anything in his thirty-odd years on earth, it was that Snape was immune to his dubious attentions. 'They have a ruddy five-foot wingspan; even you couldn't mistake that.' He watched Malfoy flare his nostrils in response and give him a cool look, which he chose to ignore. He could tell that Lucius had more than the mystery of the message on his mind; he seemed to be trying to work out the more urgent mystery of why Severus, and Sirius to a lesser degree, had wet hair ... he didn't seem to fancy the answers he was coming up with. Snape shook his head slowly, aware that the rest of them were watching him too. 'That doesn't make sense,' he said. 'Karkaroff uses great greys, but they're not good for long-distance flying.'

'What are you saying, Snape?' Lupin asked from his side.

'I don't think the message came from outside these islands at all, unless it was relayed, of course.' Severus wondered just what Lucius actually knew about the origin of the letter, but the blond Slytherin just glared back as though he had only disagreed for the sake of it.

'Do we have a list of who uses what types of owls?' Sirius asked Dumbledore.

The Headmaster shook his head. 'I'm afraid not, Sirius. In fact we even have a couple of great greys at Hogwarts. I think Severus may have touched on something though; I suspect the message has not come directly from whomsoever sent it.'

'Let me see it,' Snape said to Lucius.

Malfoy gave him a blank look of enquiry. 'See what?'

'The message, of course. You have brought it with you, I take it?'

'No, I never thought.'

'That much is patently obvious,' Snape sneered. 'I suppose we could expect no more from you.'

Lucius let his nostrils flare in anger again, and Snape ignored him again.

'What do we do now?' Lupin asked, from where he sat casting anxious looks of misplaced sympathy along the table to Sirius.

'There's nothing we can do,' Black replied, standing up and stretching. He seemed to change his mind and sat back down at Snape's side, giving Lupin a long look. 'Don't get sentimental, Old Wolf, I lost my brother many years ago,' he said. He favoured Kreacher with an absentminded slap on the head as the elf finished placing mugs of lukewarm grey tea in front of the three pure-blooded men at the table, studiously ignoring Lupin and Snape.

'Let us see what unfolds over the next few days,' Severus suggested when it became clear that no one really had much more to offer than the damned elf. He gave Kreacher a long look without realising why, and then found his mind distracted, wandering to something that had assaulted him on the way down the stairs. 'What is that disgusting smell, Black?' he asked, looking to where the elf had lifted the lid of a pot that simmered ominously on the hob at the fire; he seemed very pleased with his efforts. 'Please tell me it is not dinner.'

Sirius looked crestfallen, as Lucius gave Snape another long look, his damp hair in particular, openly lacing it this time with accusation, before letting his grey eyes flit to Black again and then back to Snape.

They were moving on. It seemed a pity to Severus that none of them, except Lupin, had really seen fit to offer Sirius any sort of condolences on the loss of something as precious as a brother. There was no pause for thought the way men usually paused when a man they knew passed from the world; no turning, however briefly, for each to examine his own experiences of him. The war had made them hard, uncaring, of their own feelings at any rate; they had become used to the notion that death was just the ultimate fact of life. Snape frowned at the elf again; of all of them he would have thought Kreacher would have had a tear to shed for Regulus Black. Perhaps he'd used them all up lamenting his own presence in the house.

'Anyway, I have some good news for one of you at least,' Dumbledore said brightly, breaking the awkward, somewhat guilty silence. 'The case against you has been dropped, Severus. I heard just before Lucius arrived to see me. It seems that whoever sent the message to him also informed Crouch of Regulus's death. You are a free man.'

Snape felt himself sag in relief; he hadn't expected this so soon. He felt Black stiffen at his side as Lupin smiled and slapped his shoulder with a familiarity that made him grit his teeth.

Lucius looked around the awful kitchen of Grimmauld Place in unconcealed triumph. 'I wager you can't get out of here quickly enough,' he said with his expensive smile. 'I'll have the elves prepare you something edible when we get back to the manor.' He gave the pot on the hob a meaningful look, and began to haul his impressive, immaculately-tailored bulk to his feet.

'Not so quickly, Lucius,' Dumbledore said. 'I shall have to release the Wizengamot Order first. Severus would still be unable to step over the door.'

'How long?' Malfoy asked with a bit too much hope for Snape's taste.

'Only a day or two, and then he will be free to come and go ... as he pleases.'

A day or two: Snape thought that would let him think things out; he hadn't meant to look at Black, just as he suspected Black hadn't meant to look at him.

*****

Sirius ladled the contents of the pot onto three plates. He hoped it tasted better than it looked; he wasn't usually keen on grey food. Lupin had stayed for dinner as he had suspected he would, and Snape hadn't seemed put out about that; in fact Sirius thought Severus was as glad of Lupin's company as he was. He was like a buffer between them, ironing out any awkward creases.

Dumbledore had tactfully invited Lucius to Hogwarts when he looked like lingering. It would have been difficult for Malfoy to refuse, especially when he needed the Headmaster's good grace; he wasn't out of the fire just yet. His own war crimes still had to be considered by the Wizengamot, although Sirius knew he would get off lightly. He'd been on the committee who had discussed just what should be done with Malfoy, and it had been as much Sirius's pledge as Dumbledore's that Malfoy would be watched and would prove a valuable asset to them in any continuing trouble with the ex-Death Eaters that would save him. Even though it suited Sirius, there was something annoyingly knowing about Dumbledore, as though he knew Lupin wouldn't outstay his welcome, where Lucius would almost certainly have done so.

'This is horrible, Black,' Snape said in disgust as he laid his fork aside. 'How long did it take you to make this muck?'

'It is awful, Sirius,' Lupin agreed, poking the food about his plate. 'Even I couldn't eat it.'

'Well, I can't help it. Kreacher let it get a bit burnt halfway through, and by the time I rescued it, it was too late,' Sirius grumbled. 'I'm not a cook. I usually just jump out and buy something ready-made. It's not been easy for me not being able to leave the house. I've been as much a prisoner as you have, you know,' he complained.

'Are there any eggs?' Snape asked, ignoring the accusation.

Sirius nodded glumly. 'I'm not awfully good with them either; I don't think they like me.'

Snape twisted his lip in disgust as he stood up and went to rummage around on the shelves in the pantry next to the kitchen. 'Do not expect me to make a habit of this, Black; I'm not a ruddy housemaid,' he said as he returned to the kitchen and lit a small ring of fire on the iron plate on top of the ancient furnace-like stove. He stopped short for a second as he realised what he'd said. 'You can either train the elf or learn yourself ... or I shall look for alternative lodgings. Lucius seems quite keen for me to move back to the manor,' he went on blandly; glad his back was turned to both men.

For a moment Sirius had thought it was a slip of the tongue; he had just caught the werewolf's knowing smile when Snape confirmed what he had hoped he'd said. He was going to get a chance; that was all he'd wanted, just a chance. He was glad Dumbledore had postponed tomorrow's meeting until the next day; he wished Lupin would go away now.

*****

It looked as though it was going to be a short meeting, a lot shorter than the list of absentees. Arthur Weasley couldn't get away from the Ministry; he'd already re-jigged his timetable to suit the abandoned meeting of the day before and hadn't managed to jig it back again. Molly couldn't get anyone to watch her alarming brood of redheads, and as the only option had been bringing them with her, Dumbledore had hastily agreed to update them by owl.

The rest of the call offs were weaker excuses and even weaker reasons; Dumbledore knew it was a reaction to the fact that Voldemort had fled. The terrible details of the Potters' deaths had been thrashed out to the point of boredom, and nobody had a real sense of urgency any more, nobody except the four men and two women who looked at him across the table. As it turned out it was just as well that the only people around the table were the few who were there, seeing as the Headmaster had an unexpected addition again.

'Did you know about this?' Snape asked quietly and held up his hand to forestall any answer. 'Please think carefully before you answer, Lucius. Because if you answer in the negative and I ever find out otherwise ... I shall have to kill you.'

Malfoy looked away for a moment, and Dumbledore could feel his fear; he felt Lucius was embarking upon almost as dangerous a game as Severus had played for so many years.

'I swear to you,' Lucius said, as he looked quickly to where his sister-in-law sat with Minerva, and then back at Snape. 'I swear on Draco's life, that the authenticity of the thing didn't occur to me, not in that way. I only wondered if what it said were true.'

Snape seemed to take his time in considering whether he believed Malfoy or not, but Dumbledore could tell that was for the benefit of the others. He let the silence hang until Sirius broke it.

'I believe him, Severus,' he said. 'I know I would have done the same. The initial reaction first and then looking more deeply.' He frowned and turned to Malfoy. 'When did you realise Regulus had written it himself?' he asked. 'And how?'

'It was just chance,' Lucius admitted. 'I was going through some correspondence, and there was a scroll from years back ...' He gave a short sharp laugh of scorn as he trailed off. 'Not that we ever committed much to writing in the Death Eaters; not many of them can write. But it was from Regulus, something innocuous about a rally Rabastan Lestrange was arranging ... and I noticed that he had spelt the word believe wrongly; he had transposed the 'i' and the 'e' and ... well, it rang an alarm bell, and as I still had the scroll which arrived with the news of his death, with the same word spelt the same way ... it wasn't very difficult after that for us to match the handwriting.' He gave Andromeda another quick look before turning again to Snape. 'Of course, I realise now that the real reason it caught my eye was that the handwriting registered as familiar. We took it straight to Dumbledore; as it turns out he was on his way here.'

Dumbledore waited; he could tell Snape was counting the costs of the two days they had let Regulus's trail become colder. He noticed that not only was Lucius watching Severus, but Sirius was too; he had a feeling there was something going on between these two. He wasn't unhappy about that; it would provide a more solid foundation for what he suspected he would have to agree to do quite soon. It would be as oddly apt as it was unlikely if Black and Snape lived under the one roof. At last the Headmaster looked to Andromeda. He had not wanted her to back Lucius up in any way until he heard his story the second time around; lies tended to get more convoluted with the telling, where truths became plainer.

'It's true, Severus,' Andromeda said. 'I had gone in to see Draco, and Lucius was just clearing old papers out of his desk. I suspect in an effort to make sure that nothing too damning had been committed to writing; one never knows just what the Ministry would come across if they ever searched the manor.' She gave Malfoy a wily look before giving Severus the benefit of her quite breathtaking smile. 'I could see he was puzzling over something, and went over to see what it was. The rest is just as Lucius said.'

'This is very serious,' Snape said at last. 'The ramifications of ...' He trailed off, looking at Lucius. 'You know my cover is blown apart? I don't even know if I can retrieve it if I have to... or how much damage has been done.'

'You can't be thinking of going to him,' Malfoy said and stood up in alarm. 'Don't be ridiculous, Severus. Even you couldn't concoct a story Voldemort would believe, whatever state he's in.'

'Sit down, Lucius. We can't expect you keep up with us all the time; but if you could get in touch with common sense occasionally, it would be a great help,' Snape replied testily.

Even Lucius couldn't mistake the derision; he glared at Snape, paled slightly, and tossed his long silver-blond hair over his shoulders. 'If you would be so kind as to enlighten us as to your intentions, instead of spewing your cryptic bullshit, that might help.'

'Suffice it to say I have no intentions of traipsing around the world, trying to find one petty dictator who has probably been reduced to some sort of amoebic wreck by the reversal of his own Death Curse, if he is indeed still alive. Damnit,' Severus cursed savagely, 'I should have realised this when the damned elf looked so unconcerned the other day. He would have been the first one, along with his mistress, to lament Regulus's passing, if he'd gone anywhere not of his own accord.' He stopped, as something seemed to occur to him. 'Where is the Potter boy? At Hogwarts?'

'He is safe,' Dumbledore said evasively, taking care to avoid the quick look Sirius had given him. He wasn't terribly happy about the arrangements that had been made to let James and Lily's son stay with Muggle relations, even allowing for the strength of the blood ties. 'Let us keep looking at the bigger picture.'

'Like the fact that Regulus Black conveniently disappeared straight after I killed Pettigrew, armed with the knowledge that I am a Member of the Order of Phoenix, stopping only at the Ministry in an attempt to get me locked up in Azkaban? That he knows that the Potters' son is still alive, and somehow turned the Dark Lord's Death Curse back on him? That the same Regulus Black saw fit to inform the wizarding world that he is dead whilst he is still alive? And let us not forget,' Snape added as an afterthought, 'that he is the only person outside the Order to be able to find this Ancient and Most Ridiculous House of Black.'

'Well,' Sirius asked them all, once he was sure Snape had finished. 'How's that for the bigger fucking picture?'

'How does he know you're an Order Member?' Lucius asked suspiciously. 'I didn't tell him.'

'I did,' Sirius admitted quietly as he watched Snape move across the kitchen to stand at the sink. 'Not in so many words; but when Severus came here looking for Peter, I asked him why he hadn't told the Order that Pettigrew was a Death Eater.'

'I think you should move away from here, both of you. You can come to the manor if you want; there's plenty of room,' Lucius said, without managing to hide the fact that he was as hopeful as he was anxious, as he looked around the kitchen in disgust he didn't even attempt to veil.

'That will not be necessary,' Dumbledore replied and nodded to where Minerva and Andromeda sat with Lupin. 'There are enough of us here to put a Nominatum Perpetuum Charm on the house.'

'A what?' Sirius asked. 'I've never heard of it.'

'I would be surprised if you had,' Dumbledore murmured. 'It is a type of Fidelius Charm, but more specific, and it has the peculiarity of being one of few spells that can only be cast by a woman.' He nodded again to Minerva and Andromeda. 'And I happen to know that both of the ladies here are familiar with it.'

Minerva shared a long look with Andromeda before turning to Dumbledore. 'But, Albus,' she said, twisting her thin lips in what looked like anxiety, 'that would mean that no one else could gain admittance to the house, unless accompanied by one of us here tonight... ever again. Is that not a little drastic?'

'It would indeed,' Dumbledore agreed. 'A small price to pay to ensure that Sirius's visitors are only invited guests.'

'What happens when we all die?' Sirius asked, just a little put out that he hadn't been consulted on the matter. 'Or what happens if you all die, and I'm left here alone, and no one can ever come to see me again?'

'I shouldn't worry too much about that, Black,' Snape replied dryly. 'It would finally put an end to unwelcome visitors disturbing your venerable mother's rest. She could howl out her miserable non-existence to nobody ... forever.'

'See, it's not all bad, after all.' Sirius grinned at last, and Lucius looked disappointed; it hadn't been his day.

*****

Malfoy departed for the manor before he had the indignity of being excluded from the Nominatum Perpetuum Charm thrust upon him, pleading the necessity of seeing his son and heir before the boy was put to his nightly sleep.

'Can't you just trust him?' Sirius asked as he watched Andromeda follow Lucius into the hall; he was beginning to worry about Lucius.

'No ... but he is not the fool you seem to take him for, Black,' Snape replied. 'Lucius knows that if the necessity arose he would protect himself and his son, and I cannot fault him there. Right now, I suspect he believes in his own loyalty, but he also knows his own weaknesses. It takes an astute man to understand himself the way Lucius does.'

'What do we do about him?' Sirius asked, pasting as blank a look on his face as he could dredge up to hide his concern. 'We can't just exclude him if he's sticking his neck out for us.'

'We must protect him, and make sure that he does not get into a position where he is unable to defend himself without betraying us.'

'Severus is right,' Dumbledore agreed, nodding towards the hall to where they heard the last few murmurs of conversation as Andromeda closed the front door. 'Lucius is a valuable link between us and what remains of the Death Eaters, or whatever they become now. Just because Voldemort is out of action for the time being, let us not take it for granted that there is no one in the shadows waiting to assume the Dark Lord's mantle.'

'You mean Regulus?' Andromeda asked as she took her seat again.

'It is early to make that assumption, but I fear it may well turn out to be the case.'

*****

Sirius closed the door at last. It had taken much longer than he had expected for Andromeda and Minerva to cast the complex Charm. Firstly, they had to identify every living thing within twelve, Grimmauld Place to ensure they were not sealing in the very danger they wanted to exclude. Even he had been disgusted at the amount of creeping crawling subspecies occupying corners and hiding under floorboards, but once the women got used to doxies and boggarts and one or two other things he thought best left forgotten, it went a little more quickly. They even went as far as to do some sort of specific search for Regulus, using Sirius's hair, and to his surprise and discomfiture a few drops of his urine; he resisted asking if they were taking the piss out of him. Maybe they just thought Regulus was a secret Animagus hiding in the curtains.

At last they were satisfied, and Sirius had to admit he felt a lot more secure. He was pleased that the women had not encountered anything alive about his mother's portrait; he decided to keep that one to tell her on a day when she was being particularly obnoxious. As he closed the front door he found himself thinking about Lucius again, wondering whether it would be wise to bring Malfoy and his son to the protection of Grimmauld Place, but that would ruin any chance they had of using the careful cloak of neutrality Lucius had begun to don. Anyway, Sirius grinned to himself, Lucius could be difficult; in fact he could make Snape look like a rank amateur when he tried.

And now they were alone again, just him and Snape, without even the benefit of Lupin's company to break the ice he was sure would have formed by the time he got back into the kitchen. He knew it would be a good idea to have a frank talk with Severus; there had always been a lot of bad blood between them, more than a couple of nights of mutual passion would wash away, and the thought of that was daunting, just in case he was reading too much into his remarks. Severus wouldn't even be free to leave Grimmauld Place until tomorrow; for all Sirius knew he might head straight to Malfoy Manor.

Snape was standing at the fire warming his hands when he went back into the kitchen, and he took Sirius completely by surprise.

'Are you expecting me to move to the manor tomorrow?' he asked, lifting the kettle from the iron hob at the fireside and pouring water into two mugs.

'Yes,' Sirius replied, and was rewarded with a flash of disappointment in the black eyes, 'but I would prefer if you didn't.' He smiled to himself. For some reason he would have thought that Severus would have been the tongue-tied one, and that his usual reserve would extend to the delicacy of the matter in hand. Sirius wished he'd been able to play at filling two mugs.

'In that case I would prefer to stay here for the time being.' Snape laid the tea on the table and sat down. 'Do take a seat; you are making me feel uncomfortable, and it is not a feeling I care for.' Snape waited until Sirius slumped untidily into the chair opposite him, going through the motions of lighting a cigarette to cover his awkwardness, before surprising him again. 'I'm sorry about your brother, Black. It must have been difficult for you to accept the lie of his death and then the more difficult truth.'

Sirius blinked, squinting through the smoke. He wished Snape would speak in plainer terms sometimes. He was a Gryffindor, after all; he shouldn't have to wait until the end of a long sentence to work out what it meant. 'Regulus doesn't mean anything to me. It seemed as though he was a horrible little shite who had got his just desserts, and now it seems he's still a horrible little shite who hasn't.' He frowned inwardly as he watched Snape's reaction. It was something different to surprise, something just off the mark of disappointment, as though he didn't expect anything better from a world so sickened by war that it couldn't remember the common decency of peace.

'I want to ask you about James,' Sirius said bravely, when it looked as though they were going to lapse into another of the uncomfortable silences he'd endured when Snape had just arrived. There was no point in avoiding it; he wanted to know he wasn't a quick fix to be disposed of when the ache had receded enough to let Severus face the world again. Sirius had his own pain to consider.

Snape looked down at his tea for a moment, as though seeking inspiration; when he looked back Sirius could see the anger and the hurt and the confusion of loss. 'James and I were finished, Black. He just knew a lot earlier than I did.'

'You were in love with him though, weren't you?'

'Of course I was. And true love never dies,' Severus replied candidly, letting his lip twitch for a second in his version of a smile. 'But sometimes it fades away.'

Sirius nodded his acceptance; there wasn't much he could say to that. He watched Severus slip a small ebony box from his pocket and take a slim black cigarette from it, rubbing his thumb over the case in a seemingly subconscious gesture. It looked old and precious, and he wondered if it had been a gift from James, or maybe even Lucius. With his strange blend of reticent eloquence, and polished acid wit, and his inborn urbanity, it was so easy to forget that Severus was every bit as poor as Lupin, but he seemed to wear his faded clothes as an afterthought, where Lupin wore them as a badge. Sirius found himself feeling mean and small, rashly swearing to himself that neither of them would have to need for anything while he was alive, even as he knew he would forget, and Lupin would arrive on his doorstep one day with his battered bag in his hand, looking for a bed for the night, and Sirius could begin his guilt trip all over again.

'Now,' Snape went on through his own cloud of aromatic blue smoke, when he realised Sirius didn't intend to reply. 'I would like to ask you about Lucius.'

'Lucius?' Sirius almost dropped the mug of tea. 'What about him?'

'I just wondered if you were in love with him?'

Sirius mouthed like a fish on a riverbank. 'Lucius? Lucius Malfoy?' he asked as Snape's eyebrow rose steadily into his back hair. 'No ... well, not really.' He was making a real mess of this, and he didn't know how to stop it. He had been totally unprepared for the question he didn't even know there was an answer to. Lucius was just there. Sirius tried to think; he worried about Lucius, and he didn't want anything bad to happen to him, but he didn't spend his life thinking about him. He was the enemy, or had been for so long that Sirius could hardly remember another time. That hadn't stopped him though; it hadn't stopped him having a fuck with Lucius whenever the occasion presented itself, which was possibly more frequently than necessary. 'Anyway, it's you he fancies,' he said defensively; it wasn't a lot of help.

'Let me assure you that I shall not stand in your way,' Snape said, but Sirius could see he was playing with him. He'd just poked him with a stick to see what would happen, and Sirius had obliged.

'Can I start again?' he said and tried his Gryffindor grin.

'Not from the beginning surely?'

'The Lucius bit?'

Snape nodded in concurrence. 'You really couldn't do any worse the second time around.'

'I'm not in love with Lucius. He's just there, and he's a great fuck, and that's all,' Sirius said, and he made a better job of it. Snape was right; the lie came easier the second time around.'

*****