Chapter Twenty-Three

I was still shaking inside when I sat at the kitchen table in Spinner's End. It had been a couple of hours since I had stood in Barty Crouch's chambers with Henry Potter at my side, while Narcissa had woven a tale of star-crossed love that would have wrung tears from a stone, and I understood that only a mystery woman could have saved my neck. I knew then that no information had leaked from the Ministry about the alibi I had concocted for myself, and as such there had been no way of anyone but my accusers knowing what I needed to back me up ... or, of course, the woman, if there were such a one. Both Crouch and Potter had been the very soul of solicitude to Narcissa, neither man cross-examining her in a way I would have expected, and that alone led me to believe that all they had wanted was a name on which to hang their hats. I was asked nothing; after all, I had no story to change, and it wasn't long until Potter nodded once to Crouch and turned to me.

'You may go now, Mr Snape,' he said, and his voice was neither warm nor cold; in fact, if anything, it was questioning. I knew he was not asking about my story though; his query was deeper, yet on a less personal level. 'May I suggest, Mr Snape, that you consider those in whom you trust ... aside from Miss Black, of course,' he said, but I knew Henry Potter was asking me just what side I was on, and I wondered why he had reservations that I was loyal Death Eater.

I found I was in two minds about Potter. He had seemed on the surface disappointed at his prosecution crumbling before his eyes, yet he had neither objected in the courtroom, nor in Crouch's chambers to the dismissal of the case, and I began to suspect that he had been placed in the position of Chief Investigator to maintain a respectable front by those who pulled the strings in the background. Potter was an undeniably wealthy man of prominent social standing, and it was well known that he saw his position in the Ministry, like many others of his ilk, as a public service more than a position of employment. That told me a couple of things, and the first one was that Tom Riddle had not infiltrated the Ministry quite as much as he probably hoped, and that other Death Eaters held positions of power there, behind the scenes, which they seemed to be jealously guarding from the very man they purported to back with unswerving loyalty. That made me worry a little about the safety of seemingly honourable men like Crouch and Potter, and how long their positions at the Ministry would be tenable. I sighed and put it away; I was too damned drained to think.

*****

'She's a damn good sport, Severus. You've got to admit that much,' Lucius remarked as he shoved a glass of my whisky across the table at me, and Black stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. The two of them seemed to be enormously pleased with themselves, and I couldn't really find it within myself to deny them their moment in time.

'Yes,' I admitted, totally at a loss as to what else to say, although I had considered asking Lucius and Black why they had waited until the noose was almost around my neck; I resisted though, I wasn't quite sure how I'd feel if it had just been for the maximum dramatic effect. 'Where is she anyway?' I asked, just realising I hadn't even asked Narcissa where she was going when Lucius had taken her arm outside Crouch's office, and Black had led me away.

'She's safe, of course,' Lucius replied a touch vaguely, sighing somewhat theatrically. 'She can hardly go back to Cygnus ... or Bella,' he added, and I was too tired to wonder what he was trying to justify.

'By the way, Severus, I'd stay well clear of Bellatrix, if I were you,' Sirius remarked through a cloud of blue smoke. 'She seems a little put out with you for some reason.'

'Let me assure you, Black,' I snapped, 'that I have never had any intention of going anywhere near Bellatrix Black. Speaking of Blacks ... it's not that I'm ungrateful,' I said, despite my good intentions of a couple of moments before, 'but why was it that you waited until I was almost dangling on the end of a rope to intervene?'

'We were waiting for Albus to let us know whether to go on or not,' Lucius replied.

'Dumbledore?' I asked, as though he had maybe meant another Albus. 'Dumbledore knew what you had planned?'

'Of course he did,' Black replied. 'He knew you were in deep shit ... he just didn't realise how deep it was. We were only to jump in with Narcissa if he stood up and addressed Crouch. I think he wanted to play it out as far as he dared, to see if he could work out just who was pulling what strings.'

'The death sentence threw us all a little though,' Lucius admitted with a shudder. 'The worst case we had allowed for was waiting for Riddle to return to see if he sprang you from Azkaban, or if we had to do it ourselves. I nearly had a fucking heart attack when Crouch took out that damn black cap.'

'Quite,' I remarked, stifling my own involuntary shiver of unease. 'I almost had one too, to save him the bother of a trip so early in the morning to Hangman's Common. Anyway, how did you know the type of alibi I had concocted for myself?' I asked.

'Black guessed,' Lucius replied.

'Malfoy guessed,' Sirius replied at the same time, and both men looked at one another and shrugged.

I felt myself smile inside at the thought of a little white stone that a small boy had found in a rock pool, and had kept for eight hundred years, and had handed to Albus Dumbledore on the day I was born. I was just about to say something about the stone when a wave of nausea swept over me, and I only just managed to stumble across to the sink to throw up the scant breakfast I had been given before my trial. When I sat back at the table I felt totally exhausted, and I reached for the whisky glass Lucius had filled earlier, only to find it had turned into one of Ethel's ruddy teacups, and was steaming back at me in some sort of accusation. As I lifted the cup, and caught the unmistakable whiff of something suspicious, I began to wonder if I actually had any control whatsoever over my life.

'How did you manage without your potion, Severus?' Black asked, nodding to the sink as though I had suffered some sort of withdrawal symptom, instead of the aftermath of sheer terror.

'I didn't,' I replied, slipping off one of my shoes, and releasing the charm that held the heel in place, to reveal a small compartment. It was filled with a blue paste of the concentrated Veritaserum buffer, enough for about three weeks. 'I don't take risks,' I said, and the statement even sounded a touch ridiculous to me. 'I hope you have both been taking yours. In fact, in view of what has just happened, I think I would feel more comfortable if I made some of this and had you both secrete it on yourselves all the time.'

'I don't intend to wear the same shoes every day,' Lucius said, as if the whole suggestion were in some way offensive to him.

'And I don't intend to sweat over a stove making enough damn paste to satisfy your sartorial excesses,' I snapped back, pleased to see Lucius draw back, looking a little surprised.

I looked across to see Ethel standing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, and Lucretia standing behind her. I had quite forgotten about Lucretia Malfoy, and I'm ashamed to say I didn't feel much up to small talk with anyone, even someone as frail and concerned looking as she was. But Ethel took over, the way she did.

"They just wanted to see you were safe, Severus," she chided into my mind. "Lucretia seems quite taken with you, but considering how offhand you are, dear, I cannot fathom out why that might be."

I was about to compose a retort, and ask just who "they" were, when another woman came from the living room to stand beside Lucretia; it was, of course, Narcissa Black. She took Lucretia's hand in hers, and to me, despite what I had already assumed of Lucretia's troubled past, they both looked pale and innocent, as though too pure to have been spoiled by whatever darkness had surrounded them. I suppose even then I mentally added them to the list of those in need of protection. Of course, that was what the crusade of mine, the one that had sprung from such dubious origins, was all about.

They began to move into the kitchen, and it was as though they were moving in some kind of slow motion, much the way one moves from pursuers in a nightmare. I heard Black's voice echoing, rising and falling in some sort of concern I didn't understand, as I became aware of a sharp writhing pain in my left arm, and felt myself slump over the table. Then I found that I was no longer in the kitchen; I was in my own bed, and had no idea how that had happened, but I was too grateful to be there to even care. I was just dropping off to sleep when I caught the faint scent of Andromeda Black's perfume, and wondered if she had been concerned about me too, or if she had just assumed me guilty, as almost everyone else had. I wondered, too, what she would make of the next day's newspaper, which would undoubtedly make much of her youngest sister's dramatic declarations, the public ones at any rate.

The next thing I consciously knew was that someone was drawing my bedroom curtains apart to let what looked like early morning sun shine through the window.

'What time is it?' I asked, totally disoriented, as I heaved myself up on my elbows.

'Tomorrow, actually,' Black replied, sitting on the edge of my bed, as I resisted the urge to tell him to go and sit on his own bed. 'How are you feeling?'

'Fine,' I admitted somewhat grudgingly. 'Is Lucius still here?'

'Everyone's still here,' Black muttered. 'Dumbledore, Minerva, Narcissa ...' He trailed off, seemingly quite put out, and I wondered who had told him not to smoke at the table, as I groaned inwardly at the thought of being a spectacle once again.

'Go away, Black, I want to get dressed,' I said, hauling myself further upright.

*****

Ethel had been at work again. The kitchen looked slightly bigger than it had done, and there were more chairs around the table, and I hoped, only a little sourly, that she had at least managed to remember one for me for a change. Then I remembered how the Dark Mark had burned on my arm before I had passed out, or whatever had happened to me, the late afternoon before.

'Did Riddle call last night?' I asked, finding I did indeed have a seat, between Minerva and Lucretia, and pretending I didn't notice that the numbers were nicely split between genders, and smiling to myself at the thought of Black's face if he realised I had, however jocularly, mentally paired him off with Ethel.

Lucius looked down at his own left arm in a way that made his answer superfluous. 'He's been around a few times,' he muttered uneasily. 'Ethel's got us battened down though, haven't you, Ethel?' he said, and I thought there was more appeal in his voice than just asking for confirmation.

'Yes, Lucius dear, but not for too much longer,' she replied.

'Are we hiding?' Lucretia asked.

Lucius gave her a long troubled look, before turning to Ethel in what looked like mild accusation. 'Apparently not any more,' he said, casting another nervous look at where his left arm would be burning in much the same way as mine was.

'Fuck him,' I snarled. 'I'm having something to eat first.'

'Do you mind?' Lucius snapped. 'I would prefer if you didn't swear in front of the ladies.'

Whatever my retort was going to be was cut off by two things, the first was an owl tapping on the window with the "Prophet", and the second was another owl tapping on the window with a scroll attached to its leg.

Minerva had unrolled the newspaper. It had gone for sensationalism, headlined as it was the caption, "Dead Man Walking". The picture below the headline showed me walking from the court with Henry Potter, repeating the few steps to the back court door from where I had stood chained in front of Crouch, again and again.

'For a man who has just had a noose removed from his neck, you look remarkably sullen,' Minerva remarked dryly, and I wondered if I always did.

There were no snide remarks in the report about friends in high places though, or aspersions about the validity of the dramatic statement by Narcissa Black, and I suspected that only meant that Riddle's people on the "Prophet" had made sure that only sanitised reporting actually appeared in print. There was, of course, speculation about Narcissa and my alleged relationship, and one columnist actually went as far as to say that we had been married in secret some weeks before, quoting the usual unnamed source close to the Black family, and that Cygnus's outburst had stemmed from his festering outrage that an impoverished half-blood had deflowered his youngest and prettiest daughter ... the one whom he had promised to Lucius Malfoy. A mystery source close to Lucius Malfoy had stated that Lucius had been concerned for some time about Narcissa's purity, and had now set his sights on her sister, Bellatrix.

That particular remark sent Lucius into apoplexy. 'Do something about this, Severus,' he snarled. 'I shall not have you blackening my name with Bellatrix.'

I didn't see fit to point out his hideous pun, remarking blandly instead to where he sat, pale with stifled indignation. 'I seem to recall that it was you and Black who concocted this situation between you, Lucius. Now behave yourself and pass me over that scroll.'

Lucius shot Black a murderous look that was totally lost on the Gryffindor, who was sharing a quiet joke with Minerva and Ethel at the time, as Dumbledore chatted with Narcissa and Lucretia, much the way any old grandfather would chat with two favoured granddaughters. That left Malfoy with me as the only focus for his self-righteous pique.

'And there had better not have been any hanky-panky between you and Narcissa either,' he added, giving me a mistrustful glare, as Narcissa looked round at him as though he were as idiotic as he had often purported to be in the past.

'Oh, I had thought ... from what you said, that the relationship between Severus and Narcissa was just made up to clear his name,' Lucretia remarked with a puzzled frown, turning her attention from Dumbledore.

'It was,' I replied. 'It just takes your brother a while to catch up ... even with his own ideas.' I was really thinking about the wider implications of Lucius's ludicrous statement though, in particular about his displeasure at the thought of any nefarious goings on between Narcissa and me, and why that should bother the man who had maintained that he couldn't marry that "shrew" only two weeks or so before.

'Where are you going to be staying, Narcissa?' I asked, really more to see how Lucius was going to rise to the bait I had cast, as I took the scroll from him and began to absently unroll it. 'It's from Riddle,' I said flatly, as any feelings of good-humoured teasing, and any pleasure in being around my own kitchen table with people whose company I found I actually enjoyed, evaporated like so much mist.

"My Dearest Severus,

I am now, and always, your Tom."

I laid the letter I had just read out loud onto the kitchen table and looked up into the silence. Seven pairs of eyes were watching me. I wondered just who was going to speak first; I knew I couldn't find my voice.

'Fuck sake,' Lucius muttered, seeming quite content to swear in front of the ladies himself.

I couldn't think; even worse, I could think, but not of a way out the god-awful mess. Suddenly the noose, or at least a stint sampling the dubious delights of Azkaban's kitchens, didn't seem such a bad option.

'What's the time?' I asked stupidly.

'Just after ten o'clock,' Minerva replied.

'Four hours,' Black muttered unhelpfully, as though I didn't have the mental capacity to count.

'Why don't we all move back to the manor?' Lucretia asked brightly, obviously with no idea at all of the gravity of the situation.

'Why not indeed?' Narcissa added with an arch look at Lucius which, despite my concerns, I didn't miss.

'The idea has its merits, Severus,' Dumbledore said, and I began to take notice, only to douse the solution as quickly as I had accepted it.

'I'm not leaving Ethel,' I said. 'And don't try to talk me into it.'

'Oh, but I shall come with you, dear,' Ethel said, leaning across the table to pat my hand.

'You told us that you had too much complicated stuff to do to move the last time Lucius asked you,' Black remarked.

'Stuff and nonsense,' she scoffed. 'You were in a hurry last time.'

'We're in a hurry this time,' I remarked, resisting the almost overwhelming urge to bolt for Wiltshire and let the rest of them follow at whatever pace they chose. Truth be known, Riddle's missive had rocked me. I had, I suppose, hoped that at last I could get some time to think about all the things I hadn't had the time to think about over the last few days, and now I found that Riddle was harrying me into yet another corner.

'The manor it is then?' Lucius asked. 'At least there's a bit more room there.'

'I don't recall inviting you to share my pittance of space,' I snapped.

Ethel had stood up from her little chair, as though she at least had already made her decision. 'Come, ladies, I shall need you all to help me with some of the trickier charms,' she said. 'We need to move the whole house.'

I didn't even attempt to contemplate just what she meant by that, but as I looked at the retreating backs of the four woman, it was with the feeling that I was once again being swept along in other people's ill thought-out plans. And yet, there was something comforting about that, something about the way we had closed our ranks.

'Do you want us to help too?' Black called to Ethel.

'Oh, no, Sirius dear,' she replied. 'Men couldn't possibly understand these charms.' I was glad I hadn't asked.

Dumbledore left Minerva to help Ethel, and went back to Hogwarts, seemingly content that we could handle things on our own, a somewhat brave assumption as far as I was concerned.

I wrote to Riddle, explaining to him that I had moved to Malfoy Manor where there was more room, thus allowing me to both work and keep my eye on Black and Lucius. It wouldn't stave him off for long; I knew that. All he would do would be to relieve me of the duty of watching the two others; it had been, after all, a task that I had complained about bitterly. As I sealed the scroll I found myself worrying through a load of hypothetical "what ifs".

'I'll keep hold of this until we're ready to move,' I said, tapping the sealed scroll as Riddle's owl sat watching me unblinkingly. 'I shouldn't care for Riddle to be waiting in Wiltshire with a surprise welcoming committee.'

'There's something I want you to do for me, Severus,' Lucius said quietly, breaking the thoughtful silence he had lapsed into. 'Something that may both help you with Riddle, and keep you at the manor in a way which he could not question. It would also do me a great service ... one which I confess I could really trust to no other man.'

'What?' I asked, trying to understand him.

He looked to Black, to where he had moved round to sit beside me when Lucius had waved his cigarette smoke out of his face once too often.

'Hear him out, Severus,' Black said, and I could see that whatever it was had been discussed on some level by the two of them.

'What?' I asked again.

'I would like you to marry Lucretia.'

'Have you taken leave of your senses?' I asked. 'I don't even know her.'

'It would keep you both an awful lot safer than you are right now,' Black reasoned.

'That's hardly a sound basis for marriage,' I retorted. 'Anyway, apart from the myriad of reasons why it would be ridiculous, there is something I doubt either of you have considered.'

'What?' It was Lucius's turn to ask the one word question.

'I have just made use of Narcissa Black as an alibi; how would it look if I suddenly married your sister?' I said. 'I'd have a ruddy noose around my neck in no time ... and Narcissa would probably accompany me to the gallows.'

'I forgive you for using Narcissa in that way,' Lucius said magnanimously. 'However, if we are very careful, we think we could carry this off.'

'We?' I gave Black a cool look. 'Why were you even discussing this? You didn't know Riddle was about to attempt to move in here.'

'No ... but something was bound to happen,' Lucius replied a bit uncomfortably. 'We ... Damnit, Black and I think that Riddle seeks to dominate you ... physically... and in so doing attempt to stifle your spirit. In short, we don't think he trusts you, but if you give him an undeniable reason for refusing him, one that even one as blinded as he can see, he might at least back off ... from the physical abuse.'

He was right, although I was nowhere near ready to admit it, but if anyone understood how Riddle's power could poison, I supposed it would be Lucius Malfoy.

'She really likes you, Severus,' Black put in, as though that were all I was waiting to hear.

'I cannot use another person like that,' I said. 'She has, at last, her own life to lead. Let her meet a man who loves her ... and whom she loves. She deserves a husband and a family after whatever she has endured,' I said, wondering if Ethel had plumbed any of her depths in the few days I had been absent, and regretting again that the pile of questions I had to ask was only eclipsed by the problems I was facing, and wondering how it had all happened.

'What chance has she got, Severus?' Lucius asked. 'Whom could I ever trust her to?'

'It's still not fair,' I said. 'That doesn't mean it wasn't a good idea,' I admitted finally, 'because it was. It's just not for me.'

'Damnit, Severus, you're not going to get Andromeda Black,' Lucius snarled. 'Get over it, and start living as best you can.'

I only realised my mouth was hanging open when I felt it snap shut. I threw Black a withering accusatory look, stood up from the table, and began to walk towards the living room as Sirius's thought snapped into my mind. "I didn't tell him, Severus. Ethel told Lucretia why you would be unlikely to consent to marry her."

'This subject is closed,' I called over my shoulder, as though I didn't really care. 'I've decided to stay here and take my chance.'

'You fucking selfish bastard,' Lucius spat after me. 'What about everyone else's chances? Or does your fucking false nobility only stretch as far your fucking self?'

'Shut up, Malfoy,' Sirius said in a low growl. 'Just leave him to it. We'll work something out to keep the girls safe ... without his help. If necessary, I'll marry Lucretia.'

'I should have asked you in the first place,' Lucius muttered back, 'and kept it in the family.'

I wondered just how small I intended to let myself feel before I turned round, as the implication of what Lucius had just said sank in, and I realised just what he had done to get me off the hook that no one but myself had hung me on. I suppose it was only when I opened the door between the kitchen and the living room, that resistance seemed pointless. Little Ethel was standing with an ancient carpet bag at her feet, probably containing a thousand years' worth of her treasures; she was flanked by Narcissa, who had her arm linked through Ethel's; and Lucretia, who held her other bony little hand. Behind them Minerva McGonagall stood, her nostrils flared and her lips pursed together, in her most imperious stance. All four women were watching me, waiting for me.

"It won't be difficult, Severus dear," Ethel said in that way she had of touching my mind, and I suppose my heart and soul too. "Neither of the men are looking to score a point off you."

I did turn, and once I began it wasn't so hard. 'Family?' I repeated, looking from where Narcissa stood blushing prettily, the way she had in court, to where Lucius sat watching me. 'Just what have I missed?'

'Nothing yet,' Lucius admitted. 'Miss Black has asked for time to consider my proposal.'

'Your proposal?' I asked, totally lost. 'I was there, Lucius. The proposal was hers.'

'Now you know why I steer clear of women,' Black remarked. 'I told him that.'

'And what happened to your plans of humiliating your father by becoming pregnant?' I asked Narcissa.

'Lucius informed me that he had always intended to marry a virgin,' she declared, and I was struck by the fact that, for a girl who had bandied about that description of herself on more than one occasion in my hearing over the last week and more, she had been remarkably willing to cast herself as a love-struck wanton to Crouch and Potter. 'And I rather think Cygnus got about as much humiliation in court as his heart will stand for a few months. Don't you, Severus?' She raised her blonde eyebrow. 'That doesn't mean that I shan't go back for dessert at a later date.'

'I shan't encumber you, Severus,' Lucretia said, stepping forward from where she stood at Ethel's side, to add her own fuel to the fire. 'You will, of course, live your life as you see fit. I do not expect false affection ... I have no need of such.'

Fuck, I snarled to myself; they had all ganged up on me to shove me into a corner ... yet surely a kinder one than the one Riddle was trying to back me into.

'Do you understand what you are trying to do, Lucretia?' I said. 'You are trying to give up your chance of a normal life with the happiness you are entitled to ... the chance of man you truly love.'

'That chance was taken from me many years ago,' she said. 'But I shall not beg, Severus. I am not the one in such danger ... you are. Lucius merely sought to protect, not only me and Narcissa, but you too.'

I can't recall feeling so humbled before, and by so many people; it was a tortuous experience, and I really had no personal familiarity of backing down in the way I had to then. Unpredictably, or then again, maybe not, it was Black who came to my rescue.

'Do you think he doesn't know that?' he said. 'I think we've been a bit unfair, presenting him a fait accompli,' he added, and then looked to where I stood between the two groups who closed in on me like a trap springing shut. 'There's no time, Severus. If we make decisions on what is right at the time, it's the best that we can do ... and at least we know we're making them for the right reasons.'

'I just hope one of you has a very bright idea of how we pass this off to the world at large,' I said, seizing on his lifeline. 'Not only do we have we to overcome my apparent philandering, Narcissa's public confession of a tryst, and Lucius's willingness to be a cuckold ... but Lucretia's very existence,' I said. 'Any ideas?'

'We were rather expecting you to come up with them, Severus,' Lucius drawled in his most superior way. 'After all, we've done everything else.'

*****