I couldn’t understand why they’d all just left me, just up and left without me.

I’d been able to hear them, hear them talking once the sounds of fighting stopped. I couldn’t hear what they said, not individual words, but I could hear the voices. I didn’t want to think why I couldn’t hear the words, just murmurs, snatches of murmurs … Harry, Remus. I tried to shake my head, shake the remnants of that hellcat Bellatrix’s Curse from my muddled wits, but I couldn’t seem to find the strength. I found myself shivering instead, not moving, just shuddering inside as though my mind had ground to a halt and my body was trying to catch up.

It was so cold now, but that was all right, something within me knew it was good that I could feel that. And the voices were still there, I knew that was important … Tonks … Harry again. I couldn’t understand why I was so frightened and so cold, why I was too frightened to think. I tried to shout and my voice wouldn’t work, like a bad dream where the words stuck in my chest and my brain couldn’t explain to them how to break out. And I knew I had to hurry; I had to tell them where I was, that I was right here. But the seconds dragged out as the words tried to creep up my throat, and they were almost there when I knew it was too late. The voices had faded, not even murmurs, just an absence of sound so deep that it hurt, and I knew they had gone away without me.

‘COME BACK,’ I shouted. I felt the words explode in my chest and even as I did, I knew no sound came out, and my breath didn’t plume in the cold, cold air and I couldn’t hear the beat of my heart. I wouldn’t think too much; if I didn’t think it wouldn’t be true. ‘Don’t leave me here,’ I whispered, and there was no sound, but it didn’t matter, no one was listening anyway.

I pushed myself away from the bare rock I found myself leaning against and began to walk, the walk of nightmares, the walk which takes you further and further from your goal as you walk towards it, as cold clouds of nothing came floating towards me, beckoning and welcoming, whispering like a lover, murmuring promises of forever and ever. The silence had gone, swept away by the other voices, low and gentle, light whispers, calling to me, and I wanted to go to them now, these softly rising and falling murmurs, but I wanted to go back; I wanted to go back and I knew I couldn’t. I wouldn’t think too much; if I didn’t think it wouldn’t be true.

Some part of me still had the strength to scream silent denial, my outrage at having let this happen to me when I still had so much left to do. I turned away from the whispers and sat on the cold stone ground, waiting for no one to come, to take me to nowhere.

*****

REMUS

I was standing in the entrance hall when Severus walked in. I watched him without realising it; I was past realisation at that point, I’d just got back to Hogwarts myself. I watched him tense, saw him flinch beneath the dark scowl as he sensed the atmosphere; I knew he didn’t know. I saw him take in the shocked pale faces, the whispered conversations. I don’t even remember walking towards him or what I said. I remember the black eyes though; I watched them widen, watched something I didn’t understand flare in them before he brought a shutter down, and closed whatever it was from view.

‘When?’ he demanded. I can’t have responded because he shook my arm. ‘When? Damnit, Lupin,’ he snarled. ‘Pull yourself together.’

‘An hour or two,’ I said. My voice sounded strange, weary, beaten; it was a burden to speak.

‘Which? An hour or two? There is a big difference,’ he snapped. He was virtually dragging me along the corridor, scattering startled students and staff as he went, not even taking the moments to enjoy the effects of his own passage. Moments, ticking away, moments making minutes making hours. He seemed like a man who couldn’t spare them, a man who didn’t even know how many he had left.

I must have answered, what did it matter? One hour, two. Forever doesn’t care; forever doesn’t count time. It doesn’t need to.

‘Are you sure he wasn’t dead before he fell through?’ he asked over his shoulder, still dragging me in his wake to the entrance to Dumbledore’s office.

‘What difference does it make?’ I know I shouted that at him to where he was racing up the stone steps. ‘He’s dead now. If you want all the fucking gory details go ask someone else, Snape.’

He pulled to a stop at that point. ‘It makes all the difference in the world,’ he hissed. ‘I do not intend to throw my life away for a corpse, and I suspect that you would not want to either.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I asked as I watched him climb the final few steps. Somewhere within me he’d kindled a flicker of hope.

*****

SEVERUS

I tried to think, but I’d had so little time. One minute I was walking in the main doors of the castle, and the next my life was in a million pieces … and nobody was doing anything. Lupin was a wreck; he was going to have to pull himself together if he was going to be any good to me. Dumbledore just seemed to have accepted things; his face was wretched with the pain of others. Even Potter was quiet for once, sitting pale faced, stunned beyond belief; I suspected he had begun to realise what he’d done. And me, well, my life was in a million pieces and nobody seemed to be doing anything about that.

‘We have no time for this, Headmaster,’ I said. ‘Where is Lucius?’

‘No, Severus, I forbid it,’ he replied, without even pretending not to know why I wanted Malfoy.

‘Forbid what?’ Potter had stood up. ‘Can he do something? Professor?’ He turned to me. ‘Can you bring him back?’ he blurted, half in bewilderment, half in indictment. His boy’s face was too young to be clouded with the sorrow he knew, clutching at a straw when he thought he’d already drowned. I felt an unaccustomed wrench of pity for him.

Dumbledore had stumbled to his feet. ‘Severus, no,’ he repeated.

But Lupin had begun to square his shoulders too, begun to understand my line of thinking. ‘You know we can do it, Albus,’ he said. ‘As long as he was alive when he went through.’

‘He was,’ Potter put in. ‘I swear he was. He just looked … surprised.’ He clutched my arm and I tore it away from him, briefly regretting what I knew he would take for hostility. ‘Professor Snape,’ he asked, with none of his usual malice. ‘Can you do something?’

Between the boy and Lupin they gave me the support I needed. I knew Dumbledore was wavering, he had turned to stroke Fawkes; I guessed some communion was going on between them. ‘I have no time,’ I said to his back. ‘I am going to do this, with or without your permission. Now where is Lucius?’

‘Azkaban,’ Dumbledore said flatly as he turned to face me, and I knew he read the renewed shock on my face.

Potter rounded on Dumbledore now, pulling a bit of the heat from me, it gave me time to let that little gem of information settle on the rest of the debris. ‘You told me nothing could be done,’ Potter said. ‘And now it can? What’s he going to do? It’s his fault anyway,’ he added, pointing to me. His accusations were flying everywhere in his confusion. ‘He was always goading him at Grimmauld Place. I saw him.’

‘How convenient for you, Potter. Always someone else to pick up your debts for you,’ I said. I shouldn’t have let myself react to that; petty, I know, I should have let it pass.

I watched him redden as Dumbledore intervened again. ‘Harry, it cannot be done. I told you the truth when I said no human could go behind the Veil, no-one could bring Sirius back.'

‘So what’s going on?’ Potter asked. The grief of youth was finding its outlet in anger and reproach; he pointed at me again, now in a mixture of hope and recrimination. ‘I want to know. What’s he talking about? And what’s Malfoy got to do with it?’

I didn’t pay attention now; I’d more important things on my mind than rising to a fifteen-year-old boy’s bait, I needed to keep talking to Lupin. Every couple of seconds the werewolf nodded his head, and every couple of seconds his shoulders became straighter, his head a little higher, and every couple of seconds Sirius got colder, and I had no way of letting him know we were coming for him. I let my eyes meet Dumbledore’s at last.

‘Will you at least send an owl to Azkaban to let them know we are going to see Lucius?’ I asked.

He shook his head. This time it wasn’t in refusal; it was in regretful acceptance. ‘You recognise what may happen, Severus? What may become of you?’ he asked and looked from me to Lupin. ‘And you, Remus, you think you can lay aside what is natural when the time comes?’

Lupin eyed him steadily now; resolve had filled the cracks which grief had etched on his face. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘If he can, I can.’

‘What are they going to do?’ Potter persisted like an annoying fly. ‘Can they get Sirius back?’

*****

HARRY

I stood in the middle of the floor wondering how many times the world could turn itself upside down in the space of a day. Where I’d felt sick with grief and anger only a short time ago, I now felt sick with the oddest mingling of hope and dread. I didn’t understand what was happening. ‘Why is he doing it if it’s so dangerous?’ I asked. I didn’t even realise I’d asked the question out loud.

‘Who do you mean, Harry?’ Dumbledore replied.

‘Snape … he hates Sirius.’ I don’t know when I noticed I’d begun to think of Sirius in the present tense again. ‘Why should he risk his own life?’

‘Professor Snape is a very unusual man, Harry.’

‘Only, he’s not a man, really, is he?’ I’m not sure when I recognised what I’d always suspected, maybe just then, maybe it was just the word used by Dumbledore. ‘You just said that humans can’t go beyond the Veil … and well, Professor Lupin’s a werewolf … just what is Snape? Are all the vampire jokes true after all? Is that why they were always scoffed at? Because they’re true?’

‘I assure you that Professor Snape is very much alive, and that he has his own blood flowing through his veins … now enough questions.’

I have to admit that relieved me; I didn’t think I fancied a vampire running around Hogwarts, even under Dumbledore’s control, but I knew there was something, there had to be. ‘No, I think I really do want to know this, sir,’ I persisted. ‘There’s something about him. I mean, we all know that he’s not … well, he’s not normal.’

‘And who among us is?’ I could see Dumbledore playing for time as he framed his reply. ‘Severus Snape is not a vampire. However, I suspect that when he leaves Azkaban he will be a few steps nearer to becoming one, and it is possible that those few steps may well be too much for him to turn his back on it. Once a creature like Severus has taken human blood, it may well be impossible for him to stop. I have no way of knowing, nor has he.’

‘A creature?’ I asked. ‘What kind of creature? He’s going to take Malfoy’s blood, isn’t he? Why him?’ Why Malfoy indeed, I couldn’t understand it, of all of the people in the world, why should he want Malfoy’s blood? I couldn’t take this in; I didn’t know what to think, and I was too frightened to hope. And I’d let Snape go with my angry words; I shouldn’t have done that. I had known even then that he and Remus were going to do Merlin only knew what to try to get Sirius back, and I’d behaved the way I always did … speaking too early, regretting too late.

‘Because Lucius Malfoy is the one person who will not refuse him, and he is the one person who will be unaffected by his bite. And now, Harry, I must ask, in fact, I must insist that this goes no further.’

‘Why won’t Malfoy be affected?’

‘Because he is the same creature as Severus and they are brothers, blood brothers through a shared father.’

Snape and Malfoy brothers? That was a bit of news, and made a lot of things make sense. ‘And was he a vampire?’ I asked. I was desperate to keep the Headmaster talking.

‘No, there have been no true vampires in the Malfoy family for three generations, but the strain runs true.’

‘And Professor Lupin? Is he going to take him with him?’

‘I suspect he is.’ Dumbledore’s look was stern now. ‘Harry, you must swear to me that you will not divulge anything I have said here.’

‘Yes, yes, sir, I swear,’ I said absently. And then I asked the question I’d been burning to ask. ‘Why is Snape doing this?’

‘I am sure he has his reasons.’

*****

REMUS

‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked.

‘You would prefer I did not?’ Severus replied. He glared at me as we entered the main doors of Azkaban, and then turned to the gate guard. ‘You are expecting us? Professors Snape and Lupin of Hogwarts to interview Lucius Malfoy?’

The guard eyed us up and down, as though we were about to make off with the gate, or anything else that wasn’t nailed down. ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering,’ he said. ‘Guilty as original sin, if you ask me.’

I had to hand it to Snape, he didn’t let anyone intimidate him; the whole place intimidated me. ‘I did not ask you for your opinion,’ he sneered in his inimitable way. ‘However, I did ask if you were expecting us. Now I shall assume you are, and request that you escort us to where the prisoner is being kept.’

The guard seemed about to retort, but shrugged instead. ‘Suit yourself. Nasty piece of work he is, bad as that Sirius Black bloke we had a couple of years back. He’s got a mouth on him, this one.’ He gave a chuckle at that. ‘Not for long though, you mark my words, Professors, a few days in here and we’ll get rid of his attitude.’

‘I would not wager your salary on that,’ Snape said quietly as we climbed the steep stone steps. ‘Now get a move on; I do not have all day.’

They say that you don’t really remember smells or pain, just the circumstances that surround them; I know that’s not true now. I’ll never forget the smell and pain of Azkaban as long as I live. It was the stench of total defeat, the agony of utter despair, a desolation so complete that it has no name. I kept close to Snape; I’m the first to admit I’m not the bravest man in the world.

The warder had us register our wands in a little room at the top of the stairs, and I was mildly surprised when he handed them back to us. Snape signed some papers in his scrawl and hurried the warder along again. At the end of a long dimly lit corridor we met another guard and the first one nodded to the other. ‘They’ve to interview Mr High and Mighty Malfoy.’

The second one laughed. I didn’t like the tone and began to quail at what we would find. Surely it couldn’t be too bad; surely in barely three hours they couldn’t have reduced Lucius Malfoy … the door swung open and I stifled a gasp. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought they’d brought us to the wrong cell.

Snape had bent over him, pulled him upright from where he lay in the corner, stripped naked and shivering. The floor around him was wet, as though water had been thrown at him; ugly bruises were beginning to appear on the upper part of his body and there was blood streaking his legs, he’d obviously been raped. He didn’t move of his own accord, and his low groan gave me no indication of whether he was conscious or not. Somehow, for his sake, for his towering dignity, I hoped he wasn’t. Much as I hated Lucius Malfoy, and I did hate him, I could never condone what treatment had been meted out to him; this had nothing to do with justice.

The concern in Snape’s face worried me; I knew these two were close, probably lovers. Would he be able to do what he’d come here to do, now that he’d seen this? I bided my time. Snape had his wand in his hand as he turned back to me; the haunted look was back in his eyes, I recognised it as the one that he’d closed down when I’d told him about Sirius. I put that to the back of my mind to think on later.

‘Give me the cloak, Lupin,’ he said.

I handed him the spare cloak we’d brought with us and he spelled some sort of charm on it, which I supposed would make it unnoticed by the warders. He draped it around Malfoy and held him for a moment. I felt awkward, as though I should not be witnessing this, and yet to turn my back would be foolish. I fretted, I knew time was of the essence, but I knew Snape knew that too.

It happened before I realised what he was doing. For a moment I was stunned; I watched him, watched as he pushed Malfoy’s damp hair away from his neck and turned his own head away from me. He’d warned me, warned me how long was long enough, how long was too long. I heard Malfoy’s low keening as Snape sank his fangs into his neck … for a moment I thought I would faint.

I watched in horrified fascination, some part of me surprised that Malfoy had put up no struggle. I counted the time in the way he’d told me as I watched the back of Snape’s head, thanking Merlin that all I could see was the black silk of his hair. I moved towards him and touched his shoulder.

‘Severus, Severus, enough,’ I said, not knowing how my courage would support me if he refused. He kept his face averted, for that I was deeply grateful, and pulled away a little.

I saw it; I couldn’t help but look … two angry marks on the marble of Malfoy’s skin. I watched his eyelids flutter, and then open, and then he looked at Snape in naked adoration. Was this a result of what had happened or something older, something even more profound?

Snape had composed himself and turned to face me; he gave me a curt nod as he held out his hand for the Blood Replenishing Potion we’d brought with us. He began to coax it into Malfoy, cradling his head, toying with his long damp hair the way one would feed a sick child. When the beaker was empty he drew the cloak around his half-brother and stood.

‘We must go,’ he said without meeting my eyes.

‘What about him? Will he be all right?’ I asked.

‘As all right as he can be here. There is nothing we can do for him.’ Snape raised his eyes; the haunted look was back.

We gave the customary three short knocks on the cell door to let the warders know that our business was finished. As we made our way out of the cell Snape swept past me; my keen sense of smell caught the unmistakable scent of sexual arousal.

*****

SEVERUS

I hadn’t been prepared for how I felt, for the rush, for the euphoric or the sexual. For one mad moment I wondered why I had never done this before, until I saw Lucius slumped in my arms. Lucius, I tried not to think about him, about what had become of him, what would become of him. I felt Lupin touch my shoulder; thank Merlin I’d had the sense to bring him with me, and to give him his due, he’d had the courage to come. In hindsight Lupin was the best man for what I’d had to do; his annoyingly self-effacing ways, his mild acceptance, and his love of Black, all suited my purpose. I knew he’d felt revulsion and I knew he’d sense my arousal, and I knew he would deal with both in the same way. He would pretend in the way he always did; Remus Lupin would pretend it wasn’t happening.

I felt different, changed. I hadn’t thought that just once would make me feel altered in any way, but logic told me otherwise. I suspected the feeling would settle soon, and for now I had to concentrate on other things, but the exhilaration kept creeping through my veins, threatening me. I felt Lupin watch me, watch my breath hitch … oh, Merlin, I had to handle this; I could not admit to myself that I was so unprepared for what was happening to me.

‘Shouldn’t we stop for a bit? Let you draw yourself together?’ Lupin asked anxiously.

I saw the fear in his wide grey eyes as I turned to him. ‘I cannot stop now and you cannot allow me to.’

‘You’re in trouble,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you?’

I could see him flicking through his few options as we reached the other shore, see him wondering if there were any way that the freeing of some of the tension which was building up inside me would help. We walked into the forest a little, to one of the Ministry Apparation points; nobody is allowed to Apparate directly to Azkaban without special permission.

We stopped for moment and I felt his hand on my shoulder; it felt like water spraying on hot iron. I let him do it, let him unbutton my trousers, let him hold me without feeling and touch me without passion, as he released some of the pressure to splatter over his hand and down onto the forest floor in a hot heavy rush; seconds was all it took. He said nothing; I said nothing. It had been clinical, a mechanical act to relieve, and meant only that we could go on.

I could feel his fear mounting again as we got to the Ministry and knew not how to allay it; I had my own demons to deal with now. I watched a few witches whisper in little groups as we strode along the bottom corridor past the restored fountain; I had not known it had been shattered. I could tell they knew why we were there. We reached the Department of Mysteries and I could see we were expected as a tall wizard I did not know nodded gravely to us and opened the door.

‘Professor Dumbledore has given instruction that you have not to be disturbed,’ he said and nodded again in fearful disapproval.

‘He is here?’ I asked.

The man didn’t reply directly. ‘He has given me instruction to call him if you have not come back within one hour.’

I turned to Lupin. ‘You know what to do?’ I put a hand to his shoulder, felt him sag below the light touch in his own brand of honest fear. I welcomed that, more than any show of bravado; I had the right man with me.

He met my eyes and whispered the question he knew the answer to. ‘Why are you doing this?’

*****