Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Sirius watched Snape walk back into the room; he wondered what he'd been doing. He'd arrived an hour or so ago, just as Sirius came downstairs; he had a long intense conversation with Lucius and then disappeared again. He was clean and sober and seemed to have sorted himself out though; Sirius supposed that was a step forward. He had asked Malfoy where Snape was a while back, but Lucius had just shrugged and raised his eyebrow, told him to ask Snape if he thought it was any of his business, and continued with his breakfast.

Sirius was going to ask Severus, but something stopped him. 'Do you feel safe enough here?' he asked Lucius instead.

Lucius looked from Snape to Sirius and then to where Lupin was buttering another slice of toast. He'd arrived just after Snape, and had already made himself comfortable. His battered leather travelling bag still sat beside the oak door, as oddly at home in the faded grandeur of Malfoy Manor's dining room, as it was out of place. Malfoy nodded; strangely, he seemed at ease with Lupin.

'Yes, but keep in touch. I don't want to have to deal with anything myself,' he said, and Sirius wondered again at what was really worrying him.

'Why don't you stay here too, Black?' Snape suggested. 'And I shall go to Grimmauld Place.'

Sirius shook his head. 'I've got things I want to do.'

'So have I,' Snape replied testily. 'I want to get the ruddy rooms I am to live in cleaned.'

Sirius knew what the remark meant. He needed to set his mind at rest that he wasn't expecting a renewal of intimacy, unless Snape wanted it, and he didn't think he did. He wanted him to know it wasn't part and parcel of the deal of living in Grimmauld Place.

'Do what you like with your own rooms,' he snapped, 'as long as you leave mine alone.'

'He could get Kreacher to clean up the kitchen though, Sirius,' Lupin suggested hopefully, breaking the tension, as he shook his napkin and let his toast crumbs fall to the floor.

'Do you know how many llamas died to make that rug?' Lucius asked as he watched the crumbs land on the carpet.

'None probably,' Lupin replied. 'They shear them for the wool; they don't skin them.'

'That's not the point,' Malfoy snapped, without much in the way of his usual hostility.

'What is the point then?' Lupin enquired mildly as he turned the corner of the rug up to check it was indeed woven and not a skin.

Sirius smiled to himself. Lupin could look after himself with Malfoy, and if Lucius made the mistake of chancing his arm he'd get a shock, probably a broken nose as well. Lupin was a ladies' man; he didn't take kindly to having his arse felt.

*****

Sirius slumped into the chair and watched Snape fill the kettle and put it on the hob. He knew Snape felt awkward, and he wasn't sure what to do about it; perhaps nothing was best. When he turned, Sirius realised that what he'd mistaken for discomfiture was concern.

'We have some very serious problems, Black,' he said as an opener and sat down heavily, pulling his ebony cigarette box from his pocket. He opened it and found it was empty.

Sirius dragged himself to his feet and pulled open a drawer in the kitchen table; it obligingly came out in a hurry, sending him staggering back across the room to bang his back on the edge of the cooking furnace, spilling its contents across the floor for good measure.

'For the love of Merlin, Black, can't you sit at peace for two minutes.'

Sirius rubbed his back. He winced and bent down to pick up one of the packets of Snape's cigarettes that he'd bought in Diagon Alley on the way back from Spinner's End, slapped them on the table and sat down, ignoring the rest of the mess; to be fair it was hardly noticeable.

'At least one of us remembered the cigarettes,' he said with a grin.

Snape took the cigarettes, toyed with the box and eventually opened them.

'Look, Severus,' Sirius said, 'I'm not going to pussyfoot about you, and I don't expect you to tread on eggshells around me. Let's just get that straight. You're here of your own accord, under whatever terms you care to make. If they're not acceptable to me I'll let you know quickly enough.'

'Have you finished venting you spleen?' Snape asked dryly and nodded to the floor. 'And get the elf to clear up that mess before I break my neck on something. I have standards to maintain and they are not met by the state of this...' he snapped, as he looked around the kitchen as though at a loss for words, '... this dump.'

Sirius kept his grin to himself; that was better. 'Get on with it,' he said. 'What happened at Godric's Hollow?'

He listened with slowly mounting alarm as Severus told him everything that Lucius had told him about Regulus's visit to Malfoy Manor, and his own trip disguised as Lucius to where the Death Eaters had set up a temporary meeting place at James and Lily's old home, and how he had come to the uncomfortable conclusion that Regulus had already begun to meld Voldemort's power with his own.

'How can you think that?'

'I remember your brother, Black. After all, it is only a few short months since I saw him last,' Snape pointed out. 'I had few dealings with him in the Death Eaters, but I remember enough of him to know that he was not the skilled Legilimens he seems to have suddenly become. That apart, he has acquired an aura, for want of a better word, about him that belies his years. That a mere slip of a boy has managed to gather the remains of the Death Eaters and have them do his bidding is evidence enough that something more powerful backs him up,' Snape said, taking no cognisance of the fact that Regulus wasn't that much younger than he and Sirius were.

'Nice and slowly, Severus,' Sirius responded. 'Just what are you saying?'

'I think what Karkaroff took to Europe is only the useless remains of the Dark Lord. I think he left the magic here,' Snape replied. 'And I think that somehow Voldemort has infused his power into Regulus. He would have been a willing vessel after all.'

'Why didn't you just kill him?'

'With twenty other Death Eaters around?' Snape gave him a pained look. 'Anyway, when I kill Voldemort, Black, I intend to kill all of him, not just a bit. Regulus seems to think he needs me for something, and I need to know what it is. In order to get into his confidence I have to play a very reluctant game. If part of Voldemort has indeed taken up residence in your brother, I need to know where the other part is. There is no point in cutting off a serpent's tail just to have its head turn around and bite you.'

Sirius had been right about one thing: Malfoy had confided in Severus in a way he would confide in no one else; he tried to stifle the envy he felt at that. 'We've got problems, Snape,' he said at last, echoing the sympathy. 'What are you going to do about it?'

*****

Severus wondered if Black had expected him to go along to his bedroom, wondered if the fractional hesitation at the top of the stairs had been an invitation, or the opposite. They came to his own door first. The ball was firmly in his court, and for now he wanted to keep it there; he wasn't ready to make another mistake. He listened carefully until he heard the door of Sirius's room close softly a moment or two later; he couldn't work out how he felt about that.

He took his wand from the slim pocket on his left thigh and started with the bed. He didn't know why he hadn't bothered when he'd been here last, probably some subconscious atonement. The pillows went next; he transformed the mouldy old hen's feathers to goose down, following on with dyeing the faded cream linen to a more aesthetically pleasing black. That would do for tonight. He didn't need to look at the walls anyway, but he did need to sleep; he had a lot to think about tomorrow.

The thoughts of attending every meeting with Regulus or any other Death Eater in place of Lucius had hardened from a decision to a necessity. He'd talked it through with Black, mildly impressed with his input, and he found himself for the first time in quite a while looking forward to the future with some sense of purpose. He just had to make sure that Lucius didn't make any little side trips on his own to double cross him, but he didn't think he would. He didn't need to wonder now why Malfoy had been afraid, why he hadn't just thrown Regulus out of Malfoy Manor for presuming to issue orders to him. Lucius had sensed something else, whether he realised that fact or not.

Malfoy seemed content with the thought of Lupin staying with him; that hadn't surprised Severus as much as it had surprised Sirius. Lucius had once fancied Lupin; long ago, before he knew he was a werewolf and a ladies' man to boot ... Severus wasn't sure which was the greater sin in Malfoy's eyes. Lucius needed company, and there was only so often that Andromeda could call to the manor; she had her own family to consider. Lupin was mild-mannered and genteel, with a good solid core of steel; he wouldn't let Lucius ride roughshod over him, and although he tended to be a little light-fingered with other people's cigarettes and such small trifles, he would be unlikely to abuse any privileges living at the manor afforded him. He would almost be a gentleman's companion; one who knew just what to look out for. Severus nodded to himself in satisfaction; it had been a smart move on Black's part.

He let his mind flit to Sirius's cousin. Sometimes Severus wished he had married. If he could have found a woman like Andromeda, he possibly would have, but women like her were not for men like him. He had nothing to offer such a one as she ... and yet, he thought as sleep began to claim him at last, she had not married for wealth.

Severus would have liked a wife as a means to an end; he was conscious enough of his own taste to know the notion was purely selfish. He would have liked to be part of a real family just to know what it felt like, perhaps even having a son of his own, to raise in a world liberated from the shadow of Voldemort, free of the fears and heartbreak he had had to endure, maybe to balance the scales a little ... perhaps he would have called him Alexus.

*****

Sirius wondered if Severus were asleep. He hadn't been sure if he had hesitated at the top of the stairs or not, if he had been waiting for an invitation; he just hadn't wanted to push him. Apart from that, he wasn't quite clear in his own mind how he felt about Snape. He wanted him here; he knew that much. Of all of the options of who would stay where, between him and Severus and Lupin and the manor, this had been Sirius's preferred option. Apart from one of course, but he knew although Snape had suggested he stay there for a time, that he wasn't ever going to be invited to live with Lucius under the conditions he wanted. Perhaps that was for the best; perhaps all he really needed from Malfoy was a quick fix every now and again. He suspected if they had ever got together it wouldn't have lasted long, and this way, he reasoned to himself, it could last forever. It was cold comfort.

He found his thoughts wandering again to Severus; he was a man of strange contradictions. He could be cold and aloof, and yet when something troubled him or offended his sensibilities there was something oddly vulnerable about him, something like wounded passion. Like his reaction to what Sirius had said about Regulus when he'd just found out he wasn't dead after all; Severus had seemed affronted by his lack of brotherly compassion. He reminded himself to ask Lucius about Snape's mystery brother; he didn't think it would do to ask Severus. Sirius knew that no such boy had gone to Hogwarts, not in the seven years he had been there; perhaps he was even younger, but something told him that wasn't the case ... he knew something bad had happened.

As he felt himself at last begin to wind down, he thought of James and Lily and what they would have wanted for Harry if they had seen what the future held; he somehow doubted it would be the option that Dumbledore had been forced into for the time being. He resolved to try to see the boy, try to keep in touch with his development in some way. He knew James and Lily had intended to make him Harry's godfather; he should at least take on those responsibilities if nothing more.

He found sleep coming to take him as the idea he had had when he first brought Snape here from the Wizengamot began to crystallise. He would speak to Dumbledore about it again sometime ... if he could get Snape to settle properly.

*****

It was just over a month later that Lupin walked down the tailored kitchen gardens to the outhouses with Malfoy at his side. He suspected Lucius was as surprised at how well they got on as he was. He hadn't expected Lucius to welcome his idea of a school of wizard music, but when he had, he had embraced it with the enthusiasm of a man who has too much time and money on his hands and has just found a new way to dispose of both.

'It will do very well,' Lucius said as Lupin whispered his Charm to open the door of the end building. 'I confess to being impressed. Tell me one thing, Lupin, before you embarrass yourself and the name of the House of Malfoy at the same time; do you actually know anything about music?'

'I know what it sounds like, if that's what you mean.'

'Well,' Lucius replied airily, 'if they're all young I suppose that will do. Dumbledore's coming this afternoon to talk over the meeting he's had with the governors,' he said, making a face. 'We can let him see this, and perhaps he can help you with the marketing.'

Lupin turned to him. 'Lucius, just because Regulus told you to court Dumbledore, it doesn't mean that you can't use whatever position you gain for your own purposes. We're not submitting to his demands, we're only pretending to go along with them.'

'Quite,' Malfoy returned flatly. 'But I would have preferred to have gained any future position on merit for a change, not as part of someone else's far flung military operation.'

'Oh, I think you have done that. I mean who would accept that Sirius could have been short listed to join the Board of Governors of Hogwarts, or me for that matter.'

He watched Lucius mull it over and seem to satisfy himself. Lupin knew just how to flatter him; it wasn't terribly taxing work.

*****

It had been almost a week since Dumbledore had visited Lucius and Lupin at Malfoy Manor, and he hadn't spent the time since then idly, although to any observer he looked as though he'd been fast asleep. He always found himself uninterrupted when he sat back in his seat, snoring his head off; it was the only way he ever got any peace. The Headmaster had delegated the setting up of the committee for the placing of the war orphans to Minerva, and now he pretended to rouse himself to look over his desk as she went through the long list of recent adoptions; he even went as far as to nod in approval at some of the names she had linked with others. He didn't know why he ever bothered to attempt to fool himself that he had fooled Minerva; he'd even tried drooling once, but she had been unimpressed.

At length he asked the question that was never far from his mind. 'Have you been to see Harry yet?'

McGonagall made a face. 'Five minutes I was allowed again,' she said stiffly. 'As though I were some kind of evil being come to spirit away the boy they clearly don't want anyway. It is not a fitting way for him to be brought up, Albus,' she said as she always did.

Dumbledore nodded his agreement. 'Perhaps not, Minerva, but it is a safe way for the time being.'

She frowned in concern. 'Have you told Severus of your thinking?'

'No, not yet.' He shook his head. 'If he is not looking for it, it will be safer for now, I suspect. It is one of the reasons why I have stayed away from the boy myself, as you well know. Let us not awaken anything best left asleep.' He turned his mind to other things. 'Perhaps you would show Lucius in now; you know how fretful he becomes if he is kept waiting.'

'You're going to tell Lucius, aren't you?' she asked, giving him the imperious look she reserved for when she defied someone to contradict what she had already decided was true.

Dumbledore nodded slowly and doubtfully. 'Perhaps, Minerva, perhaps once I read his reactions to some other things, I very well may.'

'Do you think that is wise?' she asked, drawing her green velvet cloak tightly against her bony chest with one fist, managing to portray that she, for one, certainly didn't.

'Severus seems to feel he should be trusted, to a degree.'

'Is this the same Severus to whom you have not entrusted the information?' she asked archly.

'The very same.' Dumbledore smiled at last. 'Now, I am sure we have kept Lucius cooling his heels for long enough ... unless this was a ploy of yours to wait until he stormed off home in a fit of pique.' He watched her thin smile as she rose from her chair, satisfied that her objections had been mild enough to let him continue down the path he had set for himself today. He used Minerva as a barometer, measuring her degrees of disapproval of his proposed actions with the precision of a Knockturn Alley drug dealer; it had always worked quite well for him.

*****

Malfoy sat in the chair across from Dumbledore. He always felt as though he were still at school when he sat in that particular seat, under the steady blue gaze that so discomfited him, the benignity laced with steel that marked Dumbledore apart from lesser men. 'We have heard nothing,' he said in answer to the Headmaster. 'Not a single word in almost three months.'

'So I have been informed by Severus, Lucius. In fact it was only yesterday that I had to remind Sirius and Severus that I had forbidden them to seek out trouble that we did not want to court,' Dumbledore replied, stroking the head of the mackerel-striped tabby, who jumped onto his desk and hissed back at him for the impertinence. 'But that is not really why I have brought you here.'

Lucius frowned. He had been surprised that he had been the only one here; he would hardly have expected Dumbledore to accept his word alone that Regulus, and indeed all contact with the Death Eaters, had gone quiet since Snape had visited Godric's Hollow. He had told him as much a week ago. And yet Regulus had issued his first set of commands; Lucius supposed it was only reasonable to expect that he was now sitting back, probably abroad, waiting and watching. There wasn't really much for him to do; his seemed to be a waiting game.

'Why am I here?' Lucius asked at length.

'Firstly, I have recommended your election onto the Board of Governors,' Dumbledore said, and held up his hand as Lucius made to speak, 'for next session. That should give the dust a chance to settle ... and perhaps if you could see your way to one or two more philanthropic acts between now and then ...' He trailed off suggestively.

Lucius winced; if he became much more philanthropic he would need some charity himself. 'Isn't Lupin's music school enough?'

'Perhaps.' Dumbledore nodded, and Lucius realised he was just trying to wring another pound of flesh from him. 'We shall use that to cover your reason for being here today, Lucius. I shall inform Severus so that he knows too; I know he is logging the dates of any meetings in case he should ever have to justify them to Regulus.'

'You think you have a spy here?' Lucius asked in alarm. He had brought Lupin with him, left him playing chess with a couple of Gryffindor prefects; he would have a job explaining that if he ever had to. He forced himself to relax, reminding himself that he wasn't going to have to do any explaining. Severus would handle that, and the little music school Lupin had opened in the grounds of the manor could take up a bit of slack. It had been a good idea; it seemed to keep Lupin happy too.

'Oh, quite probably,' Dumbledore replied lightly. 'We still have a Slytherin House after all.'

Lucius ignored the jibe. He knew Dumbledore would get down to it eventually.

The Headmaster made a show of shuffling some parchments on his desk, and Lucius had a feeling he was looking for a starting point. 'How much do you know about Severus?' he asked at last.

The question surprised Malfoy, and he found himself hotly defending Snape's loyalty until he realised that wasn't what Dumbledore was asking.

The Headmaster was looking at an old list of names and was running his finger down one and then another. 'I have here the list of magical children born in nineteen sixty-two, three years after Severus.' He pushed the list across the desk.

Lucius pretended to be puzzled. Two names jumped out at him. One was Regulus Black; his eyes sought the name he knew Dumbledore was asking about, it sat near the bottom of the alphabetical list, last but one. 'What are you asking me?' he said.

Dumbledore said nothing, but thrust a list of Hogwarts' first years from eleven years later.

'What are you asking?' Lucius repeated. This was unknown ground, uncharted water. He didn't want to be talking about this; it wasn't his place.

'What happened to him, Lucius?'

'I don't know, Dumbledore. I don't know what became of him,' he said quietly, as the uncomfortable questions tugged at his memory, 'but I know it wasn't good.' He paused for a moment, marshalling his thoughts. 'I only ever met him once, many years ago. He was a pale little boy, a bit withdrawn, a bit like Severus when he was very young.'

He knew the Headmaster had read the truth from him; he had no need to elaborate, but he did ... perhaps to stop Dumbledore asking Snape and disturbing whatever old wounds were there. 'I do know one thing though,' he said and found he had to stifle the emotion he was feeling. 'When Severus left Spinner's End, when Black went for him, he brought Alexus's body with him because he wasn't going back there. He asked me to let him bury him in the walled garden at the manor, so he...' For a moment he couldn't speak; in fact he had to draw a deep shaky breath to even go on, looking down when he felt the cat rub against his leg. There was something oddly comforting about her. He was going to mention the fairies, but he changed his mind; perhaps because he was used only to giving information on a need to know basis, then again perhaps not. 'Why have you waited all these years?' he asked instead. 'Why didn't you enquire before?'

'I have a reason for wanting to know, Lucius,' Dumbledore said softly, with a genuine sympathy that Lucius couldn't fault; it was quite unlike the deliberate emotions he sometimes paraded across his ancient features. 'Not out of any morbid interest in raking up pain in either you or Severus. I need to know if Severus is suitable for a quite different task to the one he has just now, one that he can carry out along with the other things he does, but I do not want to cause him anguish by asking him. I know him as a soldier and the most dedicated Member of the Order. You, and perhaps Sirius to a lesser degree, are the only men who know the real Severus Snape.'

Lucius listened as Dumbledore told him of his fears and his suspicions, and then how he planned to allay them, and although he had flattered him and given him his place as the only type of confidante Snape had ever had, Lucius felt strangely humbled that someone other than Dumbledore had thought so deeply, someone he would not have thought could be so generous of heart. He found himself smiling a little ruefully as the Headmaster wound up.

'How convenient,' he murmured, quite himself again. 'Black and Severus, who would have thought it?'

'You think he will rally to the cause, so to speak?' Dumbledore enquired mildly.

'He will throw a fit; he will storm out, argue, be as difficult and sullen as he could possibly be.' Lucius laughed; it felt quite unfamiliar, he hadn't felt like laughing for a while. 'Of course he will rally,' he said, and then frowned for a moment. 'Why did you want to know about Alexus? What has he to do with this?'

'I think Severus will see what he has to do as some type of reparation. I have always sensed an undercurrent of guilt about him ... oh, not that he did anything to the boy, I do not suspect that for a second, and would not believe it if it were presented to me as an irrefutable fact ... but perhaps he feels he should have prevented whatever Alexus's fate was,' Dumbledore replied. 'Then, of course, there was always the James Potter issue; he will look at that too.'

'How convenient,' Lucius repeated, only regretting he had not thought of such a thing himself.

Dumbledore watched the door close behind Malfoy and turned to where Minerva had resumed her natural form. She nodded her reluctant approval and let her thin smile twist her lips; there was a touch of devilment in it.

'Have you mentioned any of this to Black yet, Albus?' she enquired.

'And spoil the surprise, Minerva?' he asked with a chuckle. 'It is, after all, what Sirius has been knocking our doors down these past three months for in the first place.'

'And Snape?' she asked, her eyebrow arched in amusement.

'Come, come now, Minerva. You heard Lucius; he will rally to the cause.'

*****