Chapter Eleven

I had Apparated from the warehouse in Cottontrader Row to the Apparition Point to the west of Malfoy Manor, and spent the walk to the great house going over the reason I had made up for calling. It was not an unreasonable one, but one I was confident could not be fulfilled, and on the off chance that it was, I would only own an unexpected treasure; all in all I was quite pleased with my efforts. What it didn't guarantee to do was to get me into the catacombs, and I suspected I would have to play that game once the dice were shaken.

As I picked my way along the path through the front rose garden, towards the elm-lined carriageway, I became aware of being watched. I knew it wasn't Riddle; I had not sensed his presence, and I thought I was near enough the house to detect his own particular brand of menace. That apart, Riddle would surely have come tapping on my mind by then, hoping to catch me unawares.

There was an elaborate snakehead knocker on the great double front doors, and at the left was a ring pull, the handle of which was fashioned like a cobra with its hood flared. I tugged it once, and deep within the manor a bell chimed in response ... and nothing else happened. I smiled wryly to myself at the show of indifference; after all, someone had known I was arriving for quite some time, and I suspected that whatever lowly elf had stood behind that door since I had first been spotted had orders to make sure any caller waited a suitable time before being permitted entry.

At last the door opened, and an elf looked up at me with baleful green eyes. 'Are you expected, sir?' it asked.

I was about to speak when a voice issued from inside; it was one I knew all too well, but its tone was one I was quite unfamiliar with.

'Severus, come in, come in,' Lucius exclaimed in what sounded oddly like genuine welcome. 'What a pleasant surprise,' he said, appearing not to have noticed the elf's yelp as he trod on one of its long skinny feet.

I wasn't sure why Lucius should even bother to pretend he was pleased to see me, and the fact that I could not detect any deceit made me quite sure that, whatever it was, it wouldn't be a pleasure to me. I allowed myself to be ushered into the wood-panelled hallway and divested of my cloak.

'Is Tom here?' I asked as I followed Lucius up the grand staircase and along the minstrels' gallery to where the drawing room looked over the front gardens.

He looked back over his shoulder, and I sensed his disappointment. 'Tom? Is that why you're here? I was rather hoping you had changed your mind about Bella ... I really need to get her off my back, Severus.'

'I need to speak with Riddle,' I replied, ignoring the reference to his soon-to-be sister-in-law.

Lucius closed the drawing room door and sank into one of the leather armchairs, nodding to me to do the same. He uncorked a brandy bottle with an expensive pop and poured a large snifter for himself.

'Not for me,' I said quickly as he made to fill another glass. 'Perhaps if Riddle isn't here, I should come back,' I said, confident then that Lucius was intent on my staying.

'No, wait a while,' he said. 'I'm sure he will be back at some time. He and my father have gone somewhere where they seemed to think I should not go.' He looked across at me, and I could see the same nervousness he had tried to hide that last night I had been there. 'Nobody tells me anything around here,' he said. 'They seem to think all I am capable of is keeping tabs on however many Blacks they care to dump in my lap.'

For a moment I thought that it was going to be easier than I had hoped, but he knocked the wind from my sails quite quickly. 'I don't suppose you have any notion where Andromeda is?' he asked, with a bitter twist to his mouth. 'I have been given the unenviable task of rounding them up, or some of them at any rate, like so many cattle.'

'Sorry,' I murmured. 'I don't have any idea. Have you tried her home?'

He gave me a hard look. 'Yes, the same way I tried yours, as a matter of fact,' he snapped, his pale grey eyes flashing dangerously. 'Don't think I've forgotten about that, Severus.'

'Surely you could whisper something in the shell-like ear of your betrothed?'

He just lifted the brandy glass to his lips instead of replying directly, swallowing about half of its contents. 'How did you manage it, Severus? How did you manage to worm your way out of spending purgatory with Bella, when I am lumbered with her sister for all time?'

It was about then that I realised Lucius had consumed more brandy than I had suspected. 'I rather thought you were pleased with your match,' I said. 'You seemed to be.'

'Not all about me is what it seems,' he said, and there was something not quite challenging about the way he said it, something more inviting investigation. I was about to try to probe his mind a little when went on. 'You and I were fairly close for a time,' he said, toying with his glass. 'You didn't know that, did you? It was while we still at school, in fact.'

'Of course I knew,' I said, intrigued as to where he was leading, yet anxious to get him back to the Blacks. Somehow I had to get down to those damn catacombs, and all I had succeeded in doing so far was moving upstairs to the drawing room, even further away. I began to wish that Riddle had indeed been there; it was going to be difficult to manoeuvre Lucius to the cellars. And yet, perhaps if I followed his lead, I could indeed get back to the last time I had been there. 'Did you really think you could Obliviate my memories of your sister?' I asked, so there would be no doubts that he knew he had failed, and yet left it to him to move the step to where I needed to go.

'I suppose not,' he said, tossing off the rest of the brandy. 'And that day ... that day in the cellars ... well, I never did go back down, not while she was still alive, and then ... well, it was too late.' He looked across at me again, and I read something that didn't sit comfortably in his eyes, something like pain and guilt.

'Why are you telling me this?' I asked.

He looked away, and I fancied he was trying to come to a decision. 'I had thought for a while I could trust you, but you made no ...' He trailed off, whatever he was trying to say, left unsaid. 'And then, the other night ... the night of the party, you took his damned Mark too.' He turned back to me, and I let myself dip into his mind, to see what truth lay there, and he shocked me by raising his hand and making a gesture as though swatting a fly away. 'Don't do that, Severus,' he said. 'It is extremely rude, and I always knew when you were doing it.'

I sat back in my seat. That hadn't been what I expected at all; I had seriously underestimated him, and yet perhaps overestimated other things about him. 'Then I shall repeat my question. Why are you telling me this?' I asked, reminding myself that, whatever he was trying to tell me, he was the one reported to have arrested Black.

'Because I need to know what side you're really on. There is going to be a war, Severus, and I do not know whether to join the side I have to, or the side I want to,' he said, and I could feel him trying to probe me then, drawing back as he met a blank wall. 'But I don't have the courage I think you have, and I need someone to help me.'

I didn't say anything; I couldn't afford to. I was either sitting in the presence of a man who was delivering a test from Riddle to me, or a man who desperately needed help, and either way I was in a quite awful predicament, unless I could get away from the manor before Riddle arrived back. If I didn't, I would have to tell him about Lucius right away; to fail to do so could expose my own disloyalty, if Lucius were lying. And yet to do so, if Lucius were telling the truth, could well be condemning an innocent man to a fate I didn't care to consider. But I had to get to Black and Lupin, and had to know how much time I had.

'When will Riddle be back?' I asked, ignoring what he said.

'Who knows?' he replied, pouring himself yet another large brandy. 'Who cares?' he said, his voice a mixture of dull flat disappointment and choking fear. 'A day, two, it doesn't matter to me.'

It mattered to me though. If I went through with the plan that had begun to form in my mind, I needed Riddle to be back before the full moon rose, so that Black and Lupin could be seen still to be at the manor after I had left. It was either that or Riddle would know I had set them free, or Lucius would have the blame laid on his own shoulders, and neither notion appealed to me very much. I had already slipped my wand from my pocket when the drawing room door opened, and Riddle and Abraxas came in. I cursed myself that I had been so involved with Lucius that I had not detected his arrival, and warned myself to be even more alert. One thing was certain then though; however good an actor Lucius Malfoy was, he couldn't have drained the colour from his face the way he did, and I found myself worrying that I had someone else to look out for, and not having the vaguest idea how I could do that.

'Why, Severus,' Riddle said, crossing the room to embrace me, and kiss my cheeks the way he had kissed them the day before. 'Have you a result already?' he asked, waving his hand in dismissal at Lucius and Abraxas, as I took his momentary distraction to slip my wand back.

I gave Lucius a last look as he crossed the room to leave, but he would not meet my eye. 'Not so much a result, Tom,' I replied, as the door closed on the Malfoys, and Tom cast a Silencing Spell on the room. 'Just a tiny thread that may very well be a dead end. It is one, however, that may be worth exploring.'

He gave me enquiring look, and then glanced at the brandy glass Lucius had left on the table. 'Ah, I see Lucius has been drowning his sorrows again,' he said, moving away from the subject, and handing me a lifeline I had not expected, one that might save Lucius's neck if he were indeed innocent of duplicity.

'Quite,' I replied. 'In fact, I suspect he had been drinking heavily before I got here. Either that or he has a very odd notion of loyalty,' I said, being as offhand as I dared, yet leaving no room for doubt that I had informed on him. 'Are you sure he is as loyal as you would want him to be?'

'I told you not to worry about Lucius, Severus,' he snapped. 'I have his measure. He is a weak confused man, held up by his father's power and his father's wealth. I suspect he begins even now to suffer from what Abraxas refers to as the family ailment. Lucius has enough to do watching over the Blacks. All anyone really needs from him is that he produces a legitimate heir to the Malfoy name, and his marriage to Narcissa will keep him in check and meet that end quite satisfactorily.'

I fancied his view of legitimacy had more to with the purity of bloodlines than the sanctity of marriage, but I moved away from the subject slightly. I had done enough to cover myself and not too much to damage Lucius further in Riddle's eyes. I had to get on; I was getting further away from my goal, and doing nothing but giving myself added distractions. 'I came here to see you, Tom,' I said, 'not Lucius.'

He moved forward in his seat. 'Yes, I assumed so,' he said. 'I do hope you have something worthy of my attention.'

'I'm not sure,' I confessed. 'Are you familiar with the Nag Hammadi Codices?' I asked.

'No,' he said, 'but they sound suitably obscure.'

'They are; at least one is. The codices were first found in Egypt in 1945, having been buried since the second century. They were in a glass jar discovered by farmers. They are mostly Gnostic texts, the complete Gospel of Saint Thomas amongst them, and I have copies of most of them.' I paused for dramatic effect. 'Popular belief has it that one of the books and parts of another were burnt by one of the farmers.'

'And, of course, it is this burnt book that interests us?' he asked, his eyebrow rising.

'Indeed. Whether the original was burnt or not is of little moment,' I said. 'But there were at least five true copies made of the book before it was burnt, and this must have been done by scholars, as no ordinary Egyptian farmer would have had the skill to copy such ancient text, written as it was in Coptic ... or indeed known it was worth copying.'

'I'm sure we can obtain a copy of it,' he replied. 'Such a valuable book must have more copies if, as you say, there are copies of the others so common that one even graces the bookshelves of Spinner's End.'

I ignored the jibe. I had to make the few facts I knew convincing, and sound important enough. 'A copy of any one of the five copies is no use, Tom,' I said. 'Only a copy of the original codex is of any use to us.'

'Why?'

'The book refers to some ancient Greek experiments,' I said. 'It seems to have been written by wizards, something backed up by the odd fact that no reader sees the same thing in any copy of one of the five copies. Only the five books copied from the original are true copies.'

'Are you telling me that if anyone were to copy one of the five copies, it could not be done accurately?' he asked, clearly intrigued.

'It has been tried,' I said, rushing on as I sensed his interest. 'Now this is where it becomes difficult. One of the five true copies lies in the vaults of the Vatican, and one was placed in an unknown cursed vault of an Egyptian Pharaoh by the Egyptian authorities at that time, in an attempt to keep it at home, so to speak. The other two, whose whereabouts are known, lie in equally unattainable places: one in a Swiss vault, and another was believed to be the property, at one time, of a Muggle of Germanic origin, who fled to South America after the Muggle wars in Europe, taking his spoils of war with him.'

'And the fifth?' he asked, his intrigue upping another notch.

I thought I knew where it was; I thought it belonged to either Albus Dumbledore or Nicolas Flamel, or perhaps even Ethel. 'I think it is right here,' I lied.

He gave me a sceptical look, as though to say that Abraxas Malfoy was not important enough to own such a treasure. 'Why should you think that?' he asked.

I was extemporising to a certain extent, but everything I said was backed up by enough truth that I could worm my way out of it if necessary. 'As you know, the Muggles regard this part of England as a place of ancient worship, particularly Salisbury Plain, where the great standing stones they call Stonehenge are. The plain, the Muggles believe, belongs to English Heritage. What they do not know, is that the ground, including Stonehenge, actually forms part of Malfoy Estates, and access was only granted to the Muggles and their English Heritage by treaty with the Prime Minister of the time, and Abraxas Malfoy's father. Now this family has never needed Muggle money, it has enough wizard gold, I suspect, to depress their precious markets for a century,' I said, buoyed along by his rising interest. 'There was a rumour that went around certain circles, about 1946, when the deal to allow Muggle access to Stonehenge was done, that the fifth copy of the book had been recovered from below Gestapo Headquarters in Cologne. It had been tossed into a corner with a load of Hebrew texts, likely mistaken as one of them. Presumably someone had forgotten to burn them, so busy, as they were, with burning everything else. This theory is lent credence by the fact that the codex's last known place of residence was Cologne Cathedral.'

Riddle was thoughtful for a moment, but I could see he was excited, possibly in no small measure by the very places the codex seemed to have been, and the people who had sought it. I had to be very careful now; I had to compose myself for the question I knew was coming, the one where, if necessary, I had to lie until my tongue turned black. I suddenly wished I hadn't tried to be so clever, and had invented something much less complicated, but I had known it would appeal to him, and I was stuck with it.

'How do you know this?' he asked quietly, but something I didn't like at all had crept into his voice, something like mistrust.

I waited until he looked up. 'I don't know, Tom,' I whispered, and let my eyes drop, as though inadvertently, to where the Dark Mark was hidden by my sleeve. 'I just don't know.'

He didn't say anything as he reached into his pocket and took a cheroot from a tortoiseshell case, placing it between his lips, where it seemed to light itself of its own accord. He just sat and smoked, eventually tossing the cheroot into the fire as he reached for the bell pull at the side of the fireplace, and tugged it once.

*****

If Abraxas Malfoy were puzzled by the question, he didn't show it. He merely denied any knowledge of the book, offering the open doors of the library I had sat in a few nights before. He and Riddle let me examine the shelves, without attempting to pretend they knew what I was looking for, and after what I considered a suitable time I shook my head and addressed Abraxas.

'Are there any other books in the house?' I asked. 'Anything your own father might have hidden for safety? We are talking about a very powerful book,' I said, hoping to appeal to his vanity.

He shook his head; his white leonine hair coming to rest seconds after he stopped. 'Nothing,' he snapped, and turned to Riddle. 'Is this important?' he asked, without hiding the disdain he felt for me.

'Why should you have to ask that, Abraxas?' Riddle responded. 'If I have treated Severus's request with respect, I would expect that you do at least the same.'

Abraxas bridled at that, and I kept my eyes slightly downcast, feigning a modesty I certainly didn't feel.

'There are no other important books in this house,' he said. 'A few tatty old manuscripts in the cellars, but nothing of whatever value you are talking about. My father would have told me.'

'How old?' Tom asked, and I was glad I hadn't had to do that myself.

'I don't even know,' Abraxas replied, clearly angry that what he considered to be a poverty-stricken upstart of a half-blood should be issuing orders to him in his own home, however indirect they may have been. 'But I doubt they could possibly be whatever you seek.'

'It seems I'm mistaken, Tom,' I said, feigning defeat. 'I shall keep you no longer, gentlemen. I am sorry to have wasted your time.'

'It seems you are, Severus,' Riddle replied. 'And Abraxas and I must leave now; we have other business to attend to. Perhaps Lucius can take you to check out these other books, just in case,' he added, looking to where Abraxas frowned in the doorway.

'I shall go with him. The are other things nearby that are none of his business,' Abraxas said quickly, casting me a look of dislike laced with mistrust; it was one that told me that the nearby things may very well be Black and Lupin.

'I am finding it somewhat tedious to have to request everything twice from you, Abraxas,' Riddle said, with a more than a hint of anger. 'Send Lucius, and let us leave now,' he said, pulling his pocket watch from his waistcoat. 'We are late enough as it is, and I should not like the rest of the troops to become as dissenting as you seem to have become.'

*****

Lucius didn't want to be in the cellars; I could tell that. He seemed to have decided not to unburden himself any further though, and I wondered if Abraxas had had a word with him about discretion. I was seeing a very different side to Lucius Malfoy though, if, I had to remind myself, it was genuine. It seemed that once his props were removed, the Lestrange brothers and Walden Macnair, and Crabbe and Goyle to a lesser extent, that he was unable to support the legend he had built around himself, or maybe he didn't see the need.

'Why don't you just go along yourself, Severus?' he asked as we moved deeper into the cellars to where the sarcophagi had been. 'I'm sure you can remember the way.'

Every now and again I had cast my mind around, searching for someone else, just in case I was being lured into some sort of elaborate trap, of my own making admittedly, to prove my loyalty. I sensed nothing but dust and cobwebs and the skittering awareness of mice and spiders. I began to wonder if I were mistaken, if what I had allowed myself to believe as fact, had just been something that fitted the circumstances. After all, I had no proof that Black and Lupin were there, no one had said as much, and whatever Lucius's involvement had been in their arrest, I doubted he knew where they were then.

'Why don't you just come with me?' I suggested, raising the torch I carried until it shone on his face.

He had stopped at the end of a row of jar-filled shelves; I didn't know what they were, they could have been anything from pickled brains to pickled beetroots, for all I cared. 'Did you tell Riddle what I said to you?' he asked, and there was no panic in his voice, just a dull acceptance that I didn't think was false.

'Of course,' I said, carefully. 'The maudlin ramblings of a drunk man can be just as dangerous to his cause ... our cause ... as the rallying cries of Dumbledore and his faithful. You would do well to remember that,' I said, turning away from the way his shoulders seem to sag in some tiny amount of relief, to let him make of it what he would. I could do no more for him, and I had to speak to Dumbledore about him; it would have to do.

But he wouldn't let it go, and I had to get on. 'Severus ... if you leave ...' he said, and waited for me to turn again, but I didn't. 'Go on your own,' he said, and I knew he had not finished what he set out to say. 'I'm not going down there.'

I began to walk along the last corridor to where the sarcophagi were, sensing their dim sentience again. It worried me a bit, just how able whatever was inside them was to communicate, and to just whom it would communicate anyway. I slipped behind the bookshelves to be level with the coffins, and found them to be, whilst not quite benign, somehow disinterested, and I wondered if they had been in some way linked to Lucretia Malfoy. I didn't have time to speculate further as I passed between them, casting my mind back to check that my path back out had not been blocked.

There was a door set into the wall of what looked like the very end of that part of the cellar, and I sensed something behind it, and I hoped I knew what that faint consciousness was. There was a large iron key on a hook above the door, which I sincerely hoped fitted the lock. I looked back once, but Lucius's torch seemed not to have moved. I cast a charm about me so Lupin would not know who I was, took the key from its hook, and opened the door.

Except for the absence of the window which overlooked the rose gardens, the room was almost a miniature replica of the drawing room upstairs, and so incongruous in this neglected netherworld that it quite took me aback. There were two men lying on the floor; they looked to have been dumped there and left, as there was no other evidence of them in the room. They were alive, but Black barely so, and Lupin unconscious. I knelt beside Black and tried to turn him over. He didn't even groan, and one side of his face was so badly bruised that, but for his clothes, he was hardly recognisable.

'Black ... Sirius,' I whispered urgently, pouring whatever I could into his subconscious. 'Black, I need you to hear me and understand.'

I almost felt him trying to draw himself out of whatever cocoon he'd fled to to bear his pain, and then he slipped back again. 'Black, please, I have no time to spare ... you have no time to spare. I need to get Lupin out of here,' I said, appealing to what I hoped would rouse him.

'He's dead,' Black groaned, and slipped from consciousness again.

'He's not dead,' I pleaded with him. 'Lupin is alive ... Sirius, I have to get him out of here before tomorrow night.'

'He's dead,' Black said again, but he had dragged himself forward somehow.

'I swear to you he is still alive.' I took the Portkey from my pocket and slipped it into his. 'That will take you both to Dumbledore's office,' I said, praying to Merlin, or anyone who might be listening, that he understood me. 'Do not use it until after someone else has been down here to confirm your presence, otherwise my cover will be broken. Black ... please, Sirius,' I said, shaking the broken man's shoulder as much as I dared. 'Tell me you understand.'

'Don't listen, Sirius,' Lupin groaned from behind me. 'It's a trick. That's Snape. I can smell the treacherous snake from here.'

Of course he could; my hasty charm meant nothing to a man who could scent another the way the werewolf could. But his words, or more likely the fact that he was alive, rallied Black a little, and he dragged himself another bit towards full consciousness.

'It's all right, Moony. I know it is,' Sirius gasped in some tearing agony, but opened his un-swollen eye a little, as I dropped my disguise. 'I understand,' he said, moving his hand to his side to pat his pocket.

It was all I could do; even Lucius would not believe I had spent so much time looking at a shelf of mouldy books. I slipped the other wand from my pocket and put it in Black's empty wand pocket, charming it from view. 'Don't use that unless you have to,' I said.

I stood up. Lupin had managed to drag himself up onto one elbow. He was watching me with suspicion laced with puzzlement. I didn't have time to explain, and I didn't care to either. Lupin was an honourable man as far as I knew, but a weak one; he could not be party to my secret allegiance, but I would leave that to Dumbledore to deal with. For now it would serve my purpose that he knew we were not enemies.

I slipped from the room, locking it from the outside again, and moved back through the sarcophagi, sensing no difference in them. Just as I reached the bookcases, I felt him, and wondered if he had left the house at all. I was in deep trouble, realising in a moment of heart-stopping shock that I still had the key in my hand.

'Severus,' Riddle said as he and Abraxas approached the bookshelves, Riddle glancing past the sarcophagi to the partly hidden door behind which Black and Lupin lay. 'Just what are you doing?' he asked, a faint trace of disappointment crossing his features, whilst malicious triumph crossed Malfoy's.

My hand, the one holding the key, went to the nearest bookshelf, as though clinging for support, and my other hand dipped into my pocket, clasping around the white stone Dumbledore had given me. I picked up the innocuous looking book that I found myself touching, from the bookshelf, and turned it over. It had a faded green cover with dark lettering, and seemed to be of the era around the end of the Muggle wars in Europe. The title was written in German, "Die Letztendliche Wahrheit?", "The Ultimate Truth?". I held it up, my mouth dry and my heart hammering in my chest, without even having the mental strength to notice that the key had disappeared from my grasp.

'I was doing what you asked me to do, Tom,' I said, pouring what confused indignation I could into my voice. 'I was looking for this.'

'He's a liar, Tom.' Abraxas spat his fury and pushed past me, almost knocking one of the small stone coffins from its bier as he made for the door. He took the key from where it rested once more on its hook, unlocked the door and shoved it open, and I pretended to try to see past his bulk into the room where the two men lay, apparently undisturbed. Malfoy pulled the door closed quickly and seemed to attempt to moderate whatever tirade he had begun.

'I have never seen that before,' he said to Riddle, nodding to the book in my hand.

Riddle took the book from me, opened it at random, and frowned at the Coptic script. 'Now I know where Lucius takes his inability to find the obvious from, Abraxas,' he said lightly, snapping the book shut and handing it back to me. 'Have you actually ever looked? ... And if you have, I wonder why.'

*****