Chapter Forty-Five

It was almost a week later that Lily gave birth to a baby boy. She called him Harry, a nod to James's father, one which Henry seemed inordinately misty-eyed about in a way I found hard to associate with him, until he informed us that that had been the name of the first child his wife had borne him, the one who had died.

'James and Lily would like you to be the boy's godfather, Sirius,' Henry said, downing yet another generous measure of my Glenfiddich, and at last getting to what I assumed was the point of his visit.

That seemed to make Black about as emotional as Henry, and I found it was all becoming rather too cloying for my taste, and I worried that they would lose sight of the importance of keeping the child safe from Riddle. Henry was smarter than that though, and I forewent my usual self-recrimination about underestimating others when he went off in a direction I had not expected.

'You keep your eye on Riddle, Severus,' he said, 'and we shall watch out for little Harry.' He watched us over the rim of his glass before going on to what I then suspected was the more important reason for his call. 'I had a rather odd visit this morning; one that left me unsure of its meaning.'

'From whom?' I asked.

'Morton Schultz,' he replied, quite taking me aback as I remembered the night at Malfoy Manor when it became evident that Tom Riddle was staying with the old American, and that the two were long-time friends. 'I may well be wrong,' Potter went on, 'but I suspect that he seeks to find a way out of pinning his colours any more firmly to Riddle's mast.'

'But Riddle stayed with Schultz a few months ago,' I objected, rising to my feet in my disappointment at his folly, whilst also recalling the odd facts that Schultz had neither attended Lucius's trial nor his execution. 'I caution you, Potter...'

'Don't take me for the fool you know I am not, Severus,' he said firmly, his hand raised to stall me. 'He called ostensibly on Riddle's instruction, to invite me to re-join the Ministry, and, of course, to pass on the congratulations which Riddle asked him to intimate that he would prefer to bestow in person.'

I sat back, willing to listen to the rest of what Potter had to say. He was right; he wasn't a fool, and he knew that I knew as much.

'What else, Henry?' Black asked from where he'd been uncharacteristically quiet.

'It's not much, I know,' Henry Potter admitted, 'but he seemed nervous when he began to mention Riddle's interest in little Harry. Now, I know Morton Schultz, I have known him for very many years, although we have never been friends as such. He is not a nervous man. He is, if anything, very aware of what he considers to be his own worth. He is almost rabidly pure-blooded, disdainful of those with any mixed blood, and completely intolerant of Muggles,' he said, pausing either to draw breath or for effect, 'but... and this is very big but, Morton Schultz is not, and never has been to my knowledge, a bad man.'

I found myself nodding. I understood what he was saying, that not everyone was either light or dark; there were those of us, and I included myself, who were streaked with grey.

'Are you saying you want to take him into your trust?' Black said, clearly troubled at that prospect.

'Oh, no,' Potter replied. 'He made no attempt to gain my trust, nor did he ask me anything I was not willing to tell him regarding little Harry. It was what he didn't say that made me conscious of another layer, so to speak. He was asked to pass on a message that Riddle would be pleased to meet the whole Potter family, including the baby, to welcome his old friend Henry back to the Ministry,' Potter said with a sour twist to his lips. 'And apparently Riddle further suggested that Morton's house would be an ideal place for an informal get-together.' He paused for a moment before adding thoughtfully, 'Then Schultz started stumbling out excuses about his wife having a touch of the cold, and how it may not be wise to subject the baby to the danger that it might be something more serious, and perhaps we should wait a while. He said everything but the one thing he meant.'

'Which was: "Don't come, and don't let the baby near him"?' Black finished for him. 'I think we know that anyway.'

'Morton didn't know that we knew,' Potter replied.

'Where is the boy just now?' I asked. 'Is Lily still at her parents' home?'

'James and I collected them this afternoon. They're safe at Godric's Hollow.'

I nodded, feeling something uneasy creep through me as I tried to remember a conversation I'd had, something someone had said, something important, but I couldn't recall what it was and dismissed it.

'Did you tell Schultz that?' Black asked.

'No. They were in Surrey when he asked me, and he didn't ask me when they were returning,' Potter said, as though casting his mind back. 'Now I think about that, I'm sure it slipped his mind to ask when they were coming back; that way he won't have to lie to Riddle.'

*****

Henry and James Potter took up their positions at the Ministry the next week, and although Riddle asked me to let Sirius know that he would be willing to consider permitting his return to his former post, Black and I, and of course Ethel, decided to let Riddle know that Black had opted to wage his own war, and that he was disappointed in James Potter for toeing what he considered was the more conventional line of tugging his forelock to the Dark Lord. I just hoped that Sirius hadn't seen his voluntary exile as an opportunity to cleanse the Blacks from the world, instead of those Riddle felt didn't deserve to live.

Dumbledore and Lupin had called to see us that morning, and they had gone over the Order's plan of luring the Death Eaters en masse to Hogwarts. I didn't like it; I thought it was hasty, and ill-conceived, and downright dangerous, but they seemed to have the bit between their teeth. In reality I had no good reason to spin things out any longer, and I know now that it was fear of failure that kept me stringing Riddle along, all the time risking eroding any trust he had in me.

I laid the stirring rod on the sink and turned at last to where Riddle sat at the fireplace watching me.

'You are nervous, my love?' he asked. 'I thought the potion was stable.' He crossed to me and peered into the cauldron, inhaling the acrid yellow fumes of the Veritaserum buffer to no noticeable ill effect.

'It's not the potion, Tom,' I replied, hardly needing to feign the trepidation I had decided upon. 'I have come by the way of some information...'

'From whom?' he demanded. 'What information?'

'The boy...'

He grabbed my robes by the fistful at my neck, almost choking me. 'What about the boy?' he said through teeth gritted so tightly it was a miracle he didn't break any. I could hardly breathe as his face bore down on mine, suffused with a rage so mindless that I thought he was truly about to strangle me. The way he had shoved me against my workbench my hands were trapped behind my body, the wrists just at the edge of the bench, and such was his physical strength that I couldn't budge him, let alone reach for where the white stone throbbed in my pocket. I felt him try to plunder my mind as I willed myself to find enough air to remain conscious, and then he let go, stepping back quickly as I slid to the floor, gasping for breath.

'The boy?' he asked. 'Where is the boy, Severus?'

'Dumbledore has him.'

I didn't even see him reach for his wand, perhaps he didn't need it, but the next thing I knew was pain that felt as though it shattered every bone in my body like glass; it was red, and then it was black, and by the time I dragged myself back to consciousness Tom Riddle wasn't the only thing to have left Spinner's End; he'd taken what he believed was the Aqua Vitae potion with him, and "Die Letztendliche Wahrheit?" too.

****

'Do not worry about the book, dear,' Ethel said yet again, as Lucretia cast a complicated diagnostic charm over my body, one that seemed to hover almost visibly around me like some sort of benign shroud. 'It would not have gone with him, had that not been its intention in the first place.'

The simple truth was that I felt lost without the book. It had become some sort of mentor to me, and I worried that Riddle would be able to tell that much of text was so much archaic drivel, and that he would interpret the book's real messages, its messages to me, as the treachery they were.

'The book will not show the Dark One anything but the original text,' Ethel said calmly, in that way she had of understanding what I hadn't even voiced.

'How can you be sure?' I asked. 'When I was with him you urged me to caution before the book took over.'

She gave me a reproachful look and nodded to the table, and whilst I don't suppose I was particularly surprised, I was certainly very comforted to see the little book lying there. 'You just said it went with him,' I accused in what was really a rush of relief.

'No, she didn't,' Black said unhelpfully. 'She said it wouldn't have gone with him if it didn't intend too.' He nodded to the book too. 'Apparently it didn't.'

'He'll think I've tricked him in some way,' I snarled. 'How does that help me win his confidence?' I glared first at Ethel and then at Black; I felt they were making light of a very dangerous situation, one I was likely to feel the brunt of.

'Oh, but he has a book, Severus dear,' Ethel replied. 'It's just a copy though, and as you and I well know, a copy of the book is just so much rubbish. Now, stop fretting when things happen that you have not actually orchestrated yourself, Severus. It's a failing of yours, dear, to expect to do everything yourself.'

'He just doesn't want to share the glory when it gets handed out,' Black remarked, sticking his cigarette into the corner of his mouth.

'Hush, Sirius dear,' Ethel said. 'For now, let us content ourselves with the fact that the Dark One believes he has the Aqua Vitae potion and the book. If nothing else it buys us a little time, and time, dears, is of the essence, I suspect.'

'Will he be able to identify it? The potion, I mean,' Black asked, slouching down on one of my settees.

'I doubt that,' I murmured, 'and it would take quite some time for even an expert to identify the ingredients, never mind its intended use.'

'You do have more, Severus, don't you?' Narcissa asked from where she'd been handing Lucretia various odd little charms to assist her diagnosis, ones upon whose use I didn't intend to speculate. 'Only I wouldn't want to be without it for long.'

'He's got gallons of the stuff,' Black grunted, heaving himself up for a moment to throw open the cupboard doors above one of my sinks to where several stoppered bottles of the potion were indeed stored. 'He only keeps making it so that he's always got the same potion on the boil for Riddle.'

'I do hope he tries it,' Lucretia said archly, pulling her wand away in seeming satisfaction that no lasting harm had become me.

'Oh, so do I,' Black said, pasting a rather evil grin on his face; it was one that had been missing for too long. 'Anyway,' he said, hauling himself back to his feet, 'I'm going to Hogwarts; I have to check out the arrangements.'

'You can't be seen there,' I objected.

'Severus, I think you have to come to terms with the fact that very soon it will not matter.' He gave me a long troubled look. 'We can't spin this out any longer. You've done your bit; it's up to soldiers now.'

'I'm coming with you,' I said, turning to the door at an altercation I couldn't place. And then Lupin came into my study, then Arthur Weasley and Henry Potter, and Molly Weasley too; she was carrying a redheaded child in each arm, and was quite clearly pregnant, and she was followed by what seemed at first to be another dozen or so redheads of various young vintages, although there were actually only three.

"Don't be difficult, Severus dear," Ethel mentally chided me. "They're going into the picture."

'I'm definitely coming with you,' I repeated to Black, who had begun to retreat towards the door.

'Arthur and I are going to stay here,' Henry Potter said. 'Lily and James and the baby are safe, but this house has been visited too often by Riddle.'

'What about the Ministry?' I asked, totally confused. 'Won't you be missed?'

'It's over, Severus,' Potter said calmly. 'The gauntlet has been tossed. Let us just pray that he doesn't realise that we did the throwing.'

It was too quick, I had too much to think about, too much to try to do, too many people I still had to account for, I didn't know where Andromeda was...

'We three shall defend the picture, Severus,' Ethel said, nodding to where Molly and her alarming brood had disappeared. She stood between Henry Potter and Arthur, and somehow she seemed to have grown in physical stature, become more substantial, like someone facing their destiny in the knowledge that they are equal to the test. 'We all have our tasks, and even now Andromeda is on her way to join Narcissa and Lucretia in assisting inside the picture.'

It struck me yet again how many other people were undermining Riddle in so many different ways, when all I had had to do was to keep him distracted for long enough to let them move their game pieces into place, and I knew I hadn't done enough, and I knew then too that it would have to do. I was about to question Ethel as to just what the ladies needed to do inside the picture, when an owl tapped on the window. Black opened the casement, but instead of flying to me, the owl headed for Henry Potter.

The message was short and clear and anonymous, and aside from the fact that it had been delivered to Potter it was addressed to no one, but for all that, it was written in handwriting that didn't look British, and I knew it came from Morton Schultz.

"The Death Eaters have been given instructions to leave Little Hangleton and all other safe houses and congregate in Malfoy Manor in ten days' time."

'Ten days?' I said, quite unable to stem the flood of terror that ran through me. 'Why ten days? Why not three? Or tomorrow afternoon?'

'Are we going to trust this?' Black asked. 'Trust a man who has double-crossed one man already?'

Henry Potter rolled the scroll up. 'I thought we had agreed to trust no one,' he said. 'However, I find myself wondering why he sent this at all.'

But I was thinking of the message in the little book, a message it had seen fit to give me twice: "For in the end you must rely not on the words of your enemies, but the silence of your friends." I was wondering which category Morton Schultz fell into.

*****