Chapter Thirty-One

It was two days after the weddings that Riddle next called, ostensibly to offer his good wishes and his blessings, one of which we could have done without, and the other which he had no right that I could think of to bestow. He didn’t take long to get to his real reason for calling though, and waited only until he had made himself comfortable, and me extremely uncomfortable, in the seat at my fire.

‘Have you suggested to your brother-in-law yet the little matter of the party I had wanted him to give?’ he asked, giving me a look that invited me to sit at his side.

‘Yes, I have, Tom, but I have done nothing else about it yet,’ I said, sitting quite deliberately at my desk, and finding my hand had dropped to “Die Letztendliche Wahrheit?”. I found myself frowning as I picked it up, so sure was I that it had been on my bookshelf. ‘I have much work to do, Tom,’ I said, using the book as a prop, ‘and what with the weddings, and settling in, I have left the arrangements to Lucius.’

‘Ah yes, his upbringing will ensure that the affair is as suitably tasteless as it is ostentatious,’ he replied, and something about that annoyed me.

‘Have you come here just to try to demean Lucius in my eyes, Tom?’

‘No,’ he replied, his tone hardening to let me know that whilst I might think I could best him in a duel of words, it was the only one I could ever hope to win. ‘I have come to let you know that Lucretia Malfoy will not come between us, my love. Do not worry about that.’

‘Lucretia Snape,’ I replied.

He let the cold smile touch his lips, the one that didn’t know the way to his eyes. ‘As you wish, my Severus,’ he said. ‘May I meet her?’

I had known that would be inevitable; Lucretia herself had pointed out as much to me, and I knew that even then she would be preparing herself for the meeting. ‘Of course you may. It will be my pleasure to introduce her to you.’

I left him in my sitting room, and when I got back, with my wife at my side, he was sitting in the same seat he had occupied when I had left, but I fancied he had made use of the few moments to go to my desk and see if he could make any further sense of the small book.

He stood up when Lucretia entered the room and bowed formally, like the gentleman his façade fooled the unwary into thinking he was. Then he took her hand in his and kissed it, and I felt such a welling up of outrage that his lips could desecrate her so that I almost reached for my wand to blast him away, even with his ever present escort of four Death Eaters just outside the door.

‘You may leave us now, my dear,’ I said to Lucretia. ‘Perhaps you would be good enough to ask your brother and Black to join us though.’

She nodded uneasily, as I pretended not to notice Riddle’s little flash of annoyance that we would not be alone, but then, that had been his own fault; he was the one who had given me the opening by asking to meet Lucretia.

*****

‘Do I take it that Severus has informed you of the position I would like you to take up, Lucius?’ Riddle asked once Malfoy and Black had joined us.

‘I had thought that Barty Crouch was the favoured candidate for the post,’ Lucius replied. ‘And what with his son at the Ministry too, that you were trying to keep it in the family, so to speak.’

‘Things change, Lucius,’ Riddle replied, omitting to mention that Barty Crouch the elder had made it clear in some circles that he had no further interest in not only the ultimate post, but the Ministry of Magic as a whole. ‘Your own circumstances make you the obvious choice,’ he said, looking around my sitting room as though he were seeing the whole of Malfoy Manor.

‘My own circumstances do not dictate that I work for a living, as such,’ Lucius replied. ‘In fact, work is not really something for which a Malfoy cares to gain a reputation.’

‘Of course not,’ Riddle agreed, with a toned down version of his dangerous smile. ‘Look upon it more as your civic duty,’ he said.

I was tiring of the masquerade of manners. ‘Tom, can we get to the point? I have work to do,’ I said, as meaningfully as possible. I had actually been hoping to find out where he was staying, but dared not ask, in case he turned that into an invitation to stay at the manor, as one so skilful with words could quite easily do.

He stood up though, as though dismissing himself before anyone took it upon themselves to do so instead, and I knew he was paying some kind of court to Lucius and the power of the money behind him, that he was still trying to work out how best to settle the Malfoy millions firmly on his side of the table.

‘It would be an honour to have you as the head of Ministry, Lucius,’ he said disarmingly. ‘It would be a fitting title for the head of this country’s most important house.’

‘I have not refused, Tom,’ Lucius replied.

‘You have not accepted either.’

‘I do now,’ Lucius said quietly, and I thought he had struck the perfect balance between allowing Tom Riddle to ask him more than once, and waiting for him to demand.

I saw Black sit back in what might have been relief, and although he had said nothing at all, I thought we had all done quite well, and I think Tom Riddle thought so too; I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

*****

Lucretia and I had the whole of the upper west wing of the manor to ourselves, and I found I had frequently to remind myself that I was there by marital right and no longer a guest. Lucius and Narcissa had the east wing, where Lucius’s rooms had always been. Black had also made himself quite at home, taking up a considerably larger space than any temporary resident could be reasonably expected to do, inhabiting the whole of the area between the two top wings, behind where the third central staircase rose to the bell tower. It was all very comfortable of course; not only did we all have our bedchambers, and their various dressing rooms and so forth, but we all had our own private sitting rooms: the two ladies’ rooms overlooking the east and west rose gardens, and the men’s overlooking the kitchen gardens to the duck ponds beyond. None of us really ventured into each other’s private sanctuary, except for Black of course, who seemed to think it behoved him to mind everyone else’s business apart from his own. The upper corridors of the manor became cold and draughty as winter set in though, and I found I was downstairs in my old Spinner’s End rooms most of the time. All in all we had spread out in the huge gothic pile in such a way as to leave no room for even an overnight visitor, something I suspected we were all quite happy about.

Ethel seemed always to stay in what had been her old domain too, although one day, not long after Riddle’s visit, I found her in the cellar. I happened upon her quite by chance, when I had gone down to examine the bookshelves beside the hidden chambers, drawn there by I knew not what. She was talking, and at first I thought she was talking to herself, something not really out of the ordinary, just a small step from the way she would hum to herself, and I thought little of it, except that it was strange that she had chosen the dusty catacombs to do so. It was only when I got to the chamber she was in that I found she had taken the trouble to bring her little chair and her tea down with her, and that she had an audience of sorts in the throng of unquiet spirits that inhabited the manor’s netherworld.

The door was almost closed, and I could only see her back. I hadn’t been noticed, and drew back to eavesdrop, much the way Black would do, justifying the action by telling myself that she would know I was there anyway, in the way she always did.

‘Has he attempted to break through again?’ Ethel asked.

‘No, not since the last time the Dark One was here,’ the ghost of Atticus Malfoy replied. ‘It is only when the Dark One is here that he becomes restless.’

‘You must move Severus along, Emeline my love,’ a deep rich voice added, using Ethel’s real name, as I frowned, wondering at the strength of timbre from what must also have been a ghost. ‘We cannot allow the other to gather strength from our world too; to do so could indeed make him unstoppable, and bring the chaos a thousand years of work and watchfulness has held at bay.’

‘The pieces are almost in the place,’ she said. ‘Even now the dancers are taking up their partners for the waltz.’

‘The final member has joined them?’ Atticus asked. ‘Well done, Emeline.’

‘Not quite, Atticus,’ she said. ‘But even now, both he and Severus are breaking down their old barriers.’

Someone chuckled and the deep voice spoke again. ‘And do they know that, Emeline?’ it asked. ‘Or are you working your mysterious ways again?’

‘Now, now, Godric, be nice,’ she said, and I drew further back, stifling my gasp. ‘Leave me to draw our line together, and I shall leave you to keep tabs on Salazar’s.’

‘On the Malfoys, you mean?’ Atticus queried, but I could sense amusement lacing his voice.

‘Indeed not, Atticus,’ Ethel replied. ‘Your own family has anchored itself firmly to the Blacks again, our side of the Backs that is, but it is not the Malfoy side of that alliance that troubles me.’

‘The Blacks then?’ another voice said, one that I vaguely recognised from somewhere, but couldn’t think how that could be.

‘Quite,’ Godric Gryffindor confirmed, as I tried to search my memory for a name to put to the other voice. ‘For every good apple that was ever plucked from that particular family tree, a rotten one always fell to the ground too.’

‘Is it wise then to have so many of my family in this inner circle of yours, Emeline?’

‘We must, Phineas,’ Godric replied for her, confirming what I had just guessed, as I recognised the voice I had often heard muttering from the portrait in Dumbledore’s office. ‘They are of my line too, and it is the very fact that Sirius Black’s line runs through both the Slytherins and Gryffindors, with the same even-handedness as the Princes, that makes him so important an ally for Severus. He and his brother Regulus are the epitome of that very split in the Black line, and the fact that neither he nor Regulus will have heirs means that when they die, that peculiarity will die with them.’

‘They must both die?’ Phineas asked. ‘Sirius too?’ he said, with what sounded like genuine regret. ‘I confess I had hoped…’ He trailed off.

‘All men die,’ Godric replied. ‘Some sooner than others, Phineas. But I did not say it would be soon.’

There was a silence for a few moments, as each seemed to mull over what they had talked about, and I stood hardly daring to breathe, as I waited for whatever revelations were still to come. It was Atticus who broke the silence, turning in yet another direction.

‘Has the Malfoy line been secured yet?’ he asked.

‘I think so,’ Ethel replied. ‘I think that even now Narcissa Black carries your great-grandson below her heart, although neither she nor Lucius knows that yet.’

‘And Lucretia?’ Atticus asked, as I felt myself squirm in a discomfort that had nothing to do with standing stock still in a dark dusty passage, and wondered if there would ever be anything I would do that was not dictated by some higher force.

‘Not yet, Atticus,’ Ethel replied. ‘I am unsure if the potions that Abraxas dosed her with to ensure she did not bear children will ever be properly purged from her.’

‘Does Severus know of this?’ he asked. ‘After all, when a man takes a wife it is fair for him to expect his line to be perpetuated.’

‘I don’t know if that is a distraction that Severus can afford, Atticus,’ Ethel murmured. ‘He has quite enough people to look after without his burden being unnecessarily increased.’

I felt like an insubstantial pawn in a game I had not asked to play, somehow embittered that I was being discussed in such a manner, until I was brought up short again.

‘The Dark One is searching for heirs of the lines,’ Ethel said. ‘Severus believes Riddle knows that any half-blooded male children of the Blacks, the Potters, the Dumbledores and the Princes are the ones he should seek out as his vessel for Aqua Vitae. He would seize upon the dilution in Severus’s blood as sufficient, if he were to be thwarted for too long. Let us hope that Lucretia does not provide him with another dagger to use on Severus’s heart, and let us not provide him with a choice of babes to harvest.’

‘Does Severus still believe that the book is naught but a ruse to free him from a difficult situation?’ Godric asked.

‘I’m sometimes unsure just what Severus thinks,’ Ethel confessed. ‘But he seems to keep returning to it, and I have now charmed the necessary pages. I shall just say that I suspect that he suspects.’

I sensed they had said most of what they were going to say, and I was about to move away, hopefully undetected, when something tapped on my mind, something that didn’t except to be denied entry. “Show yourself now, my boy,” it said. “We have indeed said all that you need to know for the time being.”

It was only then that I realised that someone else stood in the shadows opposite me, and I wondered how I had not sensed him immediately, until I understood just who it was. He seemed also to have been summoned, and began to move towards the little chamber. Acknowledging me as absently as I acknowledged him, Albus Dumbledore pushed the chamber door open.

I don’t know whether I expected to be met by the ghost of Godric Gryffindor, or even his original portrait looking down on me, but what Ethel had actually done had been to take her fire down with her. As she had told me once before, the living were not permitted to speak to Godric, and whoever else was part of what she had referred to as the highest court of our people, and so her fire was just that then, a merry blaze flickering in the middle of the floor, casting dancing shadows on the stone walls that I could even see through the rest of the assembled ghosts. Phineas Black was in his portrait, and that made me wonder if Dumbledore had been invited from Hogwarts to bring it with him, or if, like me, he had just been drawn there.

It was Atticus who turned to me first. ‘My grandson-in-law,’ he said dryly, ‘if such a relationship exists.’ I nodded back to him, quite at a loss as to how to proceed, or indeed if I should do so at all, but he went on without seeming to expect any response. ‘You understand what we have discussed here, Severus?’ he asked. ‘And, of course, why you could not be party to our meeting until now?’

‘I think so,’ I replied, noticing that Dumbledore had taken a seat beside Ethel, and realising that the only reason that he too had had to wait outside the chamber was because of Godric’s presence. It was odd, but I could almost feel Godric Gryffindor’s aura in the air, in a kind of equal yet opposite way to the way I felt the menace of Riddle’s. ‘I have to use the book?’ I asked. ‘It is genuine, after all?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Dumbledore replied. ‘It is not even one of the five original copies,’ he said. ‘It is the actual book.’

‘How can that be?’ I asked. ‘The condition of the book is… is of this era… of this time. The original codices would be untouchable.’

‘Mmm,’ Dumbledore concurred. ‘I should not really attempt to educate anyone who knows everything already,’ he said, ‘but suffice it to say that the book has been charmed.’ And at that he nodded to Ethel, who was sitting like innocence personified. ‘It has been charmed not only to appear as one of the copies, but also to withstand your touch, and the very air around it.’

I spun on Ethel. ‘You told me it was a recipe book,’ I accused.

‘Actually I didn’t, dear,’ she said mildly. ‘If you recall, I merely said that he could take whatever wart cures he found as necessary to the preparation of Aqua Vitae, if he chose to. The rest of the suppositions were yours alone.’

I gaped at her audacity.

‘Now, Severus, stop making a fuss,’ she said. ‘That is a great failing of yours. Do you understand those whom you need to keep close?’

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Black, Lucius and…’

‘You won’t choke on the name, dear,’ she scolded, as I felt my lip twist.

‘I very well might,’ I muttered. ‘Does he know?’

She raised her eyebrow at me.

‘James Potter.’ I spat the name out, glad it was gone and I didn’t have to say it again. ‘Does he know?’

‘Not yet, dear,’ she replied. ‘We shall leave that up to you.’

*****