Chapter Thirty-Four

It was almost a week before I got the opportunity to speak to Potter again. Lucius wasn't at the manor that morning; both he and Black had gone to London. Lucius had received an owl from the outgoing Minister, inviting him to go to the Ministry in order to familiarise himself with his staff and his offices. Black took that to mean that he had been invited too, stating that it would give him the opportunity to suss out, whatever that might have meant, what was going on. They had just left when Potter's owl arrived to let me know he had got my message, and that he was on his way.

I wasn't really looking forward to it. Black had been unable to see Potter since he had left the manor the week before with Lily, and so he had no idea of what I was going to talk about, no idea that the texts I was trying so hard to make sense of were anything but me searching for a means to defeat Riddle permanently.

'Sit down, Potter,' I said, and then grudgingly remembered that my manners ought really to extend to those whom I detested as well as the few I tolerated. 'Would you stay for lunch?... A drink?'

'Hospitality... from you? How bad is it, Snape?' he asked dryly in way of reply, eyeing the bottle of Glenfiddich that sat on my desk.

He toyed with his whisky glass as I told him of Riddle's obsession with finding the key to Eternal Life through Aqua Vitae, his frown deepening until he interrupted me at last. I had expected hostility, perhaps disbelief, or more likely some sort of accusation. I had forgotten the one thing I should have been prepared for: his fear.

His lifted his glass to his lips, took a short swallow of the whisky, and laid it on my desk. He had paled visibly. 'Are you trying to tell me that if Lily and I have a baby boy, that Riddle could see him as a vessel to nurture some potion...?' He trailed off for a moment, before spitting out the rest. 'Some hellish concoction of his blood... That a son of mine would have a fucking monster growing inside him?' He finished on a high strangled shout that I knew he hated the sound of.

'That's about the size of it,' I admitted quietly. 'It's the reason Andromeda Black was taken out of circulation.'

'Why is she showing herself now?' he demanded.

'She is carrying a girl,' I said dully. 'The child should be born soon. And I... well, a girl is not what Riddle is looking for.'

'And what?' he asked. 'You said "and"... what else were you going to say?'

'I did a deal with Riddle,' I said, trying to shy mentally away from the day I had delivered that awful curse on Ethel. 'I made him swear he would not harm her or her child.'

'Well, you can just make him fucking swear he won't touch Lily, or our child then, can't you?' he flared, rising from his seat.

'Potter, he only ever did the deal because he knew Andromeda's child was a girl,' I snapped back. 'Do you think for a moment he would have passed up the chance of a boy... for any reason?'

'I don't know what the fuck to think,' he said, carding his hands through his hair. 'How am I supposed to tell Lily this? Fuck sake, we get married next week.'

'Perhaps you could take some precautions against her falling pregnant,' I suggested carefully. 'I can give you a potion... or I'm sure Lily could brew one herself.'

'Perhaps you can keep your bright ideas to yourself,' he snarled back. 'I think you've done quite enough.'

'I didn't do this, Potter,' I replied, refusing to let my own temper rise. 'It's just fortunate I was around at the time Riddle began his planning, and that he sees me as pivotal in those plans. Better we are prepared for what might happen, than to have something happen out of the blue.'

He slumped back in his seat. 'How are you going to defeat him, Severus?' he asked, shocking me by what I saw as not only his vulnerability, but also as some sort of belief in me. I wondered from what it stemmed.

I looked around the room, at the books and scrolls I had been poring over in an attempt to make sense of the passages "Die Letztendliche Wahrheit?" had revealed to me. 'I don't know,' I said. 'But I do know this... we have to work together, Lucius, Black, me... and even you.'

He surprised me again by seeming to accept that. He was silent for a bit, and I contented myself to letting him have the time to pull his thoughts together. When he did speak he had gone in a quite unexpected direction though, one that both gratified me and took me aback.

'Has Sirius taken the Dark Mark?' he asked.

'No, not yet,' I replied. 'Riddle seems still to have some reservations about him.'

He nodded slowly. 'I think it may be an idea if we both do.' I was about to object, but he raised his hand to stifle my comments. 'Hear me out, Snape,' he went on. 'I've listened to you, so hear me out.'

I sat back in my seat, in truth welcoming whatever his input might prove to be. I might have loathed James Potter, but I knew he wasn't a fool, just as I knew that he seemed to have donned his father's stolen mantle, and found his own shoulders worthy of the weight.

'May I ask you something?' he began, and went on without waiting for me to concur. 'May I ask you why, if your object is defeating Riddle, that you are searching for the answer to his mad desires?' he said, and something about his question struck a deep chord of self-doubt within me. 'Or is there something else, Snape? Do you want it for yourself?'

I drew back at that. 'Are you accusing me of something, Potter?' I snapped.

'No,' he said, his eyes searching my face. 'I'm wondering if you're losing sight of what really matters.'

'What really matters is defeating Riddle... without him ever knowing who his true enemy is,' I hissed. 'It is our only real chance.'

'My point exactly,' he retorted. 'And does helping him become immortal further our aims in that direction?' His look was challenging now, and I welcomed that too; he was making me drag my uncertainty out from where it lurked in the corners of my mind.

'Do you really think for one moment that I would brew him the real thing?' I asked, trying to feel my way back into some sort of control. 'What kind of idiot do you take me for?'

'Why bother with all this...?' He trailed off, making a sweeping gesture at the reams of parchment littered all over. 'Why not just cobble up some crap for him to swallow? Make it as poisonous as possible.'

'So now you're taking Riddle for an idiot too?' I accused. 'This has got to look good... it's got to be believably obscure.'

'Does Aqua Vitae exist, Severus?' he asked me.

'I doubt it... and I doubt that anything I could ever brew could make it exist.' I looked to where the book lay on my desk, feeling once again drawn to it, as though it held, perhaps not the answer I sought, but some sort of solution. 'But something does. Somewhere in the text that showed itself to us is a clue I have to find.'

'You'll find it,' he said quietly, rising to his feet, as though his own questions at least were answered.

'And if I lose the way?' I asked, in a moment of weakness that shocked me.

He paused at the door, and that instant reminded me of the morning at the Three Broomsticks after Black and I had spent the night with the werewolf. It seemed to me, and I fancy to him, to be the moment in which we set our boyhood differences aside.

'I don't think you can lose the way, Severus,' he said, turning away to where he had prepared his escape route. 'I think you are the way.'

*****

I had all but stopped going to Lucretia's rooms at night; I somehow felt she tired of being naught but a vessel for my fantasies. It was cruel of me, I know that; she had taken me in good faith, declared herself able to deal with my inability to love her, but she had every right to expect that I would at least prove to be a physical husband to her, even if my heart lay elsewhere.

That night she came to me, dressed as she had been the first night she had come to my room, in her green diaphanous silk. She was lovely, and inviting, and yet I knew she had not come to give me only her body. She sat on the little chair beside my bed, the one she had sat on the first time she had come to me, and I confess I felt some of the ice in my veins thaw as it always did when I allowed her charms to play me.

Her grey eyes were clouded with fear though, and for all she had gone through I realised then that I had never seen her thus.

'What's wrong, Lucretia?'

'Two things,' she said, her chin lifting in some sort of defiance I didn't understand.

'And am I to be left in the dark by both of them?' I asked. I could see she was troubled though, and resolved to let her take her time.

'The first one is about us, Severus,' she said at length.

'I'm not much of a husband to you, am I?' I asked, managing to veil the accusation in my voice that it was those around me who had pushed me to such a pass.

'I know you, Severus Snape,' she said. 'I know you are bitter, and yet try not to be. I know too that I am not the cause, but only the indirect result. I can live with all of these things, Severus.'

I looked away from her; she was too close to the truths I had not hidden. 'And what is it that you cannot live with?' I asked, not at all liking the way my voice had turned to a whisper.

'Look at me, Severus.' She waited for me to turn to her before she went on. 'I cannot bear your guilt.'

She had hit that particular nail so squarely on the head that I had nothing to say, nothing to add to the wretched truth.

'You cannot afford this,' she said. 'You cannot tell your heart not to love Andromeda Black, any more than you can tell it not to love Lily Evans. I know you, Severus Snape,' she repeated, 'and I am content with my lot in life. The only thing that hurts me is your misplaced feeling of self-reproach. It does not serve you well.'

She had stood up, and I found that she had taken the role I always fancied was mine alone, that of protector. She stood before me and pulled my head to rest against her breast, stroking my hair like a mother soothing a frightened child. And I needed her touch; I needed to be vulnerable too, even if only in my wife's arms.

***

'You said there were two things you came to talk me about,' I murmured later, resisting the urge to drop off into sleep and forget all about it, as I lay back sated and at some sort of peace with myself.

'Yes...' she said hesitantly, as though she knew the other would break whatever mood we had shared. 'Yes, there was.'

I hoisted myself up on one elbow, brushing away the hair that had fallen over my face. 'And am I yet permitted to know?' I asked, raising my eyebrow.

She gave me a long troubled look. 'Lucius,' she whispered. 'I fear for him. I fear that what he will become is not who he is.'

*****

I spent the next few weeks barely noticing they had passed, my head bent over the book, and yards of parchment littering the floor and my desk and anywhere else I could lay them. Potter and Lily's wedding came and went, unmarked by me save for whatever gift Lucretia sent. Lucius was installed as Minister of Magic, and spent less and less time at the manor, at the same time becoming more and more remote, as though he had drawn some sort of armour about him to inure himself from what went on around him. Had I looked properly I would have seen him begin to age in front of my eyes, and maybe even thought back to what Lucretia had said, but I didn't; perhaps it was just as well Black, and to a lesser extent Potter, were there to give him some sort of support.

I grew distant too; looking back, I can see that. I had never been keen on socialising, I suppose feeling myself above such time-wasting interaction, but I found that being alone was no longer a dubious pleasure, but a necessity to me. I spent long hours just thinking, and every time I thought I had found a direction, it tore itself away from me, and I returned to the book. I had translated all of the hidden text, and it made little sense, just so much archaic rubbish about truth, and faith, and belief, and none of it seemed to point me in any direction.

I had just made up my mind that both Black and Potter had been right about my pretending to Riddle that I had found the recipe for Aqua Vitae, when I picked the book up again. My vision swam for a second, or perhaps the words actually blurred themselves before my eyes, because the text had changed. Where once it had been long and windy, and seemingly aimless, it was then a few short, fairly modern paragraphs, which appeared not to be related to one another. I didn't really notice that at the time though; the opening words stunned me. It was a direct address to me, and I was quite convinced it had only been written as I watched.

"All truth is easy to comprehend, Severus, even this ultimate one; it was finding that truth that was the hard part."

I tried to cast my confused mind back to what I had been thinking about before I picked the book up, but my eyes were dragged back to the next paragraphs.

"Beware though, for there are more wrong answers than right ones, each one willing to present itself to you. Only the truth lies hiding, waiting for you alone to discover it.

Remember this, too, when the way seems barred; there are many ways for evil to succeed, all of them need that you do nothing to stop them."

I gathered my scattered wits and at last remembered I had been thinking about Black and Potter, and their suggestion that I just make up my own recipe for Aqua Vitae, and I let my eyes drop to the book again to see if that fitted in with the new text.

It didn't really, not unless I twisted it somewhat. What it did fit in with was the new paragraph that had appeared below the others.

"It may be ill-considered to trust too much; yet you will fail if you do not trust enough. Remember the triumph of friendship is not the smile, or even the outstretched hand, but the faith that others place in you. For in the end you must rely not on the words of your enemies, but the silence of your friends. Keep your enemy close, Severus, for him to believe in you, and in your heart keep your friends closer still."

I blinked quickly as the words seemed to appear on the page as rapidly as the next question that presented itself to me, something like the way Ethel would send a message to my mind before my enquiry was even fully formed.

"The Wolf, the Dog, the Stag, the Weasel, the Serpent, and she who walks between the worlds."

'Lupin and Weasley?' I said the words aloud, as though asking for some sort of confirmation.

'What about them?' Black said from the door.

I spun round, furious at the interruption. 'Can you not knock on a door, Black?' I hissed.

'It was open,' he objected. 'What's got you all aquiver?'

I stifled my annoyance and handed him the book, watching as he scanned the text. He looked back at me, rather more blankly than usual. 'Why are you showing me this?' he asked. 'And what were you talking about Remus and Arthur for?'

I snatched the book back, and although the new paragraphs were no longer there, just the text that had shown itself to us some weeks back under wand light, I found that I could remember every single word.

'Now isn't that convenient,' Black said, as I finished quoting what I had read. He shoved a cigarette into his mouth, and lit it before I got the chance to tell him not to. 'We don't have worry about Riddle seeing it,' he muttered, and I noticed it hadn't occurred to him to disbelieve me.

'Yes,' I agreed, my quill scratching over a fresh sheet of parchment as I finished writing the text from memory in a shorthand nobody, myself included most likely, would be able to make sense of. 'That could have proven to be a little tricky. Anyway,' I said, 'what did you want? Or did you just come in to foul up the air in here?'

'No, I came to tell you Riddle's here. He just arrived.'

I sighed, casting my mind beyond the room to feel the malignance of his presence. I had been so engrossed I hadn't even felt him arrive.

*****

I took the step of showing Riddle how I had uncovered the first hidden text in the book using wand light, and this seemed to inflame his almost religious conviction that he had been chosen by Mordestone to choose me to find his path to Eternal Life. I thought it a miracle in itself how any madman could twist events and happenings into a meaning of his own.

Riddle took to calling at the manor almost every day after that, on the flimsiest of excuses, and I almost became used to his presence, much in the way any horror lessens with familiarity. I knew why he came though; I knew he was waiting for me to tell him I had unlocked the secrets he so longed for. I knew something else too; I was running out of time.

He was sitting watching me one day when I took the perhaps foolhardy step of asking him not to call again, that he was ruining my concentration, just sitting watching all the time, with his personal guard of four Death Eaters hovering over me, and the other five who lurked in hallway like some sort of back-up, in case I was insane enough to make any attempt to kill the first four. At first I thought he was actually going to comply, that perhaps he had understood what I was trying to put across to him, that I needed to be alone to work.

He came across to my desk and bent towards me. 'Get on with it, Severus,' he hissed, the cords in his neck straining with the effort of suppressing his fury. 'I want results, and I want them before the week is out.'

I nodded, at least I thought I did, inasmuch as my dread left any room for thought.

That was the night it all began to close in on me; it was the night James Potter called to tell us that Lily was expecting his child.

*****