Chapter Twenty-Seven

Henry Potter sat toying with his whisky glass, his face hardening as he listened to Lucius tell a slightly sanitised version of Lucretia's past. Instead of mentioning Ethel, who had not left her picture since he had arrived, he had told Potter that he had spoken to his mother's portrait, and had found the truths that Ethel had told, from Astoria instead.

'It is important that we introduce Lucretia to the wizarding world at large, Henry,' Lucius said, glancing once to me. 'And I know that Severus had considered asking your advice, or that of Arthur Weasley. Of course,' he added, 'that was before your own little revelations of today. I confess I'm not quite sure how he feels now.'

I had said very little, wanting to concentrate on reading Henry Potter on a different level entirely and, aside from the fact that he had almost got me hanged, I could find little to actually dislike about the man, despite the fact that his name was Potter.

Potter glanced at me again, one of a series of looks he had drawn me, perhaps wondering why Lucius should be concerned with my view on the matter at all, before turning his attention back to Malfoy. 'Tell me, Lucius,' he said, 'have any of the men whom you assume abused your sister made any attempt to tell you of her existence?'

Lucius shook his head. 'No ... In fact they came here to offer their sycophantic false condolences, en masse,' he said. 'Perhaps in the midst of their grief they forgot.'

'I see,' Potter replied, and I could see the rage building up inside him; he covered it well, but it didn't stop the little tic at the side of his eye, or the bitter twist of his lip. 'So as far as they are concerned, Abraxas is dead, they have no more sport with the woman we assume he led them to believe was his daughter, so it is acceptable for her just to waste away and die..? Forgive me,' he said quickly, as Lucius whitened in his own choking fury, 'that did not come out the way I intended it to. But ...'

Lucius waved his hand in dismissal. 'I understand what you are saying ... It is something that has haunted me too. Whoever these men are, and I am not prepared to speculate with names at this stage, they have no way of knowing if Lucretia, even now, is not starving to death.' Lucius let his grey eyes hold Potter's for a long moment. 'I want some sort of ... reparation.'

'I take that as a euphemism for revenge. And Lucretia?' Potter asked. 'Is that what she wants?' When Malfoy failed to reply, Potter went on. 'Will you let me think about this? Think how best to go about it without further damaging your sister? I'm sure you would want that much for her.'

Lucius nodded, and I thought he was about to say something, when the drawing room door opened and Narcissa walked in with a scroll in her outstretched hand. 'Just wait until you hear this,' she declared, brimming with an odd combination of girlish amusement and indignation, and then stopped short. 'Oh, I'm sorry ... I didn't realise you were entertaining,' she said, looking at the back of Henry Potter's head. 'I shall come back later, sorry.'

Henry Potter turned from where he had his back to the door. 'Oh, that's all right, Miss Black,' he said, giving her a surprised but knowing look, one that told me he had read the situation, and completely misunderstood her presence, 'I was just leaving.'

'Nonsense, Henry,' Lucius said, standing up and clapping Potter's shoulder like an old friend, and it did indeed seem that the common ground of Valerius Malfoy had caused the two men to take rather an unexpected and unlikely shine to one another. 'Narcissa, my dear, I wonder if you would find Lucretia, and if the two of you would join us when you are ready. Henry will be staying for dinner ... No, no, I insist,' Lucius went on as Potter began to object, and then dropped back to his seat, his head bent to the scroll Narcissa had handed him.

'Cygnus Black seems to think that Narcissa is staying with her sister Andromeda,' Potter remarked to the top of Malfoy's head, as Narcissa closed the door. 'At least that is the story he has put about.'

I felt my insides turn over at the thought of the woman I had tried so hard to put from my mind, and almost told Potter not to speak of her, much the way a reformed alcoholic would ask people not to drink in his company.

'So it would seem,' Lucius replied, rolling the scroll up, and smiling as though he were a large cat who had just found a sparrow chick having a bath in a bowl of cream. He tapped the scroll against his open palm, and smiled again. 'This is from Andromeda,' he said, shooting a cautious look to me and then back to Potter. 'She is reluctant to say where she is staying just now; I suppose in case Cygnus finds out. His owl did, of course, manage to find her, and it seems that he has written to her to say that he forgives both of his beautiful daughters for their transgressions ...' He trailed off as Black interrupted him with a snort of derision.

'What he means there is that he's stuck with mad Bellabitch for company, and she's giving him earache, because of Narcissa stealing Severus from under her nose,' Sirius drawled, without removing the cigarette that seemed almost permanently attached to the corner of his mouth. 'Almost makes me feel sorry for the old boy.'

'Quite, Black,' Lucius went on. 'That is not all though. Andromeda says that Cygnus had written a separate message to Narcissa; it was enclosed in the scroll he sent. Andromeda read it, of course, and Cygnus says that he has been making overtures on Narcissa's behalf to one Lucius Malfoy, and is now confident that he, too, will forgive her lapses with what he calls unclean blood ... That will be you, Severus,' he said, nodding to me, as Black let out a guffaw of laughter. 'Not only that, but Cygnus has also managed to reach an agreement that Lucius Malfoy will once again be willing to accept Narcissa's hand in marriage ... suggesting a joint marriage celebration, and that he will comply with Tom Riddle's wishes, and permit his beloved Bellatrix to marry too.' Malfoy finished with a wider smile, one that had traces of triumph and somewhat malicious delight, and I began to worry what he thought he had up his sleeve apart from his arm.

'Just who is the lucky man who has not been fleet enough of foot to avoid Bellatrix?' I asked, not really caring, now that my blood had mercifully failed to pass muster.

'It doesn't say, but I doubt it's you, not with your ...' Lucius trailed off wisely, refilling his glass once again, then leaning over to top up Potter's too, leaving me and Sirius to help ourselves if we so wished.

'And so, does the fact that Narcissa Black is here, and not with her sister Andromeda, as her father believes, mean that she is truly to become Mrs Snape?' Potter asked, his tongue loosening with the effect of the whisky he was consuming at an admirable rate. 'I confess that I had doubted that.'

'Mrs Snape?' Lucius expostulated. 'I think not, Potter. Miss Black will quite shortly become Mrs Lucius Malfoy.'

'I see,' Potter returned, obviously not seeing at all. 'I am only disappointed in how much that will please Cygnus. Except for that epistle,' he said, nodding to where Lucius had laid the scroll on the side table, 'he has been rather quiet about your asking for his daughter's hand of late.'

'I wasn't going to tell Cygnus Black, actually,' Lucius replied. 'And I most certainly shall not be asking him.'

Potter laughed, a thin reedy laugh that matched his frame. 'I fear he will tell the world otherwise, Lucius ... and yet equally sure that you will take every opportunity to disabuse the world of the same notion. Interesting times ahead, I suspect.' He looked across to where I sat smarting yet again at the references to Andromeda. 'I had wondered that there would be a Mrs Snape at all.' He trailed off too, and I realised he was yet another mistaken in my own predilections.

'I am going to be taking out a full page advertisement in the "Daily Prophet", Potter,' I said sourly. 'Preferably the front page, if they can manage that. It will be to the effect that I am not, never have been, and do not intend to be at any time in the future, homo-ruddy-sexual,' I said, refusing to be amused at the way in which Black and Lucius drew back in feigned shock. 'The fact that I have never married at the ancient age of twenty-four, is merely because I had not found anyone with whom I cared to spend my life. That has now changed.'

'You're going to marry Lucretia?' Potter asked, his eyebrow rising in belated understanding.

'I am going to marry Lucretia,' I said, not failing to notice how the words seemed to choke me, as though in accepting that fact I had also accepted my defeat. 'Tell me, Potter,' I said, dragging the conversation away in what I mistook for a different direction. 'Just who was the alibi you had safely tucked up for me?'

He gave a little laugh, and I knew I was not going to be amused. 'I had thought of asking Bellatrix Black, little knowing of course, you had her younger sister under wraps,' he said, as I drew myself up and Black snorted into his whisky glass. 'But what with Cygnus's involvement in the Sudden Death Squad ... Well, I decided that wasn't the best option. It was actually James who came up with a better solution.'

'James Potter?' I said, feeling myself bridle even more, as though I were about to be made a laughing stock, not a notion I cared for. 'And what painted floozy did he think I would want paraded through the "Daily Prophet" as my saviour?'

'Lily Evans, of course,' Potter replied.

There wasn't a lot I could say to that; Lucius saved me the bother anyway. 'Tell me, Severus,' he said grandly, 'why is it, I wonder, that a man so undeniably ... well, ugly ... not to put too fine a point on it, has so many beautiful women falling about him, wanting to sacrifice their honour for him?'

I didn't bother to point out that most of the women I had known had sacrificed their honour long before they ever got to me, apart from Narcissa, but of course, I had never been alone with her, and at that moment decided I would make quite sure I never was. But there was no time to dwell on my thoughts further, the drawing room door had opened, and the ladies came in. They were dressed for dinner, and quite as lovely as they ever were, and I put it away; there were worse ways of serving out a life imprisonment than with Lucretia Malfoy, and I suspected I would do well to remember that.

*****

Henry Potter had been a year below Valerius at Hogwarts, and the two boys, despite one being a Gryffindor and the other a Slytherin, had forged a lasting friendship. Potter seemed genuinely fond of Valerius, and even if his memories were a bit rose-tinted by age, I took them at face value. Henry had always been encouraged to do something useful with his life, whilst Valerius was every inch the rich playboy, and had travelled widely in the years since he had left school. Just before Valerius's death, Henry had received an owl; the message it bore from Valerius asked Potter to meet him in Paris, to discuss a delicate matter of lady with whom Malfoy had become besotted.

'I was surprised,' Potter admitted, beginning to glow somewhat with the twin effects of Lucius's rather excellent 1956 cognac, and a Malfoy Manor dinner, one in which the elves had managed for once not to overcook the lamb, in a way that made me suspect that Ethel might have drifted out of her picture and lent an interfering hand. 'He had never seemed to me as the marrying kind, although his position would dictate that as a necessity at some time, I suppose. He never got the chance to sit at the top of this table the way you do, Lucius.' Henry looked to where Malfoy was sitting at the head of the table, with Narcissa on one side and Lucretia on the other, very much the lord of the manor. 'You're so like him in so many ways though. He even dressed like you ... flamboyant ...'

'... Like a dandy?' Black suggested, and I thought of the words pot, kettle and black, the colour. 'Did you meet him in Paris?' Sirius asked, sticking a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and lighting it, as Lucius glared at him for yet another transgression, and Narcissa and Lucretia both dug Lucius in the ribs with an elbow they seemed to have specially sharpened for the occasion.

'No,' Potter said. 'I couldn't get away at such short notice. My wife had just lost the baby she was carrying ... it was to be our first child ... and I suggested that he wait in Paris, and I would meet him a week later.'

'And?' Lucius asked.

'He never replied. It was almost a week later when I learned that he had died of what was supposed to be a fever. The date of his death was reported to be the day he wrote to me asking me to go to France. I didn't know what to make of it, except that he had mentioned in his letter that his mother and brother would be less than happy about the woman with whom he was having an affair.'

'Yes, well, I can understand that,' Lucretia remarked. 'What happened next?'

Potter favoured her with a smile, something I suspected he did as rarely as I did. 'I came here, of course, to express my condolences. I was shocked; he had been my best friend and had made no mention of being unwell. When I came here I was met, not as I expected by grief, but by a wall of silence that was almost hostile, and looking back it was as though they had thought themselves rid of Valerius, only to have me turning up on the doorstep instead. I didn't mention the letter; I had intended to, but something about the way I was treated prompted me to keep my counsel.'

'What about Grandfather?' Lucretia asked. 'Surely Atticus would have spoken out about the son he so dearly loved.'

'I was unable to see Atticus, Lucretia,' Potter replied. 'He had taken to violent tremors and stomach pains; in fact he only lived a short time after Valerius died. The family, your grandmother and Abraxas, put out the story that he had pined away after the death of his eldest son, something the papers made a great deal of. I doubt that; he was a stronger man than that. I think they poisoned him. I never saw Astoria either, but I had never met her and thought little of it at the time. The next I knew, Lucius was born, and Astoria had supposedly died in childbirth. And that, gentlemen, ladies, is all I know.'

We had told him a little about our own story of the night Abraxas died, of Sirius and Lucius coming to the manor for me, and how we had made the two trips from the warehouse, and I knew then that that story would not have washed well at my trial; the lie had certainly been the safest bet. It answered one of his original questions though, sort of giving him a part of a quid for his own pro quo.

I'd begun to wish he would go home; I needed to think, and to speak to Ethel, and, though I hardly admitted it to myself at that point, I needed to speak to Black. I seemed to be moving away from what should have been my focus, constantly being dragged in another direction by events around me, and Tom Riddle seemed to be slipping into the background of my thoughts where he certainly didn't belong. But Lucius was still plying Potter with almost as much brandy as he was drinking himself, and I wondered what his game was; it seemed I wasn't the only one.

"Can't you stop Lucius drinking, before he becomes even less discreet than he usually is?" Black's thought shot into my mind.

"You do it," I replied in kind.

"You're almost family," he snapped back. "Anyway, he's not frightened of me."

"Behave, both of you," Lucius's thought drifted into the odd three-way mental conversation. "I am not drunk, but I am rather hoping that old Henry will be soon. I always think it's a good measure of a man if he says the same kind of things when he's horizontal, as he does when he's vertical."

'Well, well, well,' Potter said, sitting back as his glass was filled once again with brandy, and I felt myself draw Lucius a hard look. 'It is the season of marriages it seems; James, too, is about to marry Lily, something I had rather hoped would happen, but feared would not. I know there is a certain amount of bad blood between you and my son, Severus,' he said turning to me, 'but that does not make either of you bad men. Most things James is, are of my doing.'

'Really,' I remarked, stifling what was quickly becoming boredom.

'Ah, yes. When my wife lost her first baby, just when Valerius died, we were told by the mid-witches not to raise our hopes of another chance. And then, when James was born, I confess I was at fault for spoiling him, and perhaps he grew up with the notion that the world had been made just to give him something to stand on whilst he entertained himself. Granted, he is arrogant and selfish, and to a degree elitist ... and I blame myself for that, but for all that he is not a bad man, and he has learned from me, I hope, the basic value of decency too.' He looked around the table, pausing to let his eyes rest on Lucius. 'He is not the only one in this world like that, is he?'

I reflected on the truth of that; it was undeniable that Lucius was of the same mould as James Potter, although not coming from a loving family. He too was arrogant, selfish and elitist, yet Lucius Malfoy was not a bad man either. It didn't make me despise James Potter any less, but I put his character flaws aside in mind perhaps, and mentally concentrated on the other aspects about him that caused me real concern. Potter wasn't finished though; he had another couple of things to say that made fairly short work of some of my other concerns.

'Speaking of James, Sirius,' he said turning to where Black was flirting with his cousin, and from her giggling blushes, I suspected he was telling her dirty jokes. 'He was turning the world upside down looking for you and Snape a while back ... did you see him?'

'Depends on how long ago it was,' Sirius replied evasively, as my interest piqued again.

'Not long before Abraxas ... died,' Potter said. 'In fact he just missed you the night you got arrested. That reminds me,' he said, turning to Lucius. 'I meant to ask who gave you authority for what was reported as an arrest.'

'A gross overstatement, Henry,' Lucius replied airily. 'Can one not meet an old acquaintance nowadays without being accused of something?'

Potter narrowed his eyes, but went back to talking about his son. 'In fact James even had Alastor Moody hanging about in Spinner's End, dressed up like a pussycat, to see if you were at Severus's.'

'Really?' Sirius replied with his Gryffindor grin, as I ticked another mystery off my list with some degree of relief. 'Why would he think I was there?'

Potter shrugged. 'You were seen talking to Severus at a party here a few days before, probably that's why.'

'No ... I haven't seen him recently,' Sirius said; apparently he too was satisfied about why Moody had been in Spinner's End. 'What did he want me for anyway?'

'I suppose that brings me full circle,' Potter admitted, and I realised he wasn't any more drunk than any of us. 'I think James was concerned at why you were with Severus, in view of ... other events of that night,' he said, shifting his gaze to where Lucretia and Narcissa were chatting and pretending not to listen to what we were saying.

'You may talk in front of the ladies,' I said.

Potter shrugged again, and seemed to weigh his words very carefully before he spoke. 'I came here with two questions which I wanted answered, before I stated my real reason for calling here, Severus. I have asked them, and you have, for whatever reasons, not seen fit to directly answer one of them ... that of why you took the Dark Mark. That aside, I find I am going home with even more questions ... but somehow easier in my mind.' He gave me a long level look. 'You're only a boy,' he said, and yet I could tell he meant no insult as such. 'You can't take him on on your own.'

'I don't know what you mean,' I said.

'Very well ... but remember one thing, Severus. You may have the dubious honour of being Tom Riddle's current favourite, if what I hear is true, but in so being you have already made enemies in high places ... on both sides. Surely the events of the last couple of weeks show you that much,' he said. 'Seek to keep what friends you still have.'

'Why did you come here, Potter?' I asked, and I noticed that Sirius and Lucius watched on in silence.

'The truth?' he asked, obviously not expecting an answer. 'I don't think you're any more of a Death Eater than I am ... and that said, I wanted to read you, and, more importantly, let you know that there are some people you can trust, if you find you need to.' He raised his hand to stifle any reply I might have had. 'Don't say anything, Severus. I don't need affirmations or denials ... at least I don't think so. I've said what I wanted to say, the rest is up to you ... if the time comes.'

He stood up, nodded to where both Lucretia and Narcissa were watching him, and then to Lucius. 'Excellent brandy, Lucius,' he said, letting his slightly sour smile creep across his face. 'Another few and you might well have managed to get me drunk.'

*****