Chapter Seventeen

It was about half an hour before Black came back up the stairs to say that the men were all in the drawing room with four Knockturn Alley whores, and so deeply in their cups that he thought it was safe for us to make a break for it. I had dressed while I waited, admittedly with a little help from Lucius, and I felt a bit less vulnerable, less than when I had just been wrapped in Black's cloak. I felt a bit better that the Dark Mark had been covered again too. I had even allowed Lucius to perform some perfunctory cleansing and repairing spells; after all, who would know better about the immediate aftermath of Riddle's brand of affection?

He had avoided my eyes, and I suppose I had avoided his, but I could see that what had been dealt out to me had somehow been different from the treatment meted out to him, and that the burn marks from Riddle's curses, and the bites on my shoulders and legs, and the raw patches where Riddle's touch had abraded the very skin, were not something he had any experience of, and that made me wonder what had been bestowed on him in their stead. I didn't ask though; whatever it had been had probably been no less intense. I just bore his detached attention, trying instead to wonder how Lucius had coped in the past, lying alone with presumably no one but himself to offer him a crumb of comfort, and I wondered at a strength of character I had not recognised in him before.

I was more relieved than I thought possible that we were ready to go. I had almost counted every second, expecting Riddle to return, and there was nothing I wanted more than to be away from that manor before he got back, and never to return to it. That apart, I knew Black was seething with Lucius, and that situation needed to be diffused before it festered into something none of us could afford. As for me, I could understand both their points of view. The time waiting had given me time to consider Lucius's position, and I found it hard to understand how a man like him had managed to bear the humiliation of what he must have borne, and I could see why he had hidden it from us, much in the way, I suspected, he even hid it from himself.

'Can you walk, Severus?' Black asked, keeping an eye on the hallway outside the room.

'Of course I can walk,' I snapped at him. 'Can we get away from this fucking place?'

It was a slow business going down the stairs. I had not allowed for just how much pain I was in, and twice we had to stop, as sweat broke out on my body and I was all but overwhelmed by nausea, as the other two waited, nervously watching, and straining to listen for anyone coming into the hallway. It passed though, and agonisingly slowly, we made it to the back door to the kitchen garden without being seen. The Apparition point was just behind the glasshouses, and when we got there I did black out, just for a few moments, but when I regained consciousness Lucius and Sirius were bent over me, ready to have me Side-Along with them as they Apparated in tandem.

Even their almost flawless Disapparition at the warehouse sent a jolt of agony through me, one that left me retching violently onto the dusty concrete floor, until I was shaking in miserable pain, and soaked in sweat, and felt about as pitiful as I had ever felt before.

'Come on, Severus,' Lucius said urgently, as I stood with my head hanging and my back against the wall. 'Not far now. Come on, Ethel will be worried sick waiting for us.'

I knew I had to move; I couldn't stay in that damn warehouse forever, but the effort it took me to nod shocked me. I let Lucius and Black almost drag me to the door, and waited with Malfoy until Black went out in his doggy suit to check out the short walk to the house. His face was set and grim when he got back, and I knew what was wrong.

'Tom Riddle is standing just at the corner of Spinner's End, with Evan Rosier,' he said, confirming what I had already guessed.

Lucius gave me an uneasy look, and then turned to Black. 'He can't go crawling over the railway embankment, Black,' he said, and then turned to me. 'Can Ethel leave the house? If Black brings her picture here, can she help you?'

I didn't know; she had never left the house to my knowledge since I had brought her back from the solicitor's office in London, some five years before. I think their concern rallied me a little though, and I began thinking again.

'Black ... I need both of you to get to the house,' I said, hating the fact that I couldn't make even that short distance unaided, not without being detected. 'You will need to keep the form you are in, but if you permit Lucius and me entry to your mind, I think between us we could close it down,' I said, managing not to gasp as another stab of sick pain shot through my body, leaving me shaking again. 'Riddle will be searching not only with his eyes.' Then something occurred to me that I had not thought to ask. 'What way did you leave Spinner's End?'

Black gave me a superior look, and even Lucius let his lip twist in his version of a smile. 'Do you think you are the only talented man around here, Snape?' Black asked. 'I can close my mind down almost as well as you can, you arrogant fuck,' he said. 'Dumbledore has been teaching Occlumency to anyone with any aptitude.' He gave his Gryffindor grin, and I suspect he would have stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth too, if he'd thought Riddle wouldn't have smelled the smoke. 'I'm the only one who's any good, of course.'

I nodded in relief, for more reasons than just getting past Riddle that night, but I filed that away for later. I had to get back home. We had plans to make, and I thought I had all the chess pieces I needed to start the game. 'Let us just make a break for it under a charm,' I said. 'If we are very careful, I think we can manage.'

Black and Lucius looked doubtfully at one another, but I suspected they were more dubious of each other's talents, than each man of his own. It would do, it would just have to; I needed support from both of them for that walk to the home I longed for.

I felt myself quail as we passed Riddle and Rosier, but I need not have worried; Tom's ever-present fury was directed at his spy.

'Should it turn out that you have missed anything of significance, Evan, let me assure you you will regret it,' he said, looking towards where the charm of Spinner's End sat untouched, and I fancied, untouchable. 'It is imperative that I talk to Sirius Black and Lucius Malfoy before Severus gets back to that house.'

I didn't hear any more; Lucius and Sirius had tightened the shield around us so much that I found it difficult to even breathe.

*****

Poor little Ethel was standing in the hall, wringing her knotty hands together, and it occurred to me just how incongruous she looked, and how old and frail. Not only had I never seen her so anxious, but I realised I had never actually seen her anywhere but the living room, not until she had come into the kitchen she had rebuilt a few days back.

'He's all right,' Lucius murmured to her, and there was something kind and oddly touching about the way he dwarfed her as he put an arm across her shoulders, and directed her into the living room that was her real domain, leaving Black to support me.

I was home, and I almost felt as though not only did Ethel's presence welcome me, but so also did Spinner's End. It was as though the house closed itself around the four people inside, and that made me recall a time when Ethel had told me that, because I had been born there, the house would always owe me the debt of protection. It didn't feel like Spinner's End was repaying a debt though, and I find this hard to explain even to myself, but a debt somehow sounds grudging, and whatever protection that little house cocooned us in, it was of its own accord, something not owed, but willingly bestowed, and I was not fool enough to think that anyone but Ethel had made it so.

She didn't fuss about me, for which I was grateful, not once she satisfied herself that my condition was not in any way life-threatening, and she scoffed at Black's suggestion that he send for a mediwizard.

'I'm quite sure that Severus would hate that, dear,' she said, and I agreed heartily. Then she turned to me. 'I think you should go and rest, Severus dear, until the Dark One has left the street,' she suggested, handing me a mug of something suspicious smelling which I had no intention of drinking just then.

'I'll just stay here,' I said from the seat that had appeared beside the fireplace in the kitchen. 'We have a lot to think about, a lot to talk about.' I glanced to where Malfoy sat quietly at the table, and Sirius sat opposite him, throwing him the odd hard look that I knew accused him, and yet was puzzled too. 'We have a lot of air to clear too,' I added.

Black just nodded and gave Lucius yet another hard look, one that made me angry.

"Ethel," I said to her mind. "Would you leave us for a while?"

"Yes, dear, I can see there are things you need to say that the others would not want said in front of an old lady," she replied in kind, standing up from her little seat that was opposite mine at the fireside. 'I have a bit of gardening to do, but do not talk too long,' she said to the other two. 'I should want to prepare breakfast before you all get some rest.' With that she left the room, and I waited until the door had closed, in full knowledge that she would eavesdrop through me, and that Lucius and Black would not know that.

'What other secrets have you got, you fat tart?' Sirius snarled across the table as the door between the living room and the kitchen closed, before I could say anything.

'Leave him alone, Black,' I said. 'Do not condemn others until you have a benchmark by which to judge them.'

'He let you walk into that,' Black snapped, glaring across to where Malfoy sat with his face set in an impassive mask.

'Did he, Black?' I asked. 'Did he send me? Were you not also here? And if I am not mistaken, was it not you who wanted to go to the manor in the first place ... to become a Death Eater? Or perhaps you thought Riddle would be as excited at the prospect as you were, and would just pat me on the head, give me a couple of sherbet ruddy lemons, and tell me to run along, the way Dumbledore would.'

'He could have warned you,' Black countered. 'Told you what to expect. And then I ... I could have prepared you in some way.'

'Had you done that I suspect I would still have been sitting here, instead of executing a plan that might, for all of its potentially fatal flaws, begin to get us where we need to be.'

'Fatal flaws?' Black scoffed. 'Let's find out first what other secrets the fat idiot's got before we see just how fatal a flaw can be,' he ranted, not making much sense at all.

'And you have none, Black?' Lucius asked. 'Coming from that despicable den of vice that spawned you?' And I could see that Lucius had his own grudges too, and no small part of them would have been directed at whatever Orion Black and the other three men had dealt out to him on the nights Riddle had taken him, and then left him for the vultures to pick over.

'Stop it ... both of you,' I said, pushing my exhaustion back. 'Or perhaps we should continue bickering amongst ourselves in the way that Abraxas and his cronies do, whilst Riddle rises unchallenged to such a height that he will be as powerful as he thinks he already is.'

Lucius dropped his head, and I could see he was struggling to maintain his outward composure; the revelations flung out in that room in Malfoy Manor had been too much for him. And I needed Lucius, I knew that then; that apart, I would not have sent a dog to the manor unprotected, not even one as capable as Black. But I could see that Black was deflated too, and that made me see that much of his anger was directed at himself, and I thought I understood that too, thought that he felt the weight of his own father's part, and was shamed by it.

'We have been marching to someone else's beat,' I said. 'That stops now. There are so many things to discuss, and so many questions to be asked that we cannot, any one of us, face Tom Riddle until we know the answers ... particularly the answers another one of us might give. My conversation ... before ...' I hated the way I hesitated, the way Lucius looked down, and Black looked at the fire. 'My conversation with Tom Riddle taught me that much,' I went on, hurrying the words along, 'and it is possible that whilst opening up our avenues, I have done as much damage as good.'

I told them about the horrible mistake I had made about the wand, but Sirius just waved that aside.

'Don't let that worry you. We can cobble up any old story,' he said airily, and that reminded me of how much better three clear heads were, than one under Riddle's pressure. 'I'll just say it was charmed along with another wand ... trophies of youth ... and I left Bella's to get her into a spot of bother.'

I felt my shoulders slump in relief; it was the just the type of thing Black would have done, but then I found my myself asking him something, my eyes narrowing in suspicion.

'Did you somehow know that was her wand?'

'No,' he replied, and I wasn't sure if I believed that.

'Why did you leave it then?'

'It fell out of my pocket.'

I had no option but to leave it at that; we had more important matters to discuss: matters like why James Potter and Peter Pettigrew were anxious to trace Sirius; and matters like why Alastor Moody had been at the top of Spinner's End, and on whose orders; and just how we would cope with Lucius or Sirius being forced by either Veritaserum, or some other method, to confess where their loyalties lay; and other things that I couldn't remember, but hoped I would, before they jumped up in front of me in an unprepared moment.

We had cleared the air a bit though, even leaving whatever Lucius had endured un-discussed, and I felt it better that way; I didn't think he deserved to be humiliated again.

'I'm not sure about James,' Black confessed, surprising me. 'He seems to have a slightly different agenda to Dumbledore.'

'Why do you think that?' Lucius asked.

'His concept of the future of wizardkind is not as radical as Riddle's, but it is equally exclusive of Muggles in any positions of power. I find his attitude to Muggles to be patronising at best. In fact,' Black said, 'I think that is James's way of wooing some of Riddle's less fanatic followers with what he sees as a middle line. I think he is blinded by some vision of himself being the saviour of the race.'

'Ah ... a benevolent dictator?' I suggested. 'But a dictator, all the same.'

'Yeah, something like that,' Black admitted. 'Whatever he has in mind, I notice that it is only pure-bloods he invites into his inner circle, and that makes me uncomfortable. That apart, he has dazzled Dumbledore with his Potter insincerity.'

'But I had thought he was almost engaged to Lily Evans,' I argued. 'And Lily's a Muggle-born.'

'Yeah,' Sirius agreed again, sticking a cigarette into his mouth. 'And Tom Riddle hates homosexuals. That's the thing about dictators, Snape, they're terribly inconsistent.'

'And Moody?' I asked, refusing to be drawn into levity, but I was really thinking about Sirius's close friendship with Lupin, and how that may have been a cause of whatever friction had built up between James and Sirius; and I was thinking about how Dumbledore had trusted Moody enough to send him with McGonagall to guard Andromeda.

Black nodded. 'Moody is one of his group. Anyway, Dumbledore Obliviated Moody's memory of coming here when Andromeda was here ... he shouldn't have even known where Spinner's End was.' He frowned at that. 'Does James Potter know?'

I nodded. 'I expect so. Lily has been here.' I ignored Sirius's blink of surprise, and the way Malfoy turned to give me a speculative look. Of course Lily would have told Potter: pillow talk, confessions of old flames, and that brought me up short; but I needn't have bothered, Andromeda had no such secrets to confess where I was concerned, none that she would remember.

"Stop that, Severus." Ethel broke into my mind as she had the last time I had let that thought run away with me

I sighed and put it away again. 'I think the first thing we have to do is to prepare ourselves and our minds for Riddle's inevitable call,' I said, glancing at my arm, where the Dark Mark hid below my sleeve, but I found myself somehow haunted by the thoughts that chased around my head. Thoughts like the fact that I had lain, for want of less kind expression, with Riddle, and had not even had a bath, and save for Lucius's quick cleansing spells at the manor, I was still tainted inside and out by him. Yet I had not even had the courage to go upstairs and soak the stench of him from my skin, and I knew that was because I could not face the Dark Mark, that my nakedness would let its triumph show again. I tried to speak again, but I found I was shaking.

Black had stood up, his chair scraping on the flagstones of the floor. He came back to the table with three tumblers and a bottle of my Glenfiddich, slapped a packet of Muggle cigarettes on the table, and poured three killer shots into the glasses. He tossed his over in one gulp, but I wasn't watching him, I was watching Lucius. He had dropped his head to his hands, his palms on his forehead and his fingers splayed into the mass of silver-blond hair. Black nodded to me and then shot Lucius a worried look.

'What say I just ask Ethel to come and make us something light, and we get some rest?' Black said quietly, watching Lucius. 'I think we've all had all we can handle for one day.'

I nodded, I knew I had.

Black went into the living room, and it was then that I remembered that he too had had a dose of Riddle. It was only when the kitchen door closed that Lucius looked up.

'He never did that to me,' he said. 'He never injured me ... not in that way.'

'I know,' I replied, looking away from the torture in his grey eyes, not wanting to know in what other way he had been harmed, or what the other four had done to him. 'Don't dwell on it, Lucius. It is only a lesson we have learned,' I said. 'Riddle seeks to own, to possess, that's all.'

'Tell that to Black,' he snarled.

'Don't worry about Black,' I said. 'He has enough to deal with the ghosts of his own past, without exploring the ghosts of anyone else's. His anger is a surface thing, it hides his own pain ... he is not our enemy.'

'I cannot go back there, Severus,' Lucius said. 'I cannot go back.'

I wondered at the effort that had dragged him to even accompany Black, and I thought then that both Ethel and I had been wrong about him; Lucius wasn't really a weak man, he was just a man with a different sort of courage.

'No, Lucius, you cannot go back there,' I agreed, pushing his tumbler of whisky towards him. 'Not alone at any rate.'

I watched him swirl the whisky around the glass, and raise it to his lips, and swallow it in what looked like a painful gulp, as though it had to pass a knot in his throat.

'Why didn't you tell me, Lucius?' I asked.

'When?' he asked. 'It took me all my time to persuade you to bring me here ... I had to virtually deposit myself on your doorstep.'

I nodded my acceptance; that much was true.

I watched the door open again, saying nothing as Ethel moved to the stove, humming to herself, and Black sat down, and Lucius poured himself another slug of my whisky. We didn't say much after that; I suppose we were all too drained in our own ways, and it was a relief when Black eventually abandoned his effort at eating the tasty little hot sausage sandwiches Ethel had prepared, and announced he was going to bed.

'Sirius dear,' Ethel said, wiping her hands on the apron she wore over her long red skirt, 'you cannot. Not yet. There is something still to be done.' She seemed to think, looking off into the middle distance only she could see. 'I suspect it is safe to do it now. He seems to have moved away.'

'What?' Sirius and Lucius both asked at the same time, although neither of them seemed to want the answer.

'You must take Severus back to the warehouse, and he must come back here alone. He must be seen to arrive on his own. It would not do for the Dark One to suspect that you assisted his escape from Malfoy Manor, would it?' She held up her hand to stifle their objections. 'You will be right with him; but he must be seen to be alone, and not in hiding, nothing else will do.'

She was right, of course, but that didn't make it any easier to swallow.

*****