36

Severus was restless.

It wasn't an unfamiliar state. He often felt restless. The persistent tedium of his life would sometimes send him walking the hills surrounding the castle for hours on end, if he didn't have something to occupy him. Since Harriet Potter had come to Hogwarts, the walks had risen in frequency and lengthened in duration. It took more to distract and still him, now.

This month's Wolfsbane was finished, the first dose delivered. All the articles that had inspired his response even slightly had been written and sent off, and none of his books, new or old, could hold his attention.

Tonight, especially, his head was filled with visions of rubies set in gold. The sight of them had reignited his old jealousy of Potter's legacy, leaving an acrid, bitter taste in his mouth that lingered after hours gone by. But there was a staleness to it, in any case.

It put him in as fit a mood as any to attack a lingering pile of marking. The batch on top were Gryffindors—good.

He was annoyed to find the very first essay was Miss Potter's. He never bothered even looking at her work; he always assigned her B's. Ah, good, the next essay was the youngest Weasley boy's.

A soft knock on the door momentarily distracted him from abusing Weasley's rampant abuse of the comma.

"What?" he barked.

"I was hoping you'd be here," said that mild, hateful, falsely pleasant voice.

"I'm hoping you'd be anywhere else," Severus said, not looking up from Weasley's essay, even as it occurred to him that this punished Lupin a lot less than himself.

"I'd wondered if you knew anything about this spell."

Severus glared up at Lupin, who was holding out an ancient-looking volume that must have come from the Restricted Section. The title blurred and warped as he looked at it.

"I'm interested in the Locating Spells," Lupin said, as if Severus had asked rather than just stared.

Severus saw himself informing Lupin where to bloody well shove it, and turning with superior disdain back to his marking. But he found himself taking the book from Lupin and scanning down the page.

"How were you able to read this?" he asked, momentarily distracted.

"Oh, I learned a trick or two," Lupin said. "Here and there."

"Can you ever be arsed to give a straight answer?"

"Sometimes," Lupin said gravely.

When Severus looked at him in disgust, Lupin's mouth quirked in a little smile, slightly different from his regular shield of politeness. Severus felt that familiar twinge of unease and helpless rage at not being able to tell what the werewolf was thinking.

"If you're set on pursuing this course of mistaken wit—" You can piss off.

"Not at all, Severus. I'll be quite candid. I'm trying to find someone who doesn't wish to be found."

"Sirius Black, I suppose." He felt his lip curling. His hand was tight on the book's cover. "Is this part of some ploy to get me believing you're really as divided from him as you claim?"

"You can judge for yourself, Severus. I thought you might like to help me with it. I can read that spell," Lupin nodded at the book, "but casting it is utterly beyond me."

Severus recovered from his astonishment enough to say, "What makes you think I'm capable of it?"

Lupin smiled, a different one yet again. "Am I mistaken?"

"This spell is illegal, Lupin, as well you know."

"So I might be trying to trap you, to remove the threat of your suspicions, and let Sirius Black into the school?" Lupin acted like he was mulling this over. "But do I need to do that, Severus? I have Albus' trust."

Severus was within half a muscle movement of throwing the book at the werewolf's head when Lupin added, "And so do you. Besides, if we were discovered doing a Dark spell together, I'd be just as guilty. I'd probably get the worse punishment, being a werewolf."

"Is that meant to tempt me into agreeing?"

Lupin's smile looked almost spontaneous. "Do you think that one would do the trick?"

Severus didn't know whether Lupin meant the spell or the idea of his incarceration, but he said, "How am I to know? A spell of this level would take a heavy toll on the caster, and we don't know whether it's worthwhile, having no idea what's keeping him from detection."

". . .But I do know," Lupin said quietly.

He looked truly grave this time, not merely faking for humor's sake.

Severus felt his heart begin to beat sharp and quick, his skin prickling hot and cold, from his scalp down to his does. An oppressive weight seemed to be compressing his lungs. On the shelves round them, jars began to rattle.

"If I tell you, Severus, you must promise to keep it to yourself—"

Severus shoved himself to his feet, slamming the book onto the desk as a bottle of ink exploded, splattering across the essays. Lupin didn't even blink.

"I'm not keeping ANY SUCH fucking—"

"Without him, there's no proof," said Lupin in a low, steady voice, "no proof of what I'm saying he can do. We all kept it a secret."

Severus was amazed, enraged, jubilant—and torn. He wanted, so badly it burned, to haul Lupin by the skin of his neck to Dumbledore's office and demand he hear what his precious favorite had concealed, in the face of all his great assurances. See, see how he violated your trust, see how he lied, see how I was right—

But. . . he also wanted to know. He'd always doubted, he'd always been certain, the others had thought it was only a grudge. . . he deserved to know first. . .

And a small, reedy voice inside him was wondering if Dumbledore would believe him even now, if Lupin withdrew his confession.

"I was right," Severus hissed. His head ached from the pressure of clenching his teeth so tightly together. "All this time, you've been helping him—"

"Your word, Severus."

There might have been some kind of repressed pain in Lupin's face, but his gaze was clear and steady, far steadier than it ought to have been. Severus breathed out, quick and fast. He wanted to swear to it, so Lupin would tell him. . . but he couldn't make himself say it. . .

"For the spell," Lupin said. "If you swear to help me perform the spell, I'll tell you."

Severus knew he ought to get upstairs right now, find Dumbledore, and tell him he'd heard, from Lupin's own lips, a confession of concealment and tacit conspiracy. Even if he doubted that Dumbledore would hear him, he should still pursue the possibility. He knew he ought.

He knew, just as clearly, that he would do no such thing.

It wasn't entirely resentment that stopped him, or a petulant desire to prove the old man wrong because he'd trusted Lupin, who'd never given him any reason, who was now proving untrustworthy in the extreme, while he mistrusted Severus himself, after all he'd done for his good opinion. It wasn't only the promise of powers long denied, whispering to him out of that cracking, ancient book. It was more than wanting, needing, to destroy Sirius Black himself; more than despairing that Dumbledore's negligent disregard for Severus' judgment had placed Miss Potter in danger.

He wanted to do it.

"I swear to it," he said, his voice cold and absolute.

"On your wand," said Lupin, steady and grave.

"On my magic." He saw Lupin's eyelid flicker. "I so swear to it."

Lupin breathed out. "And I swear it on my own," he said, as Severus had guessed he would. "Upon my magic, I place the burden and the honor of keeping to my word."

Severus felt something intangible closing around him, feather-soft, in an indefinable place deep inside. Perhaps Lupin was feeling the same. He was silent for a moment—and then he looked Severus straight in the eye.

"He's an Animagus. That's why no one can find him. He can turn into a rat."

"Oh, my goodness," said Hermione. "I just—my goodness."

Harriet nodded dumbly.

She was inventorying her jewelry. The jewelry. It was almost impossible to think of it as hers.

The scroll contained a list of everything in the trunk. When Harriet unrolled it, the bottom of the parchment brushed the floor.

The inventory was categorized and cross-referenced, the boxes numbered, both by the type of metal (gold, white gold, platinum, silver), and the type of jewel (diamond, ruby, sapphire, topaz, opal, pearl, amber, amethyst, emerald). Next to each entry was a little label (16th century, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th).

"Lavender and Parvati are going to lose their heads," Hermione said.

"There's no way I can keep all this here. Look at these bloody diamonds. . . How much do you think this cost?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if it's priceless, honestly."

"I don't even want to touch it." Harriet shut the box and placed it with utmost care back in the trunk the house-elves had brought up to her, the one nobody could lift but herself. "Professor Lupin's right, I can't possibly wear any of this. . ."

"What about these little diamond earrings? But—no, you don't have pierced ears, do you?"

Harriet glanced at the earrings: two little round ones, with a teardrop shape hanging below. She choked. "Can you imagine the look on Professor McGonagall's face if I walked into class wearing that?"

"Or Pansy Parkinson's. . . ooh, I'd give anything to see her face if she saw even half of this."

"Nice branch-work today, by the way."

Hermione blushed and looked halfway pleased and half guiltily self-conscious. "I shouldn't have done it. She just makes me so angry, the, the cow."

Harriet ran her eyes down the scroll. It had been done in a very elegant handwriting. Was it her mum's? Her grandmother's? Somehow, she had thought she would be able to tell if it was her mum's, but she couldn't.

"It's odd, really," Hermione said thoughtfully. "Thinking of you as coming from this sort of family—an old, magical one, I mean. It's almost like you're the granddaughter of an earl or something."

Harriet knew what she meant. This stuff did remind her—more strongly than anything else had done, because she often forgot—that she was part of a real family. It was even stranger to get that feeling from a list of jewelry, written by someone she'd never met whose name she might not even know, and never to have got it from her own aunt.

But how real was that family, if Harriet was the only one left?

"Can we sort of—not tell anyone about all this lot?" she asked. "I'd rather. . . I'd just rather not."

"Of course." Hermione carefully closed up a necklace of cascading orange topaz. "At best, Lavender and Parvati would drive you mad, wanting to try it on every hour of the day."

"You can try any of it on if you want. I bet the topaz would look really good on you."

"Oh, no, I'd be too afraid of breaking it," Hermione said, blanching. "Should we go down to dinner, do you think?"

"We can just ask Dobby to bring us something. What?" she asked when Hermione frowned.

"Oh—nothing."

"You've got on your It's Something Face. Go on."

"I. . . you did free him, I know that," Hermione said, speaking at first slowly, and then very fast. "And he seems to like you very much."

Dobby's life would be worth nothing if Harriet Potter should die and Dobby live.

"But?" Harriet asked, shaking that memory away.

"I only—well—do you. . . do you think it's right to always ask him to—to do extra things? I mean, he has his regular work, doesn't he? It's—don't you think it's maybe—treating him like a, like a servant?"

Harriet had no idea what to say.

"I, I don't mean to. . ." Hermione said, and bit her lip. She didn't seem to know what to say, either—because she'd said it already. She did think Harriet was treating him like a servant. That was clear.

Harriet felt extremely confused. Was Hermione right? Dobby was always so pleased to help. . . he acted devoted to her. . . like all he wanted was for her to tell him what to do. . .

"Okay," she said at last, not at all sure what she was feeling. "We'll just go down to dinner. I'll pack this stuff up first."

Hermione nodded silently and helped. They didn't speak.

"What's in this last one?" Hermione asked, when all that was left sitting out was one big box, larger than the rest.

"Dunno. We'll get to it later."

"I can bring something up to you, if you want to stay—"

"I can get it myself," Harriet said coolly. She hadn't meant to—not like that—and it made Hermione go bright red.

Then Harriet realized she was angry. She didn't know why, but the feeling kept on, even after she'd understood what it was. She tried to quash it, to be friendly, but the anger continued burning like a low, hot flame.

She packed the final box back into the trunk, locked it, and placed the key in her dresser. She and Hermione walked down to dinner together in total silence.

After leaving Snape, Remus made it back to his rooms, shut himself inside, and collapsed into a chair. He felt weak with relief and the feeling of danger still coursing through him. Danger to himself meant very little, but to Sirius—

It wasn't entirely over, however. Snape could still tell. The oath had been only for his help. If he told, could Remus repeat the same lies to Albus? Did he have it in him, in either determination or in skill?

He didn't know. He didn't particularly want to find out.

The only thing to do, now, was to wait and see whether Snape's desire to take matters into his own hands would eclipse all other considerations.

What he would do when the spell found Peter and not Sirius was a bridge Remus would have to cross when they came to it.

By next morning, Harriet's anger had blown away, like rain clouds moved by the wind in the night, and guilt had settled into its place. She decided she'd been angry with Hermione because she suspected she was right: Dobby was so pleased to be in her service that she'd put him into it, calling him at her own convenience, without regard to his. She resolved not to do that anymore: if she needed to talk to him, she'd go down to the kitchens and find him. She didn't want to be like Malfoy, even the tiniest bit.

Hermione didn't try to talk to her all Monday evening, though she didn't ignore her, either. But that was Hermione's way: though she rowed and bickered with Ron (when they were speaking, which they still weren't), she never quarreled with Harriet. Their tiffs always came about because Hermione said or did something that Harriet's temper didn't like. But Hermione never apologized, either: she was always firm where she felt herself to be right, and always relieved when Harriet's anger blew over and they were friends again.

Harriet was sure they'd rowed more this year than all the years before (all two of them). She didn't know why she was angry so often now, so easily upset. Even if Sirius Black was out there, trying to kill her, that wasn't nearly as terrible as a single hour with the Dursleys.

To make up for her temper, after dinner on Tuesday, Harriet took Hermione down to the kitchens to meet Dobby.

"How did you find this?" Hermione asked as Harriet tickled the pear.

"Oh. . . just exploring," Harriet said, concentrating on pulling open the painting so that Hermione wouldn't see her blushing. "One of the Hogsmeade days, you know."

"Oh!" Hermione gasped as they stepped into the bright, enormous kitchen.

The house-elves were as thrilled to see them as ever, and straightaway whisked over some hot chocolate on a silver tea service.

"How often do you come here?" Hermione whispered. Harriet couldn't tell whether she was disapproving or not.

"I've been a couple of times," Harriet said casually. "Thanks very much," she told the house-elf who was handing her a porcelain cup topped with a mountain swirl of whipped cream.

Hermione accepted a cup with a firm thank-you. Harriet could see her thoughts clicking away as clearly as if she was looking at an open clock with its gears turning.

"Please, can you tell me if Dobby's here?" she asked the elves.

"Dobby is out, Miss," said the butler-elf with a low bow. "Would Miss like Dobby to be called?"

"No, thanks, it's fine. . . do you know when he'll be back?"

"We is sorry, Miss, that we does not. Dobby is often out, Miss, tending to his duties, but Miss may call him whenever Miss pleases. We shall send for him if Miss wishes!"

Harriet fought against the sense that agreeing would actually please them more than refusing. A hairline frown was cutting across Hermione's forehead, and Harriet had the sinking feeling that this visit might be making things worse.

"Is it all right if I leave him a note?" she asked.

The note couldn't have made them happier, and they promised, with many bows, that Dobby would get it as soon as possible.

She and Hermione finished their chocolate and left. This time, Hermione was the one who was distant and preoccupied, while Harriet was waiting, with a prickly, agitated feeling, to see what she'd say.

"Are they always like that?" Hermione asked eventually.

"Like what?"

"So. . . fawning."

Harriet felt her prickly agitation turning to thorny anger and struggled to control it. "I think they're really lovely, as a matter of fact."

"But doesn't it make you uncomfortable how eager they are to do whatever anyone tells them?"

Harriet thought of the way Dobby would hit himself round the head for saying things he shouldn't; how he'd talked of punishing himself for warning her about the Chamber of Secrets. She didn't know what to say. Hermione was silent, too, looking straight ahead.

They climbed the stairs to the Entrance Hall, but as they to cross it, Hermione stopped dead. Harriet stopped, too, looking round for what could have startled Hermione, and saw Snape coming out of the Great Hall. The candlelight from the open doors cut a patch of light on his cheek, but the rest of his face was in shadow.

"I need to go to the library," Hermione said abruptly, and Harriet realized she hadn't seen Snape at all.

"I've got some stuff to make up for Divs," Harriet said. "So I'll see you later. . ."

They walked up the stairs together, splitting off on the first floor, Hermione headed for the shortcut to the library. Harriet glanced down the stairs as she turned to go, and saw Snape looking up at her. But—maybe she'd only imagined it, because he slipped into the doorway that led down to the dungeons and was gone within a moment.

Harriet did have make-up work for missing Divination, but she didn't sit down immediately to complete it. Lavender and Parvati were gabbing at one of the common room tables, its whole surface spread over with books for that Divs spell they were so excited about. If they were busy with that, Harriet could look into the last box of her jewelry.

She went the long way round their table so they wouldn't see her, and slipped into the girls' stairwell.

The last box was deeper than the others, and had a little lock whose key was taped to the bottom. When Harriet unlocked it, she found more separate boxes, covered in fuzzy velvet. And they had a separate list. . .

With a lump in her throat, Harriet unfolded it.

My darling Harriet it began.

Her mum wrote her g's the same as she did.

Harriet sank slowly down onto the bed, her eyes locked to the list like they'd been spelled there.

The first time she read it, Harriet wasn't sure she took in a word other than those three, My darling Harriet. The loops and lines of the handwriting were all she saw.

When she let it fall to her lap, she realized she'd been crying.

Now she knew why Snape and Professor Lupin didn't want to talk about Sirius Black. She didn't even wish he was dead. She wished he'd never existed.

She picked up the letter again and read it until she lost count of how many times.

My darling Harriet,

I've put in this box here everything I think might be of value to you one day. Some of it is very fine—your dad bought it for me, and it's a great deal finer than I have any chance or excuse to wear, especially with a little angel on my hip, who pulls at everything—and others are just little pieces that I bought for myself, or inherited from my mother, your grandmother.

I hope I have a chance to give them to you myself. But if I don't, you must remember how much I love you. I'd give you everything in the world, if I could, and still it would never be enough.

Mum