Chapter Twenty

When I went back into the kitchen, Black and Lucius were once again sitting opposite one another, and Ethel was fiddling about with what I hoped was the dinner Dumbledore's visit had postponed. Lucius was withdrawn throughout the meal, and ate little, in itself an indication that he was not quite himself. I doubted it was for any feelings of grief about the sudden loss of his father, and knew he was desperately worried about returning to the manor, as he would inevitably have to do.

There was still no word from the world outside Spinner's End. I had even taken the step of going to the off-licence to replenish my whisky stock, trailing what appeared to the world as a stray black dog a few steps behind me. Lucius had panicked so much when Black and I had left on our brief shopping trip that I had raised the charm on the house again, just in case Riddle took that little window in time to come a-calling. Evan Rosier, who was back on guard for Riddle, said nothing to me, and just gave me a hard glare as I passed, and I began to wonder if we were going to have to wait for the next day's Daily Prophet to find out about Abraxas.

'Have you any Polyjuice here?' Black asked me, as he pushed his plate away and stuck his cigarette into his mouth.

'What would you want Polyjuice for?' I asked.

'I don't ... not yet, at any rate,' he replied, and I noticed neither of us had really answered the other's question. 'One of us is going to have to go to the manor, Severus,' he said eventually. 'We can't wait this out much longer.'

That was true, and I didn't attempt to fool myself that I had not been considering the same thing.

'We have to find out what's going on, for fuck sake,' Black snarled in frustration, crushing out his cigarette. 'Merlin alone knows what's happening there just now.'

'He had better not have plundered the place,' Lucius remarked, with his teeth gritted in what I recognised as suppressed fury. 'How dare he kill a Malfoy?' he added, and I could see it was the attack on the Malfoy name, and not his father's person, that so outraged him. It was something that gave me a little hope that Lucius just might not fall to pieces after all. I realised something else then, something I had not fully appreciated. Lucius Malfoy was the only Malfoy left, and unless he produced an heir, the line would die when he did.

We didn't get a chance to finish our talk though, and it was almost a relief when I felt the Dark Mark burn on my arm, just as Ethel turned from her cooking range and announced that Riddle was walking up Spinner's End.

I could feel the very atmosphere drop over the kitchen, but instead of dread, it was one of quiet calm and resolve. Then I found that I, too, could follow Riddle's exact progress, that I felt him and the group of men he had brought with him stop for a moment, presumably at Rosier, and then walk the last steps to the path. I felt him swing open the metal gate, and walk up the slabbed pathway to the front door. I even felt him hesitate before he knocked, and that gave me some kind of hope that either Abraxas had indeed died of a seizure, or that Tom Riddle had found that causing his untimely death was an ill thought-out move. I didn't have time for any more though; the other three were watching me as the imaginary echo of his three sharp raps faded to nothing, even in my mind.

'Tom,' I said quietly, as I opened the door and stepped aside to allow him and his Death Eaters to pass me. He didn't seem to be taking any chances with his personal safety.

Unlike our recent meetings, there was no kiss of greeting; in fact he said nothing at all, just giving me a look I didn't understand. It was neither hostile nor warm, and I wondered if he felt he had overstepped the mark the day before, and was trying to work out from my reaction to him how to redress the situation.

'I have been very concerned about your lack of communication, Severus,' he said eventually, once he had settled himself, and lit his cheroot, and waved his hand at his assembled personal guard, freezing them to the same immobility he had used on Lucius in that very room. They would hear and see nothing he did not want them to.

I looked away from him, feigning the hurt uncertainty I had decided upon.

He stood up again, and crossed to where I had sat on the settee on the opposite side of the fire to him, and I tried to steel myself for his touch. 'I have dealt with their impertinences for you,' he said. 'Abraxas will never insult you again ... I have seen to it.'

I still said nothing; I dared not ask what he meant, far safer to let him tell his own story.

'I should not have left you, my Severus, not when there was a chance of those men coming back in the drunken way in which they saw fit to misuse Lucius,' he said, as though others, and not he, had been guilty of defiling me. He moved my hair from my neck, exposing it to him. He dropped his head, and instead of the customary kiss on the cheeks he had been in the habit of using, he kissed my neck, like a lover, as my insides threatened to rebel. 'I need to know you forgive me, Severus ... my Severus,' he said, and I tried to make sense of his insanity, and hold onto my own nerve, but I felt myself quailing, fearing that he would begin some sort of assault like the day before, and that he was not even afraid to do so in front of the frozen Death Eaters. 'I should not have left you,' he whispered, his hand reaching down to stroke my thigh.

And then I felt something else, something I had not expected to come to my rescue. "Severus", Black called softly into my mind, warning me, yet holding me up. "Make him get to the point. Don't let him forget why he is here. Remember, what he mistakes for love means nothing but that he is mad."

He was right; I had to stop it right away, it was time. I pulled away from Riddle, letting him make of it what he would, and looked to where I had left "Die Letztendliche Wahrheit?" lying open on my desk. 'I am trying to work, Tom,' I said, no longer needing to feign the uncertain fear. 'What did you want me for?'

He drew back, his contrition shrugged off as carelessly as he had donned it. 'Why am I here?' he demanded, rising to his feet. 'I should have thought that was obvious, Severus. You have not brought Lucius Malfoy and Sirius Black to me, so I have come to them instead.' He pointed a long slim finger at me. 'And I do not care to have had to do so. Now,' he said, forcing his temper back, 'where are they?'

'Here,' I said, gesturing at the wall beside the kitchen door, and allowing the charm I had cast round the two men to drop.

He actually laughed, as though he was a child, and I had displayed some incredible conjuring trick never seen before. 'Well, well, well,' he said. 'What pretty pair of wallflowers have we here?'

'I'm Sirius Black,' Black began.

'Yes, yes, Black, you may entertain me with your youthful humour after you tell me how you made good your escape from Malfoy Manor. There seem to be some inconsistencies in the tale Severus so skillfully wove,' he added, giving me a hard look.

'It was magic,' Sirius replied, moving across the room to sit beside me, leaving Lucius standing at the wall.

'Gentlemen,' Riddle said, seeming to backtrack, perhaps reluctant to reach any sort of impasse so early. 'Let us be civilised with one another. After all, are we not all on the same side?'

'I had thought so,' Black replied. 'You are the one with doubts, if what Severus told me is to be believed.'

'Let us not argue the finer points,' Riddle snapped. 'I have not come here to bandy words with you, Black; I have come to talk to Lucius.' He nodded to me. 'Is there somewhere here we can talk alone ... just Lucius and me?'

'Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of the others,' Lucius said with a coolness that impressed me mildly.

'Not this, Lucius,' Riddle replied. 'I have bad news, I'm afraid, and I really need to speak with you alone.'

'I don't care to speak with you alone,' Lucius replied, and I thought he had just hit the right balance between firmness and underlying fear, and reflected that he had possibly feigned neither.

'Come now, Lucius,' Riddle said disarmingly. 'Come sit with me then ... I mean nothing by that,' he added quickly as Lucius stiffened visibly. 'I merely mean you should sit to receive bad news.'

'What's going on?' Lucius asked. 'What has happened?'

'I'm afraid Abraxas is dead,' Riddle replied.

'Don't be ridiculous,' Lucius said, as though he had made no sense. 'What are you trying to tell me?' He crossed the room and sat at the far side of the settee on which Riddle sat, and gave him a long confused look, and I thought he was doing very well. 'What happened?' he asked eventually, as though he had at last managed to digest what Riddle had said.

'A seizure,' Riddle replied. 'By the time the mediwizards arrived, there was nothing they could do for him. He was already dead.'

'Were you present at the time?' Black asked.

If Riddle thought the question loaded, he didn't show it. 'No, no, I had just returned ... from being elsewhere. Your father was there though, Black,' he said, shifting the onus back to Sirius. 'And Igor Karkaroff and Darius Shield.'

Lucius had stood up again, and began to pace across the fireplace, a bit like the way Riddle paced. 'Severus, Sirius,' he said, 'you must come with me. I must return to the manor at once.'

'I shall come too,' Riddle said quickly. 'I would like to offer my support for you at this trying time.'

'I have my own friends, Tom, but thank you for the offer,' Lucius said smoothly. 'Be under no illusion though, I loathed Abraxas; but that apart, I suspect I have much to do at home, a fitting funeral to arrange, not the least of all.'

Riddle only considered that for a moment before backing down with as much grace as he could, and I could see he understood that he would have to at least make some show of respect to Lucius as the head of Malfoy Estates, its vast gold reserves in particular. He would not risk outright rejection. He turned instead to Sirius, and I fancied he had to vent his well hidden rage somewhere.

'I understand your need to be alone, Lucius,' he said magnanimously, letting his glance flick back to Malfoy for moment, then back to Sirius. 'I shall take up Orion and Walburga's kind offer for a while. That reminds me,' he said, letting his dangerous smile cross his lips. 'Before I leave, Black, you were going to explain to me how you managed to free yourself from the manor ... without using the wand you left behind.'

Black laughed. 'You found it? Good. It was only a joke, Tom,' he said, grinning his Gryffindor grin. 'I hope you didn't give Bella too hard a time.'

'Of course it was found, as I am quite sure Severus told you,' Riddle said, giving me another hard look.

'You never told me that,' Black said, glancing to where I sat beside him.

'I know,' I said quietly, as though the other events of that day had swept so minor a detail from my mind. 'I forgot.'

'The wand?' Riddle demanded, his temper rising.

'I had two wands,' Black replied easily. 'Well ... three to be precise, but Lucius confiscated one when he arrested me. I left Bella's to get her into a spot of bother, and used one I had nicked from James Potter years ago ... trophies of youth ... I carry them for luck. Just as well as it turned out,' he said, giving Riddle a wink that I thought was unnecessarily dangerous; then again, I wasn't Sirius Black.

'And?' Riddle asked, totally unconvinced by what, even to me, sounded like a very unlikely tale; I only hoped Black a something an awful lot better to come.

'And I used James's wand to activate a Portkey. I always carry one of them too,' Sirius said blithely. 'You never know just when you're going to have to leave somewhere in a hurry ... if you know what I mean.'

'And this other wand,' Riddle said. 'Just where is it?'

'I have it,' Sirius replied, his tone hardening.

'I would like to see it, Black.'

'Why?'

'Because I do not intend to take any liars into my confidence,' Riddle replied. 'And I do not believe a word of what you have told me.'

Sirius dipped his hand to the pocket of the red and gold robe he wore, and withdrew a dark wand, and when Riddle held out his hand for it, Sirius held it back. 'This is mine,' he said, like a possessive child. 'Treasure trove of a sort.'

'In that case you will not mind doing a Priori Incantatem with the wand,' Riddle said, in what sounded uncomfortably like triumph. He had removed his own wand from his travelling cloak, and held it pointed at Sirius.

Sirius looked at me and then at Lucius, before raising the wand and speaking his spell. Unlike when I had performed the incantation with Bellatrix's wand, there was no delay. The immediate area in front of Sirius was filled with a swirling blue light, showing the wand belonged to a man. In the centre of the light was the lion's head ring Sirius often wore, the one with ruby eyes, and as we watched there was the image two men's hands clutching the ring, and closing around it, and disappearing.

'I do not care to be mistrusted, Riddle,' Sirius said in a voice totally bereft of his normal amusement. 'I suspect I have been mistaken in thinking I wanted to have anything to do with you.'

'And I understand your feelings on the matter,' Riddle replied, 'as I am sure you will understand my reservations, once you have the time to think them through.' And with that said, he nodded curtly to me and Lucius, snapped his fingers at his Death Eaters to waken them, and swept out of the room.

"And very well done, dears." Ethel's little voice sounded like the clear, clean tinkle of a bell as it dispersed the heavy atmosphere of the room.

*****

We only waited for about half an hour before leaving Spinner's End.

'Will you let Dumbledore know we are going to the manor?' I asked Ethel, as I cast a charm on the book before handing it to her

'Yes, dear,' she replied, in a way that made me suspect she had already done so through her own little network. 'Now ... you won't forget all about me, Severus, will you?'

'Ethel,' I said, genuinely upset that she should even think such a thing. 'I would never do that.'

'Can't we take her with us?' Lucius asked, stopping his fretful pacing for a moment to look down on the birdlike old lady who seemed to wield so much influence over us.

'No, Lucius dear, I cannot leave here just now,' she said. 'I have Godric in the fire, and roses planted in the walls, and I would have to do all sorts of very complicated things to move.'

'Will she be safe?' Black asked, voicing the concerns that now seemed to spring somewhat belatedly to all of our minds.

'Of course I shall be safe, dears. Nothing can harm me; I am not of this world.' With that, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed each one of us on the cheek; it was a gesture so unlike Riddle's, that to call his a kiss was an outrage.

I cast the charm that hid the house from everyone but the three of us, unsurprised to find that there was no guard in Spinner's End. I knew that even then Riddle was working out how best to re-introduce himself to the new lord of the manor, and, of course, his estates and his gold.

We Apparated to the glasshouses behind the kitchen garden, and not the further away Apparition point in the western grove of trees that I usually used. We walked around the front of the house and were suddenly engulfed by the press. Not only the Daily Prophet and the Quibbler, but it seemed that camera tripods took up every inch of the front lawns, and scribes scratched their quills in every language known to wizardkind, as the world's press heralded the arrival of Lucius Malfoy.

'It seems the lord of the manor is expected,' Sirius muttered to me, whilst presenting what I supposed he considered to be his best profile, as the flashbulbs popped in the night-time sky, and I tried to hide behind Lucius without seeming to do so.

Malfoy was in his element, of course, and I knew that Riddle would be seething in anger that he had not had the opportunity to present himself to so wide an audience.

We made it inside eventually, Black and I almost having had to drag Lucius away from the reporters. We climbed the grand staircase to the minstrels' gallery as an elf hurried along behind us, issuing orders hither and thither to other elves, for refreshments, and meals, and Merlin alone knew what else, for their new master.

Malfoy threw open the door to the drawing room, and stopped short at the second reception to await him, one not nearly as welcome as the first had been.

Orion and Walburga Black stood up as we entered, as did Cygnus Black and two of his three daughters, Bellatrix and Narcissa, both of whom curtseyed deeply, and with much more respect than they had shown Lucius at the party, when only a quick dip of the knees had sufficed. On the other side of the room stood Igor and Olga Karkaroff, and Darius and Tatiana Shield. All of the women were veiled and dressed in costly sable furs and black brocade, as though they were members of an immediate family of pure-blooded wizards recently bereaved. The men were also dressed in black, trimmed with silk ribbon, and were a startling counterpoint to Lucius, who still wore the emerald green and pale blue and violet velvets and leathers that he usually favoured, and Black who wore the rest of the colours of the rainbow.

Cygnus was the only one of the men who had not been present the other night when the drunken group had come in search of me, and he stepped forward, arrogantly assured of his own importance. Lucius had said nothing since he had come into the room, content on the surface to let them all make whatever bad job they had in mind of their intrusion into his privacy.

Cygnus took another step forward, and as Lucius made no attempt to meet him halfway, he moved closer still. He seemed to become slightly less comfortable as he held out a traditional star-shaped wizard wreath of dark fir branches, and woven black ribbons and feathers. I fancied he was beginning to regret the decision he had probably made that, as he was the senior of Abraxas's close circle, it behoved him to present the group's condolences.

'I know I speak for all of us, Lucius, when I say how shocked we are at your loss,' he said in a low measured tone. 'Abraxas was a good and trusted friend ... and we hope that we do not presume too much to expect that you will be the same.' He trailed off somewhat unsurely, as Lucius turned away from him, and took much longer than necessary to hand me the wreath.

'I loathed Abraxas,' Lucius said when he turned back. 'Now, if you will excuse me, gentlemen,' he said, laying an insulting emphasis on the last word, 'and ladies too, Severus, Sirius and I have much to do. I shall not offer you refreshments,' he added, and turned away again, as though they had already been dismissed.

'Perhaps you would like the company of your fiancée for a short time later,' Cygnus offered, pushing Narcissa forward in what he surely must have realised was a futile attempt at keeping open a window of opportunity that had already been slammed in his face. Narcissa curtseyed again, and gave the lord of Malfoy Manor a winsome little smile from below her veil, one that Lucius ignored.

'I do not have a fiancée,' he replied, and swept all of the men with a look that suggested that if they sought to curry favour with him, they had a very long hard climb to so do.

'But your father and I had an arrangement...' Cygnus faltered as Lucius held his hand up.

'Then I suggest you take that up with him,' Lucius replied, his nostrils flaring and his tone becoming icy. 'As far as I am concerned, any arrangement you thought you might have had with Abraxas, died with him. Now I really must insist...' He trailed off suggestively, looking to where an elf stood holding the drawing room door open.

Orion cocked his head to the door, shooting a meaningful glance at Karkaroff and Shield, as they seemed to come to the understanding that this man was not the same Lucius Malfoy as they had violently intimidated so short a time before.

'Oh, Father,' Sirius said, as Orion passed him without looking at him. 'Get Kreacher to air one of those filthy cells you call guest bedrooms.'

'I hope you are not under the misconception that you are coming back to our home,' Walburga snapped from under her veil, her mouth twisted in distaste, as though she at least were not as easily cowed by three young upstarts as the men had been.

'Are you under the misconception that I would consider such a ridiculous move?' Sirius asked. 'Anyway, Mother, I was talking to Father, not you.' He nodded to where Orion had looked back, and I almost fancied that some sort of vague regret showed in Orion's features, as though he perhaps wished that he had had the strength to stand up to his wife the way his firstborn son did ... the way he and his friends found it easy to brutalise injured young men.

'What visitor?' Orion asked.

'Tom Riddle's coming to stay for a while,' Sirius replied, seeming gratified by the shock Orion didn't quite manage to hide. 'He said to let you know. I'm sure you'll enjoy his company much better than mine.'

*****

It was sometime later, sometime in the middle of the night, but not yet dawn, when our talk turned away from the events of the evening, and became desultory. I suppose we were tired, and I suspect we all really needed to begin to adopt a more normal timetable. That apart, I had already decided I would leave Lucius and Black at the manor the next day, and return to Spinner's End, although I hadn't told them.

Lucius had been talking about the day I had found the book, and how Abraxas had placed a curse on him to prevent him warning me that he and Riddle had come down to the catacombs.

'I always meant to ask you,' I said, in an attempt to steer him away from the book. I still didn't want Lucius to know anything about Aqua Vitae, not until I had the full measure of his strange depths. 'What is in the stone sarcophagi that guard the door to room Black was in?'

Lucius said nothing for a moment, and I regretted what I considered was a cheap shot at diverting him. Then he looked across at me, swirling the brandy in his glass. 'My mother's remains,' he said. 'They were there to guard Lucretia.' He looked to Black, probably to see if he knew who Lucretia had been, and seemed content to accept that I had told him.

Something puzzled me about that though. 'Why were they not interred when Lucretia died?' I asked.

Lucius shrugged. 'Perhaps they were. What few facts I know were told to me by the elves.'

'No,' I said. 'I felt something the last day we went down. It was the same thing I felt when we went down to the catacombs when we were at school. I always wondered,' I said, understanding only then why the awareness had borne me no hostility.

'She's still there?' Lucius asked. 'Still aware?'

I nodded, and then I found Black watching me. 'Why don't we go down and see,' he asked. 'I could always don my doggy suit, and have a sniff around.'

'Why don't we just leave well alone?' Lucius countered, clearly uncomfortable at the thought of any trip to the cellars he so feared.

'We're all here, Lucius,' Black reasoned. 'Nothing's going to harm you, you know.'

Malfoy seemed to think about that, and I could see he had welcomed what almost amounted to a declaration of friendship from Black, and I think too, that prompted him to show that he could begin to deal with his own ghosts. 'Very well,' he said. 'But let me assure you, Black, that if anything happens down there,' he said with a shudder, 'I shall hex you into next week.'

*****

There were no sconces lit at all in the cellar, and we lit them one by one as we came to them, casting a sooty glow that only served to make the blackness around darker still. It seemed quiet and peaceful, like the tomb it was, as we made our way to the far end to where the bookcases and the stone coffins were. I edged my way cautiously, even though, unlike the last times I had been there, there was no need for secrecy. I stopped between the sarcophagi, and felt again the dim consciousness, feeling it seem to gauge me and find me harmless to whatever its cause might have been.

I heard Sirius swish into his Animagus form, and before I could stop him he had jumped up to put his forepaws on top of the nearest coffin, sniffing around the long-sealed edges. He repeated his action on the other coffin, and changed back to his natural form.

'I can't smell anything,' he said, shrugging his obvious disappointment away.

I was loath to prise a sarcophagus open, probably filled with superstitious dread; anyway, I reasoned to myself, whatever was in there had never harmed me before, and I had certainly been in tighter situations in that very cellar. I found I was tending to agree with Lucius, to leave well alone, and get a decent night's sleep, or whatever was left of it. I had just begun to turn away when the door to the room in which Sirius and Lupin had been held, opened, and an elf stepped out, bearing the remains of a dinner tray.

It wasn't startled by our presence, which was much more that I could say for us, but merely lowered its head as respectfully as the tray would allow, and murmured, 'Master, good evening,' to Lucius, before turning the key in the lock, and hanging it back up on its hook.

'What is that tray for?' Lucius asked, his voice almost shocking in its normalcy. 'What are you doing down here?'

The elf backed away. 'I ... I has done wrong, Master?' it asked, then as confused as we were. 'I had not realised.' It laid the tray down, and prostrated itself at Lucius's feet.

But Black had already snatched the key back down from the hook and had opened the door, and was staring into the room as Lucius stepped over the elf and pushed past him, only to stop dead in the doorway. For a moment I thought he might faint.

'Lucius? Yes ... of course you must be Lucius. Have you come to steal my living room away from me for Sirius Black again?' Lucretia Malfoy asked, as she raised her head from the book she was reading.

She was small and fine boned, like a frail little flower that had never seen the light of day. She was dressed as though to receive visitors though, in pale green silk and velvet, and her white-blonde hair was held up at either side by two emerald-studded clasps, fashioned in the shape of serpents. I wondered just for whom she had taken such care over her appearance. I was staring, just as the others were. It was incredible that such a dainty little thing could be so feminine and beautiful, and yet still be the very image of her brother.

'He told me you were dead,' Lucius whispered, from where he had clutched my arm. 'He never even told me about you ... and then he told me you were dead.'

*****