Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Harry and Ron had tried to linger after the meeting, but Sirius made it clear that he wanted to be alone, that he needed an early night; he wasn't sure what stupid excuses he made to get rid of everyone.

'Do I take it you blew it?' Lupin asked once he was alone with Sirius.

Sirius nodded. 'It looks that way, doesn't it?'

'Something you said?' Lupin guessed. 'Although I'm not sure that "arrogant fuck" sounds much like pillow talk. It's a new one on me.'

Sirius winced at the words and dropped his head to his hands. 'Why couldn't I keep my mouth shut?'

'Does it matter that much to you?'

'Yes. I believe it does.'

'Well,' Lupin said carefully, 'do something about it, Sirius.'

'Like what? Do you think he'll want to see me now? You saw the way he looked at me.'

'Don't pretend to be someone you're not. You're a better person than anyone you pretend to be,' Lupin replied. 'If you care that much, go to him and tell him. You're still the same person he wanted to be with.'

'You know that's not true, Moony. You know he'll think I dreamt up the whole business as some kind of elaborate hoax to humiliate him. I have a track record, after all.'

'You'll just have to convince him otherwise then, won't you?' Lupin said as he stood up. 'I need to go. Will you be okay on your own?'

'Of course I will,' Sirius replied as he forced his grin. 'It's one of the only things I'm really good at.'

'Stop being pathetic.'

'Where are you going anyway, Old Wolf?' Sirius asked. 'Don't tell me Malfoy's still got some uncharted waters.'

Lupin just smiled his enigmatic little smile.

'You're quite keen on him, aren't you?' Sirius pushed. 'And what about him? Don't let him hurt you, Remus.'

'Actually, I'm not the one doing the chasing.'

*****

Snape pulled his door open, disappointed and relieved that it wasn't Sirius. 'What do you want?' he snarled at his visitor.

'I came to see you were all right, actually,' Harry replied, giving him a hard look. 'I'm sorry I bothered.'

'Why shouldn't I be?' Severus asked suspiciously.

'I just thought you didn't look well when you left the meeting and as no one else went after you I ... Oh fuck it, I don't give a toss,' Harry snapped and turned away.

Snape stopped himself slamming his door. 'Thank you for your concern,' he replied through gritted teeth, with as much grace as he could dredge up. 'I am fine, Potter; I just wish to be left alone to get drunk in peace. As you said yourself, a hangover in the morning is the highlight of my life.'

'What's wrong with you?' Harry asked. 'Why do you have to be so fucking hostile?'

Snape let his eyebrow rise at the profanity. 'It is what I do, Potter. Now, is that all? Only I have a bottle waiting for me and I should not want it to think I didn't care.'

Harry began to walk away. 'Yeah, that's all. Don't drown, I haven't brought my dress robes with me this term for your funeral.'

Snape watched him go, stifling the small gratitude he felt inside him, glad that his relationship with Potter had changed over the months to one of antagonism without hate; he suspected the boy was as comfortable with things that way as he was. At the end of the corridor Potter turned and looked back, giving Snape a haughty toss of his head. He nodded back, forgiveness without apology; at least someone cared.

It was only when Severus closed the door that he allowed himself to think of Sirius, about all of the hints and clues as to who he was. He'd known he was a Gryffindor, reckoned they were about the same age, not that his Charms couldn't alter that one, but his way of speaking, and his experience of life pitched him around the same age as himself. Black had as near as told him who he was by admitting they didn't like one another, as glaring an understatement as they came. And then, of course, there had been the morning in the tobacconists; he wondered if Sirius had followed him, but he didn't think so.

Snape wondered what he'd got out of it, how he had planned it, and what lengths he had gone to to inflict this upon him. It never occurred to him to wonder why; he had long ago accepted that there were con artists in this world and those who were there to be conned. He knew which category he fell into; he'd been there often enough.

He found himself unable to get drunk; maybe he was too disconsolate, too edgy, thinking too deeply. He couldn't concentrate to read, and he couldn't stop thinking for long enough to sleep. He found to his alarm that something like panic was trying to rise in chest; he didn't want to be alone for the rest of his life, not now, not now that he had thought, for however short a time, that there might be another way.

He could have accepted this, he thought, accepted him if the playing field had been level, if Black had been as unaware of him as he was of Black; the muddled thoughts chased themselves around his mind. For just a while his fantasy had been real; somehow it was even more real now that it had a face and a past. Severus wished he hadn't walked out of Grimmauld Place; he'd let himself down doing that.

He tried to look back on all of the times in his life when he'd come into contact with Sirius Black, and could find nothing good, nothing to latch onto, no anchor for the hope he smothered before it rose to choke him with its lies. The moment one door closed, another slammed in his face.

He swallowed another gulp of whisky, hoping it would stifle the terror of being alone, without the man he now knew to be a figment of his imagination. He felt it scald the back of his throat; at least he blamed the whisky, it was easier than admitting the truth. He felt himself become sleepy at last, and let his head rest on his arms on the table; just for a minute he promised himself, just a minute and he'd go to bed. He'd start fresh in the morning. He'd paint on the aggressive armour and raise the shield of hostility, and die a little more inside each day... but it would be all right, because no one would notice the difference.

*****

Three times Sirius had raised his fist to the door; three times he had let it fall to his side. He knew Snape would probably ask who was there, and that would be the end of any chance of getting face to face with him. Maybe if he stood here all night he could ambush him when he left his rooms; tomorrow was Monday, he'd definitely leave his rooms for classes.

He tried to imagine what Severus was doing: was he reading, thinking, drinking? Sirius doubted he'd be asleep; it was still early. He cursed the fact that he hadn't had the bottle to come earlier, that way he could have accosted him on his way to dinner; he didn't know Snape hadn't gone to the Hall.

He took a deep breath and knocked on the door before he could think about it again.

'Go away,' came the reply from the other side.

Fuck, Sirius snarled to himself; Snape was drunk. He knocked again, a little harder, and heard the scrape of a chair on the stone floor and then the smash of glass, followed by a volley of curses, and then the door was flung open. He didn't take the time to think or speak or anything else but stick his foot in the door, so it couldn't be slammed in his face; the lack of resistance surprised him so much that he almost fell into the room.

'Come for an encore without an audience, Black?' Snape said coldly. 'How unlike you.'

'Whatever you're thinking, it isn't true,' Sirius said, unsure where to start, but anywhere was a beginning. He could see Snape struggling to get his mental gears in order. He was obviously very drunk; it wasn't going to help things.

'Why have you come here?' he asked.

'I thought I'd made that pretty obvious over the last two weeks,' Sirius replied. 'I couldn't tell you, Severus, not once I knew who you were. I knew you would want to end it.'

'End it?' Severus snorted his derision. 'End what?'

'Don't try to pretend we didn't have something.'

'You flatter yourself if you think you're anything more than a quick anonymous fuck. Any tart can perform to an audience of one.'

'I don't believe you,' Sirius replied, wishing his voice hadn't taken on a pleading note. 'Don't do this to me, Severus.'

'That's rather odd, coming from you,' Snape said. 'Have you ever in your miserable existence stopped to think about what you do to other people?' His face was white with suppressed fury, and behind it Sirius detected the first trace of vulnerability.

*****

Severus knew he'd started badly and gone downhill quickly, and he didn't know how to stop. He was on the attack when he felt he should be in defence; he was listening to what he wanted to say himself, and he was at a total loss as to how to start again. He turned away, closing his eyes, and felt himself sway with a combination of whisky and he couldn't even imagine what else.

'Go away, Black. There is nothing here for you,' he said tiredly, 'or me.'

'We could still pretend,' Black said from so close behind him that he started and turned.

'Pretend?' Snape snarled. 'Why don't you put another advertisement in the "Daily Prophet" and get someone who is more susceptible to your dubious appeal and pretend with them? Who knows, you might not even need your Charms; your doggy suit would probably do.'

'Now you're being ridiculous,' Black retorted, showing a first spark of annoyance. 'I didn't place any advertisement, and you're not stupid enough to think I did.'

'Why have you come here?' Snape asked, suddenly needing to keep him talking. The real Sirius Black was coming out, emerging from the shadows, and he was pleased of that much. He watched as Black sat at his table, spelled away the broken glass from the floor, and uncorked the new whisky bottle that had sat as a backup.

'Where are your glasses?' he asked.

For a moment Snape stood in indecision. He could throw him out or he could hear him out; he had no idea why he took the stance he did. Perhaps some instinct of self-preservation kicked in through the haze in his mind; some horizon, however doubtful, beckoned to him. Maybe it was just the fact that he was not alone, as he thought he would be, that even this company, unproven as it was, was better than none at all. He nodded towards the sinks and watched as Black got back up from his seat and rummaged around on the shelves in the cupboard above the sink until he found two glasses. As Sirius splashed two measures, Severus realised he had taken a tiny step forward after all.

'Don't stand there like that,' Black said. 'You make me feel uncomfortable.'

Severus found it hard to move, so hard to back down; it was as though he were leaving himself open to he knew not what. He had never felt so defenceless in his life; nothing had prepared him for how he felt.

'Do you remember what you said to me that first night?' Sirius said, and went on without waiting for a reply. 'It was something like, "Let's dispense with the difficulties of unfamiliarity",' he said, smiling a little ruefully. 'They sound like your words; Merlin alone knows how I didn't recognise you right away. You said, "For all intents and purposes we know one another very well", that's what you said.'

'What is your point, if you have one?' Severus asked, but he couldn't seem to dredge up any acid to lace it with.

'My point is that nothing has changed,' Black replied, his eyes remaining steadfastly on Snape's. 'I am the same man ... and so are you.'

Severus didn't know how to move on, how to take the few steps to the table; he felt like an intruder in his own territory. 'I can't do this,' he whispered as he turned away and looked down, shocked that he'd voiced his thoughts. It was a few long moments before he heard the scrape of the chair, just long enough for him to come to terms with the things he really wanted to say, but not long enough to find the courage to say them. And now it looked as though it was too late anyway; Black was leaving and Severus didn't have the guts to stop him. Then he felt the man behind him, his hand on his waist, and his breath in his hair.

'I know you can't,' Black said, 'but I can. Please, Severus. Believe me, I never meant this to happen, and if I had known who you were, it never would have ... but, Merlin help me, I think I've fallen for you.'

Snape said nothing; it was enough just to stand and accept the words he so needed to believe. Black would probably expect no more.

'And I know something else,' Sirius said quietly, speaking into his neck in a way that thawed the last stubborn ice around his heart. 'It's not only everyone else in the world who deserves a bit of happiness; maybe we deserve a bit too.'

'I find volte-face a painful option,' Snape replied in a low steady voice he found from somewhere.

'I just bet you do, you arrogant fuck.'

Severus found himself turning; it wasn't really that difficult, not once he'd started. He was glad there was no trace of the grin, just a frailty that matched his own, a longing to belong, a need to care and be cared for.

*****

Sirius couldn't think where he was in the moments between sleep and waking, until the physical heat caught up with the mental warmth. The man beside him was still asleep. They had talked into the small hours of the morning, punctuating the time with long hostile silences, often arguing or accusing, sometimes even laughing at the few and far between reminiscences that had hurt neither of them, and had finally come to some sort of understanding of one another. Sirius had been very conscious of what Remus had said, and had admitted just when he had recognised Severus. Instead of the reaction he had feared, the admission had seemed to be some sort of comfort to Snape and had been almost a watershed. He thought Snape understood that now, understood that Sirius had known who he was and that he had still come back to him. He was surprised at how easy the truth could be, how it didn't need to hide, how it was only lies that turned on you when you least expected them.

He wondered what time it was; the light filtering in through Snape's tiny bedroom window, set almost at the ceiling, gave him no clue. He gave the prone man a gentle kick. 'How about getting some breakfast down here?' he said, unsurprised to realise he was awake.

'This is Hogwarts, not the Leaky Cauldron,' Snape muttered, dragging himself up to a sitting position.

'They do room service here, you know,' Sirius replied. 'At least they did when I was here.'

'Why does that not surprise me?' Snape gave him a sour look. 'What time is it? I have an ominous feeling that my classroom is already under a foot of slime.'

'Gryffindors first thing?'

'Of course. Minerva's sense of humour on timetables is the same as Dumbledore's was,' Snape muttered as he hauled himself out of bed and walked into his living room. 'Fuck,' Sirius heard him curse in panic, 'it's half past nine.'

Sirius grinned to himself as Snape hurried back into the bedroom just as someone began to hammer on his door. 'Shall I get that?' he asked, throwing the rugs back.

'Don't dare move and don't open your mouth,' Severus snarled at him, as he pulled on the pair of trousers that he found lying on the floor, and last night's shirt.

Sirius snuggled back down under the covers; he wasn't in a hurry. He'd always found one of the advantages of not really having anywhere to go was that he was never late.

*****

'Are we going to have a Potions class or not?' Harry asked, looking Snape up and down.

'Not today, thank you. Let us all forego that particular pleasure,' Severus replied, pleased to see the boy start back in surprise.

'A hangover?' Harry asked, as he gave him another up and down look. 'Or perhaps not. What excuse will I give for your absence?'

'You know something, Potter,' Snape replied. 'I don't really give a fuck.'

Harry laughed. 'For a moment you sounded human,' he said as he walked away. 'A head cold or a stomach bug, which one would you prefer?'

'You choose,' Snape called after him. 'And, Potter, no spectacular bodily functions or sexually transmitted diseases, if you don't mind.'

'Of course not. After all what would a cloistered old virgin want with one of them?' Harry gave Snape an annoyingly knowing look. 'A headache it is then.'

*****

Sirius set the table in the kitchen in Grimmauld Place, or to be exact he flung the family-crested silverware to lie where it landed. He'd had a run in with a doxy when he'd tried to take the bone china from an ancient cabinet in the dining room, and gave up, slamming the door behind him and hexing it so he would never open it again by mistake. Chipped kitchen plates would do; he lied to himself that Severus wouldn't notice.

Kreacher had been following about on his heels, muttering darkly to himself, so that every time Sirius turned round he almost fell over him, as his mother screeched obscenities about entertaining filthy, half-blood poverty stricken scum in her house. Sirius felt the elf would have been better employed scraping at least some of the years of accumulated grime from the Ancient and Most Noble and Equally Grubby House of Black, but he forewent wasting his breath in trying to explain that to him.

At least the kitchen looked, perhaps not festive, but a little less unwelcoming than the rest of the dump. Sirius would have liked to get rid of Grimmauld Place, but as Dumbledore had been the Secret Keeper and he was dead, he was finding it as difficult to get rid of the house as a socially unacceptable rash, seeing as the only people who could gain admittance were Order members. He resigned himself to the fact that he was stuck with it; he just wished the damned place didn't resist every feeble attempt he made in trying to make it more like a home.

The turkey smelt good. He opened the oven, pretending that actually lighting the ugly great furnace and occasionally opening it to look at the bird constituted cooking the dinner, and conveniently forgot that it had been Severus who had actually done the preparation. Sirius had been impressed with his culinary skill, even though he knew every time his back was turned Snape cheated outrageously, until there wouldn't be a mouthful that had not been magically enhanced one way or another.

He found himself standing in the horrible kitchen, with a ragged oven cloth in his hand, and a sniffling house-elf looking balefully up at him; and his mother screaming her eternal fury at the disgrace he had brought to the family name; and tears in his eyes and a huge lump of emotion choking his chest. Sirius was happy; for the first time in his life he was happy. He hadn't even known what happy was before now. He had heard of it, of course, and had mistakenly assumed it to have something to do with laughing, but it had been something for other people. He'd always wondered why they had cherished it so ... now he knew; now it was his.

He sniffed loudly as he drew the back of his hand across his nose and felt the grin creep onto his face. He was just about to yell up the stairs to see what was keeping Severus when some ungracious unwanted visitor knocked on the door. For a moment he considered ignoring it, but his mother was now shrieking at such a crescendo that the plaster on the kitchen ceiling was beginning to crack.

*****

'Happy Christmas,' Harry said with a beam as he ducked under Sirius's arm, dragging a pretty Chinese-looking girl after him.

'Happy Christmas,' Cho said, smiling so fetchingly that Sirius almost forgave the interruption.

'You didn't think we'd let you spend Christmas on your own, did you?' Harry said, making himself comfortable at the kitchen table. 'Don't argue, Sirius. I know you didn't want to go to Molly's; so we've come here instead.'

'How,' Sirius stammered, 'how did Cho get under the Fidelius Charm?'

'Dumbledore fixed it,' Harry admitted. 'He wouldn't tell me how he did it, pretending it could only be done by someone who was dead; I think in case you try it yourself. Something smells good,' he said enthusiastically. 'Now you won't have to eat it on your own.'

'I wasn't going to,' Sirius replied.

Harry was really enjoying this; he wondered if Sirius's visitor was going to show himself or not. It didn't matter; his godfather couldn't really bluff it out for long. He was just about to string Sirius along a bit more when the kitchen door opened.

'Can't you do something about the ruddy racket that old harpy is making?' Snape said, and kind of trailed off, but for only a moment. 'And get that ruddy useless piece of shit you call an elf to put clean towels in the bathroom; the one I used was damp,' he went on, staring at Harry and Cho as though they were some type of bizarre Christmas decorations that Sirius had put at the table as a joke.

'Happy Christmas, Severus,' Harry said, looking the half-naked man up and down. He was very impressed with how Snape had recovered; he'd done much better than Sirius. 'It's usually cold here. I wouldn't wander about like that for too long.'

'Have you brought me a present?' Sirius asked once he recovered enough to see that Severus wasn't going to storm off to Hogwarts because of the interruption.

'Have you bought me one?' Harry asked.

'Not yet, I wasn't expecting you,' Sirius replied.

'You are supposed to buy them in advance of the festivities, Black,' Snape said dryly, from where he'd sat down with the offending damp towel tied precariously around his waist. 'Not wait until you see what other people have bought for you so you don't spend too much money on them if you don't need to. You can be very tight-fisted at times.'

'I didn't notice you put your hand in your pocket when it came to buying the turkey,' Sirius retorted.

'Anytime you want to get to your point will be fine,' Snape replied. 'Have you even offered your guests a refreshment... or perhaps you have at last taught the elf how to do tricks.' He nodded meaningfully to Harry. 'Although I warn you, Potter, not to eat or drink anything it touches. Only yesterday I think I caught it about to piss in the teapot.'

Sirius gave the elf a quick horrified look, as Harry sat back watching them with a mysterious smile on his face.

'Why don't you go and get dressed,' Sirius suggested. 'You'll make the turkey go off if you sit about like that, not to mention ruining my appetite.'

Snape stood up, giving Sirius, Harry, and the silent but smiling Cho a sweeping look to share amongst themselves. 'At least pour some wine, Black. I'm sure there must be another two clean glasses somewhere in this tasteless mausoleum.'

He was only away for a short time and Harry was unsurprised to see that he was dressed the way he always was, in his tight buttoned-down high-waisted trousers and his frock coat; anything else would have disappointed him. He would have been uncomfortable seeing Severus in Muggle clothes; it just wouldn't seem right. Severus Snape was the most un-Muggle man he had ever met.

When Snape sat back down Harry felt that they had both resigned themselves to having company for dinner; in fact he suspected they were pleased about it.

'Can I set this table properly?' Cho asked a little timidly. 'It's like a dog's dinner ... and it is Christmas.'

'I am gratified that someone has noticed,' Snape replied, as Sirius took on his most crestfallen look.

*****

It had been a good day, the best Severus could remember. He was almost tempted to believe it would be first of many, and that bit by bit he could let down the armour with which he had protected himself for so long that it had become a second skin.

Potter and Cho Chang had stood to leave; that was good too, they seemed to have no intentions of outstaying their uncertain welcome. Severus admitted to himself he was glad they had come, that he had been able to practise on these two, especially Potter; he and Potter knew one another well, it was easier to start with him, like an advance party, a test case.

'What about my present?' Sirius said as Harry helped Cho on with her cloak.

Snape watched Harry dip into his pocket and remove a small piece of parchment; it looked like a bill of some sort. He smiled to himself in an emotion he didn't quite recognise, understanding at last why Potter had seemed to be at his door so often over the last couple of weeks.

*****

Harry had been trying to work this out ever since shortly after Minerva McGonagall had met him as he came off the Hogwarts Express at Kings Cross the end of his sixth year; a boy trying to find a direction without the guidance of the Headmaster who had always been there to show him the way. She had been waiting for him with a tall slim man, who although he seemed oddly familiar, Harry did not know. They had waited until the platform had cleared and had re-boarded the train. The man had spoken little during the journey and Harry had contented himself to waiting to listen to what Dumbledore had to say to him from beyond the grave. Once they had reached McGonagall's office, Harry noticed that the man he had only seen slumbering in the portrait was now awake and as alert as he had ever looked when he was alive.

'Harry, this has been a great trial for you. But now I need you to trust me as much as you have ever done, perhaps more,' Dumbledore said with the compassionate but steely-blue gaze that had marked him apart from lesser men.

Harry remembered nodding his assent, only too relieved to find that the Headmaster's advice would still be available to him. But the portrait was looking past him, to where the slim man had turned away. 'Show yourself, Severus,' Dumbledore said quietly.

Harry spun, his wand already in his hand, but he stopped short, letting his hand fall to his side in confusion. 'You,' he said, accusingly. 'Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now.'

Snape had let his eyebrow rise a fraction. 'I do not need to tell you the reasons, Potter; you know them.'

He remembered turning to Dumbledore again. 'I don't understand. He killed you ... I saw him do it.'

'And you were unable to stop it, Harry,' Dumbledore replied. 'Why do you think that was?'

'Because it had to happen?' Harry replied, and then a wave of understanding washed over him. 'Because you were already dead?'

Snape nodded. 'Indeed, although I admit the complication of Draco Malfoy had not occurred to me. I had assumed that taking the Unbreakable Oath with his mother would have removed him from the picture.'

'But I'm the one who's got to kill Voldemort,' Harry argued. 'Not you.'

'Indeed, Potter,' Snape repeated. 'That particular pleasure is one which will be denied me, a bitter pill to swallow. But I am the one man alive who can get the Dark Lord to where you need him to be when you do dispatch him.'

'Where?'

'The Department of Mysteries,' Snape said enigmatically and nodded to the portrait. 'The Headmaster is privy to certain secrets beyond the grave, secrets which are not known to us. He has done a deal with the Keepers of the Veil to trade Sirius Black for the Dark Lord.'

He'd worked so closely with Severus after that, their previous hostility providing a solid backbone for the brutally honest way in which they dealt with one another, until each knew the other like they knew themselves.

It was just after Sirius had come back through the Veil that Harry began to think that if life had dealt the cards in a different order, that Snape and Sirius would have been perfect for one another. For quite a while the solution had evaded him; there were too many barriers to break down, too much stormy water had passed under the bridge, and it had seemed too daunting a task to even get the two of them to speak a civil word to one another. It came to him quite by chance one night when he had been sniggering through the personal advertisements in the "Prophet" with Ron.

It took ages to work it out and win over the confidence of the one man he needed to set it up; in fact it was only when Harry had dangled the prospect of Galleons in front of Tom's eyes, that he had agreed. Of course, he never knew who Harry was; he was just the man who had paid the piper and asked to take over behind the bar on the second night after the advertisement was placed. All Tom had to do was stay out of sight for an hour or two whilst his look-alike checked over his master plan. Harry had done it all himself, not wanting to take anyone else into his confidence. He hadn't wanted to share their feelings with anyone else. Sirius was the godfather he had thought he'd lost, and Snape, well ... he'd come to view Severus as being the mentor he had had since he'd first come to Hogwarts. More than that, he admitted to himself, in some odd way Harry had become very fond of Snape.

And it had been such fun at the beginning; he hadn't expected it all to happen so quickly. Then last week it had started to fall apart, and he'd been really worried that all he had achieved was to make the two men he cared for most even more lonely and unhappy than they had been. But they'd sorted it out, done that bit themselves, and it made Harry suppose that love really could find a way, even with two of the most intractable people he'd ever come across.

He dragged himself back to the present, to standing in the hallway of Grimmauld Place, watching the two men, who seemed for the moment to have run out of insults. Even the portrait of Sirius's mother had taken a breather. Harry found the small piece of parchment in his hand. He hadn't been sure whether to admit it or not, but he didn't have a present for Sirius, or Snape for that matter. He smiled like a boy caught with his hand in the biscuit tin and handed Sirius the receipt for the personal advertisement section of the "Daily Prophet".

'Happy Christmas ...I know I couldn't be happier,' he said, and hugged his godfather and then to Severus's surprise, hugged him too.

Sirius turned to Severus, almost in accusation. 'You told me Tom put the advisement in the "Prophet".'

Snape raised his eyebrow. 'And you told me your name was Amadeus.'

'Oh, Sirius,' Harry said with a laugh, 'was that the best you could do?'

Harry took Cho's arm as Sirius opened the door onto Grimmauld Place. They didn't need company to play this game any longer.

*****