Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Dumbledore had just left, not before cautioning them all, collectively and individually, about watching themselves and one another and the two boys. He was sceptical of the fact that Voldemort had used all of whatever power he had left to invade Regulus Black; he agreed though that whatever other part of him remained would be very weak, but given time that power would strengthen to a degree again. He concurred with Snape that it was of the utmost importance to find where Voldemort was. There was no point in killing Regulus just to find that someone else replaced him.

He had finally admitted openly that he had suspected that Harry held the magic, or most of it at any rate; he had felt the boy's power when he first saw him at Godric's Hollow, when it was raw and new and confused and hadn't hidden itself away. Sirius understood now why Dumbledore had avoided Harry; it was in case Voldemort realised he would see just whose power the boy held, in case the awareness and the magic could somehow communicate with one another. Sirius thought that was fanciful, but he preferred the Headmaster's caution, where Harry was concerned at any rate. He was glad when Lupin asked the question he knew neither he nor Snape wanted to ask, but Dumbledore just shook his head and said that magic could not be good or evil in itself; it was only the mind that wielded it that made it so.

Sirius had expected Severus to react strongly to having been kept in the dark, but he seemed preoccupied with something else; not quite worried, it was more as though he were suppressing some type of rage. Sirius wondered if he was the cause; his expectations of himself were on the low side just then. He watched Lucius and Lupin leave the Charm, and turned to where Snape sat at the table in the room they had made into their living room on the few occasions they weren't in the main house. He grinned to himself at the thought of Severus's never-ending complaints about the dust, and the fact that the furnishings seemed to be nothing much more than old packing crates; considering where he had been brought up, his taste had become a little picky.

'Are you going to tell me what it is?' he asked, as he lit a cigarette and squinted through the smoke.

'It's nothing, Black,' Snape replied doubtfully, shaking his head as though he had just realised Sirius had noticed he was troubled.

'Is it about Harry?'

'No.'

'Look, Severus, I didn't explain what happened with Lucius ...' Sirius trailed off as he caught Snape's look of puzzlement.

'Forget it; it has nothing to do with any bedroom antics you and Lucius see fit to get up to. That is your business,' he said without rancour. 'Anyway, I am fully aware that a dog has little control when presented with a bitch in heat, like Lucius tends to be.'

'We don't get up to bedroom antics,' Sirius snapped back. 'One lousy mistake, that was all. And it was lousy, come to think of it,' he added. 'Have I to pay for it for the rest of my life?'

'You were the one who brought it up.'

'What's wrong, Severus?' Sirius asked again. 'We've got enough problems I know about, without you starting to keep secrets too.' He watched uneasily as Snape seemed to deflate before his eyes. He slumped down in his seat, and dropped his head to his hands in what looked to Sirius ominously like despair. He let him sit that way for a few moments, before grinding out his cigarette and rising from his own seat to move to the back of Severus's, putting his hands on the rigid shoulders. 'I think you had better tell me what else has happened,' he said quietly. 'Whatever it is; it's easier shared.'

Severus lifted his head and nodded. 'What do you know of the people Harry stayed with before he came to us?' he asked.

"Us", Sirius like the word "us"; he liked the inclusiveness, the meaning that there were two halves of whatever whole it made up, and that he was one half and Severus was the other. 'Nothing really,' he said. 'Just that the woman was Lily's sister, and that was why Dumbledore wanted him left there, for the blood protection. I didn't know anything at all about the man until you told us what Regulus said.'

Severus nodded slowly again. 'Can you get me the address?'

'How can I get it? I can't even leave here.'

'Maybe when Andromeda comes she could get it from Albus?' Snape suggested. 'I don't want it to have come from me.'

'Why?' Sirius asked. 'What's wrong?'

'I need to know,' Snape said, and hesitated for a moment as though trying to decide whether he should confide in Sirius. 'And I don't want Dumbledore to find out what I'm thinking ... in case he already knows.' He shook his head as though his own thoughts confused him. 'Although I doubt that; I doubt he could know.'

'Know what?' Sirius asked in exasperation, looking down on the black hair, wishing he had stayed facing him, but knowing Severus would prefer the less obvious scrutiny.

'Do you recall what I told you about the night Alexus died?'

'Of course I do,' Sirius replied, even more puzzled as the conversation took a turn he neither expected nor cared for. He squeezed the shoulders a tiny bit in an unconscious gesture of comfort. 'What's this about, Severus?'

'I found out later that the man who raped me, the stranger, was actually a cousin of my father's, quite a bit younger than my father was, but quite a bit older than me, maybe halfway between. I hadn't known him until then, and I never saw him again until my father's funeral; that was how I found out,' Severus said, turning in his seat to face Sirius, 'and I've never seen him since.'

'No, Severus,' Sirius said, hearing the pleading tone in his own voice. 'Tell me I'm not thinking where you're going here.'

'I think you are,' Snape replied, holding his eyes. 'His name was Vernon Dursley too.'

Sirius looked away; he hoped Snape would continue to forget that he knew exactly where the Dursleys lived. He'd sat outside the house often enough as Padfoot to know how many bricks were in the garden wall.

*****

It was two days later when the golden Labrador and the tall slim grey-haired man walked down Privet Drive, from the high-numbered end, the dog stopping at every second lamppost for the man to scan the houses for where they all had little numbers in different places: some on their gates, some on their doors, and yet others tacked onto the side of the buildings; Sirius didn't know why they weren't all in the same place. He knew Snape had only started at the wrong end in case they were being watched; this way they would look like the strangers they pretended to be. He stopped outside number four and cocked his leg obligingly at the gatepost as Severus looked at the house.

Andromeda's husband had given them a few typically Muggle names to ask for, so as not to arouse any suspicion, and Sirius had talked himself hoarse trying to convince Severus not to do anything untoward to the man, until after they had dealt with Regulus. Snape had promised that all he was going to do was to establish if in fact this Vernon Dursley were the same one as he remembered. Sirius felt the tug at the lead as Severus clipped up the neatly slabbed pathway and knocked on the door.

A curtain twitched, and the front step flooded with artificial light, startling them both momentarily, as someone threw a switch inside the house; it was followed by the rattle of a chain being put in place, and the sound of a key being turned.

'Who is it?' a wheezing voice said from the crack in the door that the security chain had allowed to appear. It was the kind of voice that comes from a very fat man who has had to get up off a chair and walk a few reluctant steps.

'I am John Spencer,' Snape said. 'I am looking for Richard Graham; I was told he lived here.'

'You've got the wrong house,' the fat man said, seemingly at ease enough with Snape's bland appearance to slip the chain and open the door properly. 'This is number four, the better end, you know.'

'Sorry,' Snape replied. 'I apologise for disturbing you. I have been given the wrong information. I was quite clearly told number four, Privet Close.'

'Ah, well, that's it you see,' the man said importantly. 'This is Privet Drive.'

'Is that not the same thing?' Snape asked.

'Of course it's not,' the man retorted. 'The drives are the best parts. The avenues and closes, well, between you and me, they're the cheaper end. Hey, watch that dog of yours; I don't want it pissing on my roses.'

Sirius wished Snape would just walk away now. He knew he was only dragging this out for one of two reasons; either he wasn't sure about the man, or he was definitely the same man and Severus was struggling to come to terms with leaving him alive. He tugged at the leash in an effort to spur him on. As Snape began to turn Sirius caught the look on his face; even below his Charms, and in the half-light of the outside lamp, he could see he was white with fury and something else he didn't like. Sirius moved forward a bit until he was almost at the man's feet, and lifted his leg against the front step, pissing over the maroon leather carpet slippers Petunia Dursley had given her husband for his birthday; his only regret was that he couldn't reach the roses too. He doubted he'd be able to pee again for a week.

*****

'All quiet?' Sirius asked as he ambled into the drawing room, to where Lupin was sitting at the table playing poker with himself, and Malfoy was stretched out lazily the length of the settee in front of the fire, half-dozing like a lethargic cat.

Lucius looked up as though he'd been disturbed from some fantasy Sirius didn't want to contemplate. 'Where were you?' he asked. 'Where's Severus?'

'We just had something to do,' Sirius replied. He'd made sure everything was secure before they'd left, made sure Lupin knew not to answer the door, and that Lucius himself instructed his elves to say he was not at home if anyone called. Regulus had not been refused entry before now; it would not look suspicious once in a while.

'And the other bit?' Lucius enquired as he dragged himself upright. 'Where's Severus?'

'In his room.' Sirius made to leave them to it; it was late by then.

'What's going on, Sirius?' Lupin asked. There was something wary in his voice that Sirius knew he had to set at rest; it would not do for either Lupin or Lucius to think there was agenda floating about to which they were not party.

'Will you accept that it was something personal, and that it has nothing at all to do with Regulus, or Voldemort or the Death Eaters?' he asked.

'Yes, of course, sorry,' Lupin replied as though slightly abashed. 'I didn't mean to pry.' He gave a little laugh of what Sirius recognised as relief. 'I suppose we all assume that the world revolves round Regulus Black just now; it's quite rewarding to find that's not the case.'

Sirius winked at him; it helped him avoid Lucius's sharp look of interest. He didn't know what Lucius knew of this, if anything; if Severus wanted to tell him, that was up to him.

*****

Severus listened to the door closing next to the room he slept in, in the main part of the house. There was no need to use the charmed rooms during the night; they were there as safe bolt holes if they were needed, but at night the two little boys and Sirius and Snape all slept in the main part of the Manor. For a few moments he thought Sirius had gone along to his own room; he couldn't really think why he should expect anything else. They had reached yet another hiatus in their intimacy, and Snape couldn't think how to restart it. He was sure Black would come up with something if he felt so inclined; he hoped he'd get a move on.

He'd just decided that Sirius wasn't coming when he heard the same door open and close again. A few moments later he was rewarded with the light from the sconce outside his room illuminating the familiar silhouette.

'Are you asleep?'

'Not now, I'm not,' Snape replied.

Black was still standing in the doorway; surely he wasn't waiting for an invitation he wasn't going to get, surely he knew Snape better than that.

'Can I come in?' he asked hesitantly.

'I rather thought you already had.'

'You're determined to make this as difficult as you can, aren't you?' Sirius asked as he closed the door, so that only the one candle at the bedside now lighted the room. He crossed to sit on the bed, throwing off his boots and socks, tossing the latter across the room in the way he knew Severus loathed.

'Yes,' Snape replied, 'and pick up your socks. You have some disgusting habits.'

'You'd better believe I do,' Sirius replied with a somewhat reduced version of his Gryffindor grin. 'Want to see some of them?'

'How much is it going to cost me?'

'We can talk figures later,' Sirius replied. 'Maybe once I mellow you up a bit.'

'You'll have to be really good,' Severus said dryly. 'Right now I wouldn't part with two Knuts.'

Sirius had managed to get out of the rest of his clothes, most of which had joined the socks. 'You haven't got two Knuts, Severus Snape,' he said as he slid under the covers. 'I know you anyway; you're just angling for a freebie.'

'Don't use up too much energy, Black; you still have a lot of cleaning to do tomorrow.'

'You know something, Severus?' Sirius asked. 'Your pillow talk leaves much to be desired.'

*****

It was late when Snape awoke the next morning; the sun had already begun to move away from the window. Sirius had seemed to take no heed of his warning not to use too much energy, Severus smirked to himself, as he nudged him where he lay with his mouth half-open, and his leg across Severus's like a fallen tree trunk.

'Get cleaning, shitebag,' Sirius muttered.

'I beg your pardon?'

'Oh,' Sirius grunted, sitting upright in confusion, 'sorry, I was dreaming ... about the fucking elf. It had come to clean the rooms.'

'Please don't explain,' Snape said dryly, wincing as the blood flowed back into his leg.

*****

It was quite early when Bellatrix and the Lestrange brothers arrived to report to Regulus that they had nothing to report. He hoped they didn't think they were going to hang about Grimmauld Place all day; he had things to think about, and he wanted to be alone to do so. It took much more concentration nowadays to think things through clearly, and Regulus knew why that was.

He was glad he'd brought Snape on board. Perhaps he could talk him into leaving the Manor and coming to stay at Grimmauld Place; it would be good to have some decent company, half-blooded though it was. Apart from that, if they went out, Regulus wouldn't have to stand in the rain waiting for Kreacher to hear his summons with the two deaf ears he seemed to have developed when it suited him.

In a way he was relieved that Snape had recognised what he had been denying to himself, the one thing that had begun to alarm him, almost frighten him: that he was losing control of his own mind to Voldemort. He knew Snape was Legilimens, knew he'd read it from him, and yet he didn't mind that. He'd call on Severus again in another couple of days, and put it to him that he should move back here; whatever it took, he would convince him to come here, and then he wouldn't feel so vulnerable. Snape would know what to do about Voldemort; he had almost said as much. Regulus sat back in satisfaction. That would put Bella and the Lestrange brothers back in their places; no one would try to undermine him when Severus was here.

Bellatrix had just handed him a cup of coffee when he happened to glance at Kreacher. The elf was standing with his mouth open, nodding; he had an insincere grin on his face.

'Yes, Master, Kreacher is cleaning hard for you,' he said and scuttled away to get a dirty mop from beside the sink. He rubbed it over the floor enthusiastically enough to push the grime into the corners, on top of the years of grime that already lay there.

'What are you doing, Kreacher?' Regulus asked.

'Cleaning, Young Master,' the elf replied.

'It doesn't look much like it,' Bella replied with her lip turned in distaste.

'Shut your mouth, Bella; I am not speaking to you,' Regulus said without glancing at her. 'Who told you to clean, Kreacher?' he asked softly.

'The master tells Kreacher to get cleaning, and Kreacher must obey, Young Master.'

'The master is dead, Kreacher,' Regulus said, trying to quell the ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach. 'Isn't he?'

'Kreacher must clean when his master says,' the elf wailed. 'He told Kreacher my poor mistress is dead too.'

He was going to let it pass; the elf obviously hadn't a clue which Blacks were dead and which Blacks weren't, Regulus only knew how far down the pecking order he still seemed to be. He stood up instead and went into the hall, drawing a deep breath.

'Mother,' he said, and waited until Mrs Black focussed her adoring gaze on him. 'Is Sirius dead?'

'Of course the treacherous scum is dead. He must have been a changeling, soiling my womb, and come to soil this Noble House too. Did you think I would lie to you?'

'When did Sirius die, Mother?' Regulus asked, aware that both Bella and Rodolphus were watching from the doorway.

'The day he joined Gryffindor of course,' she replied.

He felt the rush of fury; he had been tricked, tricked again. He knew Malfoy was behind this; it smelt of his double-dealing. He wondered if Snape knew.

*****