Chapter Three

Snape had settled himself at his table; the fire was burning, the glass was full, and the wolf snoozed gently at his feet. He picked up the book that lay open on his table, but laid it aside after a few moments, unable to concentrate.

He tried to analyse his feelings, shying away from the obvious. He didn't want to consider envy or longing, or the pervasive feeling of uncertainty that he hadn't noticed was sinking to despair. Severus Snape was feeling sorry for himself. He tossed off the glass of whisky as the wolf whined and jerked his paws in dreaming sleep. He wondered at Lucius and Lupin, and why Lucius had kept whatever relationship they shared a secret from him, wondered which of them wanted the secrecy; maybe it was both of them. He found his thoughts drifting like the smoke from his cigarette and he sank deeper into despondency, and closed his eyes for a moment when thoughts of the futile love of his life threatened to break to the surface. He pushed it away and poured another drink. He wouldn't drag himself down, not tonight; he wasn't alone and he wasn't sure the werewolf would be unaware of his mood. But the more he drank, the more the thoughts vied for attention, the ones he'd tried to drink into submission, the thoughts of Black and what might have been.

He found the hot sting of something burn the back of the throat. He decided it was the whisky. It was easy to lie to himself; he'd had a lifetime of practice. He heard the wolf whine again, and when he looked down he saw it was watching him, its golden eyes wide as it cocked its head. It moved closer and tentatively licked his hand.

'You're going to take Lucius away from me, wolf, aren't you?'

The wolf laid its chin on Snape's thigh and blinked.

'I am drunk, wolf, but I'm sure you have already guessed as much. Drunk and maudlin, and about as pitiful as they come.' Snape shook his head in a self-mocking gesture. 'Don't worry, you are welcome to him; he was only ever a substitute for what he took from me. I shall not stand in your way.'

*****

Sirius picked up the cards. He felt a little drunk, but he couldn't think why; he'd only had a few. He wished Lupin were here. Although he had more company than he normally had, he felt oddly lonely ... he was feeling incredibly randy too. He tossed away a card and found Malfoy watching him with his cool grey eyes narrowed. After a moment Lucius looked down; Sirius noticed he hadn't picked up his own cards yet.

'Are you playing or not?' Draco asked testily.

He and Harry and Ron seemed a little on edge; Sirius couldn't think why, not when he felt so incredibly relaxed.

Lucius started, as though he had been woolgathering. 'This is the last hand I'm playing. I'm tired.' He gave Sirius an openly inviting look. 'I'm going upstairs.'

Sirius felt his balls tighten; he wondered what the fuck he was thinking of, but for some reason Malfoy look about as sexed-up as any man could. 'Yeah, me too,' he breathed. He failed to notice the covert looks the boys exchanged.

*****

Severus woke with a start. He couldn't remember going into his bedroom and lying on top of the bed; he must have been drunk. He could hear Lupin in the other room, the man not the wolf; it must be morning. He dragged himself upright and tried to ignore the slamming headache as the smell of coffee wafted through.

Lupin appeared in the doorway; he looked tired. 'Coffee?' He held a steaming mug in front of him.

Snape stood up and took the mug. 'You'd better get back, Lupin. The kiddies will be waiting for you.'

'I'm ready when you are.'

'I'm not going.'

'Don't be stupid,' Lupin flared. 'I'm not leaving you here alone.'

'I prefer to be alone,' Snape said curtly. 'But thank you for your misplaced concern.'

Lupin looked away for a moment, as though unsure of whether he should voice his thoughts. 'Do you have a problem with my relationship with Lucius?' he asked eventually.

'No, why should I?' Snape bridled.

'I just wondered. I know you're close.'

'I am not in love with Lucius Malfoy, Lupin. I never have been and never will be.' Snape pushed past him. 'You are welcome to one another.'

'You asked me a personal question last night, and now I shall ask you one,' Lupin said to Severus's back, and watched the shoulders stiffen as though Snape had donned his black armour along with the cloak he'd picked up. He seemed to have decided to go back to Grimmauld Place after all. 'How long are you two going to keep it up?'

Snape didn't turn. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'I think you do, Severus,' Lupin persisted. 'How long are you and Sirius going to pretend you hate one another?'

*****

Sirius wasn't awfully sure where he was. He had an idea he was still at Grimmauld Place, but he didn't think he recognised the particular pattern on the horrible wallpaper of this room. The general air of carefully cultivated neglect, the grotesquely ornate plaster work, liberally hung with a century of cobwebs, and the heavy blood-red curtains that seemed to twitch suspiciously of their own accord every now and again did seem to suggest the Most Noble House of Black though; nobody else could have reduced faded grandeur to such an art form. It was as though the original decorators had been handed a huge pot of gold, and had been told to get on with it; they'd spent most of the money on Firewhisky and then set about making the place as ugly as possible before someone actually stopped them. Either that, or they ran out of money and legged it before anyone saw the results.

He heard a groan coming from somewhere very near; he hoped it wasn't the curtains, although the alternative was equally unappealing, knowing, as he did, that the lifelong fuel of his fantasies was still at Hogwarts.

The bed was definitely warmer than it should have been, as though another body had lent its heat as a buffer to the usual draughty dampness that permeated the upper floors of the house. Maybe Snape had come back early. It was nice to go with the unlikely fantasy that Severus had come back and had been unable to stifle a lifelong desire, and had sneaked into the room while Sirius was asleep to surprise him just before Christmas; Santa Snape. Sirius let the fantasy linger on until the soft groan came again. He wanted to put one of the dubious pillows over whatever face had ruined his daydream; he knew it wasn't Severus, but, he supposed ruefully, he always had.

He let his hand drift across the bed, as though in sleep. Whoever was there was quite large; he had to stretch out his arm to get it around the comatose man, at least he sincerely hoped it was a man. He knew he was running out of options now. It was too big to be Harry. His godson hadn't sneaked into bed for a heat; it wasn't any of the kids playing a trick on him, and the only other acceptable bedmate was away with Severus. Fuck, he didn't want to open his eyes and see the mass of white-blond hair, but they were open; they were registering what his brain didn't want to recognise. He was in bed with Lucius Malfoy.

He jumped out of bed as the Slytherin icon woke with a start and jumped out of the other side; Sirius wished he'd had the presence of mind to whip one of the sheets away.

'You'd better not have raped me, fat boy,' he said dangerously. He knew he would have sounded a lot more threatening if he'd had the benefit of something other than his hand to cover his dignity.

'Raped you?' Lucius flared. 'How do I know you didn't change into a dog and defile me?'

'Defile you? I couldn't get it up for you sober with a Levitating Charm, never mind drunk, you arrogant fat fuck,' Sirius screamed back, oblivious to the fact that the bedroom door had been flung open.

'You broke into my room with some intention, Animagus.'

Sirius watched Lucius draw himself up with the Malfoy family jewels proudly on display; he didn't seem as concerned about any possible affront to his modesty.

'It's my fucking house; how can I break in?' Sirius began to become aware that Malfoy's attention was now firmly riveted on the bedroom door. That must have been the source of the cold draught that was threatening to send his balls chasing his cock to the pit of his stomach. He turned slowly; maybe whoever was there would have gone away. 'What are you lot staring at? Fuck off out of it.' He pointed the fingers of the hand which had been over his cock at the considerably swelled audience.

'We wondered what all the noise was,' Hermione replied reasonably from deep inside a pink fluffy dressing gown. Her bushy hair was like a large brown haystack, and Ron had his hand on her shoulder, vigorously nodding agreement. On a better day Sirius would have seen the significance of that.

'And we just wanted to check we'd left you everything you needed.' Draco beamed his insufferably sycophantic smile, and nodded confidentially to Harry. 'And you told us to wake you before Severus got back.'

'What?' Sirius asked Harry, who had remained wisely silent so far.

'I beg your pardon?' Lucius fixed his son with a look.

The two boys exchanged a quick glance; they seemed to wonder which of them was going to respond.

'Just... you know?' Draco nodded knowingly to the nightstand, where the various bottles and jars and accoutrements they had left the previous afternoon lay in an accusing disarray of spilt oil. 'Did you have everything you needed?'

The two men froze until Lucius looked at the nightstand, as though some memory of how it got into the state it was in were filtering through his mind. Sirius followed his gaze, as he tried to blot out the fractured images of the Pride of Slytherin writhing below him in sexual agony.

*****

Severus shook his cloak and handed it to Kreacher with a threatening twist of his lip, and followed Lupin into the kitchen. He failed to notice the smug look on Mrs Black's portrait, or the alternating smirks that the elf kept casting to the staircase and then the two men, or Dumbledore running through a succession of portraits on the staircase with his beard flying behind him. Severus wondered why he'd bothered coming back, what the point was of him being here; the old Headmaster's games usually left him either cold or out in the cold.

'I thought they might have had breakfast prepared,' Lupin commented with a little disappointment. 'They must be too busy messing about upstairs.' He stood at the kitchen door, nodding to where Sirius and Lucius's voices could be heard issuing down the stairs, punctuated every now and again by Draco and Harry, with the occasional Hermione thrown in for good measure.

Severus walked back into the hall and began to climb the stairs; he became vaguely aware that what he had taken for horseplay with the children was not quite anger, but something near to it. He frowned as he saw Ron and Hermione cast a nervous glance along the corridor from where they stood in the doorway to Lucius's room.

He stopped dead in the doorway as something cold clutched his heart. Draco and Potter were standing just inside the door being alternately berated by Lucius and Sirius. He took in the tumbled bed, the two naked men, the two artfully contrite boys, the strewn contents of the nightstand and the clothes scattered on the floor as though they had been torn off in sexual frenzy.

Neither man had noticed him yet; he had time, he could have walked away, but he was aware that the choice to stay was made by himself alone. He wondered what mental dysfunction caused him to always allow what he saw as his own humiliations to be so public; like standing naked in the corner of his childhood home, waiting for his father's belt to fall on his back while his mother answered the door to Lucius and Abraxas; like being suspended upside down at Hogwarts for everyone to laugh at his nakedness; like waiting for Sirius for hours on end after Quidditch practice while the rest of the Gryffindors trooped past him, sniggering behind their hands. All witnesses to his humiliation, to his inadequacies.

'If you do not have the common sense to keep your activities private; at least have the shame not to parade them in front of children,' he said in a cold whisper. 'Cover yourselves up.'

'This isn't what it seems, Severus,' Lucius said, as he paled in shock.

'You have no need to explain to me, Lucius. A bitch in heat hardly has control of what dog it finds itself under,' Snape replied in a carefully measured voice. 'It does explain some things though. I had not realised you wanted the Animagus so much.' He turned on his heel; he didn't want to look at this any longer ... at Lucius's confusion, at Black looking away like a scolded schoolboy. He almost collided with Lupin, cursing himself that he hadn't had the presence of mind to leave the room earlier and stop the werewolf. He looked as unhappy as Snape felt; he should have spared him this.

'This wasn't what I meant, at all,' Dumbledore admonished Sirius from behind a fat cherub with a supercilious smirk on its face; it looked a bit like Lucius.

Sirius looked around himself, the two boys making their escape, the empty space Snape had occupied, something angry and hurt in Lupin, Dumbledore's reproach from the portrait above the bed. 'Why is it always my fault?' he asked. He noticed Lucius had turned away when Lupin had come in, as though finally realising he'd been caught with his pants down.

Hermione came to his aid, predictably. 'Now you've upset everyone,' she said in exasperation. 'Why do you do these things, Sirius?'

*****

Breakfast was an uncomfortable affair; all of the men seemed to want to sit as far apart from eye contact with one another as possible. Mrs Black humming happily and loudly to herself, and then breaking into song as Sirius passed through the hall hadn't helped the situation.

'My son has lain with purest blood, no more paupers, no more mud,' she trilled at the top of her admirably loud voice, in a horrible pitch which wavered dangerously between soprano and contralto. She reached out of her portrait as Lucius passed and patted him on the head before he could pull back in horror. 'So pure,' she purred. 'Perhaps a touch chunkier than I would have liked, but the blood and money more than make up for that.'

'Keep that harpy away from me,' Malfoy screamed, but no one seemed inclined to come to his aid.

Harry and Draco shared an uncomfortable snigger. This wasn't going quite as well as they'd hoped; they hadn't allowed for the inevitable fallout.

Hermione gave everyone, with the exception of Ron, Lupin and Snape, long cool looks as she walked behind them pouring tea, as Draco and Harry followed with the toast. Ron seemed to be enjoying himself enormously; he and Snape and Lupin were the only ones she'd cooked breakfast for.

Sirius was about to leave the table as he heard a peck at the window; he hadn't any appetite anyway, he had a hangover and a guilty conscience, although he wasn't sure why that was. A large eagle owl was trying to gain admittance.

Hermione opened the window and the owl swooped in; something about its majesty seemed to suggest that it was used to better things than the hideous but cavernous kitchen in Grimmauld Place. It stopped at Lucius and eyed him as it dropped a scroll on a plate bereft of all but toast crumbs.

'Don't look at me, unless you've brought something to eat,' Malfoy said to it. He seemed to consider the twin options of Lupin and Snape, but had to discard them and nod across to where Ron was protecting his heaped plate with his arm. 'I haven't got anything; he's got the food.' He picked up the scroll and began to unroll it. Normally he would have had Severus read anything that came from Malfoy Manor, but Snape didn't seem to be too pleased with him. He had a suspicion why that might be, and it had nothing to do with the sensibilities the children didn't possess anyway.

'Have mine,' Snape said ungraciously as he pushed his plate towards Malfoy. 'I'm surprised you haven't just taken it anyway, like you take everything else.'

Sirius watched Malfoy drop his eyes to the scroll as Snape gave him a hostile look.

'Good news?' Draco enquired as Lucius began to smile broadly as he read, not something he usually did that early in the day unless he was still drunk from the night before.

'Indeed. It seems that your mother has finally decided that life in Wiltshire is not to her taste. I must say it took her long enough.' He sat back with a satisfied smirk on his handsome face.

The others exchanged looks; only Snape seemed disinterested.

'She's left you?' Sirius asked without looking at Malfoy. 'I can hardly say I'm surprised; even Blacks like her should have better sense.'

'Up you too, Animagus,' Lucius replied, and winced at his own poor choice of words. 'I have no obstacles now.'

'To what?' Draco asked.

Sirius watched Lupin give his head a tiny shake as he gave Lucius a look; it was the same kind of warning look Lucius had sent the werewolf's way the day before, a look that shared secrets.

'I shall be able to enjoy my Gryffindor without worrying that what passes for my wife will use our affair for a lawsuit,' Malfoy replied with a self-satisfied twist of his lip.

Sirius began to object, but Malfoy held his hand up. 'Don't flatter yourself, Animagus. You were all right, but not quite my taste.' He let his hand fall on top of Lupin's. 'You just happened to be around when my idiot son carried out his experiment.'

'Lupin?' Harry said, and forgot to shut his mouth.

'The werewolf?' Draco stared at his father's hand.

'Remus?' Sirius asked.

Even Ron had stopped eating, although his 'Cor blimey' was somewhat muffled by the contents of his mouth.

Snape had looked away, and Sirius could see it wasn't as much a surprise to him as the rest of them.

'None of you knew?' Lucius raised his eyebrow. 'How disappointing. And I just thought you were all being fiercely loyal over the last fifteen years.'

'Fifteen years?' Sirius mouthed in shock. 'Remus?'

The werewolf nodded and gave his self-effacing smile before turning to Lucius. 'Don't do anything like that again without warning me, and don't think your little declaration has got you off the hook either. I'm very put out by you, Lucius.' He nodded to Sirius. 'You too. And you may all lower your eyebrows. He's a Malfoy; he's not that bad a catch.' Sirius noticed he hadn't drawn his hand away.

'I'm just shocked,' Draco offered. 'I didn't know he was human.'

'He's a werewolf; not a sub human,' Lucius flared as Harry gasped in outrage.

Sirius was about to berate Draco too until he saw the up and down look he gave Lucius.

'I meant you, Father,' Draco replied with more disdain than a boy of his age should have been able to muster.

Sirius looked up as the door closed; it wasn't until he turned again that he realised that Snape had left the room. He frowned to himself; he wondered if Severus were in love with Malfoy.

*****