Chapter Forty-Two

I had gone down to the catacombs to see Ethel, and to get some idea of whether we should leave for Spinner's End that night, or wait until the next day, when I became aware of someone else. At first I had thought it was the ghost of a young girl wearing what looked like a white nightgown; it streamed behind her as she ran up and down the gloomy passages, and in and out of chambers, one arm clutching what seemed to be a doll to her breast. She was weeping, a tragic lost keening sound, like a panicked child who cannot find her mother, or a soul bereft with no hope of succour, and it was only when she came running towards me that I felt a jolt of pain and remorse as I realised it was Narcissa.

'I can't find him,' she sobbed. 'I know he must be down here, but I can't find him.' She held her baby in one arm, and pounded her other fist on my chest. 'I must find him, Severus; help me.'

I took the child from her, and pulled her close to me with my other arm, quite at a loss as to how to comfort her. She was looking for Lucius, of course; I would be a poor substitute. She tried to pull away from me, gripped by some new hysteria, as her breath hitched in short sharp gasps that quite frightened me.

'I must find Lucius,' she said. 'I cannot leave here without him.' She turned to me again, her eyes feverish and unfocussed, yet laced with challenge and accusation. 'We cannot leave here without him. He will think we have gone away and left him behind.'

'He will know where we are,' I said uselessly. 'He will know I have taken you and Draco to safety.'

It was with no small measure of relief that I saw Ethel hurrying along the dim passage from where she had likely been in the same chamber as when I had eavesdropped on her the last time I'd found her in the cellars.

"It is better this should happen now, Severus," Ethel whispered to my mind. "Better now than when we leave this place." 'Hush, child,' she said to Narcissa. 'Hush, sweet child, and you and I shall try to see if we can make contact with Lucius.'

I gave Ethel a doubtful look. I thought it was a somewhat dangerous line to take, but I supposed her thousand years' worth of experience dwarfed my twenty-five, so I began to turn away.

'Not so fast, Severus dear,' Ethel said. 'Give Narcissa back her baby.'

'I was taking him to Lucretia,' I replied.

'Well, dear, Lucretia can see him later; for now, Narcissa and I are going to take him to see his father,' Ethel said firmly.

'Yes,' Narcissa said. 'Give me back my baby, Severus, so I can take him to Lucius.'

"Is this wise?" I asked Ethel's mind.

"Just let me deal with this, Severus dear," she replied, at the same time crooning words of comfort to the distressed young woman she embraced. "She will remember nothing of this if I do not find Lucius."

"If you do see him, tell him..." I said, faltering, as my throat constricted as though I had spoken aloud, "...tell him I shall always care for them as though they were my own."

"Even if I don't, he went to Merlin knowing that."

"Tell him anyway," I said as I handed Draco to Narcissa, and turned and left them to it, feeling oddly excluded.

*****

It was a good couple of hours later when Ethel came into my living room, where Black, Potter and I were discussing the banner headline in the Evening Prophet, the one that read: 'James Potter and Sirius Black desert their Ministry posts.' Riddle wasn't letting the grass grow under his feet.

'We shall wait until morning, and go to Spinner's End then,' Ethel announced. "I was not able to find him, Severus," she said, answering the question I hadn't asked.

'Is Narcissa all right?' It was Potter who asked, as my mind had a horribly troubling image of a ghostly Lucius unable to find his way home; it felt something like a waking nightmare. I shook my head trying to clear the uncomfortable thought.

"Don't dwell on this, Severus," Ethel said, and I could feel her pouring her false calm on my mind, and I wondered what it was that had panicked me. "It is this house, dear," she said. "The sooner we leave this house, the better." She was absently replying to Potter at the same time, assuring him that Narcissa was calm and asleep, and that she would be in far better frame of mind the next day.

I didn't even notice that Black was unusually quiet; perhaps if I had I might have stopped him, then again, perhaps I would have joined him.

*****

Neither Narcissa nor Lucretia joined us for dinner, Lucretia having had a tray sent to where she had insisted on staying with her sister-in-law in case she awoke alone and frightened, despite Ethel's assurance that she would be calm.

We had only just finished our evening meal, Potter had left for his parents' house where he'd left Lily, and it was just Ethel, Black and me, when Sirius stood up, his usual cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth.

'I'll see you in the morning,' he said, and I didn't like the way he didn't meet my eye.

'Where are you going?' I asked.

'I'll be back before breakfast,' he said in way of a reply.

'Where are you going,' I repeated, and I noticed Ethel gave him a long troubled look that mirrored my own apprehension.

'I'm going to meet Lupin,' he said, and I didn't want to wonder why he was either lying, or being more than economical with whatever the truth was.

'Be careful, Sirius dear,' Ethel said.

"Where's he going?" I send the thought to Ethel, knowing even before she gave me a long reproving look, that I had framed it like a demand.

"He is going to meet Lupin, Severus, but he's closed the rest of his mind down quite tightly; either that or he hasn't quite made up his mind yet."

That wasn't much help at all, but I suspected that however good an Occlumens Black was, and he was good, he wouldn't have managed to keep Ethel from knowing anything important, which just went to show how wrong I could be.

*****

I didn't sleep well, my thoughts racing uneasily, flitting between wondering what Black was up to, wondering if I could prevent Riddle from trying to stay at Spinner's End, and wondering when Lucius would join his father and grandfather in the catacombs of the manor. I knew Ethel was right though; the house felt wrong, and looking back I can see that that most of the horrors had happened while we were there. I took the accursed Mark at the manor; I, and of course Lucius, had been victims of Riddle's abuse there; Abraxas had died that awful night when I had almost been hanged for a crime I hadn't committed; and, of course, that thought brought thoughts of Lucius's own downfall hard on its heels, and I found myself reliving the nightmare of his final days, and berating myself for being so wrapped up in myself that I had failed to see what had happened to him.

And yet, we had found Lucretia at the manor, and Lucius had finally succumbed to Narcissa there too. The bad outweighed the good though, and I found myself longing for morning and our return to Spinner's End.

*****

I had been along to Narcissa's rooms, and found her awake and as calm as Ethel had promised, as Lucretia helped her to bathe Draco. I was the first person down to breakfast, apart from Ethel, of course. The Daily Prophet had already arrived by the time I sat at the kitchen table.

'Did Black come back last night?' I asked her absently as I unfolded the paper and froze as the headline jumped out at me:

"Orion Black Murdered".

It is with great regret and deep shock that the Daily Prophet has to announce to its readership the untimely and brutal murder of Orion Black.

Whilst it is not this paper's place to speculate on the fact that Sirius Black has had several brushes with authority over the last few weeks, it was interesting that he could not be found to offer his own comments on his relationship with his family, or his whereabouts at the time of Orion Black's death.

I looked up slowly, realising only then that Black was reading the report over my shoulder.

'When I get hanged, as is likely, I intend to be hanged for much more than one Black,' he said, sticking a cigarette in his mouth, and looking expectantly at Ethel, as though the only important item on his agenda for that day was breakfast.

*****