Two things had surprised me a little, and I found myself thinking of them as I hauled myself out of bed, in much the same way as I had thought of them in the few minutes before sleep had claimed me. The first was that Dumbledore had not called since I had left in my fit of pique at him spiriting Andromeda away; the other was that Riddle had not called either, at any rate he had not tried to summon me through the Mark. I wondered if he were playing some sort of mind game with me, perhaps to see how long it would take me to get in touch with him, or maybe he hadn’t even noticed I was no longer at the manor. Somehow I doubted that.

I dressed quickly in a black shirt and black trousers, and it was only once I had buttoned the left shirt cuff that I realised that I hadn’t looked at the Dark Mark at all. I told myself that was good, and not to think there was anything ominous about Riddle’s seeming silence; perhaps I even convinced myself.

I was only halfway down the stairs when I heard voices raised in argument, and when I reached the kitchen I found Black and Malfoy standing at opposite sides of the table, and Ethel busy at her stove, ignoring them completely. They resembled a pair of angry peacocks squaring up to one another, and I doubted that there were any colours in the spectrum that they had not used between them. They assaulted my very eyes.

‘What in the name of all that is sacred are you two arguing about?’ I asked, offended by the noise. I still wasn’t used to sharing my breakfast with anyone, let alone two noisy dandies, and this was the second time now, and I found the prospect of this being any sort of long-term arrangement slightly depressing. Then again, I reminded myself grudgingly, the kitchen had not been a place in which one could have sat in any degree of comfort until Black had arrived on the scene. I sighed, and gave up my argument with myself, decided I wasn’t interested in theirs either, and took my black tea into the living room, which was where I always drank it anyway.

I crossed to one of my bookshelves and took the copy of the fake “Die Letztendliche Wahrheit?” from the shelf, and I was just about to sit back down when I caught sight of a packet of Black’s cigarettes, where he’d left them sitting on the mantelpiece. I hadn’t smoked for about two years, having neither seen the point nor found much pleasure in the act, but I rather fancied one with my tea. I noticed the voices from the kitchen had dropped to an occasional angry mutter, interspersed by the sound of Ethel humming as she busied herself at her range, doing nothing much at all apart from eavesdropping. I put one of Black’s cigarettes into my mouth and lit it, letting the absent assailant assault my lungs, and found my lungs in turn welcoming it back.

“What are they arguing about, Ethel?” I sent my thought through to her.

“Nothing really, dear,” she replied. “I suspect Sirius is worried about trusting Lucius, and Lucius is frightened of what will happen when the Dark One comes calling.”

“I have to trust him, Ethel,” I replied, exhaling a cloud of blue smoke and trying not to feel the tightening in my chest.

“Lucius?” she asked. “Of course you must, dear. It’s either that, or he will be sleeping for a rather large part of each day, and I suspect even he may notice that.”

“I need to speak to Black first though,” I said. “I don’t think we can afford hostility between any of us. Can you arrange for him to come through here alone?” I asked as I felt some sort of resolve quicken inside me.

“I don’t think hostility is what you need to worry about between Sirius and Lucius, dear,” she said somewhat cryptically, and I couldn’t think what she meant, and then it dawned on me.

“Did they sleep together last night?” I asked, and I felt the oddest sensation of loneliness, of being left out, creeping over me, and wondered if Black coming into my bathroom had been some sort of elaborate smokescreen.

“No, dear, not that I can tell, but I have a suspicion that they may have done so often in the past.”

That shocked me for a moment for some reason I could not explain to myself, and then I thought about it and realised it didn’t really surprise me at all. Then the door was opening, and I could see into the kitchen to where Ethel had sat down opposite Lucius and was talking to him.

‘Making free with my cigarettes, Snape?’ Black queried.

‘A small fee to pay for bed, meals, board, lodging, and my whisky,’ I replied.

He shrugged and made himself comfortable on one of my settees. I thought for a moment, and I was about to let it pass and go onto to talking about Riddle, but I changed my mind; I needed to air my concerns. And they were concerns, not just prudish observations of any sort; if I were going to trust Black as much I had already begun to, I had to know what his feelings were towards Lucius, just in case it mattered in the future.

‘You told me the other day, at the Three Broomsticks, that you thought you had found someone else, Black,’ I began, ‘although you seemed to have thought then that you had been mistaken. About whom were you talking?’

He actually blushed like a schoolboy. ‘Why do you ask that?’

‘Because I need to know if you meant Lucius.’

He seemed to relax, and I was glad I was mistaken, and that it was out of the way. ‘No …. not Lucius,’ he said. ‘We go back a bit, the fat tart and I … but not now.’ He gave me a look, a frank, open, yet concerned look. ‘I didn’t think it mattered,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think to tell you.’

‘No, it doesn’t matter,’ I replied, and it was my turn to feel awkward. ‘I just didn’t know that,’ I said, and there was really no reason why I should have; others people’s relationships were none of my concern. It did explain Lucius’s reactions on the night of his party though, if there were a bit of bad blood between them.

‘You mean you weren’t sure if I had any allegiance to Lucius that could compromise us … if the chips were down?’

I nodded. There was little point in denial, but I was relieved that what hostility there was between Black and Malfoy, and it wasn’t really much, was only because of whatever broken relationship they had shared, and not something altogether more sinister.

‘I had hoped you wanted to talk about more important matters,’ he said, picking up his cigarette packet and making a great show of counting them, before he slid one out and stuck it in the corner of his mouth.

I picked up the little book that Dumbledore and Ethel had spirited into Malfoy Manor for me, and I think it was just then that it became clear to me where to begin unravelling threads, and weaving my own tapestry instead. ‘I wondered why I had picked this particular book,’ I said. ‘What it was about its history that appealed to me, and what I also knew would appeal to Riddle.’

Sirius sat back, rather like an audience of one, waiting for a performance of some sort. ‘And?’ he asked eventually, the frown which usually creased his forehead back in its normal place of residence. ‘Look, Severus,’ he went on a little testily. ‘If you don’t trust me …’

‘… I do,’ I said, cutting him off quickly, and I did trust him. ‘It’s … I’m just trying to work this out for myself.’

‘Are you trying to tell me that the book you plucked out of mid air is indeed the book we need?’

There is was again, the way he used “we”, and I wondered if I ever used it in that way, or if vanity still prompted me to think I could plough any sort of furrow alone. ‘I think it is … at least I don’t think it matters if it isn’t,’ I said. ‘Does that make sense?’

‘As much as anything does,’ he admitted. ‘But I think you’re right. We’re making this up, so we might as well start from our own place.’

‘Quite,’ I replied.

Sirius cocked his head towards the kitchen, to where Ethel had managed to keep Lucius, and I wondered whether she had just put him to sleep despite what she had said earlier. ‘What are we going to do about him?’ he asked.

‘I think we trust him … I think we have to. After all, it looks as though he has not only been dumped on my lap, but has also landed there willingly.’

‘You trust him anyway, don’t you,’ Black asked, his grin finding its way back to his face, and I understood then just how shrewd Sirius Black was.

‘Up to point, yes,’ I agreed. ‘What were you two arguing about anyway?’

‘Nothing,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t think it’s his place to tell me when I can and cannot smoke. Fat arrogant fuck that he is.’

I closed my eyes for a moment longer than a blink, in truth as much in relief as in frustration at their idiocy. I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and withdrew a small opaque bottle with a dropper top. I unscrewed the cap and drew off a measure, squirted it into a glass, and topped it up with water from the jug that sat on my desk, while Black sat watching me without comment. The two lots of clear liquid became an inky dark blue as I swirled the glass, and only when it began to give off slightly acrid fumes, did I raise it to my lips and drink off the deadly brew I dosed myself with every day of my life. It almost stopped my heart, as it always did, and caused my breath to labour for a few moments, and made my stomach roil in rebellion, but these were small prices to pay. If I missed a day, I could get away with it; if I missed two, the reactions I had just felt would be nothing compared to what would happen to me; if I missed three, it would be unlikely that my heart could take the pain and mental anguish that would follow, and I would probably die.

‘Are you going to tell me what the fuck that is?’ Black asked as I got over the two or three minutes it took for the symptoms to pass.

‘As you know, Black, there is no antidote to Veritaserum,’ I said, raising my eyebrow. ‘But what I have just taken is something I developed that seems to work as a buffer; it seems to stop the truth serum working through the veins to the brain. And as we all know …’ I trailed off as he interrupted me, gratified again at his keeping up and not just pretending to do so.

‘… Prevention is better than cure,’ he finished for me. He had stood from the settee, and then he reached his hand out towards where I had placed the little bottle on my desk. ‘How much do I need to take?’ he asked.

‘Not so fast, Black,’ I warned. There are some things you need to know before we do that. I told him how I had found myself not only unable to physically bear weaning myself off the potion, but also how I found I didn’t care to, as though it were an addiction. He mulled that over, and to give him his due, I suspect he also mulled over the possible consequences of not taking the potion, the possibility of being dosed unwillingly with Veritaserum, and what that could mean.

‘And it worked with Riddle?’ he asked. ‘Not just with you and Ethel?’

‘Yes. It was harder with Riddle,’ I admitted. ‘But it worked.’

*****

It was more difficult to convince Lucius to take the potion, and I left it up to Black to talk him into it, tiring of his objections even as I understood their validity. Eventually he agreed, and maybe I’m wrong, but I think he was glad to, and that maybe he was beginning to feel that we would trust him more if he were less of a potential danger to us, which in a way I suppose was true. I still didn’t know how long Lucius would be at Spinner’s End, and no matter how discreet Black and I tried to be, he was going to get some idea that we were working on something specific. I doubted that he would go back to Riddle, but there was a real and imminent danger that he might be coerced into going to Narcissa Black, and that was very nearly as bad.

‘I think you should let your charm round the house drop,’ Black said, later that afternoon. ‘We’re going to have to accept that Riddle is going to call sometime.’

I agreed; it would be better if the charm were simply not there when he did so. Ethel had told me that he had not called at all since we had watched him Apparate away at the warehouse, and I was content now to let him come to me, to have him make the first move, so to speak. He wasn’t our first visitor though. We had just sat down to our evening meal when Dumbledore called, and I was mildly surprised that it had taken him so long, and realised I hadn’t asked Ethel if she had been keeping him up to date through Godric, and thence to Phineas’s portrait.

Dumbledore had come to impart some rather unexpected news, news that was going to have some far-reaching consequences.

He sat at the table in the kitchen, having already told me why he was there, in that way he had of drawing to one corner of my mind, and I tried to think things through as he addressed Lucius.

‘I have some rather bad news, Lucius,’ he said, and I could see Malfoy draw back, as though to tell him to keep it to himself. ‘I have just heard, through Phineas Black’s portrait, that your father has died.’

‘Pardon?’ Lucius replied, as though the remark hadn’t made sense.

‘It seems that he suffered a massive seizure of the heart early this morning,’ Dumbledore said. ‘And by the time mediwizards arrived at the manor he was already dead.’ He reached his hand across the table and laid it on top of Lucius’s. ‘This must be a great shock to you, my boy,’ he said.

‘Too fucking right it is,’ Lucius said, drawing his hand away. ‘I was quite sure he didn’t have a heart.’

‘Well, well, Lucius,’ Black murmured from where he sat beside Malfoy, not seeming to feel the need to offer any type of condolences. ‘Lord of Malfoy Manor and all its estates. Quite a catch now for my cousin.’

Malfoy turned to where I stood against one of Ethel’s dressers, with my arms folded, wondering if this had been the reason for Riddle failing to be in touch with me earlier, as some darker thoughts chased themselves through my head: thoughts about Riddle arriving back at the manor to find Abraxas and his friends with a group of whores, and me missing. I wondered if Abraxas had truly had a seizure of the heart, or if Tom Riddle had just become very angry with him. Whatever it was, dead was dead.

‘I can’t go back there,’ Lucius said to me in some sort of appeal, as though he were accusing me of reneging on a deal. Then he turned to Black with the same accusation. ‘And I’m certainly not marrying your cousin … or any other Black for that matter.’

‘I heard you tell Severus that he could do worse than a Black,’ Sirius argued, harking back to the night of the party at the manor. ‘When you were trying to palm Bellabitch onto him.’

‘That is as maybe,’ Lucius replied with his customary aplomb. ‘But let me assure you that I could do a lot better.’

‘He’s just grief stricken,’ Black muttered out of the corner of his mouth to Dumbledore, as Lucius drew him a withering look.

I was already thinking of the logistics of what was likely to happen now though, and the ramifications too. ‘No, Lucius,’ I replied. ‘You certainly cannot go back to the manor right now. Not until someone else informs you of Abraxas’s untimely demise.’

*****

I took some time alone with Dumbledore, at first feeling faintly superior of being in the possession of so many facts he didn’t know himself. As I let my story unfold, I became aware of feeling childishly resentful instead. This man was not my enemy.

At first I had intended to keep the speculations Black and I had made about James Potter to myself, but I recognised that as foolish and dangerous. I did take the time to get a brief mental nod of approval from Black though, from where he sat in the kitchen with Lucius and Ethel, and I was mildly surprised that I could communicate in that way with him when I could not see him, and all notions of this being some sort of Legilimency fled me.

The old man was thoughtful when I told him that Black and I had almost decided to begin our false quest for Aqua Vitae using “Die Letztendliche Wahrheit?”, and then he nodded his agreement.

I finished with telling him how the stone had seemed to subdue the Dark Mark, and remembered then that it was his stone, and that he had given the trust of its power to me, and I almost forgave him his decision to spirit Andromeda away from me.

‘I shall keep her safe, Severus. That is my pledge to you,’ he said, as though he had plucked the very thoughts of her from my mind, and somehow that made me feel oddly humbled. ‘I had no choice,’ he added, repeating the words I had said to him when I had brought Lucius to Spinner’s End. ‘When I move her, as I shall do in view of what you have told me, it will be to somewhere safe.’

I had nothing to say to him though. I was still too bitter, but at least the resentment had passed; it was something I could not afford to hold on to.

He left shortly after; he had brought bad tidings with him, and I had sent him away with even more. I knew he was almost as concerned about Barty Crouch as he was about James Potter’s mystery plans, especially as Barty’s father had been mooted in many circles now as being the most suitable candidate for the next Minister of Magic. Dumbledore had already opened the window to let himself out in his other form, when he turned one last time.

‘Do not overuse the stone, Severus,’ he said. ‘To be unaware that Riddle is calling you could be a danger itself.’

I nodded my understanding. He was right, and it was enough to know that I could get at least some brief respite if I needed it. ‘How do I hide it from Riddle?’ I asked. ‘I mean … if I am unaware … or incapacitated in any way, and he searches me?’

He knew what I meant; he knew I meant if I were forced to sleep with him. ‘Somehow I doubt that the stone would show herself to Riddle,’ he said, and I could see that he was puzzled by that piece of knowledge, the way I often found myself puzzled by something I knew that Ethel had slipped into my mind.

‘What is the stone called?’ I asked him, wondering why I had not asked before.

He shrugged. ‘It is not my place to name it, Severus; it is yours.’

But I never did name it; perhaps because its equal and opposite number was called Mordestone, but to call it Vitaestone would somehow be tainted and second-hand, or perhaps because there is nothing more pure than white. Whatever it was, it remains known to this day as simply the white stone, and I rather fancy that there are some things that do not require a label, and that perfection needs no embellishment.

*****